Beethoven Folk

Beethoven Folk is a complete collection of Beethoven’s 16 quartets, “augmented” with capsules of traditional music, which may have inspired the composer. Indeed, Beethoven was passionate about popular music and his music is filled with folk rhythms and melodies (Gypsy Rondo in the finale of Opus 18/4, Tarantella at the end of Opus 18/3, Traditional German Dance in Opus 130, etc.), and he himself arranged over two hundred Scottish and Celtic tunes.

There are many excellent recording versions of these 16 quartets, but our Beethoven Folk project brings a whole new perspective on this music. Often presented as the pinnacle of the string quartet repertoire, these quartets are often sacralized and seen as privileged and untouchable, which, in our opinion, makes them inaccessible to some of our audiences. Yet, Beethoven himself said that he wanted to be the link between God and the people, and not a composer only for the elites.

The research for this project is being done in close collaboration with Gilles Apap and Raphaël Maillet, specialized violinists in traditional music, who allow us to identify the folk roots and find the tunes that the composer could have heard. Our approach is as much musicological as imaginative: we do not seek to precisely find the exact tunes related to each movement, but rather to create bridges and propose a new angle of view for each quartet.

During these work sessions, we work around rhythm, experimenting with dance steps, percussion, and modes of playing which are rarely used in classical music.

A complete seven-concert series is planned for the Dijon auditorium in France, and several others are currently under discussion.