A Musical Pentateuch

They’ll remain a mystery to me for the rest of my life, but why should I be any different? Even at the time, one commentator stated about Beethoven’s late quartets, “we know something is there, but what is it?”

OK—that’s the first problem. The second problem is that every classical music snob gushes about the late quartets—they are to music what Shakespeare’s tragedies are to English literature.

So the listener first has to endure what can be half an hour of confusing music and then guess what? He has to endure another half hour of musically “sophisticated” people raving and “analyzing” them. The result? Now he feels inferior.

That said, it’s a relief to come upon a musician, a string player, who cheerfully admits that she’s confused, too. And that’s the point, she says; string player approach these works as rabbis do the Pentateuch. The mystery is the point; the journey is the end.

Saying which, I have a slightly unusual history with these works. I played some as a cellist, but I listened to all of them as a child. Why? My mother was an editor who adopted the habit, in those days of the record player, of stacking three LPs of the quartets and listening to them while she worked. OK—she wasn’t really listening, but neither was I. But it may be the best way to be introduced to the pieces: they become a part of you without your knowing it.

So I had a long exposure, and then came the years when I was neither playing nor listening. I was scrambling or working—at times both. But of course I could have listened—there was another motive. I wasn’t ready.

It felt that way, at least—I hadn’t lived long enough, I hadn’t grown and experienced enough to absorb the quartets, especially the late quartets. In short, I wasn’t one of the sophisticated ones yet.

Nonsense, of course, but that’s the way it felt. And then my mother died, I lost my job, and then I lost my mind. And I survived—if I had gotten through all that, shouldn’t I be able to take on Beethoven?

So let’s return to Elaine Fine, the musician / writer who is equally—all right probably a lot less—confused by the quartets. Like a nice sensible woman that her picture suggests she is, she got right down to work and offered some good ideas about listening to these works. And better, she suggests an order of listening to them. With a few modifications, I’ll follow her suggests.

First, Fine suggests tackling the early quartets, the opus 18 quartets, written between the 18^th and 19^th centuries. But make no mistake, while some very early Beethoven can sound like Mozart or Haydn, this is true Beethoven. And Fine’s suggestion to start with the opus 18 number 4 quartet is dead on—one commentator on YouTube said it’s the perfect quartet to play in puberty. Absolutely right—it’s jittery, intense, on edge. And however it may seem as if Beethoven is relatively conventional at the beginning of the first movement, you soon hear that he’s prepared to take the gloves off and come out swinging.

It may also help if you have some idea of the structure of what you’re listening to: the sonata form. It’s pretty simple—the first movement starts out with a theme, here played on the first violin; later played by other instruments. Then there’s a second theme, again played by various. This is the called the exposition, very logically because it “exposes” the themes. At some point it comes to an end, and then either repeats itself or goes on to the developed, where the composer takes the themes, tears them apart, explores them, plays with them. After the development, you get the recapitulation, where everything comes back as it was in the exposition, though usually with slight modifications.

By Beethoven’s time, the sonata form was being modified and developed, but it’s still quite evident in this quartet.

OK—that’s the first movement. So what about the other movements? Well, perhaps the most common strategy is to have a slow movement follow the first movement. Then comes a dance movement—a minuet perhaps, and very frequently in Beethoven a scherzo. Relatively short, lively, and in ¾ time. Finally, there will be a fast final movement, guaranteed to bring down the house. And that’s the formula followed here….       

     

Fine here suggests taking a break and listening to the Dissonant Quartet of Mozart. Sly woman! It’s the perfect set up for the third of the middle quartets. As she says, this quartet is an homage to Mozart.

So here’s the first movement of the Dissonant (and a nice example of the sonata form by the way). And what’s dissonant, you ask? Two or more notes that sound, “ugly, harsh, discordant.” And why would you want that? Very often, dissonance creates tension, and will the lead to a resolution. Dissonance can be like conflict in literature. 

Like Mozart, Beethoven starts this quartet with a slow, dissonant section that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. And then he breaks into a purely classical theme that yes, Mozart or Haydn might have written. But wouldn’t he have treated it as does Beethoven? No way.

And wow—the energy, the drama of the first movement! It’s spectacular.

OK—we come to the difficult late quartets. A lot has been written about them, and a lot of it is nonsense. Why? Well, it’s either technical and consequently of no use to the average guy, or it’s likely to be highly inflated and subjective. Music is to be heard and experienced, not written about.

For the late quartets, Fine suggests that you listen “from the back of the book forward.” It’s not a bad idea. But it’s that old question—inch into the water gradually or dive.

I’m in the dive camp. And if you’re going to take the plunge, you might as well dive into the deepest waters Beethoven ever put himself and his audience in: the Grosse Fuge.

It’s less a piece of music than an experience. Here’s what I wrote about it last year:

This is Beethoven lashing every bit of reason against every bit of anguish. The effect—especially when listened to with earphones—is of being locked into a cage with four howling and violent jackals.

Later on, I noted that a webpage devoted itself to the question: do you like the Grosse Fuge? I rejected the premise of the question; it’s not music to be liked, but to be experienced.

Saying which, I’m never sorry that I listened to it. Yes, it defeats me each time, but it also challenges me each time.

You decide!   

I almost chose another quartet for this blog, since it has a piece of music that is surely on of the most mystical, sublime, joyful, painful pieces ever written, the Heiliger Dankgesang . Robert Kapilow tells the story beautifully….