Beethoven-String Quartets Op.74 'Harp' & Op.59 No.3 'Razumovsky'

Out of their time.
''The music of a lunatic'': this was the musical public's reaction to the three quartets of opus 59 dedicated to Count Razumovsky and published in 1807, a year after they were composed. It is true that this music is eminently surprising: if ever a work expressed triumph over tragedy whilst marking a decisive advance on its own time, it is the Quartet in C major, in the margin of which Beethoven wrote, "Henceforth, make no secret of your deafness, even in your art.'' As for opus 74 (1809), it represents (with opus 95) the painful transition between these revolutionary works and what we now call the ''late quartets''.