After Bach organ music and big chorus with Handel, after Stravinsky and Shostakovich, I thought I'd post something smaller, perhaps something more traditional in the Classical world. So here's a string quartet. 2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello.
It's Beethoven but it is not 'traditional Beethoven.' This is music he was afraid to publish or have performed because he thought his friends would not understand it -- and they didn't. To me this is music from the future from 1826 when he wrote it, among his final works before his death. Having heard it, Schubert supposedly said: "After this, what is left for us to write?" Along with B's Opus 127 it has a "grandeur ... which no words can express. They seem to me to stand ... on the extreme boundary of all that has hitherto been attained by human art and imagination." (
ref) This could easily be 20th Century music.
Here's the video:
https://youtu.be/Saee3Kc8dQA
This is by the Végh Quartet, Hungarians, on the Valois label: cmb 83, recorded 1972-74. Founded by Sandor Végh in 1940. It is part of a 10-LP box set of Beethoven's late string quartets. I won't say it is the best because there are a few other fine recordings of these works, but it is one of the best. The box set in vinyl is still available and I think it is on CD as well. The works also can be purchased individually.
Végh Quartet, Valois cmb 83
Beethoven
Quartet No. 14
Opus 131
V.Presto
VI. Adagio Quasi Un Poco Andante (~5:43)
VII. Allegro (~7:52)