I'm Lucy Russell, leader of the Fitzwilliam String Quartet:

'The Fitzwilliam has a unity of purpose....boldness of interpretation....charismatic playing." Fanfare review of Schubert G Major Quartet.

I'm appealing to you, on behalf of us all in the quartet because we are about to record these extraordinary works – Beethoven’s string quartets op.131 and op.135.

Why?

We are doing this to search for an appropriate sound-world based on a mental and emotional resonance and empathy with Beethoven, as he confronted the deepest kinds of struggle that we all still have on earth - and the transportation to another 'place' which contains 'hope'.

We will perhaps empathise most strongly with the challenges experienced by the Schuppanzigh quartet who premiered these works playing on gut, just as we have elected to do.

We hope that you might be able to support our enterprise. We are appealing to those who know our work and who appreciate what we aspire to find/create but if you know of others who might be happy to contribute, please pass this on.

Money raised will help pay for engineering, producing, editing - which will cost just over £5K and for the recording company’s costs which are roughly another £5K. Your help will be hugely appreciated. Thank you!

A few words about these works:

Op 131

Beethoven was said to consider this his own favourite despite being “put together from stolen odds and ends. Wagner was extravagant in his description of the piece in his 1870 essay on the composer:

'Tis the dance of the whole world itself: wild joy, the wail of pain, love’s transport, utmost bliss, grief, frenzy, riot, suffering, the lightning flickers, thunders growl: and above it the stupendous fiddler who bears and bounds it all, who leads it haughtily from whirlwind into whirlwind, to the brink of the abyss – he smiles at himself, for to him this sorcery was the merest play – and night beckons him. His day is done.’ 

Op 135

“Here, my dear friend [his publisher, Schlesinger], is my last quartet. It will be the last; and indeed it has given me much trouble. For I could not bring myself to compose the last movement. But as your letters were reminding me of it, in the end I decided to compose it. And that is the reason why I have written the motto “The decision taken with difficulty – Must it be? – It must be, it must be!”

We realise that this is a project demanding our utmost commitment and courageous engagement, but we are UP FOR IT! We will continue to be puzzled, sometimes vexed...we will ponder and plunder the depths of Beethoven's wild imaginings and emotional outpourings and bring our lifetime of experience to this challenge.

Rewards:

£500 or more - Name in CD booklet under "Main project supporters'. Name listed in programmes where Beethoven being performed. Free concert ticket.

£250.00 - £499.00 - Name listed in programmes where Beethoven being performed. Free concert ticket.

£50 or more - free concert ticket.

All donors will be invited to a launch event so that we can celebrate our collaboration!