New paths

With his late string quartets, Ludwig van Beethoven once again broke new ground at the end of his life. Anyone who plays or listens to them discovers a fascinating world of sound and expression, while at the same time being confronted with numerous questions. In a dialogue between interpretative practice and scholarship, the evening is devoted to the Quartet in E flat major, Op. 127 – a profound, humorous and deeply human work that is often unjustly overshadowed by Beethoven's other late works and was premiered exactly 201 years ago to the day.

The young Scandinavian Absalon String Quartet is currently completing a two-year master's degree in chamber music at the Robert Schumann University of Music in Düsseldorf with Prof. Eckart Runge, in whose practical seminar, together with Prof. Dr. Tobias Bleek (musicology), the work Op. 127 was studied.

In the first part of the joint event organised by the Beethoven Archive and the Düsseldorf University of Music, the work will be discussed and then performed in its entirety.