Of the five last quartets the first and last are formally the most clear; the intermediate three, especially those in A minor and C-sharp minor, are perhaps the most intricate and difficult music to follow and to comprehend that has been written. All but the last are very long, and thus tax the powers of attention of the average listener often beyond endurance. Their full significance is discerned only by those who not only have made themselves intimately familiar with every note and line of them, but who have penetrated deep into the most secret mysteries of the whole art of music.
Opus 127 begins with a few measures—maestoso—which, as Dr. Riemann has suggested, play something of the same rôle in the first movement as the Grave of the Sonata Pathétique plays there. The passing over from the introduction to the allegro is only a trill, growing softer over subdominant harmony. The allegro is in 3/4 time, and the first theme, played by the first violin, is obvious and simple, almost in the manner of a folk-song. Yet there is something sensuous in its full curves and in the close, rich scoring. The transitional passage is regularly built, and the second theme—in G minor—pure melody that cannot pass unnoticed. Everything is simple and clear. The first section ends in G major, and the development section begins with the maestoso motive in the same key, followed, just as at the opening of the movement, with the trill and the melting into the first theme. This theme is developed, leading to the maestoso in C major. It is then taken up in that key. The maestoso does not reappear as the beginning of the restatement section, the first theme coming back in the original key without introduction. Instead of the simple note-for-note scoring with which it was first presented, it is now accompanied by a steadily moving counterpoint. The second theme is brought back in E-flat major. The coda is short and simple, dying away pianissimo.
The following movement is an adagio, to be played not too slowly and in a wholly singing manner. The time is 12/8, the key, A-flat major. The opening notes, which build up slowly a chord of the dominant seventh, are all syncopated. The first violin gives only a measure or two of the melody, which, thus prepared, is then taken up by the violoncello. The second strophe is sung by the violin. There is a full cadence.
The first variation opens with the melody for violoncello, only slightly altered from its original form. The violins add a counterpoint in dialogue. This variation comes to a full stop. The second brings a change in time signature (C, andante con moto). The theme, now highly animated, is divided between the first and second violins. In the fourth variation (E major, 2/2, adagio molto espressivo) only the general outline of the theme is recognizable, cut down and much compressed. The fifth variation brings back the original tempo and the original key. The violoncello has the theme, only slightly varied in rhythm, and the first violin a well-defined counter-melody. The sixth and last variation (in this movement) grows strangely out of the fifth, in D-flat major, sotto voce, leads to C-sharp minor, and thence to A-flat major. There is a short epilogue.
The main themes of the Scherzo and Trio which follow are so closely akin to the theme of the adagio, that the movements may be taken as further variations. The main body of the Scherzo is in that dotted rhythm of which Beethoven made frequent use in most of his last works; and is fairly regular in structure, except for the intrusion, at the end of the second part, of measures in 2/4 time, in unison, which may be taken as suggestions of still another fragmentary variation of the adagio theme. The Trio is a presto in E-flat minor.
The Finale is entirely in a vigorous, jovial and even homely vein. The themes are all clear-cut and regular; the spirit almost boisterous, suggesting parts of the ‘Academic Festival Overture’ or the Passacaglia from the fourth symphony of Brahms.
III
This E-flat major quartet was completed at the latest in January, 1825. Work on the following three quartets—in A minor, B-flat major, and C-sharp minor—began at once, but was interrupted by serious illness. About the sixth of May Beethoven moved to Gutenbrunn, near Baden; and here took up the work again. The A minor was completed not later than August, the B-flat in September or October, the C-sharp minor some months later, after his return to Vienna.
The three quartets are closely related. In the first place all show a tendency on the part of Beethoven to depart from the regular four-movement type. There are five movements in the A minor, six in the B-flat major, seven in the C-sharp minor; though in the last, two of the movements are hardly more than introductory in character. The Danza Tedesca in G major in opus 130, was written originally in A major and intended for the A minor quartet. Finally the chromatic motive, clearly stated in the introduction to the A minor quartet, and lying at the basis of the whole first movement, may be traced in the fugue theme in opus 130, and in the opening fugal movement of opus 131.
The A minor quartet is fundamentally regular in structure. The opening allegro is clearly in sonata-form; there follows a Scherzo and Trio. The Adagio consists of a chorale melody, thrice repeated in higher registers, with regular interludes. A short march and a final Allegro in A minor conclude the work. But the movements are all strangely sustained and at the same time intense; and there is a constant whisper of inner and hidden meanings, which cannot be grasped without deep study and which leave but a vague and mysterious impression. The chromatic motive of the introduction has a more or less cryptic significance; the chorale melody is in an unfamiliar mode; and there are reminiscences of earlier and even youthful works. So that the whole proves intricate and even in the last analysis baffling.