MOZART, BEETHOVEN & MORE

Allegretto
Vivace
Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo
Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß [The difficult decision]. Grave, ma non troppo tanto (Muss es sein? [Must it be?]) – Allegro (Es muss sein! [It must be!]) – Grave, ma non troppo tratto – Allegro

Beethoven’s final string quartet (only the replacement finale of Op.130 is later) was completed in October 1826. After an awful summer during which his nephew Karl had attempted suicide and been imprisoned, Beethoven was able to escape to the tranquillity of Gneixendorf, a village near Krems about fifty miles from Vienna. He arrived at the end of September and his last masterpiece was finished in the following month, much of it composed outdoors (the locals were amused to observe Beethoven singing and waving his arms as he worked). It is dedicated to his friend and supporter Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer, who was originally to have been the dedicatee of the C sharp minor Quartet Op.131. The F major Quartet Op.135 is much the shortest of the late quartets, and there’s a conciseness and simplicity that perhaps point forward to the direction Beethoven might have pursued in his music had he lived longer. Its less serious mood can also be explained by the circumstances in which it was written: at the end of his tether after his nephew’s problems in the summer, the composer could at last be refreshed. Op.135 seems to be imbued with this new sense of well-being, and within a relatively conventional movement structure (unlike several of the other late quartets), Beethoven expresses both humour and the deepest seriousness with amazing brevity. The expressive heart of the work was probably the first part to be composed: the Lento assai, barely fifty bars long, was originally intended for the Op.131 Quartet. The finale has the famous superscription “The difficult decision”, based on a question-and-answer motif: “Must it be? – It must be!” The origins of this are a canon jotted down at the end of July 1826, “half-humorous, half-philosophical” as Barry Cooper puts it, providing the ideal theme for a movement that seems to encapsulate the “difficult decisions” that marked out Beethoven as a timeless genius.

© Nigel Simeone 2013

i. Vivace assai 
ii. Largo e cantabile 
iii. Scherzo. Allegro – Trio 
iv. Finale. Allegretto 
 

Haydn’s Op.33 came after a ten-year gap from his previous string quartet. In 1781 he wrote this set of six pieces that have since been called the ‘Russian’ quartets, as Haydn dedicated them to the Grand Duke Paul of Russia. ‘Russian’ quartet No. 5 is also known as ‘How Do You Do’, due to the four-note sequence that opens the first theme, and that is repeated at various intervals throughout all four movements.  The second movement is set apart from the other lively and upbeat movements, holding a darker, more melancholy feeling to it. The Scherzo is by far the most playful of the four pieces, containing displaced accents and long pauses that constantly fool the listener into believing the piece is reaching its end. Together, Op.33 No.5 is a set of sophisticated pieces full of energy and momentum, that audiences have adored since Haydn first composed them. 

i. Allegro 
ii. Menuetto and Trio 
iii. Andante (theme with variations) 
iv. Allegro non troppo 
 

Mozart wrote this String Quartet in A major in 1785, and it was the fifth of his six quartets that he dedicated to contemporary composer Joseph Haydn. Haydn and Mozart held each other’s work in high regard, even sitting down together to play the last three ‘Haydn’ quartets, with Haydn on first violin and Mozart playing viola. String Quartet in A major is much more frugal in its makeup than many of Mozart’s other works, with only a couple of short musical themes being established and explored in each piece. Ironically though, it is one of his longest quartets. It is sometimes known as the Drum because in the sixth variation of the Andante, the cello part has a repeated staccato section that has been likened to a drumbeat. The coda in the Allegro non troppo picks up on Haydn’s practice of ‘joke’ endings, bringing the set to a playful conclusion.