Beethoven's Opus 131 and the Uncanny

By and large first movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in B6, op. 130, conforms to principles of sonata form. Departures from typical procedure, however, are frequent and striking. Nevertheless, as listeners we interpret movement in terms of style, and our aesthetic experience is shaped by our attempts to understand Beethoven's nonclassical compositional choices in terms of Classical ones he might have made. It was precisely this characteristic combination of conventional and unconventional that made Beethoven's late style all but incomprehensible to most nineteenth-century listeners. As Amanda Glauert has argued in a recent essay entitled The Double Perspective in Beethoven's Opus 131, late works stirred opposition because they threatened to expose artificialities of norms, by placing them in a questioning or ironic light. In her view, the notion of musical norms was particularly strong at time of Beethoven's apprenticeship, because it was supported by general belief in value of aligning oneself with existing order of things-whether this order was seen in terms of respect for artistic traditions, or respect for nature, human and external. But because music is nonrepresentational, it could not hope to achieve a genuine natural order. Rather, in music particular forms and expressive means were understood as incarnations of natural order; in short, stylistic conventions functioned as a kind of code of natural.'

The present research has its starting point in the obviously common origin and simultaneous creation of the initial theme of Beethoven's String Quartet, Op. 132, and of the principal subject of the Great Fugue, Op. 133, first observed from Beethoven's sketchbooks by Gustav Nottebohm in the 1870s (Beethoveniana II, pp. 548-551), and further in the remarks of Paul Bekker (Beethoven, German edn., Berlin 1911-1912, pp. 533-534), who casts his nets even wider, connecting these themes with a number of motives in Op. 131.

A discographical study of Beethoven's string quartets gives rise to numerous counter examples to the normalizing trends that scholars of recording history have emphasized in the past. Innovation and variability of interpretation are central to the practice of performing these works in the recording age. Recordings of Beethoven's early, middle, and late quartets offer qualitative and quantitative evidence that spans an eighty-year history. Perhaps surprisingly, homogeneity and restraint are often found in historically informed Beethoven performance. In general, though, the various “voices” of mainstream string quartets have increasingly opened, rather than closed, these works' hermeneutic windows.

This study examines possible parallels between large-scale organization in music and discourse structure. Two experiments examine the psychological reality of topics in the first movements of W. A. Mozart's String Quintet No. 3 in C major, K. 515, and L. van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132. Listeners made real-time judgments on three continuous scales: memorability, openness, and amount of emotion. All three kinds of judgments could be accounted for by the topics identified in these pieces by Agawu (1991) independently of the listeners' musical training. The results showed hierarchies of topics. However, these differed for the three tasks and for the two pieces. The topics in the Mozart piece appear to function as a way of establishing the musical form, whereas the topics in the Beethoven piece are more strongly associated with emotional content.

Beethoven’s String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131 (1826) is firmly a part of the modern-day canon, and also makes its presence felt in popular culture, notably in film. Yet in recent times, the terms in which the work is discussed and presented tend to undermine the work’s power. Although it is held up as a masterpiece, Op. 131 has often been understood in monochrome terms, as a work portraying tragedy, struggle, loss, and lack. This book takes the modern-day listener well beyond these categories of adversity or deficit. It goes back to early reception documents, including Beethoven’s own writings about the work, to help the listener reinterpret the work and re-hear it. Analyses are geared toward allowing the reader to access earlier modes of listening and interpretation, those of listeners who celebrated the work precisely for its plenitude, its richness of invention or fantasy (in Beethoven’s own words). As connoisseur listeners of Beethoven’s day implied, Op. 131 is filled with diverse musical ideas (just like a fantasia), and with a new kind of string quartet writing that is calculated to promote sustained, engaged listening. Placing this work in the context of an emerging ideology of silent or “serious” listening in Beethoven’s Europe, the book considers how this particular “late” quartet could speak with special eloquence to a highly select but passionately enthusiastic audience. It also examines how and why the reception of Op. 131 has changed so profoundly from Beethoven’s time to our own.

