Beethoven's Late String Quartets

[Amalie]

Listening to Beethoven's Late string quartets this afternoon, , I find they are very conducive to thought and here are a few random thoughts that seized me.

They are unbelievably beautiful in their melodic and chromatic variation and are almost a sort of a long farewell to the world as Beethoven sets sail for the blessed Isles. One feels the bitter sweet pain of the world that Beethoven felt, like the Einfuhlung that I referred to on previous posts in connection with the romantics. What Beethoven feels, you feel because you are at one with the universal mind past present and future that abides in eternity.
They are full of yearning for an unseen world. He was searching for the terra incognito of the human heart, its terrifying depths and Olympian heights.
He showed a sublimity and majesty of spirit in his late quartets, so astonishing no matter how often one hears them , there elemental greatness just seems to grow ever stronger and one can scarcely believe one is listening to such divine dialogue.
If the renaissance of mankind is to come, Beethoven will be its magician.
I get a marvellous feeling of great comfort and benison in Beethoven's music, he seems to have access to something lost to us now.
Words are inadequate to describe the overpowering emotion, but strongly disciplined emotion.
Beethoven understood and new there was a world we had lost (similar to what we have been discussing in another thread), and he returned to that theme again in his late string quartets. They are surely miracles.

What are our other correspondants thoughts on the late string qaurtets?.




[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited September 28, 2003).]

[Gurn Blanston]

I like 'em. No, but seriously, I cannot match your poetic prose (an oxymoron?), but I think for sheer grandeur of conception and execution they are unmatched. For me they seem to recap the greatest styles from the previous 100 years, ranging from fugato through classical sonata and variations, and then look ahead to the future also, with a tonal sweep which adumbrates the very best of the oncoming Romantic. They are a door in time, hinged in the mid 1820's and swinging both ways, into the past and into the future. What can be more miraculous than that?


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Peter]

Originally posted by Amalie:
Listening to Beethoven's Late string quartets this afternoon, , I find they are very conducive to thought and here are a few random thoughts that seized me.

They are unbelievably beautiful in their melodic and chromatic variation and are almost a sort of a long farewell to the world as Beethoven sets sail for the blessed Isles. One feels the bitter sweet pain of the world that Beethoven felt, like the Einfuhlung that I referred to on previous posts in connection with the romantics. What Beethoven feels, you feel because you are at one with the universal mind past present and future that abides in eternity.
They are full of yearning for an unseen world. He was searching for the terra incognito of the human heart, its terrifying depths and Olympian heights.
He showed a sublimity and majesty of spirit in his late quartets, so astonishing no matter how often one hears them , there elemental greatness just seems to grow ever stronger and one can scarcely believe one is listening to such divine dialogue.
If the renaissance of mankind is to come, Beethoven will be its magician.
I get a marvellous feeling of great comfort and benison in Beethoven's music, he seems to have access to something lost to us now.
Words are inadequate to describe the overpowering emotion, but strongly disciplined emotion.
Beethoven understood and new there was a world we had lost (similar to what we have been discussing in another thread), and he returned to that theme again in his late string quartets. They are surely miracles.

What are our other correspondants thoughts on the late string qaurtets?.


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited September 28, 2003).]

Well in reference to another thread they quite clearly are not about something lost but about the future - in Beethoven's own words he was writing them for the future. In anycase I consider all great music as beyond time and this is where I think he was taking us, away from the material to the spiritual world, making us aware of something far greater than ourselves.

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'Man know thyself'

[Amalie]

Originally posted by Peter:
Well in reference to another thread they quite clearly are not about something lost but about the future - in Beethoven's own words he was writing them for the future. In anycase I consider all great music as beyond time and this is where I think he was taking us, away from the material to the spiritual world, making us aware of something far greater than ourselves.

I absolutely agree Peter, Beethoven's string quartets were written for the future, as he stated, and give access to higher regions of thought and feeling, and making us aware of something far greater than ourselves, but don't you think that they are also reflective on his own life and experience, freeing himself from all earthly tribulations, rising up towards the eternal, like he was looking for consolation and balm for some inner sadness?




[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited September 29, 2003).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Amalie:

I absolutely agree Peter, Beethoven's string quartets were written for the future, as he stated, and give access to higher regions of thought and feeling, and making us aware of something far greater than ourselves, but don't you think that they are also reflective on his own life and experience, freeing himself from all earthly tribulations, rising up towards the eternal, like he was looking for consolation and balm for some inner sadness?


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited September 29, 2003).]

Well I suppose you could interpret it that way - I just see them as being on the highest plane ever conceived by the human mind!

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'Man know thyself'

[Joy]

A period of fourteen years separated the Opus 95 Quartet from the last five, a period marked by the great suffering caused by his nephew and the failure to achieve complete public recognition. These last five quartets are regarded by many persons as the epitome of Beethoven's art and of the string quartet medium in general.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[urtextmeister]

I'm glad this topic was brought up. I am fascinated by the late quartets. I agree that they are beautiful and sublime, but I also believe they are the strangest and most puzzling pieces of music ever written.
Yes, there are moments of serenity and spirituality, but they are often interrupted by humurous passages that could only be described as grotesque. I am thinking right now of op. 131, op. 135, Grosse Fuge op. 133.
I think at the heart of Beethoven was conflict and attempts to resolve conflict. These quartets take conflict to a new level. The big question is: does Beethoven resolve the conflict by the last note of the piece?
The late quartets are at times serene and beautiful, but aren't they also disturbing to anyone but me?

