String Quartet No. 13 in B‑Flat Major

If there’s one element that makes this piece a desert-island choice among the Beethoven quartets for many listeners, it’s the “Cavatina” that is movement No. 5: a deeply introspective, almost prayerful piece of writing where the instruments truly become like human voices, with the first violin delivering a plaintive solo marked beklemmt (weighed down, afflicted), but a sense of timeless calm prevails. In 1977 a recording of the “Cavatina” was sent into space on the Voyager programme as an indication to whoever might be out there of the summit of mankind’s achievement. But the whole work has a powerful presence, massively conceived in six movements whose opening and closing numbers embrace four alternating dance and slow ones. Written in 1826, when the composer was completely deaf and isolated in the sound world of his own mind, it illustrates the maverick genius of his so-called late quartets. And as originally written, movement No. 6 was the towering 20-minute structure that Beethoven was persuaded to separate off as his standalone Grosse Fuge, replacing it with a shorter, simpler, less controversial "Finale" that turned out to be the last thing he completed before death.