L. Beethoven – Quartet No.12

The Calder Quartet

One of LA’s premiere chamber ensembles, the Calder Quartet gives a heart-thumping rendition of Beethoven’s Quartet No.12. The Quartet performs suspended in midair on the fourth-floor staircase landing of LA’s iconic Bradbury Building.

Beethoven – Quartet No.12

The first of Beethoven’s “late quartets,” Quartet No. 12 was written towards the end of Beethoven’s life, a period in which the composer was socially isolated and almost entirely deaf. Idiosyncratic in both form and musical language, the quartet was considered “incomprehensible” by contemporary performers and audiences. Today, its very deviance from nineteenth-century expectations place it among the foundational works of the Western art music canon.