R4 Book of the Week: Beethoven for a Later Age

[jean]

This promises to be interesting:

Edward Dusinberre is the Tackas Quartet's first violinist and in his illuminating account he takes us inside the daily life of a string quartet and explores his creative, musical and personal relationships with his fellow players. He also looks at the challenges of performing Beethoven's extraordinary quartet music which was composed against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.

(Not sure if this is the best place for this thread. Move it if not.)

[Richard Tarleton]

It does indeed, a fascinating subject. See this thread a while back

Since starting that thread I've also read Arnold Steinhardt's engrossing story of his life with the Guarneri, "Indivisible by Four", following bluestateprommer's recommendation, and Muriel Nissell's incredibly boring "Married to the Amadeus".

And there's Vikram Seth's "An Equal Music", research for which was based on a real quartet although it's fiction, of course.

[Lento]

Does anyone know, or fancy guessing, which string quartet came to blows in the playback room following a recording "take"? Edward Dusinberre of the Takacz quartet refers to it in his book "Beethoven for Later Age", this week's R4 Book of the Week. So it wasn't the Takacz, and Dusinberre is too polite to name the offenders!

[CallMePaul]

I was somewhat taken aback to learn this morning that the quartet had to pay the costs of recording all bar the op59 quartets of its Beethoven cycle - and this on a "major" label. Is this becoming a regular practice? I would have considered Beethoven quartets from a top-notch quartet to be highly marketable.