Beethoven String Quartet, Op. 132 (Part 2)

[music] Hello and welcome to Sticky Notes, the Classical Music Podcast. My name is Joshua Weylerstein, I'm a conductor and I'm the artistic director of the Lozan Chamber Orchestra in Lozan, Switzerland. This podcast is for anyone who loves classical music, works in the field, or is just getting ready to dive into this amazing world of incredible music. Before we get started, I want to thank my new Patreon sponsor, Alvin, and all of my other Patreon sponsors for making season five 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 just take 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. Before we move on, just one more thing, I'm planning another Ask Me Anything, or Mail Bag episode to air on June 21st. I have a few questions saved up already for the show, but I would love to hear more from you about any questions you might have about classical music, about conducting, about things I'm doing, or anything else, hence Ask Me Anything. I'll give you until Sunday, June 16th, that's in three days to send in your questions, so get them into [email protected], and we'll do an AMA/mail bag together, hopefully including some surprise guests. Okay, thanks, and on to part two of today's Patreon sponsored episode on Beethoven's string quartet, Opus 132. If you joined me last week, you heard about the severe intestinal illness that Beethoven suffered from during the year of 1825. Beethoven thought that he was near death, he was spitting up blood and terrible pain, and regularly begged his doctor for help. In Skonston-Baden, a Viennese suburb known for its nature and calm, Beethoven slowly and miraculously recovered from the illness, giving him two more years to compose. These two years brought us the quartets Opus 130, Opus 131, Opus 135, a series of cannons, sketches for a tenth symphony, and of course Opus 132. Obviously, even as he suffered from this illness, Beethoven knew that he had much more in him left to compose. The four quartets, I mentioned, that he wrote upon recovery from this illness, all rank in the top ten of the greatest musical compositions ever written by anyone. During the slow movement of Opus 132, Beethoven takes the opportunity to thank the deity, who or whatever that was, to Beethoven for his recovery. This 15-20-minute movement is, as I said last week, beyond superlatives. But I'll do my best to quell my enthusiasm and look at this movement's structure, its fascinating harmonic language, and of course, its spiritual dimension. Well, then take apart the final two movements of the piece. Two movements that teach us so much about Beethoven as a composer, has a person, and as a performer. No piece of Beethoven's struggles for so long before finally reaching a glorious conclusion, but don't worry, we'll get there in the end. And all of this and more is coming right up, on Steginitz. "Hallelujah Dankesam, eines Genesenen an die Gotheit." Or, holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the deity, in the Lydian mode. This is the title that Beethoven gave to his slow movement, the center of the piece and the fulcrum on which the entire piece turns towards its conclusion. This was incredibly rare for Beethoven to add a title. He made very sure throughout his life to rarely say just what his music was about. Unfortunately, this has led to a lot of mythologizing about Beethoven's intentions by characters such as Beethoven's student and assistant, Anton Schindler, who famously exaggerated or invented stories, such as the fifth symphony being about fate knocking at the door. But at least in this movement, we can certainly understand what Beethoven was doing. But there are two questions here. One practical and one really metaphysical. Let's start with the practical question. What is the Lydian mode? Well, the mode is a scale with specific notes denoting its sound. The major scale is a mode as is the minor scale. The Lydian mode sounds very similar to a major scale, with one important note, the fourth changed. Here's a major scale. And now a Lydian scale. The Lydian mode can be played in different keys, but it's home really is in F major. If you were listening very closely to last week's show, you might remember that I mentioned that Beethoven broke the rules in his first movement by playing his second theme in F major rather than C major. F major doesn't totally belong in a piece in A minor, but in the first movement, Beethoven is taking us there and previewing what he'll do in the third movement. In addition, the Lydian mode removes the one note that really doesn't belong in A minor, the B flat. Therefore, in essence, by using the Lydian mode, Beethoven has it both ways. The key is actually the same as a minor, the scale, but the sound of the music is an F major. Does that make any sense? Well, try listening to an A minor scale, and then an F Lydian scale together. They actually use the same notes. Just the A minor scale starts on an A and the F Lydian starts on an F. Anyway, why does this matter? And why is Beethoven mixing in an old mode rather than just using traditional harmony like all the other classical Eric composers did? Well, Beethoven was fascinated with church music from the medieval and Renaissance period. Most of this music used modes rather than keys. As music evolved through the Baroque period, modes were used less and less, while keys were used more and more. If you want to learn a little bit more about this, check out my show The Baroque Era in 60 Minutes. Beethoven then, in this movement, which is explicitly religious, is harkening back to those