The programme of the Meccore String Quartet’s performance includes three quartets by Ludwig van Beethoven, who went down in the history of music as one of the greatest and most original composers of works of this genre.

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote sixteen string quartets. As a young man, he proved his mastery of the form with a collection of six pieces written in the years 1798–1800 and presented together as opus 18. The artist dedicated them to his patron, Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz, to whom he also dedicated many other excellent works: the Third, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Triple Concerto, the String Quartet in E flat major op. 74 and the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte. During the concert at the National Forum of Music, the Meccore String Quartet will perform the first three compositions from opus 18. They are all in major keys, which translates into a generally joyful and light nature of the music. In his early quartets, the young Beethoven had not yet strayed far from the standards set by the string quartets of two older Viennese Classicists: Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The poet and playwright Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who was active at that time, said that when listening to the performance of the quartet, “you can hear four intelligent people talking to each other”, and Beethoven took this to his heart. Already in his early quartets, each of the instruments has something important to say in the musical discourse. Although this is a cheerful discussion, it does not lack emotionally charged moments. Beethoven’s friend, the violinist Karl Amenda, maintained that the second movement of the Quartet in F major, Adagio affettuoso ed appasionato, was inspired by the tomb scene in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The commonly accepted numbering of the first three quartets from opus 18 does not correspond to the chronology of composing, as it was established by the publisher, not Beethoven. Beethoven first wrote the Quartet in D major, then the Quartet in F major, and finally the Quartet in G major.