Complete String Quartets: with Grosse Fuge

by Ludwig van Beethoven, Mark A. Schuster (Editor)

Beethoven followed in the footsteps of Haydn, father of the string quartet, and created what is now regarded as one of the finest collections of masterworks in the string quartet genre. From the early quartets, reminiscent of some of Mozart's quartets, to the soaring and emotional late quartets, these works have become favorites of both performers and audiences around the world. This collections includes the full scores for all 16 string quartets as well as the Grosse Fuge. Early String String Quartet No. 1 in F Major (Op. 18, No. 1) String Quartet No. 2 in G Major (Op. 18, No. 2) String Quartet No. 3 in D Major (Op. 18, No. 3) String Quartet No. 4 in C minor (Op. 18, No 4) String Quartet No. 5 in A Major (Op. 18, No. 5) String Quartet No. 6 in Bb Major (Op. 18, No. 6) Middle String String Quartet No. 7 in F Major (Op. 59, No. 1) String Quartet No. 8 in E minor (Op. 59, No. 2) String Quartet No. 9 in C Major (Op. 59, No. 3) String Quartet No. 10 in Eb Major "Harp" (Op. 74) String Quartet No. 11 in F minor "Serioso" (Op. 95) Late String String Quartet No. 12 in Eb Major (Op. 129) String Quartet No. 13 in Bb Major (Op. 130) String Quartet No. 14 in C# minor (Op. 131) String Quartet No. 15 in A minor (Op. 132) String Quartet No. 16 in F Major (Op. 135) Grosse Fuge (Op. 133)

Genres: Music, Classical Music

342 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1970

About the author

From classical composition, well-known musical works of Ludwig van Beethoven, a partially and then totally deaf German, include symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets, Masses, and one opera and form a transition to romanticism.

Ludwig van Beethoven lived of the period between the late and early eras. A mother in Bonn bore him.

People widely regard Ludwig van Beethoven as one greatest master of construction; sometimes sketched the architecture of a movement and afterward decided upon the subject matter. He first systematically and consistently used interlocking thematic devices or “germ-motives” to achieve long unity between movements. He equally remarkably used many different “source-motives”, which recurred and lent some unity to his life. He touched and made almost every innovation. For example, he diversified and even crystallized, made and brought the more elastic, spacious, and closer rondo. The natural course mostly inspired him, and liked to write descriptive songs.

Ludwig van Beethoven excelled in a great variety of genres, piano, other instrumental for violin, other chamber, and lieder.

People usually divide career of Ludwig van Beethoven into early, middle, and late periods.

In the early period, he is seen as emulating his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart, while concurrently exploring new directions and gradually expanding the scope and ambition of his work. Some important pieces from the Early period are the first and second, the first six, the first three piano, and the first twenty piano, the famous “Pathétique” and “Moonlight."

The Middle (Heroic) period began shortly after Beethoven’s personal crisis centering around his encroaching. The period is noted for large-scale expressing heroism and struggle; these many of the most famous. Middle period six (numbers 3 to 8), the fourth and fifth piano, the triple and violin, five (numbers 7 to 11), the next seven piano (the “Waldstein” and the “Appassionata”), and Beethoven’s only Fidelio.

Beethoven’s Late period began around 1816. The Late-period are characterized by intellectual depth, intense and highly personal expression, and formal innovation (for example, the Op. 131 has seven linked movements, and the Ninth Symphony adds choral forces to the orchestra in the last movement). Many people in his time period do not think these measured up to his first few, and his with J. Reinhold were frowned upon. Of this period also the Missa Solemnis, the last five, and the last five piano.

Reviews

[Christopher Waller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beethoven wrote a lot of very famous music and as a result is probably the most famous composer of classical music as a result. Ahead of even the operas and concertos and overtures, the three "cycles" which cement this reputation are the symphonies, the piano sonatas, and the string quartets.

I am very familiar with the Symphonies and very unfamiliar with the Piano Sonatas. I think the String Quartets fill a perfect middle-ground for me: familiar enough to be comprehensible, but novel enough to provide discovery each new time I listen.

This time I went through and listened to each string quartet in order over the course of a week. I encored certain movements I enjoyed, and paused to jot down little notes in the margin (what good is owning a book if you can't scribble in it?), but, by and large, I listened to each quartet from beginning to end with as little distraction as is reasonable to permit. I should say at the outset the recordings: Alban Berg Quartet for the Early Quartets, Ebene Quartet for the Middle, and Alexander Quartet for the Late.

Early Quartets:
The Opus 18 quartets are definitely dubbed the "early" quartets for a reason. They were written around the same time as the 1st Symphony, five years before the Razumovskys. They are not juvenilia by any stretch, but I am still a little bit skeptical on them in the following sense: these works contain intrigue and balance and everything a string quartet must have as basics, but they rarely sing to me, they stop short of the sort of expressiveness Beethoven unleashes in his 2nd and 3rd Symphonies at the start of the middle period. They feel of the same world as Haydn's Opus 76 collection, but, even if more energetic and envigorating, a bit less focused.