days of religious music and the use of modes. And the second question is that more metaphysical one. What were Beethoven's religious beliefs? I promise we'll get to that. But let's start looking at this movement in detail now first. Structurally, it's quite simple. Three slow chorales alternate with two faster and more lively sections. The movement begins with the first chorale, marked to be played Soto Vocce, or some in a quiet voice. This is not a marking that Beethoven used often, but it denotes something different from the traditional piano dynamic universally understood as soft. It denotes something more intimate, though every performer interprets this marking differently. But Beethoven, by writing that long title at the top of the page and writing Soto Vocce, is explicitly defining this movement as something special. The melody is written in an overlapping almost canon-like style, with one voice entering every two beats. As we enter this chorale, we can't help be reminded of the opening in the first movement, with its slow movements by half notes. [Music] Beethoven is using as he so often does the simplest harmonies, but it is in their inevitability that Beethoven finds this sense of repose, peace, and literal harmony in the music. Four times in this first chorale, Beethoven writes a crescendo as the chorale gains and strength and confidence before shrinking back to try another version of the layered entrances. Beethoven starts the first and fourth times with a leap of a sixth and the second and third time with the sense of a fifth. Everything is symmetrical in this movement, something rare for Beethoven. Remember the rhythmic jokes of the second movement while there's none of that here. And finally on the fifth crescendo of this first chorale, Beethoven reaches something new. The key changes to a real D major, one of the brightest of all keys. And Beethoven writes yet another sentence above the score, "Neuer kraft fühlant" or "newfound strength." As the violinist Mark Steinberg of the Brantano quartet writes about this section, "There is the sense of a vibration of the soul, as it aspires upward toward heaven, a illumination born of a struggle with darkness." And this is a difficult section to play because of the ornate nature of the music. A few years ago, a little more than a few years ago, I worked on this piece as part of an intensive workshop at the Pearl and Music program. The quartet I was in put together the entire piece in just under two weeks to perform. We spent hours on this section, trying to find a way to give it that feeling of new strength while also not allowing it to become too playful. This is music with a serious purpose, presenting itself in the most ecstatic way possible. As this section fades away, we enter the second chorale, which is slightly more flowing than the first chorale. It's as if the newfound strength music has imbued it with some of its character, and yet the music remains bathed in stillness and peace. , and it's a great pleasure to have you here. Thank you. Okay, I promised to try to answer that second question. While surprisingly, there's a lot of debate about that. Beethoven was born Catholic, and he wrote many religious pieces throughout his life. He apparently called his mesosolumnus, the crowning glory of his compositions. And near the end of his life, he wrote to a friend, quote, "Indeed, a hard lot has fallen upon me, but I resign myself to the will of destiny, and only ask God constantly to grant through his divine will that, so long as I must still suffer death in life here, I am protected from extreme poverty. This will give me the strength to bear my lot, however hard and grievous, with resignation to the will of the Almighty." Then again, Joseph Heidens, and that Beethoven was an atheist, Anton Schindler said that Beethoven was a deist, and many commentators have remarked that the ode to joy from the ninth symphony has elements of pantheism within it. Beethoven never went to church, and he mistrusted priests, but he wrote religious music that corresponded perfectly to the Catholic mass. He also, as far as we know, was not openly anti-Semitic, unlike so many people of the time. It seems that whatever concept of God or religion Beethoven had, it was extremely personal to him. This makes this song of thanksgiving to the deity that much more moving to me. As a musician, we are often called on to perform religious music. Just a couple of weeks ago, when I was conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, we performed Frank Martens' "Polip Tic", a violin concerto based on the story of the passion. Both the soloist and myself are Jewish, and we admittedly spent some time brushing up on the story so that we could understand the piece more intimately. What we were both struck by was the personal way that Martens responded to the story, how much it related back to the music of Bach, and how moving the music was to us, despite the fact that we didn't relate to it from a religious context. But Beethoven takes this one step further by almost divorcing the idea of the deity from any specific religion itself. In the third and final chorale, Beethoven writes that the music should be played with, quote, the innermost feeling. , "The most beautiful thing in the world is that the music is very beautiful, and the music is very beautiful." , "The most beautiful thing in the world is that the music is very beautiful." As the music builds to its stunning climax, we can reflect on that innermost feeling that Beethoven is expressing. Whatever religion, if any, you subscribe to, this music fills us with a feeling of hope, redemption, and gratitude. "Also, at the end of the day is for you!" "Also, at the end of the day is for you!" "Also, at the end of the day is for you!" [Motor] [Music] As the climax fades away, Beethoven returns to stillness. The battle has been won for the time being. Finally, the rhythmic flow that appeared only in the third corral falls back. And we are left again with a remarkable stillness. The quartet moving in unison as it reaches higher and higher into the sky. