By Richard Brody

“ I’ve heard Beethoven performed in large and famous concert halls by some of the great quartets of the era (including the Juilliard, the Emerson, and the Takács); none came close to delivering the jagged immediacy and breathtaking intimacy of Saturday afternoon’s quartet. The difference is in the coalescence of interpretation and setting. Performing in Carnegie Hall is like performing a play on Broadway; it demands an elaborate technique, a big-time craft, to put a quartet’s sound over and up to the balcony in a huge hall. By contrast, the “Beethoven for One” quartet’s playing felt more like a movie performance: in the small, domestic-sized room and with the camera-like intimacy of our seating arrangement, the greatness of these not-yet-famous musicians was revealed and exalted in closeup, in a way that might not have been as immediately apparent in a larger setting. (There’s a reason that it’s called chamber music—a small space is an ideal frame for the music’s visceral power.)”

Source: The New Yorker