Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, op. 53: 5th movement (Cavatina)
Borodin Quartet
Recorded by Deutsche Welle (DW) in La Redoute, Bonn on September 9, 2014

The Borodin Quartet has existed for decades and passed the baton on over the generations, yet still has somehow kept its characteristic sound. Three years in a row, it took that sound to Bonn as Ensemble in Residence at the Beethovenfest. Doing so, the string players fulfilled a wish of founding member Valentin Berlinsky, who played in the quartet for nearly 60 years and into the 21st century: that the Borodin Quartet perform all of Beethoven's string quartets, from the first to the last - and in the city where Beethoven entered this world, in Bonn, Germany.Violist Igor Naidin underscored the feeling shared by himself and his cohorts Ruben Aharonian, Sergey Lomovsky and Vladimir Balshin:

"To play Beethoven here in Bonn is something special. You almost feel like you're standing before the great teacher in person. That's why, when we played the last note of the Beethoven quartet, we looked at each other and said, 'So, gentlemen, it is done.'"

A feeling of solemnity pervades the fifth movement of Beethoven's thirteenth String Quartet, an island of peace in a genre that the composer, in his late creative period, stretched to the limits.