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] We've now had a dark and stormy first movement, a slightly awkward but lighthearted scarred so-or-minuet, and a transcendent third movement that leaves you feeling as if you are in a dream. How does Beethoven continue? How does he move forward to take you to the end of the piece? I'll play you the end of the third movement now into the beginning of the fourth movement just so you get the full effect. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I don't think Beethoven could have chosen something more contrasting if he tried. The music of the fourth movement, or should I say the march since Beethoven writes that it should be played like a march, wrenches you out of the stillness of the slow movement. It quite literally takes you back down to earth. This movement is extremely short, only about two minutes long, and it's an introduction to the last movement. But why would Beethoven have chosen to do this? Is it a cruel joke? Well, to me it's a false start. It's the feeling that one has after recovering from an illness where you throw yourself headlong back into your daily life before realizing that there is a long, long way to go. The music is playful, but it keeps stopping and starting just like in the first movement. This is a triumphant ending that we haven't quite earned yet, and it shows. [Music] The march ends in a rough and joyous way, but immediately Beethoven is ready to present you with another huge surprise. [Music] [Music] Does this retreative remind you of something? [Music] Beethoven had finished his ninth symphony just one year before he wrote this quartet, and structurally there are actually a lot of similarities between the two pieces, especially their first and third movements. The first movement of both pieces is dramatic and stormy, and the third movement of both pieces is a chorale. Basically in the last movements of these pieces that Beethoven takes two different paths to get to his end goal, which is joy and triumph. I want to now compare the last movement of the symphony and the last movement of the quartet for a little while for two reasons. One is to show off the contrast that Beethoven is able to achieve, and the different methods of finding his way to a triumphant conclusion. The other is that the music of the last movement of the quartet has also been found in the sketches for the last movement of the ninth symphony. Beethoven scribbled thousands of ideas in his sketchbooks, music that he would use, never use, or repurpose into another piece. One of the most fascinating things about the ninth symphony is that the famous ode to joy was not in the original plans for the piece. One of Beethoven's ideas was to use the theme he would end up using in the last movement of this quartet. But first the Richard Tief. The symphonic Richard Tief in the ninth symphony is extremely dramatic because of the entry of the voice after nearly 45 minutes of music. But the Richard Tief in the quartet is no less dramatic. Beethoven uses harmonies that he hasn't used yet in the quartet, and the freedom of the line is remarkable. The vocal Richard Tief in the last movement of the symphony is completely different. It's more stately and joyous. The battle has already been won. Beethoven signals in the quartet, though, that there is much more to do. Beethoven's ideas are very different. The symphonic Richard Tief in the eighth symphony is very different. [Music] In the ninth symphony, Beethoven's ideas are very different. an essentially casts aside the trials and travails of the first and second movements and takes us right into the oak to join. It's fascinating to me that Beethoven does this, considering that he was thinking about using the theme you just heard as his main theme for the last movement. The music in the last movement of the quartet is almost relentlessly dark. The tempo-marking is allegro a pasionato, fast and with passion. The accompaniment is written with nearly constant crescendos. For the first four bars, Beethoven writes a crescendo on each bar, while the following three have a crescendo for the entire length of the three measures. This creates that anxiety, nervousness, and then forward drive that the movement is infused with. [Music] [Music] The movement structure is a sonata rondo form. As you might imagine, this is sort of an amalgam of the exposition development recapitulation sonata form structure, with the A, B, A, C, A, D, and so on structure of the rondo form. You will hear the A-themed three times in this movement and the B-themed twice, but they won't be developed in the same way as in sonata form. Instead, Beethoven will explore different themes that remain undeveloped. This allows Beethoven to move through different ideas while also returning back home, with perhaps even more clarity than in sonata form. And he's got a lot to pack into just about six minutes of music. And even that in itself is extraordinary. Beethoven has saved his second shortest movement in the piece for the last movement, which for Beethoven is the opposite of