Beethoven Op. 18 String Quartets, Part 1

Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the Classical Music Podcast. My name is Joshua Wythestine, I'm a conductor, and I'm the Music Director of the Phoenix Orchestra of Boston. This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting many to dive into this amazing world of incredible music. Before we get started, I want to thank my new Patreon sponsors, Ted, Evan, Helen, Cheryl, Merlin, Afnon, Chris, and all of my other Patreon sponsors for making Season 9 possible. If you'd like to support the show, please head over to patreon.com/stickynotespodcast. And if you are a fan of the show, please stick a moment to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Every rating or review helps more people find the show, and it is greatly appreciated. So, I am back home in London for the first time in a few weeks, I just had a wonderful week in Lausanne with the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne, we played Brahms as fourth symphony, which I did for two weeks in a row, once in Toronto and once in Lausanne. So, I really got a deep dive for myself with that piece over about, of course, ten different rehearsals and three concerts, also to the Barbara Violin Concerto with the amazing Ning Fun Violinist. And then, we did Ives' Three Places in New England, so I got to cover a lot of the pieces that I'm conducting in the last few weeks in the show, and this will not continue this week, but it's been just really wonderful to dive in, especially with the Brahms, which is a piece that just seems to be inexhaustible. There's so many discoveries I made, and I kept thinking as we were rehearsing, "Oh, I should have put that in the show that I did, oh, I should have put that in the show that I did." Someday, I'll do a sort of pick up the pieces episode of all the different pieces that I've covered way back in the archives and try to put in some of my newest insights, I don't know if I could call them insights, but newest discoveries, for sure. For this week, I wanted to start a look at more chamber music on the show and what better way to start than with the string quartet and then what better way to start with the string quartet than with Beethoven. So I will be doing full analyses of some individual Beethoven string quartets, but to start with, I thought it would be best to understand where Beethoven was coming from, how Beethoven started with the string quartet and where he would be going with the string quartet. So I really hope you enjoy this look at Beethoven's Opus 18s. In 1798, Beethoven, all of 28 years old, was about to begin a project that would take him to the last days of his life. A project that would result in some of the most far-reaching, most cosmic, most life-affirming, most dramatic, and simply put, some of the greatest music, he or anyone else, whatever right. This project, the Beethoven was beginning with his first set of string quartets. Beethoven wrote/published 16 string quartets during his life, and they are both a superhuman achievement and yet also a testament to the ability of a single person to create music of vast complexity and the deepest of emotions, all for just four musicians. I've done a two-part episode on one of Beethoven's late quartets Opus 132, but to really understand Beethoven's quartets and his achievements with them as he progressed through his life, we have to start at the beginning. Beethoven was very rarely in the shadow of anyone during his life, but when I came to the string quartet, Beethoven still felt very much indebted to two of his colleagues, Heiden and Mozart. Heiden had essentially invented the genre of the string quartet, and by 1798 was beginning the massive project of cataloging and writing out his 68 completed string quartets. Mozart had died only seven years earlier, leaving us with some of the most pristine and gorgeous entries in this still, relatively new at the time, genre of instrumentation. Beethoven had a lot to live up to with these quartets, and perhaps that's why it took him two years of writing, then furious editing, then writing, then furious editing, then etc., to complete them, and to publish his first set of six string quartets as his Opus 18. Beethoven's music is often separated into early, middle, and late periods, and these string quartets are always placed into the early period, which makes sense considering his later works. But that also belies the fact that Beethoven had already accomplished quite a bit by the time he turned 30. It's safe to say that these pieces come near the end of this early period, where Beethoven was still working out how to embrace the classical traditions that he admired so much in composers like Mozart and Heiden, while also finding his own path as the creator of brand new traditions, smashing the rulebook along the way. So this week I wanted to take you through an overview of these amazing works. We'll talk about the genre of the string quartet itself. What Heiden and Mozart had essentially codified when Beethoven wrote his Opus 18s? And of course, what Beethoven did with this genre, even at this early stage, which is often absolutely astonishing in its creativity, intensity, and just plain excitement. I can't wait to start this project of looking at the Beethoven quartets with you, so let's get going, coming right up, on stickiness. Let's play 1798 into context first. Beethoven was 28 years old and Heiden written his first symphony yet. That would come three years later. But even without any symphonies, Beethoven had written a whole bunch of piano sonatas, piano trios, violin sonatas, cello sonatas, and more. But as he set out to write his first set of published string quartets, he did