A couple favorite moments in B's String Qrtts

[Ed C]

Oftentimes Beethoven just lays me out with the sheer inventiveness of his compositions - things which at first really just seem weird - but then seem so right.

One that springs to mind is the beginning of the recapitulation of the final movement of Opus 131. The first violin leaves the development with this long dramatic trill - and then keeps on going! I have no idea what this means from a harmony viewpoint, but it's a moment I look forward to every time I hear 131.

You can hear what I'm talking about here:
Opus 131.6

Another great moment is at the end of Opus74, the Harp Quartet. We're well into the coda, things should be winding down - but B suddenly cuts loose with a totally virtuosic 1st violin cadenza snaking through tiptoe pizzicato and one his most yearning themes.

I put a link to that moment here:
Opus 74

[Peter]

Yes Beethoven manages to achieve the impossible by making something that has been laboured over through endless processes to sound completely natural as though it could be no other way - that's true genius!

[Quijote]

Yes Beethoven manages to achieve the impossible by making something that has been laboured over through endless processes to sound completely natural as though it could be no other way - that's true genius!

The impossible? I think in this context we mean the "improbable". Whilst I take little joy in agreeing with our Head, I do so now. I think there is a more flagrant example in Beethoven : the passage in the first movement of the 4th piano concerto where he even manages to make a solid G major chord sound like ... a dissonance. This is not an original idea (Tovey made it more than 80 years ago, I believe), but I hear it that way, and I believe it was intended to be heard that way.

[Michael]

The recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth Symphony is another case of obfuscation. It's in D major (and the tonic major has hardly been heard up to this) but it brings no relief. It is not a blast of sunlight as in the opening of the last movement of the Fifth. It's like a sudden fall into a fiery pit - and it's almost a relief when it returns to the minor.

[Ed C]

The recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth Symphony is another case of obfuscation. It's in D major (and the tonic major has hardly been heard up to this) but it brings no relief. It is not a blast of sunlight as in the opening of the last movement of the Fifth. It's like a sudden fall into a fiery pit - and it's almost a relief when it returns to the minor.

That's a brilliant description Michael. I will definitely have Dante-esque visions next time I hear the 9th .


The 2 things about the 9th which immediately spring to mind (followed by about 300 other 'favorite moments') is the furious, unrelenting, exploding timpani in the recap - far more intense than the loudest heavy metal drum solo.

Excerpt leading into the exploding timpani

The other thing is the 4th's "reminiscence of previous themes" before the bass solo. That's a well-touted example but I still think it's one of the most bizarre - and yet so naturally human - moments of all of B.'s work. It really evokes for me B having a conversation with himself on an orchestral level - almost like he's revealing his thought-processes while creating this final movement. It also gives credit to the listener that he/she will actually recall the previous 3 movements from snatches of just a few measures.

[Michael]

That picture just about nails it, Ed C. I don't often have visual images when listening to Beethoven but that part of the Ninth is like plunging into a supernova - especially when it comes so quickly - with very little build-up as in, say, the Eroica first movement.

[Peter]

Another favourite of mine is the witty ending to Op.95 which actually attracts quite a lot of criticism, but I think it a typical piece of Beethovian humour!

[Sorrano]

Good picture, Ed.

[Ed C]

Another favourite of mine is the witty ending to Op.95 which actually attracts quite a lot of criticism, but I think it a typical piece of Beethovian humour!

Absolutely. He ends a work subtitled "Serioso" with a romp. Cross-referencing the other thread on musical form, this is a Coda, as expected, but what a surprise in microcosm!

The other quartet work which comes to mind which has a happy ending is the Grosse Fuge. After 15 minutes of nightmarish counterpoint and clashing phrases - he ends with an extremely "up" cadence. It's like a cold glass of water after trekking thru the desert.

UP CADENCE

The GF is such an intense work. I could probably list the work measure by measure as a "favorite moment" . Just recently someone wrote on my GF YT vid "amazing level of intricacy and complexity of the parts. Looking at this, I feel pretty confident this piece will stay another few centuries out of reach of musical analysis."