normal, especially think about the ninth symphony where the last movement lasts nearly a half hour. Beethoven is the king of the apotheosis. In fact, he was one of the first composers to make the last movement, the important movement of a piece. It was the result of all the struggle. But in this piece, the center is that slow movement. And what comes after is important, but is always related back to that feeling of peace and gratitude, despite the turbulence we are experiencing now. What we've been listening to is Beethoven's A-themed. He then, in a Mozartian slate of harmonic hand, takes some of his most violent music yet in the piece and transforms it into a beautiful and tender second theme. This is as jarring of a change as you can imagine, but it has its roots, again, in the first movement. Remember the contrast between the two themes in the first movement? This is that contrast, but actually in an even more exaggerated way. I spent quite a bit of time last week talking about how Beethoven was using similar intervals to build his two themes. While in these two themes in the last movement, Beethoven ramps up the contrast by widening out the intervals for the second theme. There's now a feeling of openness that we haven't felt yet, even in the third movement. But without a hint of transition, Beethoven returns to the striving music that marks the desperation of this movement. Beethoven returns to his A-themed, but for his C-themed, he writes some of the strangest, most boisterous and most boyish music in the piece so far. If you can easily tap out the rhythm here or where the downbeats are, good for you. As Beethoven constantly changes where the beats are in this section, giving us a feeling of tumbling down a flight of stairs clambering back up again and then tumbling right back down. It's a moment of extreme turbulence despite the boisterousness of it all. Beethoven then restates his A and B themes, and the audience might be starting to get a bit worried here. Are we really not going to clear the air and find ourselves in a major key for a happy ending? Beethoven again, belying his reputation as the height of a serious composer, almost a never-ending piece is in a minor key. None of his symphonies end in a minor key, and only one of his quartets does, the Opus 59 #2 string quartet. But we've been stuck in A minor for so long that Beethoven himself seems lost. But as this music meanders around, we find ourselves back in A minor for one more terrifying version of the A theme. The music speeds up as if it is carried by the wind while the cello, which introduced the opening theme of the first movement almost 40 minutes earlier, now carries us on a terrifying ride, playing near the very top of its register. But just like that, as you just heard, the clouds clear, and we find ourselves in a major key. The sun comes out in an almost theatrical way. As we head towards the end of the piece, there is an unmistakable sense of giddiness in the music. Beethoven writes for the violins to play at the tip of the bow, a practically impossible marking for notes to be played at that speed. But he wants it anyway, and the quartet laughs, hops, skips and jumps to the clothes. Now there is a history of endings like this in classical era music. Mozart's The Minor Piano Concerto famously ends in a jarring transition to the major key. And Beethoven's Opus 95 string quartet is relentlessly dark, even more so than Opus 132. Before an extremely brief and extremely playful Coda takes this home. [Music] There might be the tendency to doubt these endings, and I understand that. The endings of Opus 95 and that Mozart Concerto are beautiful to be sure, but they don't feel exactly earned. We enjoy them, but we feel maybe a bit guilty about them all the same. Did we really deserve that happy ending? But here, after all we've been through, after all Beethoven has been through, this ending feels so deserved. The quartet plain, trust me, also deserves it too. This is one of the most grueling quartets to play, and the joy at the end of the piece is also palpable coming from the exhausted players skipping to the ending. [Music] We've fought through the darkness of the first movement and the instability of the second. We've paused to give a long hymn of thanks, and then tried many ways of moving on and moving forward. Finally, at the very last moment, Beethoven finds his way. The third movement of the quartet is often described as timeless, but to me this entire piece, thanks to its harmonic language, always floating from key to key, tempo to tempo, shattering rules, and building new ones in its place, the entire piece feels timeless as well. During the period of his recovery, Beethoven wrote in one of his notebooks, quote, "For God, time absolutely does not exist." This line taken from an Indian religious text can help put us in Beethoven's frame of mind as he wrote this piece, exhausted, but grateful, knowing that there is more hard work ahead to come. Thanks so much for listening to Sticky Nuts today. We'll have some more exciting stuff for you next week, the Mailbag, so don't miss our next episode. If you like what you've heard today, please feel free to rate and review the show on iTunes, and really helps the show gain more visibility, and please send any questions you have to Sticky Nuts podcast at gmail.com or my Facebook page at Sticky Nuts podcast. And if you'd like to support the podcast monetarily, just head over to patreon.com/stickynotespodcast. Thanks, don't forget to get your questions in by Sunday, and I'll talk to you again after a while. [BLANK_AUDIO]