In 2025, reunite with the château de Montmirail’s favorite quartet!

Dimitri Derat and Frédéric Bokobza on violins
Olivier Kaspar on viola
Jérôme Hénin on cello

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924). String Quartet in E minor, Op. 121 (completed in 1924)

This is Gabriel Fauré’s final work—written at the height of his maturity, serenity, and creative freedom. It premiered in 1925, after Fauré’s death, meaning he never heard it performed.

Beethoven is the towering figure of string quartets. The sheer impact of his quartets made every composer after him hesitant to tackle the genre—including Fauré himself, who wrote to his wife:
“It’s a genre particularly marked by Beethoven, which makes all those who aren’t Beethoven dread it… so you can imagine how scared I am. I haven’t told anyone.”

Three movements:

• Allegro moderato

• Andante

• Allegro

“Less dazzling, less immediately seductive than those of Debussy and Ravel, Fauré’s Quartet nonetheless reaches infinitely greater heights.”
— Harry Halbreich, musicologist

“It seems that in this artistic testament, Gabriel Fauré’s genius, having let go of the piano’s solid foundation, completed the final stage of an evolution that for years had been refining his thoughts to the brink of abstraction and evanescence. He appears here freed from all material and earthly ties, already at home with the meditations of a seraphic world. This quartet seems to move, so to speak, within a limited domain of the infinite.
By that I mean there is little contrast between the three movements in terms of tempo, rhythm, or mood. It doesn’t even explore a wide range of sound… Rather, one follows, breath held, the somewhat abstract meditation of a pure spirit. […]
Plato saw in the perfect sphere the consummate image of beauty: in Fauré’s quartet, he would have admired the refractions of celestial ether in a crystal bubble.”
— Jean Chantavoine, first critic to review the Quartet
Le Ménestrel, June 19, 1925

Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet No. 7 in F major – Op. 59 “Razumovsky” No. 1 (1806)

Four movements:

• Allegro

• Allegretto vivace e sempre scherzando

• Adagio molto e mesto

• Russian Theme: Allegro

In contrast to Fauré’s introspective quartet, this is a piece full of energy and emotional twists. It gives a prominent role to the cello, which presents the main theme at the outset.

Beethoven was especially proud of this quartet, though it was met with confusion by audiences, critics, and performers of the time. When violinist Radicati told him, “This is not music,” Beethoven replied:
“It is not for you! It is for a later time.”
And when Schuppanzigh complained about the technical difficulty of the piece, Beethoven allegedly answered:
“Do you think I care about your miserable strings when the spirit speaks to me?”