The Beethoven String Quartet Project: Op. 18, no. 5

As the necessary home confinement continues today and for the foreseeable future, I have turned to a project I intended to engage in at some point this year: listening to and reflecting upon the magnificent string quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born 250 years ago. For each of the next 17 days, I hope to post a short paragraph or two on these stimulating pieces.

STRING QUARTET No. 5 in A MAJOR, op. 18, no. 5
I listened to the Cleveland String Quartet, recorded in 1995 on the TELARC label. It’s available on YouTube .

Allegro

Menuetto and Trio

Andante cantabile

Allegro

The Quartet in A major, op. 18, no. 5, owes a great deal to the quartet in the same key by Mozart, K. 464. Beethoven is quoted as stating about Mozart’s quartet: “That’s what I call a work! In it, Mozart was telling the world: ‘Look what I could do if you were ready for it!’” In the Beethoven A major quartet, according to William Kinderman, “the Mozartian influence is centred on the third movement - like Mozart’s a set of variations. At the same time, Beethoven’s five variations on his Andante cantabile theme mark a significant moment in his lifelong fascination with this form; there is a distant foreshadowing here of the slow movements of the Appassionata Sonata and Archduke Trio, among other works.” Kinderman feels that the homage to Mozart has “muted something of Beethoven’s own individual voice”, but I beg to differ.

The performance I listened to by the Cleveland String Quartet was full of vibrancy, elegance, wit and grit.

After a bright and firm beginning, the first movement proceeds at times sounding like a Mozart violin concerto, but still full of Beethoven’s now signature gestures (use of silence, subito fortes, etc). The second theme is a surprise as it’s in E minor and features wrought-up unison writing. At the end of the exposition, I detected an echo of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto (same key). Throughout, the movement is beautifully proportioned and symmetrical, full of bright energy and concludes elegantly.

The Minuet and Trio is moved up one rung to second in the batting order. It’s lovely to hear the viola having the tune in the second eight bars of the A section (which is not a repeat, but features new voicing of the theme). The canonic entries in the B section are very effective and one hears a short snippet of the opening of Op. 18, no. 4, this time in C# minor. The Trio is in the same key (A+) as the minuet and has a squeezebox feel to it, with an ongoing tonic drone. For many reasons, the whole movement feels more like an extended piece rather than contrasting dances, as an M&T usually is. Beethoven’s use of pauses and silence continues here, as well.

The third movement is the afore-mentioned Mozartian variation set and it’s so wonderfully entertaining and evocative. The theme is simple with two-chord tonic-dominant harmony. Variation I features staccato articulation, more canonic writing and offbeat subito forte effects. Variation II is a lovely, boppy triplet groove. Variation III features shimmering 32nd-note accompaniment and some rich viola/cello playing near the end. Variation IV is a simple, profound and gorgeous chorale/part-song and the boisterous extended last variation leads to a coda (by way of an amazing deceptive cadence that introduces a new theme briefly before gradually slowing into a gorgeous solo violin statement of the simplicity of the first theme followed by each of the other instruments entering one-by-one to a gentle and sublime end.

Movement four is full of Mozartean energy, a lovely second theme which flows into cascading descending scales using fauxbourdon-like first-inversion harmonies. There are little snatches of the Mozart violin/viola Sinfonia Concertante near the end of the exposition. There’s a short and charming pizzicato section in the development and the whole movement features extended thematic episodes that richly explore the melodic fragments of its theme. The whole piece ends elegantly with the closing bars leading to a beautiful last chord with a double-third (C#) giving the effect not so much of finality as repose.