have that looming shadow of the giants of Mozart and Heiden hanging over him. And he suffered with this, much like Brahms did when he was trying to write his first symphony. Well, it took Brahms until he was nearly 50 to turn out his first symphony, but Beethoven was, as always, a little bit more reckless and plunged into this two-year process to write these string quartets. But what model was Beethoven working under to write them? I've talked a lot about symphonic works on this show, and at least through the early and even late romantic eras, symphonies tended to follow a certain formula, moderately fast first movement usually in Sonata Form, with an exposition where the main themes are laid out, a development where the themes are turned over and played around with, a recapitulation where the main themes come back in the home key, and usually a Coda. The second and third movements varied slightly, but usually one would be a slow movement, usually a bit more emotional, and one would be a dance movement, either an elegant minuet, like in Heiden's day, or a scarred so, a much faster and energetic type of dance invented by Beethoven. And then a last movement that was usually fast and exciting. This formula worked for dozens and dozens of composers, but some of the best pieces are those that tweak the formula slightly, or quite a lot. Beethoven was one of those composers who tweaked with the formula, sometimes adding a movement like in his sixth symphony, sometimes alighting movements together, like in his fifth and sixth symphonies, sometimes removing a slow movement like in his seventh symphony, playing around with the length of his symphonies, like the first symphony being 20 minutes long and the third being nearly 50 and more. So what was the formula for the string quartet? Well to know that, we have to go back to the inventor of the string quartet, Joseph Heiden, Papa Heiden, one of the greatest composers of all time, and a perennially underrated one as well. And Heiden's time there was no accepted practice of two violins of viola and a cello playing together as equals. The closest thing to a string quartet was a trio sonata, which was a group of two musicians, accompanied by a continuo section, like a cello and a harpsichord, for example. Heiden, mostly by chance, found an opportunity to expand on this idea when he wrote his first string quartets at the age of 18. At most of Heiden's works, these were pieces born of circumstance. The teenage Heiden was often invited to a nobleman's castle, as one is, where he would be asked to play with another violinist of violist and cellist. Needing music for this ensemble, Heiden's first string quartets were created, and he saw such success with them that he decided to return to the genre again and again throughout his life. Falling in love with these pieces of his beloved teacher and colleague, Mozart would then take up the genre, and the string quartet was soon an extremely popular form of chamber music. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Heiden's string quartets followed very much the formal logic of Heiden's symphonies, with a very similar structure of four movements, with all the characteristics that I laid out earlier. But Heiden, as I said, wrote 68 quartets, so again, some of his greatest pieces are where he messes around with his form a bit. So it's not a fetal complete that string quartets have to follow that formula. And in Beethoven's late quartets, he seems to throw out the formula altogether. But in his Opus 18's, Beethoven is not so bold. If we start out a bird's eye view of Beethoven's Opus 18 quartets here, we can look at the structure of each one of them and see quite a bit of formula. Each quartet is in four movements, and each one follows the formula to a T that I've shared with you earlier. Even the order of the movements almost never changes, with the Opus 18 #5 being the only exception of a middle movement order of slow movement followed by dance movement. Six quartets, which are nearly carbon copies of the models that Heiden set up for the string quartet. So, how does Beethoven create variety out of that? Well, he does it through his usual techniques, so they aren't as heavily developed as they became later in his career. For now, let's take a quick look at each quartet, and as we go, I'll zero in into a deeper analysis of four of my favorite movements. Let's start with Opus 18 #1, the first in the set, though apparently not the first to be written. They often publish them in a different order than they were written in, which is important because as we go through the quartets, I think you will see a development if not an emotional intensity in emotional complexity. [Music] 18 #1, as it is called by musicians, is a piece that Beethoven actually edited quite a bit. He sent a completed copy of it to his friend Carl Amenda, but a few weeks later he asked for it back, saying he had suddenly learned how to write a real string quartet, and that he would make changes to it. The final version bears a lot of resemblances to the original, but as the great Misha Amory, the vealist of the Brantano string quartet, says, "Generated a new version of the piece, which taken broadly, seems very close to the earlier version, but in fact has been altered almost in every bar, in a thousand details of orchestration, harmonization, rhythm, texture, and dynamic." Those are the details that Beethoven struggled over so much, and they are the details which makes all of his pieces so great. I'll analyze the second movement of this quartet in greater detail in a moment as the first of the deep-dive movements, but take a look at the very beginning of the piece first. Another one of those themes that Beethoven