Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 -1827)
String Quartets (Complete) Vol. 3
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18, No.5
String Quartet in B Flat Major, Op. 18, No.6
In 1792 Beethoven left his native city of Bonn to seek
his fortune in the imperial capital, Vienna. Five years earlier his patron, the
Archbishop of Cologne, a scion of the imperial family, had sent him to Vienna
where he had hoped to have lessons with Mozart. His plans were frustrated by
the illness and subsequent death of his mother, which made it necessary for him
to return to Bonn and before long to take charge of the welfare of his younger
brothers. Beethoven's father, overshadowed by the eminence of his own father, Kapellmeister
to a former Archbishop, had proved inadequate both as a musician and in the
family, of which his eldest son now took control.
As a boy Beethoven had been trained to continue family
tradition as a musician and had followed his father and grandfather as a member
of the archiepiscopal musical establishment. In 1792 he arrived in Vienna with
introductions to various members of the nobility and with the offer of lessons
with Haydn, from whom he later claimed to have learned nothing. There were
further lessons from the Court Composer, Antonio Salieri, and, perhaps more
important, from Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, an expert in counterpoint. He
embarked at once on an initial career as a keyboard virtuoso, skilled both as
an executant and in the necessary art of improvisation. He was to establish himself,
in the course of time, as a figure of remarkable genius and originality and as
a social eccentric, no respecter of persons, his eccentricity all the greater
because of his increasing deafness. This last disability made public
performance, whether as a keyboard-player or in the direction of his own music,
more and more difficult, and must have served to encourage the development of
one particular facet of his music, the use of counterpoint, stigmatized by
hostile contemporary critics as "learned". He died in Vienna in 1827.
In his sixteen string quartets, the first set of six
published in 1801 and the last completed in 1826 and published in the year of
his death, Beethoven was as innovative as ever, developing and extending a form
that seemed already to have reached a height of perfection in the later work of
Haydn and Mozart. The earliest mention of a string quartet comes in the
recorded request of Count Apponyi in 1795. This had no immediate result, but it
has seemed possible that Beethoven in these years might have been influenced by
Emanuel Aloys Forster, a musician twenty-two years his senior, whose teaching of
counterpoint he admired and recommended to others, while profiting, perhaps,
from the example of Forster's own quartets. At the same time Beethoven must
have known the later quartets of Mozart and the work of Haydn.
The first group of string quartets by Beethoven,
published in 1801 as Opus 18 with a dedication to Prince Lobkowitz,
consisted of six quartets written between 1798 and 1800. The third of these was
apparently the first in order of composition, followed by Nos. 1, 2 and 5 and
Nos. 4 and 6, the last two not to be found in Beethoven's surviving
sketch-books, which in general give a possible idea of chronology and an
insight into his methods of composition.
The String Quartet in A Major, Opus 18, No.5,
opens with a first subject that has something of a lilt to it, as it proceeds.
The subsidiary theme appears in the less usual key of E minor, its counterpart
in the third section recapitulation now in A minor. Beethoven places the Minuet
second and includes a contrasting Trio in the same key of A major, but with
melodic interest centred at first on the second violin and viola. The D major
Andante is in the form of a theme and five variations, the first allowing
imitative entries from the four instruments in ascending order, the second with
triplet rhythm in the first violin and the third with a rapid second violin
accompanying figure in which the first violin joins, while melodic material is
shared between the other instruments. The fourth variation is more akin to a
chorale setting, with a fifth of considerable ingenuity. The quartet ends with
a movement in which the rapid principal theme dominates, a contrast to the sustained
notes of the subsidiary thematic material.
The last quartet of the set, the String Quartet in B
flat major, Opus 18, No.6, allows dialogue between first violin and cello
in its first subject, reflected in ensuing dialogue between the two violins.
The F major second subject shifts to the minor, allowing further modulation
before the end of the exposition, which is followed by a development that makes
use of fragments of the principal theme and a varied recapitulation. The E flat
second movement is marked Adagio ma non troppo and has an opening theme
based on the tonic and dominant arpeggios. A variation of this is followed by
material of darker hue, before the return of an embellished version of the
first theme. This leads to a Scherzo of irregular metre, with a whimsical Trio
in the same key of B flat. La Malinconia (Melancholy), a piece to be
played with the greatest delicacy, we are told, now makes its appearance, serving
as an introduction to the final rondo, during the course of which it makes a
brief re-appearance, seeking to return yet again, but interrupted by the rapid
rondo theme that finally prevails.