Beethoven by Lewis Lockwood

Author:Lewis Lockwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

The “Harp” Quartet and the “Quartetto Serioso”

Between the monumental Opus 59 and the much later quartets of the last years stand two single quartets: Opus 74 in E-flat major, later called the “Harp” Quartet, and Opus 95 in F minor, which Beethoven himself labeled “Quartetto serioso.” The E-flat Quartet dates from the summer of 1809, along with the “Emperor” Concerto and the Lebewohl Piano Sonata, both of which, it may be noted, are also in E-flat. By 1810 Beethoven had completed Opus 95, which did not appear in print until 1816 as part of the group published by Steiner, with a dedication to Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz “from his friend Ludwig van Beethoven.”30 The private character of the dedication accords well with the character of the work—deeply expressive, tightly condensed, a probing experiment—which at one time Beethoven believed “is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public.”31 Beethoven spent some time in private chamber music sessions in 1809 and 1810, often held at Zmeskall’s house with Schuppanzigh and Anton Kraft performing. A sketchbook from 1809 contains the annotation “quartets every week”; it also contains at least one idea for a C-major quartet that never materialized.

The idea that Opus 74 is a light and genial diversion from the more serious Beethoven is a cliché that could not be more mistaken. This impression arises from the smooth and seemingly placid character of the first movement, along with the extended plucked-string passages that inspired its nickname and the quiet Allegretto variations finale. But it can hardly be sustained in the face of the passionate Adagio or the rough and dynamic Scherzo. These inner movements stand at extreme poles of Beethoven’s middle-period universe, while the first and last surround them with high imagination and subtlety. The work prompts memories of two earlier quartets in the same key: Mozart’s path-finding K. 428 of 1785 and Haydn’s Opus 76 No. 6 of 1797. Haydn’s E-flat masterpiece opens with a variation first movement that Beethoven could well have had in mind when he wrote the finale of Opus 74 (just as Haydn’s B-major Fantasia, as a slow movement, could have influenced Beethoven’s Fantasy Opus 77 a year earlier). In this quartet Beethoven’s contrapuntal treatment of the Trio of the Scherzo—again, as in Opus 59 No. 2—may also reflect his interest in theoretical studies at this time, as the 1809 sketchbook indeed suggests.

The tonal plan of Opus 74 is unusual in that the two middle movements are both in keys other than the tonic, E-flat major. The slow movement is a moving and expressive Adagio in A-flat major, and the Scherzo is in C minor, with a C-major Trio. Beethoven used this kind of tonal plan for a four-movement work in only one other piece from this time, the Piano Trio Opus 70 No. 2, in which the E-flat-major first and last movements frame a second movement in C major and an Allegretto in A-flat. In Opus 74, key relationships by

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