String Quartet No. 14 (Beethoven)

Music#

About 40 minutes in length, it consists of seven movements played without break: : The Op. 131 quartet is a monumental feat of integration. While Beethoven composed the quartet in six distinct key areas, the work begins and ends in C minor. The finale directly quotes the first movement’s fugue theme in its second thematic area. This type of cyclical composition was avant-garde for a work of that period. Joseph Kerman wrote: “blatant functional reference to the theme of another movement: this never happens”. (It had happened in some other Beethoven works such as the Piano Sonata Op. 101, Cello Sonata Op. 102 No. 1, and the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies; it had even happened before in Joseph Haydn’s Forty-Sixth Symphony. Nevertheless, Op. 131 is the first Beethoven work in which the quotation is integrated completely into its new context instead of appearing like an explicit quotation, though even this effect had been anticipated the previous year in the young Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet, and much earlier in Christian Latrobe’s A major Piano Sonata dedicated to Haydn.) Op. 131 is often grouped with 132 and 130. There is motivic sharing among the three works. In particular, the “motto” fugue of the leading note rising to the tonic before moving to the minor sixth and then dropping down to the dominant is an important figure these works share. This quartet is one of Beethoven’s most elusive works musically. The topic has been written about extensively since very early after its creation, from Karl Holz, the second violinist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, to Richard Wagner, to contemporary musicologists. One popular topic is a possible religious/spiritual genesis for this work, supported by similarities to the Missa Solemnis. In the first movement of Op. 131, the continually flowing texture resembles the earlier work’s Benedictus and Dona Nobis Pacem. In addition, purposely or not, Beethoven quotes a motivic figure from Missa Solemnis in the quartet’s second movement. A week before Schubert’s death, Holz and his string quartet visited to play for him. The last musical work Schubert wished to hear was the String Quartet No. 14; Holz later recalled that “Schubert was sent into such transports of delight and enthusiasm and was so overcome that we all feared for him.” The piece was featured in the plot of the 2012 film A Late Quartet. It also featured in the Band of Brothers episode “Why We Fight”.

I. Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo#

A fugue based on the following subject, which contains (bars 2–3) the second tetrachord of the harmonic minor scale, the unifying motif of Beethoven’s last string quartets: : \relative g’ \key cis \minor \time 2/2 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 2 = 44 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” \partial 4 gis(\ gis4\p( fis a gis fis e fis) gis2\laissezVibrer Richard Wagner said this movement “reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in music”. Joseph Kerman calls it “this most moving of all fugues”. J.W.N. Sullivan (1927, p. 235) hears it as “the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven has ever written.” Philip Radcliffe says " a bare description of its formal outline can give but little idea of the extraordinary profundity of this fugue."

II. Allegro molto vivace#

A delicate dance in compound duple meter in the key of D major, in compact sonata form based on the following folk-like theme: : \relative d’ \key d \major \time 6/8 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 2. = 80 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” \partial 4. d4.\pp( d'4.)~ d4(cis8) cis4(ais8 b4 cis8 d4 cis8 e d b) b4(a8 d4 e8 fis4 e8 d4 cis8) cis4(ais8 b4 cis8 d4\ d) b-.) a4!

III. Allegro moderato – Adagio#

In the spirit of recitativo obbligato following the key of B minor; the modulation from B minor to E major functions as a short introduction to the next movement.

IV. Variations#

This, the central movement of the quartet, is a set of 7 variations (6 complete and 1 incomplete, with coda) on the following simple theme in A major shared between the first and second violins: : #(set-global-staff-size 19) \relative a’ \key a \major \time 2/4 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 60 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” eis)! eis8(fis) r4 r8 e16(d cis8) r r fis,16(e dis8) r r8 \ r8 cis4.( d8) gis4(a16 gis d'8) b,4.( a8) cis'4(d16 cis a'8) r r4 r8 fis4(\ cis! dis8)\noBeam b,(cis)\noBeam b'16(a gis8) r r d16(b a8) » The tempo indications of the variations are: Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile – Andante moderato e lusinghiero – Adagio – Allegretto – Adagio, ma non troppo e semplice – Allegretto This movement is the apotheosis of the ‘Grand Variation’ form from Beethoven’s late period.

V. Presto#

In E major, this is a brilliant scherzo (though in duple rather than triple time), based on the following simple idea: : \relative b’ \key e \major \time 2/2 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 1 = 116 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” b4-.\p gis-. e-. gis-. b2(e) dis4-. e-. fis-. gis-. a4 r r2 gis4-. fis-. e-. dis-. cis2(fis) gis4\f gis gis gis gis r4 r2 Toward the end of the scherzo, there is “an astounding” passage of pianissimo sul ponticello writing for all the instruments, mostly on their highest strings." Joseph Kerman asks, “Was this a sound Beethoven had actually heard, back in the days when he was hearing, or did he make up the sound for the first time in 1826? Beethoven deaf was quite capable of ‘hearing’ or imagining or inventing not only relationships between notes but also sonorities pure and simple.”

VI. Adagio quasi un poco andante#

In G minor, this movement is in bar form with a coda, which serves as a slow, sombre introduction to the next movement. Emil Breslaur suggested a relation between its melody and that of Kol Nidre.

VII. Allegro#

The finale is in sonata form and returns to the home key of C minor. The first subject has two main ideas: : \relative c’ \key cis \minor \time 2/2 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 2 = 132 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” cis4-.\ff r4 r2 r4 cis8(e gis4-.) a8(cis, bis4) r4 r2 r4 bis8(dis gis4-.) a8(bis, cis4) r4 : \relative c \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key cis \minor \time 2/2 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 2 = 132 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” \partial 2 cis4 r8 dis \once \override Score.BarNumber #‘break-visibility = ##(#f #t #t) \set Score.currentBarNumber = #5 \bar " " e4 r8 fis gis4 r8 a gis4 r gis r8 fis e4 r8 dis e4 r8 cis dis4 r cis r8 dis e4 r8 fis gis4 r8 ais b4 r b r8 gis ais4 r8 gis ais4 r8 fisis gis4 r The violent rhythm in this subject is contrasted with the soaring, lyrical second theme: : \relative a \new Staff \with \remove “Time_signature_engraver” \key cis \minor \time 2/2 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 2 = 132 \set Staff.midiInstrument = “violin” \set Score.currentBarNumber = #56 \bar "" gis2~\p gis8(fis e dis e dis cis b a gis fis e) e4.(\markup \italic cresc. dis8) b2\markup \italic espress. ^\markup \italic “poco riten.” b b

External links#

• Performance by the Orion String Quartet from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format
• , PDF and Finale files
• Commentary by Robert Winter, interviewed by Jason Lopez, on the quartet as it is played, telescoped down to 17 minutes, 31 October 2010
• , Alban Berg Quartett
• , organ arrangement by Iris Lan