creates that seems like nothing at all. [Music] That's it, just that little motive of ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Now listen to the first 20 or so measures of the piece. [Music] Listen again, and listen to how many different characters Beethoven creates with a combination of rhythm and harmony, all based on that little motive, anticipating and expectant. [Music] Expressive. Rambunctious. Pain. Hopeful. Playful. Childlike. [Music] That's just 20 bars. It's remarkable how much he's able to create, and this continues throughout the exposition of the movement, including a second theme that is seemingly nothing but a falling set of arpeggios, but which Beethoven makes interesting by constantly shifting the emphasis of the beat. The beat is soft balance in a playful and innocent way. [Music] With all this said, this is as traditional a first movement as you can get, including a dramatic development section that transforms that opening motive into yet another, much stormier character. [Music] And a recapitulation that Beethoven approaches with humor and surprise, giving us the opening theme in a robust and forceful, loud dynamic that once again shows off its variety. [Music] But later on in the movement we'll see some of Beethoven's erasible and strange sense of humor and his total individuality. And this is something that comes up again and again in these six quartets. Beethoven doesn't break the rules, but he breaks your expectations. Heiden and Mozart quartets, for example, rarely stop mid-sentence, but Beethoven does it all the time. [Music] Heiden and Mozart quartets don't very often have dramatic changes in character across those silences, but Beethoven does it as a matter of course, like a lightning quick mood change. [Music] Beethoven also uses abrupt and seemingly basic harmonic changes that no other composer would dare to do, like in this section where the music just stops and starts as Beethoven takes the key to where he needs it to be. [Music] This is pretty awkward, and Beethoven later in his career I think found better ways to do this, but it still shows that completely unique sense of music that Beethoven had. He thought nothing of interrupting and movements flow with stops and starts and scales like this. It's a different way of listening to music, as if someone is constantly reaching out to you from the stage and shouting "Listen! This is important!" [Music] The second movement of the quartet is absolutely extraordinary and it's one of the rare cases where we probably know Beethoven's direct inspiration for the movement. Jans Wofferdo is practically a de facto guest on this show every time I talk about Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, or Ives, thanks to his amazing book on those subjects, said in his Beethoven biography that Beethoven always claimed that he had a narrative or other outside inspiration for his pieces, but he kept them to himself. In this case, perhaps as a consequence of youth, Beethoven didn't, telling Carl Amenda, the friend he sent that first draft to, that the movement was inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and specifically the scene in the tomb near the end of the play. Beethoven even wrote a small note in his sketches in French, Le Dernier, Super, where the last breaths. This is one of Beethoven's great movements by any definition, and if he had died after writing this quartet alone, it would have been enough to grant him a place in the great composer Pantheon. Let's look a little closer at this movement. The tempo marking is telling enough as it is, adagio, affituoso, y pasionato. The translation of "affituoso" to English is affectionate, but that's not usually how it's used in music. And music, it seems to mean something a bit more intense than that, a kind of embrace that goes beyond simple affection. It seems like Beethoven wanted to clear that up as well as he adds passionate to his tempo instruction. And we hear that right away with that pulsating, breathing accompaniment, followed by the longest of lines in the first violin, full of pain and agony. (gentle music) Beethoven is known for short phrases, short utterances, relying on short motives, but this line seems to never end. Even when it stops and starts, the harmony refuses to resolve, and we feel the sense of tension and agony through the silences. And like opening a book starting in mid-sentence, the cello takes on the theme. It feels like we haven't arrived anywhere yet, even though we are over a minute into the theme. You'll see as we go through the bird's-eye view of the quartets just how unusual this movement is, but it's safe to say most of the music is like the first movement we've talked about, not like this. As the movement rolls on, dominated by that heavy triplet accompaniment, we suddenly think of happier times, and a moment full of an nostalgia that Beethoven would rarely return to in his later music. This is naked expression of a kind that Beethoven rarely went to, because usually Beethoven includes something destabilizing in his limits, but here we have pure melody. This movement truly stands out. Despite its originality, this movement still displays some of the hallmarks of the classical style that Beethoven embraced, while always pushing forward. He sticks in the major key for quite a while, which is a convention of a slow movement in a minor key. It's only much later on that Beethoven would experiment with sticking with a minor key throughout a movement, as it was not thought of as proportionate in regards to character. Even in a movement as sad as this we get a long reprieve from the darkness. Or perhaps Beethoven was thinking of the way Mozart would write some of his saddest music