Thank you for putting words on my exact thoughts, yes it is almost unbearably intimate! It's music in its purest form of universal expression as it is a reflexion on the realization of the gift and beauty of life through intense pain, fear and misery. This is usually a path walked totally alone, often at the end of one's life/at the worst of ones' life. We can hear the extreme emotions here: despair, heartfelt gratitude, the eurêka moment and the most sincere hope/joy turned into music. It is incredibly endearing and also comforting. I am deeply moved by this choice to share such fragility and hidden moments so directly and truthfully with everyone. This is proof of complete devotion to music as well as a will to share wisdom and a hope for music to be a saviour somehow.

Strange synchronicity. I've just performed Edgar Allen Poe's Annabel Lee on my channel and the first thing I see after doing so is your name and reply. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio , than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Hamlet

"if you can only let go". What prevents the letting go?

Precisely this. Thank you good sir

Carlos Bas I love your Comment.

Very well said.

Exactly! 100%

Yes, how true.

the absolute

Thank you for sharing this beautiful comment. I agree wholeheartedly, Beethoven can teach us something here. Be well.

@@thomasfortnerconductor Appreciate that, thanks. Of course, equally great artists-Dostoyevsky and Thornton Wilder come to mind-tell us we usually fail to be in that place as much as we might. But it's good to at least think about it. Be well yourself, and thanks again.

Great comment. Wish more of YT comments were of this sort. Unfortunate that is not our human nature. Lost my mom in March of non-Covid causes -- a long battle with Alzheimers and such. One learns to LIVE with the whole in one's soul, I suppose.

www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200720-beethoven-250-the-ultimate-song-of-health-after-illness

Beautiful message too, thank you so much Mr Freeman

thank you

After he started again drinking coffee and alcool, so he composed "Grosse Fugue" op. 133 ahahah In any case i think this movement is one of the best slow movements of ever

please which quartet is playing? because the orchestration is excellent.

And whenever my heart cries out for wordless prayer this is the first piece of music that comes up

@@RoyTooldipendent right up there with the string quartet version of the Barber adagio

@@Nicole-ww4lg nah, this is greater. Barber copy/pasted that from the slow movement of Bruckner 7th symphony.

Razumovski! Schubert! Mozart 488! Mahler adagietto! European music is rich! Goldberg variations!

This piece is about form tho.

Mahler adagietto is all about a long and pretty melody with the harmony playing a supporting role..this piece is harmony driven with the most haunting 6 to13 note repeating melody ive ever heard in my life returning again and again like the voice of God or the voice of a man pleading to God for another few months to live. The piece is a mastercourse in the power of harmonic progression and dynamics alone driving a piece but rhe recurring melody thrown again and again and shared in fugato between voices the third or fourth time around is one of the most powerful things ever put to string quartet. Mahler is cool but Jesus Christ this is Beethoven at his apex.

🥰 🥰🥰

We're with you brother and know exactly what you mean, sharing your sadness and your happiness.

absolutely true

Arguably. It seems to speak directly to our experience of life as beautiful in spite of and because of its ephemerality. He was sick, and fearful, then grateful to be spared, then felt a surge of joy and strength, and yet went forward remembering all those emotions. Profound, existential stuff. And arguably I think the perception of beauty is itself a form of thankfulness. Now I'm going to go listen to "Tropical Hot Dog Night" because it's that kind of late-night KZfaq deal.

Arguably? Yes.

A hymn with interludes of angelic jubilation

I think so.

What a melodramatical statement!

I came to know about it through God delusion.

If Huxley had been a christian, I think he would have chosen Bach to be his musical heaven-builder in Point Counterpoint, rather than Beethoven. What he says about this piece is truer of Bach's work, at least for me.

One of the most profound experiences of my musical studenthood was the day my theory professor spent an entire class making us listen to the second movement of the seventh symphony He earned his place in the pantheon with his beautiful late slow movements

@@mateuszandrzejewski3616 Nah. Perhaps it could have been said in a happier way, but melodramatic is not the right word.

