Beethoven: String Quartet in E flat, Op.127 (1825)
Maestoso – Allegro
Adagio ma non troppo e molto cantabile – Andante con moto – Adagio molto espressivo – Tempo I
Scherzo:- Vivace – Presto
Allegro – Allegro comodo
This is the second of two glorious quartets in E flat major – traditionally regarded as Beethoven’s “heroic” key, each beginning with a sonorous introduction and including an Adagio in A flat major (since the “Pathétique” sonata a favourite key for lyrical love-song), a very fast Presto trio enclosed within the scherzo, as well as a set of variations. They have a fair number of common features, it is true, but there the similarity ends. The first movement of Op.74 (the “Harp”) may indeed be heroic (for the first violin, anyway….!); but few such pretensions can be found in Op.127. Except that, having crossed the great dividing threshold into the private world of the last piano sonatas and string quartets, the process of creating these works at all, in the most abject and adverse of circumstances, might by its very nature be seen as heroic. Here is a truly affirmative work, nevertheless – as demonstrated from the very outset, and confirmed by a finale as joyful – and folksy – as any from his last years. Yet its flowing triple time opening Allegro (based on a country dance, according to the much revered Joseph Kerman) has little to do with the world of its counterpart in THE Eroica; even its very concision – continuing the precedent of the Opp.101 and 109 sonatas – sets it clearly apart, although it is followed by a variation movement of a scale and depth barely attempted before, yet inevitable after the last sonata of all. It does not quite match the outrageous “Diabelli” variations, of course, but it is this Adagio which is the first of two clear signposts towards what would follow over the next couple of years; the second of them is the extraordinary, almost visionary, manner in which the work concludes….
It would seemed appropriate had Beethoven drawn his career to an apocalyptic close in 1823 with the Missa Solemnis and the “Choral” Symphony, yet such a questing mind could hardly have sought rest at such a time of achievement. He evidently did not see the ninth symphony as his last, since another was planned (and started) – as also were other large-scale works, including an oratorio. But among sketches for the Ninth was some material which later assumed significance: notably the main subject of the rejected instrumental finale, which eventually found its way to the corresponding point in the A minor quartet (Op.132). But there also appeared ideas specifically intended for a string quartet, such that soon after the first performance of the symphony (on 7th May 1824) a quartet in E flat (the present Op.127) was eventually begun – no doubt encouraged by an unfulfilled commission: it was in November 1822 when Prince Nikolas Galitzin (a wealthy Russian nobleman and patron of music, as well as the cellist of the St Petersburg Quartet) invited Beethoven to write him “one, two, or three new quartets, for which I should be delighted to pay you whatever you think adequate”! Three years later, the E flat, A minor, and B flat quartets (Opp.127, 132 and 130, respectively) were all ready – but Beethoven only ever received the 50 ducats agreed for the first of them. This was probably completed in February 1825, nearly fifteen years after its predecessor (the F minor, Op.95), and marks the beginning of his total withdrawal into the private and intimate world of the String Quartet; from now until the end of his life he was to write for no other medium (with the exception of a few vocal canons and brief piano pieces). So it was that with Op.127 he turned his back on every “public” musical form: it is as if the creating of this work drew him into an inner region of utterly personal communion with quartet texture, but a place from which, two years later, he emerged with Op.135 as a Being somehow relieved and exorcised – rather akin to Samson, “Calm of mind, all passion spent”.
Thus do those two works lead us into and out of the great triptych of Opp.130-2; yet it would hardly be worthy to regard them merely as a prelude and coda. Indeed, it could be argued that Op.127 contains the greatest single movement in the entire group, and such is the dominance of its Adagio that its length might seem disproportionate within the quartet as a whole. But so many compositions from Beethoven’s final period have at their centre of gravity (if not always at their actual physical centre) such an extended set of variations, notably the quartets Opp.131/2 and the piano sonatas Opp.106, 109, and 111 – in the cases of the latter two, of course, they act as slow finales towards which all else aspires. Variation form had by now virtually superseded sonata as Beethoven’s principal vehicle for intellectual and emotional expression, bringing with it an almost rhapsodic freedom of tonality and thematic development, uninhibited by the rigours and tensions inherent in classical sonata structure. In terms of sheer expressive variety, the Andante of the C sharp minor quartet (Op.131) must mark the consummation of his exploits in the form – a veritable suite within a suite; but the Adagio of Op.127 achieves a unity and seamless continuity over its huge span – embracing just two deviations from the basic tempo and metre – which surely represents the nearest to perfection anyone has a right to achieve in a set of variations. Miracle after miracle unfolds before us, yet there is no sense of anti-climax as the scherzo steals in with whispered pizzicato; nor at the end of the finale, when the basic pulse actually slackens, rather than quickens.
The very opening of this quartet may well subscribe to the popular associations of the key of E flat for Beethoven – so long as it is understood that no work from this late stage of his career can be encompassed within the bounds of a single adjective: one has only to turn from this quasi “heroic” introduction to the lonely C sharp minor violin/viola duet in the fifth variation of the Adagio to grasp some idea of the vast range of expression and experience covered by this amazing music. The formal layout of the work may seem fairly straightforward at first: there are the traditional four movements (unlike the three quartets which followed), and even the scherzo – albeit a relatively extended one – is in the expected ternary form. Yet the easy-natured, sometimes rustic and rough-hewn finale is eventually rounded off by a lengthy coda (built round a metamorphosis of the main subject) which surprisingly begins in the wrong key (C major). The elevated textures here (and elsewhere in the quartet) conjure an effect of translucence that must have firmly impressed itself on the mind of the young Schoenberg when composing his early chamber works. The end itself strikes a parallel note to that of the great Missa Solemnis, completed just a couple of years earlier: firmly conclusive, but with no big theatrical gesture of any kind.
The first performance (on 6th March 1825) was not a success: the playing of the Schuppanzigh Quartet was held to blame for the fact that the audience could make little sense of the music. Beethoven was furious, and insisted the next performance be taken instead by Joseph Böhm – who later suggested that Schuppanzigh had not managed to find sufficient rehearsal time. Certainly, the new language of the piece was not fully grasped by either the players or their listeners at that first hearing, and although Böhm made certain he learned from Schuppanzigh’s mistake, scheduling an unprecedented number of rehearsals and ensuring the work’s initial failure was corrected, there is a lesson for us all in this apocryphal tale: if a player of Schuppanzigh’s stature – devoted as he had been to the composer’s cause for so many years – struggled to master this strange but transcendent music, then maybe we would all do well to follow Böhm’s example.
© Alan George
