'Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me.' In his so-called 'Heiligenstadt Testament' to his brothers in October 1802, Ludwig van Beethoven confesses his increasing loss of hearing, his thoughts of death and, in spite of it all, his will to continue devoting himself to art - even if he has to bid farewell to any hope of a cure, just as 'autumn leaves fall.' Nearly a quarter of a century later, he once again climbs a lonely compositional summit with his late string quartets, with which he radically transforms the genre, forcing together the old and the new: 'True art is obstinate, it cannot be forced into flattering forms', he once remarked in one of his conversation booklets. This is especially true of his opus 130, with its six movements and gigantic 'Great Fugue' - later published separately - as the finale. Theatre and film legend Klaus Maria Brandauer will lend Beethoven his unmistakable voice, and a hand-picked ensemble with the new Artistic Director of HERBSTGOLD, Julian Rachlin, on first violin will bring these powerful and sophisticated sounds to life.

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