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The final section of CMS’s Beethoven festival centers around the composer’s final four quartets, which rank among his most towering achievements. Timeless, evocative, and transcendent, Opp. 130, 131, and 132 embody musical freedom and invention on the highest level, with bold stylistic shifts transporting listeners from the Middle Ages through the 21st century. In his final entry in the cycle—Op. 135—Beethoven offers a whimsical and introspective look back on his life.

The end of the season pairs these quartets with other works of closure and departure offering phantasmagoric visions of the past and future. Among these is Beethoven’s last cello sonata—arguably his first “late period” work—which culminates in a daring and unprecedented finale. Elsewhere, Brahms and Elgar look back on their lives nostalgically, and five living composers from disparate cultures offer works of bracing individuality.