[spaceray]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
I'm glad this topic was brought up. I am fascinated by the late quartets. I agree that they are beautiful and sublime, but I also believe they are the strangest and most puzzling pieces of music ever written.
Yes, there are moments of serenity and spirituality, but they are often interrupted by humurous passages that could only be described as grotesque. I am thinking right now of op. 131, op. 135, Grosse Fuge op. 133.
I think at the heart of Beethoven was conflict and attempts to resolve conflict. These quartets take conflict to a new level. The big question is: does Beethoven resolve the conflict by the last note of the piece?
The late quartets are at times serene and beautiful, but aren't they also disturbing to anyone but me?

All I could think of when I first listened to these about a year ago was astonishment at their very complexity and scope.I wonder what Beethoven's contemporary audience must have thought of these as the last note rang out.They were so far ahead of the time.It seems they might have been written yesterday so fresh is their sound to my ears.

[Rod]

Well, this is all well and good about these late quartets. But we've all said many things about these pieces in the past. I'd be more interested in reading a few more comments than I have been recently concerning the works identified on the mp3 page, which, other than the Pathetique, seem to raise very little discussion indeed!


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[spaceray]

I have not been able to successfully download your rare offerings the last three times that you have presented them. While the download seems to strart out ok it always crashes just before completion.I know this is my problem and I do not have a clue how to fix it.I have no difficulities at the Handel site.

[Amalie]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
I'm glad this topic was brought up. I am fascinated by the late quartets. I agree that they are beautiful and sublime, but I also believe they are the strangest and most puzzling pieces of music ever written.
Yes, there are moments of serenity and spirituality, but they are often interrupted by humurous passages that could only be described as grotesque. I am thinking right now of op. 131, op. 135, Grosse Fuge op. 133.
I think at the heart of Beethoven was conflict and attempts to resolve conflict. These quartets take conflict to a new level. The big question is: does Beethoven resolve the conflict by the last note of the piece?
The late quartets are at times serene and beautiful, but aren't they also disturbing to anyone but me?

Interesting comment urtext, for some reasons I always think of the myth of Odysseus when I think of Beethoven and particulary his string quartets, you know the one where Odysseus has himself bound to the mast of the ship to stop him following the siren voices from the island. The point is Beethoven followed the siren voices with no thought for his own personal safety and followed the music into unchartered territory of the mind and the heart. He was literally on another plane when he was writing them, and they are almost like notes dictated from beyond.
They are very intimate.
The Grosse Fuge is the overpowering product of the music, but terrifying and disturbing at the same time I think, nothing has ever been written like it in western music.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Amalie:
The Grosse Fuge is the overpowering product of the music, but terrifying and disturbing at the same time I think, nothing has ever been written like it in western music.

Well not at least until Bartok - I have to say it is years since I listened to the Bartok quartets so disturbing did I find them at the time. I ought to perhaps give them another go as I do think Bartok was perhaps the greatest 20th century composer.

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'Man know thyself'

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
Well, this is all well and good about these late quartets. But we've all said many things about these pieces in the past. I'd be more interested in reading a few more comments than I have been recently concerning the works identified on the mp3 page, which, other than the Pathetique, seem to raise very little discussion indeed!

I agree, though I know I'm guilty of not always commenting on these. Several factors here, it takes an age for me to download mp3s and I do contribute a large number of posts anyway - I'm sure it must be nice for people to have a rest from me! On average I send off around 8 new registrations a day, yet we rarely hear from them on the authentic thread.

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'Man know thyself'

[Amalie]

Originally posted by Peter:
Well not at least until Bartok - I have to say it is years since I listened to the Bartok quartets so disturbing did I find them at the time. I ought to perhaps give them another go as I do think Bartok was perhaps the greatest 20th century composer.

Interesting comparison with Beethoven.

But didn't Bartok compose an opera Bluebeard's Castle,(which he dedicated to his wife), the one about the murdered women behind closed doors, he asked his wife to open each door. Yes, disturbing in a wierd way.
Beethoven wasn't interested in the macabre and the unsavoury elements of life.
Admittedly I have not listened to much of Bartok, but I heard a programme about him some time ago about his time in America and people who had met him there gave them the creeps, who's company they wanted to get out of as quickly as possible.
I would say Sibelius was the greatest 20th century composer, but that is a personal view of course. Bartok certainly had great ability.



[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited October 02, 2003).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Amalie:

Interesting comparison with Beethoven.

But didn't Bartok compose an opera Bluebeard's Castle,(which he dedicated to his wife), the one about the murdered women behind closed doors, he asked his wife to open each door. Yes, disturbing in a wierd way.
Beethoven wasn't interested in the macabre and the unsavoury elements of life.
Admittedly I have not listened to much of Bartok, but I heard a programme about him some time ago about his time in America and people who had met him there gave them the creeps, who's company they wanted to get out of as quickly as possible.
I would say Sibelius was the greatest 20th century composer, but that is a personal view of course. Bartok certainly had great ability.

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited October 02, 2003).]

I wasn't so much comparing their characters as the quartets - for both composers they express their most personal feelings and reveal their musical development. I haven't heard about creepy Bartok in America! His years in America were marked by illness and
he was naturally a very quiet, amiable man committed to musical education. Perhaps a more relevant comparison to Beethoven than Duke Bluebeard's castle would be the Cantata Profana with its themes of man, nature and freedom. I always think of Sibelius as more 19th than 20th century, he had such a long life span and wrote nothing of significance after the 1920s.

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'Man know thyself'