In the second movement, the musicians reproduce perfectly the interplay of motifs, passing from one player to another, that Beethoven imposes against the bar line, and become a single instrument diffracted into several voices. The needy swarm of semiquavers that tensions the spring dissipates into light, fluttering outbursts (bars 404-419). In the third movement, the members of the quartet offer another avatar of Beethovenian philosophy. Here, bathed in lights foreshadowing the Cavatina of op.130, they play as if unveiling a mystery. A line from Pasternak comes to mind when listening to this nocturnal music: ‘I traverse this night as one enters a new religion.’ With great naturalness, the instruments evolve towards a space where each of them finds its own coherence, living in a different rhythmic sphere – the viola moves in minims, the first violin in quavers, the cello in semiquavers and the second violin in punctuations of semiquaver groups (from bar 26). It is as if they had to care together for something nascent, extremely fragile and precious, the emblem of a new revelation. 39 QUATUOR YSAŸE
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