Meanings of late quartets in English

Peter Mechen reviews last Friday and Saturday night's Wellington performances of Beethoven's late quartets.

The attempt to describe them in words was likely to be as grotesque as a verbal account of one of Beethoven's late quartets.

It's a concerto (sort of) for string quartet and orchestra that plays around with bits of Beethoven, many of them from the late quartets.

Mendelssohn's String Quartet in A minor was written by a precocious 18-year-old in 1827, when he was fired up by the late quartets of Beethoven.

Next came Opus 95, a Quartet Beethoven himself nicknamed "Serioso", written near the end of his middle period and foreshadowing the extraordinary Late Quartets.