So Chamber Music Week begins with an ultimate bang.

"He's shaking his fist at destiny. It's terrifying--but suddenly everything is released and it overflows with joy, with ecstasy."

One of the most important String Quartets ever to be written belongs to Beethoven. One could say Beethoven was a delusional form of himself when he embarked on the final large scale work of his life, the String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op.131. It is the pinnacle of the final trio of Quartets that Beethoven wrote and is perhaps the most difficult work of the composer to completely understand.

Beethoven's three periods of music produced three styles of music, of which has seen his final period claimed as being the most inherently personal that it has yet to see a serious contemporary. A belief that when his music evolved into what was to become his final stage of music, it was of such devout personal ties that few could truly understand the deeper aspirations of the music he wrote or the style that it was in for possible mimicking later on.

The Op.131 Quartet is one of the best connections to that belief. Written between November of 1825 and the following July of 1826, the quartet reached its infamous standard because of all the norms of quartet rules it broke in the process of its creation. Normally, a string quartet would consist of four movements. In the case of the Op.131, Beethoven needed seven in order to complete his vision. The length requires a significant level of focus from both the performance and audience for about 40 unbroken minutes approximately.

The piece is of conflict and its ultimate resolution. A standard Beethoven norm but in the Quartet it is of the unique experience of having the conflict perpetuate itself and form through the entirety of the work, rather than each movement, with the inevitable resolution waiting. Additionally, he visits a total of six keys in this piece, as opposed to the standard two or three. Also, the manner by which the moods and forms evolve in the piece contradicted the typical technique.

As mentioned above it is recommended to listen to the Quartet in its full duration but that is a lot of video to add, plus my laptop still has a few bugs working out. The videos are of a performance done by Point Counterpoint, a group dedicated to providing opportunities and learning experiences to younger musicians about the experience of chamber music. The videos feature: Cyrus Beroukhim and Sean O'Neil on violin, William Hakim on the viola and Yun Joo Na on the cello

1. Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo

The rest of the performance can be found on YouTube.

Franz Schubert once made note of the quartet's brilliance by stating, "After this, what is left to write?"