The actor and founder of Bell Shakespeare will be the voice of Beethoven in the Tinalley String Quartet’s new programme.

The Tinalley String Quartet will be joined by actor John Bell for the second programme of their 2016 season, entitled Speak Less Than You Know. The founder of Bell Shakespeare will read selections from Beethoven’s letters and memoirs, interspersed with music from his string quartets, in a reprise of Tinalley’s popular 2011 programme, Beethoven’s Letters.

The concert will open with Mendelssohn’s Second String Quartet, written the year of Beethoven’s death and born of Mendelssohn’s fascination with the older composer’s late quartets. Quartets from throughout Beethoven’s life will then be interspersed with his letters. “It starts with his first letter – the first letter we have, anyway – written at the age of 13 and finishes up with his very last letter, including the Heiligenstadt Testament,” Bell told Limelight. “So you could say it covers the arc of his life, but of course it doesn’t cover everything by any means – it would probably take a week to read all the letters.”

^{Actor John Bell will read Beethoven’s letters}

“The snapshots illuminated by the letters, however, provide a unique insight into Beethoven the man. “There’s enough autobiographical progress that you follow certain themes through,” explained Bell. “Particularly the themes of his growing anxiety about his deafness and his frustration and despair with all that. That’s one of the things that runs through it. But his other hardships as well – like his having to adopt his nephew Carl after his brother’s death. And just three letters to the Immortal Beloved are included. What I like about it is there’s quite a varied tone – sometimes light and playful, sometimes very pessimistic, tragic.”

It was the unrestrained nature of Beethoven’s letters that really struck Bell. “They’re very spontaneous,” he explained. “There’s nothing formal about them. Apart from the first one – which is quite delightful – when he was 13 years old writing to a patron in a very formal, flattering tone. It’s a very formulaic kind of letter. But from then on they’re very spontaneous. If you’ve ever seen a manuscript of Beethoven’s writing, it’s scribbling out and dots and dashes and wild, chaotic writing. His letters are somewhat similar, full of exclamations and very spontaneous utterances – there’s nothing considered.”

^{The Tinalley String Quartet: Lerida Delbridge, Adam Chalabi, Justin Williams and Michelle Wood}

This spontaneity can make the letters somewhat opaque. “At times it’s a bit incoherent,” said Bell, “you have to just kind of guess what he’s getting at and what the other person at the other end is getting out of it. They are dashed off and stuck in an envelope and sent on the mail coach immediately. So there’s no revision and there’s no corrections. And that makes them very interesting to read. You do feel a sense of the man’s character, much more than most people’s letters, which tend to me more formal.”

For Bell, Beethoven’s letters are unlike any others. “Mozart’s letters, for instance, come close, especially his early letters to his cousin – they’re very cheeky and silly and playful – but Beethoven’s letters are all of them extremely spontaneous and personal,” he said. “I’m not sure how he’d feel about having them read out loud in the company of strangers, because they’re very much written to one particular person – but that’s what makes them so interesting. You get a genuine sense of the man’s personality, there’s nothing hidden. It’s very much, a here I am, warts and all portrait.”

Tinalley String Quartet will perform Speak Less Than You Know at the Sydney Opera House September 26 and 27 and Melbourne Recital Centre October 4

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