Quatuor Ébène

Quatuor Ébène kicks off its six-concert cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets at Carnegie Hall. The program opens with a graceful early quartet from Op. 18 that highlights the enormous influence Haydn—the “father of the string quartet”—had on his brilliant pupil. Beethoven’s final quartet is performed next, a deeply personal piece that reveals the staggering breadth of his subsequent musical advancements. The program concludes with Beethoven’s own favorite of his late-period quartets, Op. 131, which inspired Schubert to ask, “After this, what is left for us to write?”