The Fellows play Beethoven's Serioso quartet

16 July, 2020

"This Quartet is … never to be performed in public!"

When Beethoven first composed his "Serioso" quartet, he was worried its ‘extreme abbreviation’, as the musicologist John Daverio puts it, was out of step with public taste, and would make the piece unpopular. He’d written it with only ‘a small circle of connoisseurs’ in mind.

Now, the quartet’s incredibly taut structure – not an ounce of padding – is celebrated.

Filmed by Brian Hong.