Among the vast string quartet literature, the 16 string quartets composed by Beethoven are widely considered to occupy a pinnacle not only of his musical oeuvre, but of the genre as a whole.  Serious string quartet ensembles consider the study, learning and performance of these masterworks to be both an essential undertaking and a great accomplishment.  In this regard, the Audubon Quartet was not different from most of the other recognized string quartets of the 20^th Century.  At the outset of our career, the 1974 audition piece we submitted for the Lenox Quartet program at SUNY-Binghamton was Beethoven’s famous “Harp” Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 74.     listen to excerpt of archive recording

Over the subsequent 30 years, the Audubon Quartet performed five complete “Cycles” of these immortal works, the first one beginning in 1984 and the final offering in 2010.

Each cycle required considerable planning.  A venue was needed that could commit to multiple concerts and provide a dedicated audience over the course of a single season, and a musically appropriate grouping of 3 to 4 of the works needed to be chosen for each concert. The usual venues were in university settings, although there were also established chamber music series in the larger community, such as the Reston Community Center Concerts that booked the events as a single “Beethoven Quartet Cycle”.

The Audubon Quartet Beethoven cycles included:

1. Blacksburg, Virginia 1984-1985

2. Blacksburg, Virginia 1994-1995

3. Blacksburg, Virginia 2001-2002

4. Winchester, Virginia 2009-2010

5. Reston, Virginia 2009-2010

Listen to LIVE Audubon Quartet performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet in E-minor, Op. 59/2 (composed 1801).  August 6, 2001 at Lenna Hall in Chautauqua, NY/performed by Akemi Takayama and Ellen Jewett, violins; Doris Lederer, viola; and Clyde Shaw, cello

I. Allegro 

II. Adagio molto “Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento”

III. Allegretto “Theme russe”

IV. Finale: Presto

NOTE: On an Audubon Quartet visit to London in the 1990s we met with Amadeus Quartet cellist Martin Lovett, he shared a story about his quartet traveling in Italy by train.  A porter loaded his cello case onto a cart, placing it in a precarious balance and Martin, seeing this, but not speaking Italian, shouted loudly, “Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento” (He treats this piece with a lot of sentiment), which is the marking Beethoven assigned to the third movement Adagio molto of the Quartet in E-minor, Op. 59/2.