in a major key. The dominant theme throughout this section is a kind of nostalgia and remembering, going perfectly with the anguished lines of Romeo and Juliet in the tomb. This is a huge movement, lasting nearly 10 minutes, and it is unquestionably the center of this quartet and the movement you remember. Listen to the beginning of the development, when a Beethoven's most agonized and dramatic. The triplets pound away while the second violin and viola sing out the lamenting theme, and the first violin seems to be almost screaming. Beethoven has the ability to make this music sound both lamenting and anxious at the same time. The triplets along with the bada bada bada bada bada bada bada bada bada bada bada accompaniment, pushing the theme along, giving us the feeling that we have something caught in our chest. And we've reached one of the most extraordinary moments in the movement. The moment of the last breaths, where Beethoven bravely has the quartet play a single note for each long measure, and then stop. If people on the hall are able to hold in their coughs here, this is a heart-stopping moment of mingled terror and melancholy. We seem to be right alongside Romeo and Juliet, perhaps we are the two lovers themselves. As now the theme appears again, but with an added anxiety to the accompaniment, which often intrudes with the rage of the beginning of the development. Beethoven is always at his most creative with his accompaniments, as the triplets that have dominated the movement are now transformed into far more anxious 16th notes. As if in response we hear a cry of pain from the first violin while the cello pushes the theme out from the lower depths of the quartet. This is a level of naked emotion that to me makes it clear that Beethoven is truly thinking in a narrative fashion, perhaps unlike many of his other works. Beethoven's music often seems to be an expression of his own and by extension humanities, trials, and triumphs, but here I see Beethoven's storyteller, just one step removed from the pain we are in. Suddenly the music stops again and we have long silences, but not in grief like before. Now we have pure agony and even rage. Which seems to be in full blast until without any preamble things dissipate and we are thrown into hopelessness. And Beethoven, a composer known for his sometimes hilariously drawn out endings, simply ends here. There's no epilogue, no coda, no hope, just death, and almost shocking lack of finality. This movement is a singular example from the Opposite teens, with only the last movement of 186 coming anywhere close in path of some expressive intensity. It's almost like Beethoven wants to forget what he explored as he moves into the rest of the quartet. The last movement of this quartet is another nod to Beethoven's past, here it is. And here is the first theme of the last movement in one of his string trios. [music] Well, I'm in common, eh? This woman is full of humor and lightness, with some traditional Beethovenian acid to wash it all down. Let's get into these quartets as like biting into a crisp and sweet, and yet remarkably tart, apple. [music] On the other hand, Opus 18 #2, which was actually the third quartet that Beethoven wrote in the set, is probably the most classical era inspired. And funnily enough, that means it's probably the least performed of the six. A few weeks ago, I covered Louise for ranks third symphony, which I often described as an amalgam between the models of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Schumann symphonies, with a healthy dose of originality included. I could apply some of the same analysis to Opus 18 #2, and then it very much feels like a combination of Mozart's grace and Haydn's wit, along with Beethoven's sometimes bad temper. The opening of the quartet is so graceful that this quartet was often called "The Bow and Curtsy Quartet." The movement features some of the trademark of Beethoven's style, with an opening phrase followed by a pause, and then a surprisingly loud and rambunctious statement. [Music] But the second theme is all Mozart and then Haydn, a graceful beginning followed by a playful little hopping motion. [Music] The end of the movement is almost shockingly gentle for a composer as well known for stormy music as Beethoven was. Beethoven slows the music down for a contemplative moment, all based on that opening, bowing motive, and for a moment he seems to be revealing something deeper in it. [Music] [Music] But with a puff of smoke everything fades away, and everything is all smiles again. [Music] This moment features a little bit of Beethovenian roughness, but in general it could have been written by the fictional composer Wolfgang Amadeus Haydn. The second movement is even more Mozartian, with an aria full of warmth and love sung by the first violin. As Misha Amary says quote, "We seem to be transported for the time being from the quartet chamber to the opera stage, where the soprano sings her love with coloratura flourishes." [Music] [Music] But Beethoven can't resist doing something to break the flow of this gorgeous aria, and suddenly it seems like Carubino from the marriage a figure arrives. And without warning this gorgeous music that had been floating away is dashing around in a tizzy full of that Beethoven robustness and drive. [Music] [Music] [Music] This is a preview of Beethoven's late quartets, with their rapid and sometimes dizzying shifts of mood and character. But here this moment is just an interlude, an idea that Beethoven hasn't quite worked out yet, before the aria returns in all of its glory. [Music] The last moment is the most recognizable of the quartet. It's incredibly playful, the heighten on steroids character that I like to