8th string quartet (Beethoven)

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Beethoven portrait by Joseph Mähler from 1804.
Andrei Kirillowitsch Rasumowski, dedicatee and namesake of the quartets op. 59, on a painting by Johann Baptist von Lampi

The String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59,2 is a string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven . It was written in 1806 as the second of the three Rasumowsky quartets that were grouped together under opus number 59; While the String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59.1 was completed in July 1806, Beethoven continued working on Op. 59.2 and Op. 59.3 in parallel and completed them in November 1806.

The nickname of the quartets is due to their client, the Russian diplomat and Beethoven patron Andrei Kirillowitsch Rasumowski . Because of their Russian style, the quartets are also called Russian quartets .

Sentence names

  1. Movement: Allegro (E minor)
  2. Movement: Molto Adagio. Si tratta questo pezzo con molto di sentimento (E major)
  3. Movement: Allegretto-Maggiore. Thème russe (E minor)
  4. Movement: Finale: Presto (E minor)

To the music

The key of this quartet, E minor, was very rarely used in Beethoven's time. A correspondingly rare example of the use of this key would be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's violin sonata KV 304 from 1778, while Joseph Haydn was able to increase the popularity of this key with its use in his Symphony No. 44 in E minor ("Mourning Symphony "). Beethoven himself only used the key of E minor in addition to the Quartet op.59.2 in his Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 and in individual movements, namely the Allegretto of the Piano Sonata No. 9 in E major, Op. 14 , 1 and the Andante from Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major op.58 .

The “Rasumowsky” quartets are designed in such a way that the middle quartet is in minor and is framed by two major quartets. This was to be repeated later with the three quartets composed for the Russian prince Nikolai Borisovich Golitsyn .

First sentence

After the previous quartet, Op. 59.1, had ended in F major, Op. 59.2, now begins half a tone lower in the first movement.

The movement is introduced by two chord strikes and a general pause, followed by the main theme, consisting of a triad motif and falling sixteenth notes. In the course of the movement, the two chord hits appear 26 times and the general rest bar 19 times. It is accompanied by a side theme consisting of trills in 6/8 time. The side theme of the exposure is practically irrelevant.

The implementation also begins with shock chord and varies the main theme of the sentence beyond recognition.

In contrast to the development expressed in op. 59.1, the first movement of op. 59.2 shows a constantly repeating aimlessness, according to which Beethoven wanted to have the development and recapitulation repeated in addition to the exposition . Nowadays, however, this is hardly taken into account - at the expense of symmetry, since the exposition and recapitulation are exactly the same length.

Second sentence

For the composition of the second movement, Beethoven said he was inspired by the starry sky. According to Beethoven's student Carl Czerny , this happened "when he once observed the starry sky and thought of the harmony of the spheres". The movement is also at a corresponding metronome tempo of 60 quarters per minute. This spherical calm is particularly expressed in the coda of the exposition; The main feature of this coda are circling triplet chains.

The main theme of this Molto Adagio is similar to a chorale, the secondary theme is dotted like a march. The main theme consists of half notes and has echoes of the BACH theme, whereby the last note is not a b, but a b. The flow of the Adagio mood finds its climax in the Adagio part.

Third sentence

Thème russe - Beethoven as Boris Godunow ; Pencil drawing by Hermann Voss , violist of the Melos Quartet , 1986

The dance theme of the third movement begins with syncopation .

The Trio-Maggiore contains the playful adaptation of a theme that is also known from the coronation scene of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunow . At this point Beethoven used the Russian folk song Sláva Bogu na nebe (“ Praise be to God in Heaven”) from a folk song collection by Iwan Prach published in Saint Petersburg in 1790 . In the coda the violoncello is interrupted by the viola on the third use of the theme. When the violins do this too, the lower instruments repeat the dominant and tonic several times.

The American musicologist Joseph Kerman suspected that Beethoven would have wanted to take revenge on Razumovsky, a Russian by birth, because he had urged him to use the Russian folk song when composing the quartet. In contrast, he now demonstrates how deeply one can work on the topic in contrapuntal. In Carl Czerny's opinion, on the other hand, Beethoven's violations of harmony are “children of a genius willfulness and a bizarre mood that very often dominated him”.

Beethoven's approach of subordinating compositional rules to the expression of his feelings led his contemporaries to misunderstand the use of his stylistic devices as rule violations and compositional errors. It is said that the Viennese music theorist Simon Sechter even composed the trio of the third movement anew. Karl Holz, cellist of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, which is close to Beethoven, reports on this :

"As an attempt at improvement was brought to the trio of the E-minor Quartet him because it's not true, he said, 'Because they do not it in basso place so they think it does not agree' - saw his manuscript after and said it be right and agree. In response to the objection that he probably didn't hear it anymore, he said: 'Oh, listen - I can see it'. "

- Friedrich Kerst : The memories of Beethoven , 1913

Fourth sentence

The final rondo of the fourth movement is characterized by a dance theme that is almost entirely unaffected by the sonata form. With its beginning in C major and the delayed transition to E minor, the finale prepares Beethoven's next quartet .

