The Beethoven String Quartet Project: Op. 135

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. 16 in F MAJOR, op. 135
I listened to the recording of the New Orford String Quartet, recorded in 2011 on the Bridge record label. It is available on YouTube.

Allegretto (Listen HERE )

Vivace (Listen HERE )

Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo (Listen HERE )

Grave, ma non troppo tratto – Allegro (Listen HERE )

There is something so deliciously perfect about this final quartet of Beethoven’s. He wrote it in the midst of serious health issues and agonizing family troubles (his nephew Karl, whom he adored, was hospitalized after a suicide attempt in the early fall of 1826) and yet there is - I will use the phrase again - an “unbearable lightness of being” in the writing, all the way through. This Beethoven at an astonishingly high capability as a composer and yet there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place.

William Kinderman explains some of the background to this final quartet: “Opus 135 is the last work Beethoven finished, apart from the substitute finale of op. 130; both pieces were begun at Vienna and completed at Geneixendorf. There is admittedly a retrospective character to the last quartet; it is mainly an essay in Haydnesque wit, not a bold, expansive composition like the other late quartets. As we have seen, such humorous pieces were a lifelong interest with Beethoven, and F major was quite often the chosen key…It is just possible that this was indeed his artistic response to the grim events of 1826: Beethoven’s way was to respond to adversity with humour.”

I am delighted to have listened the recording of the New Orford String Quartet playing this piece. They capture the transparency and witty character of the work brilliantly, while bringing their virtuosity to bear on the deceptively difficult challenges of op. 135.

The opening of the first movement is poignant and full of the profound simplicity that will continue through the piece. It hearkens back to Beethoven’s mastery of Classical Style: proportion and symmetry are priorities here. And yet, this movement moves out in all directions, harmonically and rhythmically, There are fewer subito dynamics, less jarring contrasts; a delicate texture prevails. I love the quiet, meandering final section, leading to an ambiguous fermata chord and a lovely close.

The second movement is brilliantly economical and efficient, full of rhythmic roughhousing - where’s the barline?! The A major section (trio?) is eccentric and highly entertaining and produces great SOUND: wild, harmonic experiments that feel so original. This movement is out of this world.

The viola opens the third movement with a low F, the second violin adds an Ab and finally the chord is revealed in the second bar to be Db major…a lovely completion that leads in to this remarkably tender movement, with no rough edges, no extremes. I was contemplating the aural capabilities of Beethoven at this time: was he not completely deaf?! And yet he still had a deep knowledge of voicing and the sonic effects that his writing would produce. It’s remarkable to imagine. Db major lead to C# minor thanks to enharmonic magic and the simplicity and beauty of the piece continues. It’s a page and a half (looks very short) in the full score, but it all unfolds so slowly and warmly…it’s hypnotic. This movement is PERFECT.

A little more from Kinderman now on the theme of the final movement: “In the summer of 1826 an incident occurred that is bound up with the genesis of the F major Quartet op. 135. After the premiere of the Bb Quartet by Schuppanzigh’s quartet on 21 March 1826, interest around in arranging a performance by a different quartet at the house of a certain Ignaz Dembscher. Dembscher, however, had not subscribed for Schuppanzigh’s concert, and he was subsequently forced by Beethoven to pay up in order to receive performance parts for the work. Dembscher queried ‘Muss es sein’ (‘Must it be?’), and Beethoven, highly amused, sketched a canon to the words ‘Es muss sein! ja ja ja ja! Heraus mit dem Beutel!’ (‘It must be! yes yes yes yes! Out with your wallet!’), the canonic motif, in turn, found its way into the finale of Beethoven’s last quartet.”

So, Beethoven quotes that little motif at the beginning of the final movement, accompanied by the words “Der schwer gefasste Entschlus” (“The difficult decision”). These enigmatic words have been pondered over the last 190 years or so and many explanations have been offered for them, though none with absolute authority. Peter Laki quotes a letter from Beethoven to his publisher Moritz Schlesinger, that sheds some light on the phrase: “Here, my dear friend, is my last quartet. It will be the last; and indeed it has given me much trouble. For I could not bring myself to compose the last movement. But as your letters were reminding me of it, in the end I decided to compose it. And that is the reason why I have written the motto...”

Whatever the case, it’s a brilliant finale. The opening is full of tension (somewhat humorous, given the context?) as the “Muss es sein?” motive is enigmatically shared between the instruments. The ensuing Allegro is playful, joyful and features a simple but endlessly useful theme for Beethoven to spin out his musical ideas. We toggle between the home F major up to A major and down to D major. There’s a brief return of the stern “Grave” opening near the end of the movement with otherworldly harmonies and then a sumptuous return to the Allegro for the final bars of this splendid piece. I especially loved the pizzicato section on the last page and, in true style, the affirming forte perfect cadence at the end of the piece.

Kinderman continues: “Thus closes the F major Quartet, a fitting end to Beethoven’s career and one of the finest examples of his humour in music. The study of Beethoven’s biography has abundantly confirmed his propensity to regard the world around him in an ironic or comic light. This capacity may have been reinforced by the increasingly discrepancy between his artistic sensibility and his ability to function in the everyday world….None of the absurdities in Beethoven’s jokes could quite mirror the precarious dialectic of his own art and life, an experience that may account in part for his love of the dictum ‘art is long, life is short’. Art offered something seemingly permanent, a bulwark of enduring meaning posited against the inevitable transience of life. At the same time, even trivial events could be transformed into artistic coinage, opening nourishing lines of connection between life and art. It is this quality of universality and challenging breadth of experience that must explain the continued vitality of Beethoven’s music today.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, believe me.