The Late Quartets

How controversial the now popular claim that Shostakovich is "the Beethoven of the 20th century" may be, it cannot be denied that there are points of contact between the two composers: especially their preference for musical means and their commitment to historical and political contemporaneity. However, we are of the opinion that nothing can offer material for comparative listening and analysis like their late string quartets. In both cases we can easily recognize what Edward Said defined and discussed as "late style". And in both cases we are confronted with a complex and lively dialectic between a process of abstraction and the moral obligation to hold on to the "hic et nunc". Such an intellectual and existential confrontation is fruitful without resolution and offers infinite room for insights and interpretations. Here we present the first part of the Alma Quartet's view.