TheThirdString Quartet by B. Britten as a phenomenof the late composer style

The literary critic Harold Bloom coined the term "anxiety of influence" to cover stages in the emancipation of poets from their powerful forebears. Much has been written on the shadow cast by Beethoven over later nineteenth-century composers, but Beethoven too had to come to terms with powerful influences. It has long been recognized that the slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet, op. 18, no. 5, is modeled on that of Mozart's String Quartet in A major, K. 464. Here it is shown that in fact, the imitation involves not only the slow movement but all four of the movements. This provides an opportunity to examine in detail Beethoven's technique of reinterpreting his model. Indeed an examination of Beethoven's "anxiety" at different stages of his career may lead us to a closer understanding of his creative development. Toward the end of his life Beethoven imitated one of the movements from K. 464 again. Here may be seen the final stage in the confrontation of his anxiety.

The article discusses Arnold Schoenberg's handling of the traditional development section, especially in the second movement of his String Quartet No. 2 op. 10. Schoenberg himself disparagingly referred to certain developmental practices as ‘Spandelmachen’, referring to overly simple, outdated sequencing practices. An analysis of Schönberg's writings, teaching materials and sketches highlights his own approaches to shaping a development section. The focus here is on the second movement of String Quartet No. 2 op. 10, as extensive revisions can be found in the source material. Comparisons are also made with Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet op. 59/2.

Beethoven's revision in 1800 of his String Quartet, Op. 18, no. 2, Finale, offers us a window into his rethinking of the boundaries of musical distance for this movement during a critical period of his development. Beethoven focused his changes on the pianissimo passages, and aligned this dynamic with the movement's most extreme harmonic progressions and surprising aspects of its musical form. He also introduced various revisions to assure that the more radical, distant material in the pianissimo sections remained, not just anchored to the rest of the movement, but central to its drama.

Reviewed by: The String Quartets of Beethoven Robert Follet The String Quartets of Beethoven. Edited by William Kinderman. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. [360 p. ISBN 0-252-03036-2. $75.] Music examples, index, bibliography. "No group of compositions occupies a more central position in chamber music than Beethoven's string quartets, yet the meaning of these works continues to stimulate debate." (p. [1]). Thus begins William Kinderman's introduction to this remarkable group of essays. Covering the entire range of Beethoven's quartet canon, this book includes eleven essays written by ten recognized scholars in the fields of musicology and music theory. Many of the papers [End Page 353] were originally read at the conference "Beethoven's String Quartets: A Classic or Modernistic Legacy?" held at the University of Victoria, British Columbia in March 2000. The paper by Lewis Lockwood was originally presented at a symposium "Beethoven and the Creative Process" held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, May 2003. The conference papers have been revised for publication. Using a variety of research methodologies, these essays present a microcosm of the current state of research not only on the quartets, but all of Beethoven's works. Moving chronologically through the quartets, these essays reveal a wide variety of critical approaches and means of musical analysis. This is not, however, a volume for the reader unfamiliar with the quartets. The title may suggest an introduction and survey similar to the monographs by Daniel Gregory Mason or Joseph Kerman, but this is, rather, a scholarly conversation on various aspects of these compositions. Prior familiarity with the quartets is a definite prerequisite. Kinderman's introduction not only opens the volume, setting the stage for the following essays, but also presents an eloquent reception history of the quartets. This introduction gives brief background information on each opus, and also discusses how the reception and understanding of these works has evolved and changed through time. Kinderman also contributed both the opening and closing essays. In the first, "Transformational Processes in Beethoven's Op. 18 Quartets," Kinderman examines how Beethoven devised transformational passages in some movements of the quartets "wherein the strongest contrasts coexist with a high degree of integration" (p. 14). This study is closely allied with Kinderman's previous examination of the same phenomenon in Beethoven's Sonata, op. 110 (Beethoven Forum 1 [1992]: 111–45). The concluding essay, "Beethoven's Last Quartets: Threshold to a Fourth Creative Period?" addresses the coexistence in Beethoven's late quartets music of both linear and nonlinear time. Discussing each of the quartets individually from both historical and analytical perspectives, Kinderman reaches the conclusion that the "priority Beethoven granted to the imagination here comes to fulfillment in a manner that twists our expectations of the genre even more than earlier works while advancing his art toward new creative perspectives" (p. 317). The only essay to examine all of the quartets is Harald Krebs' "Metrical Dissonance and Metrical Revision in Beethoven's Quartets." Krebs examines various sketches of the quartets to demonstrate that Beethoven consciously developed metrical dissonances or conflicts within the quartets and rightfully suggests that this conscious effort should be examined in additional completed works and sketches. The remaining essays each focus on one aspect of an opus. Malcolm Miller examines the relation between registerial structure and Beethoven's unique use of the sonata principle in the op. 59 quartets. Lewis Lockwood studies the sketches for the "Harp quartet" op. 74 to demonstrate that knowledge of the compositional process can provide insight into puzzling aspects of a work while possibly raising additional new questions that might not occur in only studying the finished composition. Nicholas Marston explores the possibilities of a relationship between Beethoven's opus 74 and Haydn's string quartet op. 76, no. 6, and Beethoven's fascination with the fantasia and the relationship between this quartet and the piano sonata op. 81a. Seow-Chin Ong examines the sketches of the quartet op. 95, discussing their chronology and content, the draft of the first movement, and finally, the date of the autograph manuscript. Ong concludes by suggesting that the date for the autograph should be 1810 rather than 1814 generally attributed heretofore...

