Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most important figures in classical music. His Symphony No. 5 with its famous opening, the Symphony No. 9 with its "Ode to Joy" Finale, and piano works such as Für Elise and the Sonatas are widely popular. His tumultuous life story has been told in the film Immortal Beloved and various biographies. Beethoven encountered many challenges in his life, including his battle with deafness recounted in his famous Heligenstadt Testament of 1802. He triumphed as a composer who ushered in the transition from the Classical Period, roughly 1750-1820, to the Romantic Period, 1820-1900. Beethoven is credited with that feat due to his expansion of the Classical forms, as heard in his symphonies, where he added a chorus to the orchestral element, in his piano sonatas, where the new developments in piano construction allowed Beethoven a larger range as well as more textural possibilities, and finally in the genre of the string quartet.
The string quartet belongs to chamber music, or music originally intended for private performances at home. The typical string quartet of the Classical period had four movements, the outer movements being fast and the inner movements slow and a dance movement respectively. This background is important in understanding Beethoven’s Op. 131, No. 4, quartet and how Beethoven moved away from tradition in his use of seven movements, each with its own different tempo indication, with durations ranging from 46 seconds (Movement III) to 15 minutes (Movement IV). In addition, all seven movements are played without pause.
The First Movement, Adagio, opens with the first violin and is a fugue. The second movement, Allegro Molto Vivace, is strikingly different in its major mode and light-hearted character. The brief third movement, which serves as a link between movements II and IV, begins with two striking chords in the strings as if to introduce a substantial movement. However, it is immediately followed by the tempo indication Adagio and a short violin cadenza. The fourth movement, Andante, is the central movement of the seven and is a set of variations on a theme introduced by the violins. It is interesting to note the arch Beethoven has created in making the central movement of seven the longest as well as most developed in its variations. Within the variations there are multiple tempo, key and time signature changes. The fifth movement is a scherzo that opens with a false opening in the cello. The false opening, a technique Beethoven also employed in his symphonic writing, makes the cello sound as if it accidentally came in early. In a similar fashion to the third movement, the sixth movement serves as an introduction to the seventh movement. Its character is somber and the movement gradually moves the music to the key of C-sharp minor, the key of the opening movement. Beethoven’s ingenuity is in the full force when he presents the final seventh movement in a musical form, Sonata-Allegro, that composers usually reserve for the opening movement in a typical four-movement work.
Program Notes are by Kyle Blaha, a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at The Juilliard School and faculty member in the Juilliard Pre-College and Evening Division.