THE JUPITER QUARTET RETURNS WITH ANOTHER INSPIRED PERFORMANCE

Concert Review, Buffalo Spree, February 25, 2013, Slee Beethoven Quartet Cycle

In the pantheon of fine art, Beethoven’s genius looms large. While his symphonies and piano concertos get the most attention, many believe that his cycle of sixteen quartets represents him at his most sublime. Beethoven’s quartets are clustered in his early, middle, and late periods; the benefactors of UB’s eponymous annual series specified that each performance contain a composition from each period. Friday’s February 23rd performance by the Jupiter Quartet at Slee Hall was the third of the series.  Indeed, the Jupiter Quartet made a rare second consecutive appearance at the Quartet Series, having opened last year’s cycle.

Beethoven’s quartets are remarkable in that they represent a dramatic compositional break. The quartet in his time was a mature musical genre, having been developed by Mozart and Haydn into an accepted form of four movements in sonata form, meant to be played by the skilled amateurs in the chambers of the Habsburg nobility.  Beethoven, however, expanded the form int…