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Beethoven wrote his first string quartets after he began to lose his hearing; admiring the masterworks of Haydn and Mozart in the genre, he preferred to prepare himself first by writing string trios. Between 1798 and 1800, he composed the Op. 18 quartets, which both honored tradition and looked forward. He kept to the classical custom of the day, composing a set of six quartets, each in a different key, one of which was minor, each having a distinct character, and the set beginning with the most demanding and ending with the lightest.

In its musical style the F Major Op. 18, No. 1 is the most modern of the set. For example, the highly energetic first movement exhibits Beethoven's compression of its major idea into a two-measure motif, shocking for the day; Joseph Kerman describes the motif as "a coiled spring, ready to shoot off in all directions." Although the movement has a second, gentler theme in eighth notes, this terse motif dominates the movement.

The Adagio in the contrasting dark key of D minor serves as a foil for the brilliance of the opening Allegro. The music is forward looking in its programmatic nature. When a close friend remarked that the music suggested the parting of two lovers, Beethoven replied that he had been thinking of the scene in the burial vault in Romeo and Juliet. The movement abounds in exquisite conversations, opening with an ascending melody full of longing sung by the first violin (Juliet) and shortly sung in the cello (Romeo). Silences punctuate the movement as other conversations occur. The texture grows dense when the first violin sings the opening theme over outbursts in the other instruments. Long, elegantly descending melodies lead to the dramatic conclusion where the cello's final statement of the romantic theme is answered by florid passages in the first violin as it cascades expressively into the silent darkness.

The Scherzo, a charming contrast to the Adagio, also demonstrates Beethoven's innovative style. Unlike the symmetrical structures characteristic of the Classical Period, Beethoven, anticipating the style of his late period, constantly alternates symmetrical and asymmetrical groups of measures. The Trio opens with a heavy-footed dance and offers good humor; a return of the scherzo concludes the movement.

In the final brilliant Allegro, Beethoven employs the sonata-rondo form first developed by Haydn, constructing a musical romp that, like the sonata, contains two themes that are stated, developed, and returned, and like the rondo, contains a single repeated theme that alternates with contrasting episodes.

The Boston Globe has described the music of award-winning composer Lior Novak as "colorful, haunting, accomplished, and exciting," and a review of his two highly acclaimed CDs -- Hidden Reflections and Meditations Over Shore -- described the music as "dreamy and utterly gorgeous." Navok, born in Tel Aviv, describes himself as a member of the fourth generation of Israeli classical composers. While the first three focused on nationalistic themes, his generation is "not necessarily committed to any Israeli themes or esthetics." Instead, their music reflects world globalization and the fusion of many styles, but there remains "a strong Israeli sound, or scent, in their music."

Navok composed the one-movement "Hope Cycles" for the Borromeo Quartet. It focuses, he explains "on the endless war between Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East from the small person's point of view. As an Israeli myself, I always find it hard to explain to European /American people where is the real tragedy, the one of the individual people -- not the one behind the 'selected' pictures one sees on the TV screen or sees in any other media.

"The music describes the fear, hate, anger, love, remorse, the claustrophobic and uncertain feeling of being under daily attack (no matter on what side one is.)" Navok believes that "hope for a real peaceful solution and for a better life ... is what keeps people alive. Yet, between one hopeful chapter to another the reality hits once more -- more innocent victims die and more families are being destroyed, on a daily basis. Most of the stories of these individual victims never reach the international media, who ironically enough look only for 'big numbers.'

"The viola represents such an individual who faces reality on its cruel side. Hoping, lamenting, loving, tendering, and accepting the sad reality... . The quartet is built of connected sections, which represent the occurring brutal fate" as well as the acceptance of fate "as a natural part of life, the emotional whirlpools, the instability, the fighting, the lamenting emotion, the distanced and cold emotion, the hope, the disillusion, the farewell and the reoccurring destiny, moving on to the next victim."

Navok repeats short thematic fragments and variations "to create a stronger emotional feeling towards the end of the quartet. Some of these short motives include the half scale of the Arabic 'Maqam Hijaz,' as well as short fragments from Jewish music." He explains that "even though the subject is highly charged, I decided to restrain the emotional level of expression, so in many cases, except for a few short emotional bursts, one will perceive a somewhat cold, filtered expression, as if seeing a show from behind a glass."

In 1822 Prince Nicholas Galitzin commissioned Beethoven to write a number of quartets, but Beethoven did not begin the work until 1824. In the interim he completed the Ninth Symphony, after which he fell gravely ill and was unable to work. Although impatient, the Prince encouraged Beethoven not to rush but to follow his own inspiration and disposition. The wait was worth it: each of the three quartets, Op. 127, Op. 132, and Op. 130 (composed in that order) is extraordinary.

Beethoven completed Op. 132 in October 1825 after a long recuperation; the music is directly related to his illness and recovery. Although it is not specifically programmatic, its progression from darkness to light, similar to the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, is, according to Joseph de Marliave, evidence of the "habitual state of the mind of the composer: the fight against destiny, the triumph of joy over pain."

Beethoven cast the monumental forty-minute quartet in five movements. Its magnificent Adagio, fourteen minutes long and placed mathematically at the center of the work, is also the heart of the quartet. In form the movement alternates between two contrasting ideas clarified by Beethoven's inscription above the score. The first section, a "Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Divinity by a Convalescent, in the Lydian mode", is, Charles Rosen says, a reworking of the Gregorian chant Veni Creator, Spiritus. Beethoven's inscription indicates that the second section, more rhythmically dynamic and dramatic, represents a "Feeling of New Strength."

What kind of music can support the Adagio's sublimity? A large scale Allegro full of brilliant motivic interplay and a long scherzo and trio precede it. A straightforward two-minute march follows it and offers "an almost shocking descent" from its exalted realms. The final movement, based on a theme Beethoven had intended for the Ninth Symphony, brings the quartet to a victorious close in its A major tonality and its lyricism, although "an undulating turbulent rocking motion" throws "an uneasy cast on the proceedings."

Some material for these notes comes from the analyses of Ekkehart Kroher, Melvin Berger, and Richard Rodda.