On February 3 2023, Signum Classics will release BEETHOVEN: The Late Quartets, the Calidore String Quartet’s third album and most ambitious project to date on the label following their acclaimed albums BABEL (2020) and Resilience (2018). The three-disc set marks the first instalment of the Calidore’s full Beethoven cycle to be released on Signum over the next three years. It has been twelve years since friends Jeffrey Myers (violin), Ryan Meehan (violin), Jeremy Berry (viola), and Estelle Choi (cello) formed the Calidore String Quartet while students at the Colburn School in Los Angeles.
“Performing the Beethoven cycle is the musical equivalent of scaling Mount Everest,” says violinist Ryan Meehan. “It is a gruelling nine hours of music comprised of some of the most technically intricate and emotionally demanding music ever conceived, to which we have dedicated much of our studying and performing since the quartet’s inception.”
The Calidore String Quartet has been continually drawn to Beethoven’s music for the enduring relevance of his humanistic perspective. Meehan says, “He was an artist who aimed to compose not for one portion of society, but rather to unite us through our fundamental elements. His sixteen string quartets sonically weave a tapestry of human emotion; from vulnerability and hope as in the ‘Heiliger Dankgesang’ of op. 132, to terror and anger subsiding to joy like in op. 135’s ‘Der schwer gefasste Entschluss’. Our public performances affirmed to us that Beethoven’s Quartets appeal to the emotional experiences we share in common as human beings, which are far more substantial than what may divide us. These great works are also the result of Beethoven’s struggles to overcome the challenges of his own life.”
“This recording serves as a snapshot of our twelve years of working, growing, listening and collaborating with one another. Though this music speaks in a language that is hundreds of years old, its message remains immediate, relevant and comforting to listeners of today and of generations to come even, and especially in the most challenging of times.”
During the 2022-23 season, the Calidore String Quartet perform Beethoven Quartets in concert throughout North America and around the world with engagements in Vancouver, Costa Mesa and Denmark, and at Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw and Kennedy Center. This summer, the ensemble presents the complete Beethoven Quartet cycle at Music@Menlo with additional complete performances in 2023-24 to be announced later this year.
For links to stream Beethoven: The Late Quartets, visit: https://lnk.to/CalidoreBeethoven1