[Ed C]

Good picture, Ed.

Thanks Sorrano. I recently came into "The Art Book" which is one of those huge coffee-table books with a page devoted to every major visual artist, and when I flipped to John Martin's "Great Day of His Wrath" - it just said "9th Symphony" to me right away.

Edit - just had Opus 135, M2 Vivace on. 2 cool things which immediately spring to mind - the sudden E flat half-note accents before the beginning of the 1st repeated section - clearly designed to give whiplash to any minuet fans, and secondly the ostinato figure which repeats almost verbatim for 49 measures. This, to me is the first hip-hop loop in history.

[Michael]

Opus 135 is one of the wonders of this universe and that second movement I would rank as the single most exhilarating piece in all Beethoven (and all music) and it's hard to believe the composer had only months to live. (Please don't call it hip-hop, Ed C! ) Very few players get it just right and (in my very humble whatever) I think the Italianos come closest. I have played recordings of this movement to various people over the years and they all cringe when the ostinato section comes in. The next movement invariably calms them down.

If I had to choose one single moment (or few moments) from any of the string quartets, it would have to be from the slow movement of the first Razumovsky. It's towards the end of the development; Basil Lam describes it as "a long cantilena in the consolatary D flat major" which does little to indicate the beauty of this passage. It was the first piece of string quartet music that I "got" and it never fails to affect me.

[Ed C]

Michael, that's actually one of my least favorite movements

However I will readily admit that that's a failing of taste on my part. Because of my upbringing as a rock guitarist, I tend to gravitate towards what my classical reviewer friend J.D. likes to refer to as "surface excitement"...

The Heiliger Dankgesang and the Cavatina movements were also ones which I had to make a kind of "leap of faith" to really understand and appreciate. But I will give Op.59.1.3 another go...maybe analyze it, that always helps.

(when I say it's one of my least favorite movements, that's like saying "least favorite 5-star restaurant")

[Michael]

Michael, that's actually one of my least favorite movements
(when I say it's one of my least favorite movements, that's like saying "least favorite 5-star restaurant")

I actually detested the whole work when I first heard it. It took me about a year to understand it. My excuse was that I bought the vinyl record in 1969 - around the time "Abbey Road" came out - and it took time for me to make the change-over from the Beatles. (I still haven't made it. )

[Quijote]

[...]However I will readily admit that that's a failing of taste on my part. Because of my upbringing as a rock guitarist, I tend to gravitate towards what my classical reviewer friend J.D. likes to refer to as "surface excitement"...

The Heiliger Dankgesang and the Cavatina movements were also ones which I had to make a kind of "leap of faith" to really understand and appreciate. But I will give Op.59.1.3 another go...maybe analyze it, that always helps [...]

Now we're talking, EdC. Could I say that "gravitating towards the surface excitement" means "the "quick-fix", so to speak? The instant gratification? I think there is no problem with surface excitement (a lot of classical music gives us precisely that). Is that surface excitement you refer to in some way related to the actual "physicality" of playing the music (as rock guitarist, 'cellist, pianist ...)?
As to leaps of faith and analysis, I can't speak for the faith, but yes to the analysis. In light of Preston's comments tonight (GMT + 1h) elsewhere on this forum (in terms of subjectivity), I wonder if we could throw some light on what we mean by "understanding" (forget the "appreciating" for the moment, please!). Don't misunderstand me, I was brought up on analysis, I consider it an excellent tool (as far as it goes). Sometimes though, analysis seems to be a way of finding out what we already knew, so where's the analysis? My memory fails me here, but I vaguely recollect Schoenberg said the more we analyse, the more we lose the overall ability to understand what is being analysed.

[Sorrano]

That Schoenberg quote probably has a lot to do with the cliche of not seeing the forest for the trees. An analytical approach is always fascinating to me as it introduces concepts that otherwise would be completely unknown to me. It helps to understand the thought processes behind the construction, but it cannot give us any idea as to the actual meaning of the tones to be produced unless we know beforehand regarding the composer's intent behind specific types of nuances he or she might use. How each of us interprets those nuances will depend, of course, on each's own cultural background.