Quatuor Ébène: Neue Kraft, Eternity and an Instant

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In 2020, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Quatuor Ébène had originally planned a series of performances to celebrate the milestone, but most of them were cancelled due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, they completed an ambitious project: the release of a complete recording of Beethoven’s string quartets on Erato label in 2020. The project had been years in the making, with the quartets recorded live in seven cities around the world, beginning in Vienna and continuing through Philadelphia, Tokyo, São Paulo, Melbourne, and Nairobi, before concluding in Paris. The monumental world tour also came to China, with the Quatuor Ébène appearing at the Shanghai Music in the Summer Air Festival in 2019.

With another Beethoven anniversary year approaching in 2027—the 200th anniversary of his death—the Quatuor Ébène has once again embarked on a worldwide tour of the complete Beethoven string quartets, with stops in cities including New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. In August 2026, they came to the Musikfest Bremen, performing all 16 of Beethoven’s string quartets over six evenings.

If I could choose only one of the six concerts, I would choose tonight’s without hesitation.

Beethoven was only around 28 when he wrote the String Quartet No. 6 in B-flat major, a work suffused with lightness and wit. In the Scherzo, he displays a remarkably forward-looking approach to rhythm through syncopation, displaced accents, and cross-rhythms. In the finale, meanwhile, the abrupt shifts between melancholy and lightness in “La Malinconia” point toward the bolder musical language that would emerge in his later works.

By the time of the String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, this practice of moving between radically different emotional, temporal, and musical states had been taken to an entirely different level. Most strikingly, in the famous third movement, the long, contemplative, almost religious “Molto adagio” repeatedly alternates with the life-affirming “Andante—Neue Kraft fühlend” (feeling new strength). Beethoven is no longer merely setting contrasting moods against one another; he makes the very process of moving from suffering toward renewed strength part of the musical structure. The movement’s full title—Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart (Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode)—already says it all.

Quatuor Ébéne © Julien Mignot

Pierre Colombet needs only to brush his bow lightly across the strings to produce a warm yet resonant sound; with just a little added pressure, a radiant tone bursts forth from the body of the violin. From time to time, I could even hear his familiar, deep breathing—the same breathing captured on their recordings. Gabriel Le Magadure’s wrist appears relaxed, forming an obtuse angle with his arm as he draws the bow upward, yet it remains ready to tense at any moment. This is the kind of rapid responsiveness chamber music demands. Quiet and unassuming, he nevertheless knows exactly when to step forward. Yuya Okamoto, seated on the right side of the stage, is the most active collaborator of the four. His eyes constantly move between the score and the other three musicians, as if continually picking up signals from his colleagues and shaping those immediate, ever-changing exchanges of sound. This was particularly evident in the Scherzo of the B-flat major quartet, where such responsiveness seemed to become part of the music itself.

Marie Chilemme, smiling for much of the performance, seemed somewhat removed from it all. It was as though her spirit had stepped back from her body, watching the music unfold before her with a warm, contemplative gaze. And is that not, in some sense, the very essence of the third movement of the A minor quartet?

When I interviewed Gabriel years ago, he told me that playing in a string quartet was an exercise in democracy. The number four is unlike three or five; in many cases, a democratic vote among four people cannot even produce a majority. “But if you can accept yourself, you can also accept others.” More than two years ago, Quatuor Ébène underwent a change of personnel: cellist Raphaël Merlin departed, and Yuya Okamoto joined. Tonight, in the third movement of the A minor quartet, Okamoto made me hear, perhaps for the first time, melodies in a work I cherish so dearly—melodies that had long remained buried beneath the singing lines of the violins and viola. They finally emerged, listening to, yielding to, and completing one another within the other voices. Perhaps this, after all, is the result of the “exercise in democracy” Gabriel spoke of.

Quatuor Ébéne © Julien Mignot

And it was at precisely this moment that reason and emotion began to wrestle with each other. Should I briefly detach myself from the music, pick up my pen and record what I was feeling, allowing this moment to acquire a kind of “eternity” through words? Or should I surrender to the current of emotion and let the music carry this “instant” away in time?

After the second “Neue Kraft fühlend,” Pierre returned to the Molto adagio. His body no longer swayed gently with the music as it had earlier; instead, he remained almost completely still, his expression growing ever more resolute, bringing the final song to its close with an extraordinary concentration.

And my emotions, too, were repeatedly drawn back to earth and then lifted toward heaven by Beethoven and the four musicians of Quatuor Ébène. When the music ended, I realized that my body had been tense throughout.

Quatuor Ébène performed Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 (Op.18/6) and No. 15 (Op.132) at Die Glocke in Bremen on the evening of August 17, 2026.