It may be only February, but critical eyes and ears are already swimming with all the Beethoven on offer in this, the composer’s 250th birthday year. Given the plethora of opportunities to hear his music in concert, many of them occasions for marathon cycles, making the right choices are crucial for those who fear an early onset of “Beethoven fatigue”. Performing as part of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2020 program, the magnificent Danish String Quartet, I’m happy to report, is about as far from fatiguing as you can get.

Danish String Quartet. All photos © Tristan Cook

The DSQ’s New York traversal of the complete Beethoven string quartets is coming off the back of volumes 1 and 2 of their outstanding “Prism” series, a five-album survey of the late quartets for ECM that pairs each one with a resonating contemporary work. Two packed-to-the-rafters concerts in and you can feel not just a tangible sense of artistic vision, but already there is a keen anticipation of the shape of things to come in the four remaining gigs.

Like the Op. 2 Piano Sonatas, or...