The Late Quartets

I don't blog much anymore and I'm not sure that is going to change, at leasy anytime soon. I still have the inclination; the problem is I just don't have the time. The older I get the more I get the feeling that time is running out and there are a million things I still need to know, still want to learn.  And, of course, the more you know the more you realize how much there is you don't know, so things keep piling up. So I spend my time doing that instead of this. Even now, I've got two books right next to me that I'm in the middle of; three movies out from Netflix I want to watch, with dozens more in my instant queue and three additional I've DVR'd; plus, my wife and I are in the middle of an art course from The Great Courses, and I could be boning up on that.  There are podcasts to listen to, television shows to watch (this is the best show on TV right now.) I'd like to put together another 8tracks mix today, something I enjoy. It's fun putting songs together in a way that makes sense and satisfying when others listen them and like, comment, and follow. I feel like I help fill a niche over there with my classical, jazz, and songbook mixes, something different from the thousands of modern pop mixes that dominate the site. Anyhow, I've always got something to do and not enough time to do it.

My musical obsession right now are Beethoven's late string quartets, which I've been listening to pretty much daily for a couple of months. I know lots of Beethoven from the middle period but I'd put off learning the late quartets  - I was a little scared of them, given their reputation as innovative and difficult.  Now I wish I hadn't waited so long, as they are so....what? How does one describe these transcendent masterpieces? Normal superlatives won't do. They are unearthly, heavenly in the most literal meaning of the word, in that they seem inspired by God. They invoke in the listener (this one anyway) a profound peace, a perfect  joy, a quiet reconcilliation. And yet they are full of drama and energy. They soar and soothe at the same time. I never feel closer to God than when listening to Bach, but most of Bach's work was explicitly religous, joyful offerings to his God. The late quartets of Beethoven are secular music and offer something slightly different: a coming to terms, a reconcilliation with his God.  The late quartets were the last music Beethoven wrote before his death and by then his deafness was near total.  That he gave us these quartets, music of such depth and beauty, gives one hope they reflect not just a musical solace, but a personal one, a respite from the torment, at last. Franz Schubert, who would follow Beethoven to the grave within a year, asked that the C Sharp Minor quartet, Opus 131, be played as he slipped away. I can think of no more appropriate music to be playing as The Distinguished Thing nears than the late quartets, as they seem to occupy a realm somewhere between earth and heaven.

The Cavatina from the B Flat Quartet, Opus 130, played by The Guaneri Quartet:

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