String Quartet No. 7 (Beethoven)

Form#

It consists of four movements: The first movement is in an expansive sonata form, including a fugato in the development and lasting nearly twelve minutes even though it forgoes the then-customary repeat of the exposition. The opening cello melody has its tonality only weakly defined, with the first cadence establishing the key of F major only occurring several bars into the movement. Another feature of the first movement is the delayed emotional recapitulation. As became one of Beethoven’s many tools for emotional manipulation, delaying the grandiosity of the recapitulation for several bars after the establishment of the tonic key allowed Beethoven to heighten expectation of a definitive statement. While both the majestic, slow third movement and the fourth (between which there is no break) are also in sonata form, the second movement scherzo is formally one of the most unusual movements of Beethoven’s middle period, easily classifiable as being also in sonata form. The final movement is built around a popular Russian theme, likely an attempt to ingratiate the work to its Russian commissioner.

Further reading#

• Joseph Kerman. The Beethoven Quartets. New York, W. W. Norton & Co., 1966. *

External links#

• • Performance of String Quartet No. 7 by the Borromeo String Quartet from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format