About the “floating tonality” of this movement - the finale fluctuates between the introductory C major chord and the E minor tonic and only settles on the basic key of E minor after 50 bars - Arnold Schönberg wrote with a hint of irony : »Since there are good classic patterns, I don't have to be ashamed of having something similar« .

effect

The quartet was performed together with the other “Rasumowsky” quartets by Ignaz Schuppanzigh and his string quartet ensemble in the Palais des Count Rasumowsky. Beethoven was friends with Schuppanzigh from his move to Vienna until his death in 1827 and used to give the musician the nickname " Milord Falstaff ". It is possible that Schuppanzigh and his musicians were allowed to perform the Rasumovsky quartets publicly in the first months after their creation, when the diplomat, as the client, still had the sole exploitation rights to the works.

Because of their complexity, the Quartets op. 59 met with incomprehension and rejection. Over time, public opinion about the quartet changed. In 1821, 15 years after the creation of the work, the Allgemeine Musikische Zeitung wrote after a (successful) performance: “Anyone who knows this composition has to get a good opinion from an audience who dares to do something so important, but to present something unpopular. With a strange silence everything listened to those, often somewhat bizarre tones, which only such a successful execution could bring about. "

The Viennese publication of the quartet op. 59,2 took place together with the other Rasumowski quartets in January 1808 in the "Schreyvogelschen Industriecomptoir"; the order in which the quartets were published most likely corresponds to the order in which they were created. In 1809 Simrock published a reprint in Bonn; the first edition of the quartets' scores took place in 1830.

The musicologist Arnold Schering saw in op. 59.2 parallels to the novel Flegeljahre by Jean Paul . According to the synopsis he wrote, the first movement characterized the jealous, passionate Vult, the second movement the dreamy brother Walt, while the third movement described Winas and Walt's dance at the masked ball and the fourth movement described Winas and Vult's dance at the masked ball and his fiery confession of love .

literature

Continuing

  • Theodor Helm: Beethoven's string quartets. Attempt a technical analysis of these works in relation to their intellectual content . Leipzig 1885, 3rd edition 1921.
  • Walther Vetter : The style problem in Beethoven's string quartets opus 59 . In: Das Musikleben , 1st year, issue 7/8, 1948, pp. 177–180
  • Ludwig van Beethoven: works. New edition of all works , section VI, volume 4, string quartets II (op. 59, 74 and 95), ed. from the Beethoven Archive Bonn (J. Schmidt-Görg et al.). Munich / Duisburg 1961 ff.
  • Joseph Kerman: The Beethoven Quartets . New York 1967
  • Walter Salmen : On the design of the »Thèmes russes« in Beethoven's op. 59 . In: Ludwig Finscher, Christoph-Hellmut Mahling (Ed.): Festschrift for Walter Wiora . Kassel u. a. 1967, pp. 397-404
  • Peter Gülke : On the musical conception of the Rasumowsky Quartets op. 59 by Beethoven . In: Jürgen Elsner, Giwi Ordshonikidse (Hrsg.): Socialist music culture. Traditions, problems, perspectives . Berlin 1977, pp. 397-430
  • Lini Hübsch: Ludwig van Beethoven. The Rasumowsky Quartets op.59 . Munich 1983
  • Walter Salmen: String Quartets op.59 . In: A. Riethmüller u. a. (Ed.): Beethoven. Interpretations of his works . 2 volumes. 2nd Edition. Laaber, 1996, Volume 2, pp. 430-438

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lewis Lockwood : Beethoven: His Music - His Life . Metzler, 2009, p. 252
  2. ↑ Gerd Indorf: Beethoven's string quartets: Cultural-historical aspects and work interpretation Rombach; 2nd edition May 31, 2007, p. 384
  3. ^ Matthias Moosdorf: Ludwig van Beethoven. The string quartets . 1st edition. Bärenreiter, 2007, p. 96
  4. ^ Gerd Indorf: Beethoven's string quartets: Cultural-historical aspects and work interpretation . 2nd Edition. Rombach, 2007, p. 272
  5. ^ Georg Schünemann : Czerny's memories of Beethoven . In: New Beethoven-Jahrbuch 9 , 1939, p. 60
  6. ^ Gerd Indorf: Beethoven's string quartets: Cultural-historical aspects and work interpretation . 2nd Edition. Rombach, 2007, p. 276
  7. ^ Joseph Kerman: The Beethoven Quartets . New York 1967, p. 130
  8. ^ Georg Schünemann: Czerny's memories of Beethoven . In: New Beethoven Yearbook , 9, 1939, p. 72
  9. ^ Gerd Indorf: Beethoven's string quartets: Cultural-historical aspects and work interpretation . 2nd Edition. Rombach, 2007, p. 280 f.
  10. ^ Friedrich Kerst : The memories of Beethoven . 2 volumes. Stuttgart 1913, Volume 2, p. 182
  11. ^ Gerd Indorf: Beethoven's string quartets: Cultural-historical aspects and work interpretation . 2nd Edition. Rombach, 2007, p. 248
  12. ^ Arnold Schönberg : Harmony . Vienna 1966, p. 460
  13. ↑ Lewis Lockwood: Beethoven: His Music - His Life. Metzler, 2009, p. 246 f.
  14. ↑ Harenberg Culture Guide Chamber Music . Bibliographisches Institut & FA Brockhaus, Mannheim 2008, p. 97