he String Quartet op. 130 in Bb major is the third and last of the three quartets commissioned by Prince Nikolai Galitzin in 1822, the first two being the quartets opp. 127 and 132.' It was composed in the period from May to November/December 1825.2 The first performance by the Schuppanzigh quartet occurred on 21 March 1826, and the quartet was published posthumously in its second version in May 1827 by Artaria in Vienna.3 The delay in publication stemmed from the problem posed by the quartet's original

Franz Weiss (1778–1830) is best known today for his role as the violist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, the ensemble that first brought Beethoven's string quartets into the limelight. He was also, however, a celebrated composer in his own right, one whose “ingenious compositions, related to Beethoven'sspirit, have long received the loudest and most deserved approval both at home and abroad.” This volume features Weiss's most ambitious chamber work: a pair of string quartets dedicated to the Russian diplomat and quartet enthusiast Count Andrey Razumovsky. First published in 1814, Weiss's long-forgotten “Razumovsky” quartets are significant both as creative responses to Beethoven's quartets and as explorative forays into the “public connoisseur quartet,” a subgenre that crystallized in Vienna between 1800 and 1830.

This book is a philosophical tour through the experience of beauty: what it is, and how the composer, performer, and listener all contribute. It explores -- with insight, patience, and humor -- profound issues at the essence of our experience. A student performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 in E-Flat Major, known as the Harp, serves as a point of departure and a recurring theme. For the layperson the core of the book is five dialogues between Icarus, an inquiring student intensely concerned with fulfilling his highest potential as a musician, and Daedalus, a curmudgeonly, iconoclastic teacher who guides Icarus's search. Three technical articles, geared to the music professional and academic, treat the issues in greater depth. Supplementary online audio files and musical examples. Markand Thakar is Charles A. & Carolyn M. Russell Music Director, Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra; music director, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra; principal conductor, Duluth Festival Opera; and codirector of the graduate conducting program, Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University.

This chapter takes the ideas presented in the previous chapter and applies them to an extended analysis and discussion of the first movement of the Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132. The analysis draws on a re-interpretation of Kofi Agawu's topic theory; on the emergence of various structural processes at the beginning of the movement; and on ideas of texture and motion. The last one in particular refers back to the discussions of music and subjectivity that were broached in Chapter 3. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the different perceptual opportunities that this music presents to listeners, and the particular properties that are afforded by the “world of the work”.

Several writers, beginning with Gustav Nottebohm, have made mention of a movement entitled ‘la gaiete’ that was at one stage intended for Beethoven's String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127, but none of them have previously given a full account of this movement. It appears in several sketch sources, notably Artaria 206 (currently in Kraków), and although it was not incorporated into the final version of the quartet, it played an important role in shaping the slow movement of the work. It also had an indirect influence on the coda of the finale. Its precise function in the creation of the quartet becomes much clearer through a detailed study of Beethoven's sketches, which are scattered in many different sources and appear in four formats that run concurrently, making assessment of them difficult. Examining the sketches for the movement also throws light on the chronological relationship between the various sketch sources. Contrary to some accounts, the movement appears never to have been part of a planned six-movement scheme for the work – a scheme that was extremely fleeting and only one of many possibilities for the work's structure.