Old master in a new light

"The concert evening with the Kuss Quartet and the music theatre ensemble Nico and the Navigators at the Rokokotheater in Schwetzingen was about inner longings and outer compulsions. [...] But the two ensembles did not merely pay homage to the old master in their elaborately choreographed performance. Rather, based on Beethoven's works, they dealt with the tense relationship between compulsion and freedom in the present day. [...] Alternately, the audience heard excerpts from Beethoven's string quartets and adaptations of song fragments by the composer. [...] In combination with dance, songs and quotations, Beethoven's string quartets appeared in a new light. [...] The breathtaking movements of the dancer Kawaguchi made clear the ambivalence of the feelings inherent in the music. Despair, hope, lightness and melancholy alternated in short intervals. [...] The crowning finale of the performance, the "Great Fugue" Opus 133, in which Beethoven repeatedly explodes the firmly established system of the fugue, was also in keeping with this. The audience was enthusiastic." 

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