Ehnes Quartet – The Beethoven Cycle, III

The Ehnes Quartet brings the third program of its Beethoven Cycle to Schoenberg Hall: all three “Rasumovsky” Quartets, Beethoven’s Op. 59. The evening moves from the expansive F major Quartet, Op. 59 No. 1, through the tension and rhythmic drive of the E minor No. 2, to No. 3 in C major, whose slow introduction leads into a fugal finale. It is part of a six-concert chronological traversal of Beethoven’s complete string quartets, and a chance to hear this central middle-period set as a single, connected statement. The program draws attention to the works’ wider symphonic scale, lyricism and structural daring as Beethoven pushed the quartet form forward.

At UCLA, the Ehnes Quartet is the Herb Alpert School of Music’s Visiting String Quartet in Residence in a three-year partnership. This Beethoven project frames the ensemble around close, sustained listening to the composer’s development, from the early quartets toward the late works. The school describes the group’s playing in terms of interpretive depth, seamless collaboration and musical insight. The cycle also arrives in the lead-up to 2027, the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death, with the series drawing on Professor William Kinderman’s study The String Quartets of Beethoven. For this installment, the focus is Beethoven’s middle period: music shaped by motivic evolution, variation and connections across a demanding trio of quartets.