This concert officially launched the first installment of Quatuor Ébène’s 2026-27 Beethoven cycle in Hamburg, after their 2020 anniversary project was cut short by the pandemic. Hearing them back on stage after all these years felt like picking up a conversation right where it left off.
At first glance, Beethoven’s two early string quartets in the first half of the programme seemed worlds apart. The A major Fifth Quartet keeps a salon-style conversational tone in grace, while the C minor Fourth feels more stormy, unpredictable and even aggressive. Powered by the four outstanding members of Quatuor Ébène, young Beethoven here was clearly a master at taking simple, basic motifs and exploding them into massive dramatic statements. The four Stradivarius instruments were driven to their absolute expressive limits. You could feel the friction of bow and string, the razor-sharp attack, control and release of every single sound vividly unfolding right in front of you. You could also see the raw physical effort on stage – cellist Yuya Okamoto was dripping with sweat within minutes and had to wipe down his fingerboard after every movement.
In the Fifth Quartet, the ensemble was not just content with polished, neat playing. Instead, they actively searched for those sudden, electric sparks embedded in the score. Their crisp articulation made the frequent fugal passages snap into life, seamlessly weaving together over a vital, swaying rhythmic bounce. And even with a thematic substance as simple as in the third movement Andante cantabile, the performers still managed to draw out a rich musical canvas, with the swift outburst into dance-like variation bringing striking contrasts.
The Fourth Quartet opened like a stormy miniature string symphony. The first violin's sharp phrasing from Pierre Colombet locked right into the raw chords of the rest of the quartet. That main theme had a muscular, carved-out quality that dominated the movement. In the subsequent Scherzo, with its fugal entries, it felt as though four individual singers were stepping onto the stage with small, nimble steps. In the rushing finale, the tightly linked rapid scalar passages across all four instruments held the audience completely gripped.
The late E flat major Quartet, Op.127, felt more like a natural continuation of this youthful journey. The dense counterpoint, short fragments blossoming into harmonic shifts and the unexpected emotional turns were handled with controlled freedom. The lengthy second movement was an artistic highlight. Hearing those long sustained notes vibrate quietly across the bow hair was a reminder of what chamber music is really about: one cannot help feeling jealous of the players and the shared joy passing between them. Throughout this large complex work, the Ébènes guided their audience with clean structural bones, fresh phrasing and a restless drive to test the absolute limits of musical expression. To be sure, Beethoven’s musical thoughts could no longer be confined within those abstract frames; this freedom of exploration was perhaps one of the most striking lessons learned from tonight's concert.
