Exploring Beethoven’s Quartets
An interview with Peter Cropper

Peter Cropper, former leader of the Lindsay Quartet and celebrated interpreter of Beethoven, talks about his love for Beethoven and his music. The Lindsay Quartet recorded the cycle twice, and the recordings are regarded as some of the finest.

On the first cycle and Beethoven’s motivic development

 
More on the first cycle

 
On learning the quartets and the originality of Beethoven

 
On the second recording of the cycle

 
On changing the viola player

 
On tempo and Beethoven’s metronome markings

 
Do you have any advice to a quartet embarking on their first cycle?

 
Do you have a favourite Beethoven quartet?

 
What would you ask Beethoven if he were alive?

 
(The “ties” referred to in Peter’s answer are Beethoven’s famous ties between two or more notes of the same pitch, for instance two quavers, that could easily have been written as a crotchet. How to interpret these has since Beethoven’s time been the subject of debate. They occur frequently in the Op. 133 “Grosse Fuge”.)

 
On the love for Beethoven

 
Bonus: On early Beethoven