No doubts whatsoever ...but go on, sir

@@jgMaximo_ Like you would like me to explain what I meant? I might do a video analysis about it at some point actually, because it's quite long even though the idea is simple. But it's abstract.

@@Ivan_1791 please do that, It would be nice. This piece worth the effort.

Absolutely! Through the sublimation of already simple ideas - everything that played before, and the climax - in that passage, the music always gives me the impression that is telling, in a whisper, all the truths that are implied in the human condition, and the way to accept them gracefully... For me, the music that changed my life and got me out of addiction. The most profound piece of art, masterfully composed and weaved together. Incredible stuff! Edit: and the master heard it, and put it to paper

!!!

The late quartets are in my opinion "quartets perfected" there is no need to write another one by anyone as there is nothing left to say. at least that's how I feel about it.

@@bradleyscarffpiano2921 That ist what Schubert said after having listened to Beethoven's op. 131: "So, after all, what is left for us to write?" An awkward legacy for all the composers after!

@@bradleyscarffpiano2921 Extremely self-limiting line of thought, especially for young composers.

Absolutely. Its stupendous

I was thinking exactly that, just think in a deaf sick Beethoven, only living for composing this piece.. that kind of feeling Is transmitted througt the piece and whenever you feel your life Is pointless this piece can simply change your mind. Then you understand nieztches quote.

@@marcossidoruk8033 !!!

Excellent way to put it

As a violinist, I'm also partial to the slow movement of the Beethoven violin concerto for it's sweeping beauty that pokes my tender heart to tears almost every time I listen

Gavin : agreed. The amazing thing is that he achieves all this while RESTRICTING himself to one particular musical mode - the 'lydian'. I learned much from this fascinating lecture : kzfaq.info/get/bejne/asldhZhlmc2qaKc.html. Regards.

@@alancrabb Me too!

in all of western music

@@tractotus I would vote it in the top 25, not the top 20.

@@Leon1949Green I'm just getting into a lot of this music, and I'm intrigued by your comment. This movement may be the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard. Can you give a few pieces/movements that you consider better and more powerful? Less-famous examples would be good, too, since it seems like you are very well-versed. Thank you!

@@mkohare It has been almost 50 years, but we studied the last quartets of LvB in Music History class, senior year, Univ. of Kansas, Prof. Edward Williams. I expect it is up to individual tastes. I like the 14th quartet best. But they all are sublime. What Louis could do with just four notes! The Brahms piano quartets. The Schumann; Schubert; Borodin; Tchaikovsky; Shostakovich; Chausson, Debussy, Faure. The string quartet version of Bach's "Art of the Fugue." I had the Nonesuch recording back in the day. Enjoy!

@@tractotus So you have heard all of Western music

aye

I never thought a 17-minute movement could be too short! I listen to it twice when I listen to this quartet.

I repeat and listen.

Interesting. I see an endless river braid of colors when I listen to the slow parts - soft pinks, yellows, greens, blues, purples

Me too.

F_ck All Non Trump Voters.

I´ve read the novel, it´s beautiful !!!!!

I remember Huxley described and analysed this piece in "Counterpoint" from Maurice Spandrell's perspective. Thanks to youtube I was able to experience this part of the book from a whole new perspective.

portishphonic me too!!! Hehe

Thanks beethoven

And egypt pyramids

Must add something by Mozart (Don Giovanni would get my vote), Wagner (Tristan) and Shakespeare (Hamlet).

It would be Western civilization, not human civilization.

Please don’t rain on the parade @טורו יודה

🎂

I understand.

Viscerally reflective.

I think people find it beautiful because it's such a more intimate sound. the timbre is very intimate more so than piano which in Beethovens works can sound quite symphonic. I really enjoy this piece though it is by no means my favourite. however I find Schubert had a point when he said "after this what is there left for us to write" in my opinion these pieces are the epitome of completed Quartets. they say everything a quartet can and are on another level and it's a shame they aren't as well known as other pieces.

Give it time.

Piano?

Its the italian quartet. This is a recording of the full string quartet kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aMiWgsZq357GZXk.htmlsi=JM1qX02TWEkf4eCy

It's the Quartetto Italiano