describe Beethoven's early music as having. The key is changing rapidly, and there is at times a kind of muck anger, a kind of "can you top this vibe between the instruments?" And all of it is just so fun. The piece ends with one of Beethoven's favorite techniques, a ramp of energy that finally dissipates, followed by a quiet statement of the main theme. [Music] But somehow because of that mysterious genius of Beethoven's structural logic, we get the sense that things are coming to an end. And with a thrilling crescendo, the joy and fun of this most classical aria-like quartet comes to a resolutely Beethovenian end. [Music] Oppositing number three is actually the very first quartet of this set, and it's interesting to ask the question, why then did Beethoven publish it third in the group? Well, when you hear this piece, I think you might understand why, especially when compared to the muscularity of the quartet he ended up putting first, 181. Compare the beginnings of these two quartets, first, Oppositing number one, then Oppositing number three. [Music] 181 seems like so much more of an announcement, right? 183 enters unobtrusively, gently as if it's unsure. Three things that we know were definitely not true about Beethoven's character. I think Beethoven wanted to make a statement with that first quartet also with that amazing slow movement, and 183 with its gentle character almost throughout the four movements doesn't quite do that. Let's take our second deep dive now with a look at this first movement as it is the first first movement that Beethoven wrote of his string quartets. As I said just a moment ago, the piece begins softly with the first violin beginning a beautifully searching theme that wanders around the harmonic landscape before ending on an operatic appoggiatura. An appoggiatura is a delayed resolution. In this case this note is supposed to be part of the resolution chord, but it is delayed by the note a half step below it, adding expression to the chord, and then a feeling of "ah" as we resolve. The theme then begins to cascade, starting in the viola, then the two violins, before the first violin begins an improvisatory exploration. This movement is all about wandering. It is completely different from the first two quartets we talked about today, and then instead of silences and surprises, Beethoven always elides the themes together, creating this kind of slightly unsettled elegance. Listen to how the improvisation ends with the cello anchoring the group with the main theme, while the music finally feels settled in its gently playful character. This movement is one long winding road. But Beethoven never stays in one character for too long, and this transition to the second theme is a great example of this. Suddenly we are thrust out of the elegance and gentle character of the opening and thrown to Beethoven's more spicy side, with accents in the wrong beats and a feeling of anticipation that only Beethoven can create. It tumbles us into the second theme, which is one of my favorite Beethoven quartet themes, and actually the second theme taking us to the end of the exposition, as this is a perfectly foreign sonata for movement, is a great way of seeing how a composer's voice develops over time. Now we have the benefit of hindsight listening to this quartet, as if you know his later music, and you probably know some of his symphonies, which are as good of a window as any to understanding these quartets. You know where Beethoven is going. You know his sense of drama, his willingness to change characters even more rapidly and abruptly than we've heard in these three quartets. His sense of obsessive rhythm, his desire to push the expressive envelope as far as he could go, and above all else, the remarkable humanity in all of his music. Beethoven was famous for his surly and aggressive personality, but also for his firm belief in humanity as a whole. I like to say that Beethoven loved humanity, but hated people, and believe it or not, all of that is here. First in the second theme, which is elegant and wistful and playful all at once, thanks to Beethoven's ease of working with harmony. It starts playfully, but then Beethoven turns to the minor key, and it becomes wistful. With no warning, the music becomes proud and defiant, with the harmony seeming to lose the grounding that it's had so far. And the defiance extends to a four note motif that if you're very familiar with Beethoven's music, you might recognize. Beethoven loves this four note idea, and it came to its head in one of his last and greatest and weirdest works, The Gross of Fuga, which begins with the mother of all four note ideas. The exposition ends with the return to elegance, followed by silly hiding-like playfulness, followed by some bizarrely rough chords that seem to suggest there's a lot more beneath the surface of all of this friendliness. Let's hear the whole second theme group as it's called one more time. It's absolutely remarkable how much variety Beethoven achieves in just about a minute of music. , and it's a very interesting theme. It's a very interesting theme. It's all so great, but this is again where the benefit of hindsight comes in, and we can recognize that Beethoven takes all of these ideas to new levels as he moves forward with his music. What he achieves here is spectacular, but truly it's a different story with his later quartets, which is why I can't wait to tell you about them later on this season. The development is a traditional Beethoven development, in that he takes the music to places that seemed impossible to find moments ago. We started a dark and unsettled world with the violin continuing to wander. We have some innocence, but then this little motive is