C - sharp minor Quartet
Here is a very interesting, beautiful description of this masterwork, written by Richard Wagner, in an essay dedicated to Beethoven, that I felt compelled to share with you all.
"The lengthy opening Adagio, surely the saddest thing ever said in notes, I would term the awaking on the dawn of a day "that in its whole long course shall ne'er fulfil one wish, not one wish!" Yet it is like a penitential prayer, a communing with God in firm belief of the Eternal Goodness.
"The inward eye then traces the consoling vision (Allegro 6/8), perceptible by it alone, in which that longing becomes a sweet but plaintive playing with itself: the image of an inmost dream takes waking form as a loveliest remembrance. And then (with the short transitional Allegro moderato) it is as if the master, grown conscious of his art, were settling to work at his magic; its re-summoned force he practises (Andante 2/4) on the raising of one graceful figure, the blessed witness of inherent innocence, to find a ceaseless rapture in that figure's never-ending, never-heard-of transformation by the prismatic changes of the everlasting light he casts thereon.
"Then we seem to see him, profoundly gladdened by himself, direct his radiant glances to the outer world (Presto 2/2): once more it stands before him as in the Pastoral Symphony, all shining with his inner joy. It is as though he heard the native accents of the appearances that move before him in a rhythmic dance, now blithe and now blunt. He looks on Life, and seems to ponder (short Adagio 3/4) how to set about the tune for Life itself to dance to: a brief but gloomy brooding, as if the master were plunged in his soul's profoundest dream. One glance has shown him the inner essence of the universe again: he wakes, and strikes the strings into a dance the like whereof the world had never heard (Allegro finale). It is the dance of the whole world itself: wild joy, the wail of pain, love's transport, utmost bliss, grief, frenzy, riot, suffering; the lightning flickers, thunders growl: and above it the stupendous fiddler who bans and bends it all, who leads it haughtily from whirlwind into whirlpool, to the brink of the abyss ... he smiles at himself, for to him this sorcery was the merest play. And night beckons him. His day is done. "
"The lengthy opening Adagio, surely the saddest thing ever said in notes, I would term the awaking on the dawn of a day "that in its whole long course shall ne'er fulfil one wish, not one wish!" Yet it is like a penitential prayer, a communing with God in firm belief of the Eternal Goodness.
"The inward eye then traces the consoling vision (Allegro 6/8), perceptible by it alone, in which that longing becomes a sweet but plaintive playing with itself: the image of an inmost dream takes waking form as a loveliest remembrance. And then (with the short transitional Allegro moderato) it is as if the master, grown conscious of his art, were settling to work at his magic; its re-summoned force he practises (Andante 2/4) on the raising of one graceful figure, the blessed witness of inherent innocence, to find a ceaseless rapture in that figure's never-ending, never-heard-of transformation by the prismatic changes of the everlasting light he casts thereon.
"Then we seem to see him, profoundly gladdened by himself, direct his radiant glances to the outer world (Presto 2/2): once more it stands before him as in the Pastoral Symphony, all shining with his inner joy. It is as though he heard the native accents of the appearances that move before him in a rhythmic dance, now blithe and now blunt. He looks on Life, and seems to ponder (short Adagio 3/4) how to set about the tune for Life itself to dance to: a brief but gloomy brooding, as if the master were plunged in his soul's profoundest dream. One glance has shown him the inner essence of the universe again: he wakes, and strikes the strings into a dance the like whereof the world had never heard (Allegro finale). It is the dance of the whole world itself: wild joy, the wail of pain, love's transport, utmost bliss, grief, frenzy, riot, suffering; the lightning flickers, thunders growl: and above it the stupendous fiddler who bans and bends it all, who leads it haughtily from whirlwind into whirlpool, to the brink of the abyss ... he smiles at himself, for to him this sorcery was the merest play. And night beckons him. His day is done. "
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