The Juilliard String Quartet: Keeping Beethoven Contemporary

2012 / 55 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood
Featuring: Joseph Lin, Joel Krosnick, Ara Guzelimian, Ronald Copes, Samuel Rhodes

An encounter with the members of the famous string quartet, this film provides a glimpse into a singular moment in the Julliard Quartet’s remarkable history. Founded in 1946 by Juilliard School president William Schuman and violinist Robert Mann to pursue brilliant musicianship in this subtle genre of music, the Juilliard Quartet has continued beyond its original membership, in contrast to other well-known quartets who have disbanded when their founding members retired. Of the Quartet’s present members, three have carried a great tradition through their many years in the group, while the addition of first violinist Joseph Lin in 2011 points ahead to a new era for the Juilliard Quartet.

We filmed with them at a rehearsal and performance of Beethoven’s Quartet in B Flat Major, Opus 130 – a special event to welcome new Juilliard students during orientation week in August 2011. For this occasion, the Juilliard Quartet performed Beethoven’s work in its original form with the Grosse Fuge as the last movement. Beethoven so shocked the music world in the 1826 with this radical composition that his publisher asked him to write a different finale. Not only was Beethoven, being totally deaf, unable to hear his own masterpiece, for over a century thereafter, the Grosse Fuge was largely shunned by performers and audiences.

Although the Quartet has performed and recorded the Opus 130 quartet many times, they never cease to discover new facets of Beethoven’s composition. Moreover, the ongoing dialogue between the four musicians keeps each performance alive with a palpable sense of adventure. Opening up their dialogue to us, the members of the Quartet (Joseph Lin, first violin; Ronald Copes, second violin; Samuel Rhodes, viola; and Joel Krosnick, cello) speak about the string quartet as a genre of music, its history, and the significant contributions of Beethoven.