transformed into the cranky Beethoven. It doesn't compare to the rage of his later music, but that makes sense as Beethoven is still writing in the classical framework, where anger is an emotion expressed with at least a little bit of restraint. It's certainly there and should be played passionately, but we're not allowed to totally let loose. The end of the development is extraordinary, though. We build up to a huge climax the crisis moment of the quartet, and did you hear that? The viola and the cello are left alone on a sea sharp, the half step. below the key of this movement, which is D major. It's an unbelievable dissonance for a movement that has been so kindhearted, and it's one of those moments that leaves us extremely unsettled and anxious, exactly where Beethoven wants us to be. But not to worry, with ingenious skill, Beethoven simply moves up to D major, and the recapitulation begins, as elegant as before, but with the memory of the terror from before. By the way, remember that apostatura from the opening theme? Beethoven has done the same thing here harmonically. That is structural and logical planning for you. Remember how the exposition ended? So how is Beethoven going to end the recapitulation and go into the Coda? Well, it starts the same way. It's almost like we've begun a second development, especially with that intimate and sad version of the second theme. But Beethoven is not yet ready to play with form that much, and instead it's a bit of a fake out, as the first theme begins the cascade through every instrument, and the movement ends as joyfully as it began. The second movement continues us in the same character, but with a darker hue, as the music seems to sit in the lower registers of the quartet, rather than in the rarified era of first. There is a delicate character that seems almost completely out of character for Beethoven, if you only know his later works, and a sense of humor too. Listen to the way this music develops through its impossibly spare beginnings. A single violin, the second violin, joining. Fuel the joining with trills in the violins, and suddenly we're all laughing quietly to ourselves. But a philosopher enters the stage, and the music returns to its warm and quietly passionate outpouring. There are lots of games going on in this movement, some had Beethoven was better at than people give him credit for. The Coda is extraordinary in this movement. The cello begins a long winding line, leading the way, while triplets that have alternately been the accompaniment or a pounding declaration throughout, dance over the top. The music fragments out into a dialogue between the violins and the viola and cello. With the viola and cello attempting to bring the violins home. Listen to the stability of the viola and cello harmony against the instability of the violins. But the viola and cello end up succeeding as we come to rest in this beautiful slow movement. Beethoven invented the genre of the scared so, a much faster and more energetic dance than the stately menuette. But in this quartet, even this scared so, is a bit more gentle than others of his. It's so accommodating and friendly that it almost sounds more like Hayden than Beethoven, maybe on purpose. And the last movement is all about fun and games, though it's with our modern ears that we might find a reference that Beethoven never would have thought of. Some people seem to think this movement resembles the Mexican hat dance. I'm not sure I hear it other than a rhythmic connection, and usually, though, I do love these kind of funny connections with modern music, like my all-time favorite, the last movement of Brahms's C Major Trio and its best friend, the opening theme of the Simpsons. But with this movement in Beethoven, it's all about those triplets and how they fly and dance all over the quartet, every musician egging each other on. As we finish part one of the show today, let's listen to this whole movement. It follows Shakespeare's maxim that brevity is the soul of wit. I'd recommend listening to this movement with a smile and with an ear for how fast things change, for the car crashes, for the laughs, the roars, and the pure virtuosity it takes to perform this music. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ And that takes us to the end of part one of the show. I want to mention that all of the recordings from the show are from the Cleveland Quartet, which happens to be the quartet that my dad played in for 20 years, from 1969 to 1989. The recordings the quartet made are absolutely fantastic, though obviously I am a little bit biased. And they are available to listen to if not to download from the website clevelandquartet.com. Next week we'll take a look at the final three quartets of the Opus 18's, from the drama of Opus 18 #4, which features Beethoven's soon to be favorite key C minor, his ridiculously elegant Opus 18 #5, and then Opus 18 #6, which heralds a new outlook on the quartet, with its stunning introduction to its last movement. Beethoven's string quartets changed the musical world, and I'm so enjoying going through the beginnings of this transformation with you. ♪♪ Thanks so much for listening to Sticky Nuts today, and we will have part two for you next week, so don't miss our next episode. If you like what you heard today, please feel free to rate and review the show on iTunes, that really helps the show gain more visibility. And please send any questions to Sticky Nuts podcast at gmail.com, or my Facebook page at Sticky Nuts podcast, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. And if you'd like to support the podcast monetarily, just head over to patreon.com/stickynutspodcast. Thanks, and I'll talk to you again after a while. ♪♪