N. 1 has a solid opening movement and a particularly special slow movement which builds inexorably to an exhilirating high A, acheived despite the forces pulling the first violin line down. Nevertheless, the opening movement of N. 4 stands out from the set most: the classical style (I think) suits the minor keys better than the major keys -- there's enough tension in that scale with the flattened third to support a simpler harmonic language, and Beethoven really exploits that. The tonic-dominant chords in measure 13 (!) of the first movement are already the stuff of legend. The high notes come more readily and paint the drama in the strained but strident way they manage.

The rest is perfectly fine: I haven't listened to this collection for several years and I can still remember all of these melodies! But in the moment they seem a somehow lesser than that impression, beautiful but nothing more.

Middle Quartets:
The middle quartets are really divided into two camps. The Op. 59 Razumovskys (ns. 7-9), and then the two named quartets (10 "Harp", 11 "Serioso"). The Razumovskys all feel similar, but the Harp and Serioso are both different from one another and from the Op. 59s. Nevertheless, all five quartets share something in common: they all feature a far more sophisticated musical language than the Op. 18 collection. This makes sense: they were written in the peak of Beethoven's Heroic period, alongside the famous 5th Symphony.

N. 7 already features this language. The opening movement is a winner, delaying payoff on and on and delivering it in unexpected ways, all while dabbling in folksong. With the scherzo, middle Beethoven has arrived, building a mature, longform, and dramatic middle-movement with loads of timbral and dynamic contrast. The slow movement doesn't innovate the form, offering up a theme-and-variations, but these variations become increasingly interesting until they populate a whole world for the listener to sit inside. The finale, by contast, I think is a bit gimmicky, but is certainly fun.

N. 8's got a lively if not particularly memorable opening movement with some really breathtaking technique. The slow movement feels cloistered, and made me feel like Tchaikovsky's funereal 3rd or Smetana's labored 2nd. The Scherzo's a populist dance with a heavy helping of rubato. The finale's got all sorts of spiky lines and bleeding vibrato, and feels important, mysterious, and even messianic.

N. 9's opening movement revels in contrast: its either Haydnesque thirds in the violins or highly dramatic opposing movement (i.e. violins go up, viola and cello go down). From its opening bars, the slow movement takes the cake, maybe of the set. The opening melody's got this haunting character and the lilting closing line at the top of page 10 invites the listener to imagine a world of gothic cathedrals haunted by ghostly apparitions. The development section's so invigorating with its sforzandos I repeatedly jolted up like I'd been attacked by a cold shower. By a coda which pulls its punches in expectation of the late quartets, I found myself compelled to jot down, in the margin, "on the edge of something profound". The minuet's a minuet, and the finale's a rollicking and complicated fugato, but that slow movement really got to me.

N. 10 has got the best strict sonata-form movement of the entire set and possibly... ever? I exaggerate a bit, but the way (spoilers follow) the two highly distinct parts of the first subject combine at the climax is an apotheosis not just of the movement, but of sonata-form as a concept.(See the wonderful video by Richard Atkinson, he's far more eloquent than myself on this matter). The second movement's got a great melody which gets a cantabile statement in the violin towards the end that rolls over the listener in waves of bliss which bring tears to my eyes. But Beethoven goes a step further, and uses this newfound power to repudiate at the climax (a somber, hushed climax) the heartbreaking grace note triplet figure which cast a pall over the rest of the proceedings, and to reclaim a sense of wonder and purpose. The third and fourth movements aren't bad, but they can't live up to these two stunners.

N. 11 and N. 12 (here I make my transition to the late quartets prematurely) are both interesting, but I'm too unfamiliar with them right now to judge them fairly. 11's got a corker of an opening movement which is all over the place and very aggressive, and 12's got a really nice melody in its slow movement, but the movement goes on too long without adding much to the brilliant opening minute. I think I need to hear them again at a later time.

Late Quartets:
12's good, and a late quartet, but my (biased) claim is the meat of the entire Beethoven output in chamber music can be condensed to ns. 13 to 16. Beethoven took a hiatus of thirteen years, until he was bedridden on the brink of death, and decided as his life waned to its conclusion to pour out four of the greatest masterpieces not just of the string quartet literature, but of the chamber music literuate, of musical literature, of literature writ large.

N. 13. Opus 130. Probably the most backloaded piece of music in history (okay, Bach's 2nd Violin Partita beats it, but not by much). The opening movement is clearly operating at a high level expressively, but the opening of Opus 132 does the same thing more convincingly. The next three movements are fun, but short, to the point, and ultimately fluff (fairly or unfairly) in comparison of the three movements which follows.

First, the Cavatina. Not often does music gain such expressive power that the composer realize the only way to build an adequate secondary section is to force the instruments into total emotional collapse -- three beating out a pulse like a squeezebox does, while the violin sobs out a broken line where each note, however strained, becomes a Herculean accomplishment of unbearable beauty.

Then, the Grosse Fuge. The Beklemmt passage of the Cavatina seems tame in comparison. Four minutes of screaming counterpoint of dizzying and awe-inspiring complexity, with tearing triplet figures and terrifying marches and a subject played entirely on offbeats which builds and builds forever... until, as the nerves of the listener have snapped from exhaustion, a tender and gentle theme rescues them from the pit of anxiety to a stunning exhilaration. To then repeat this process at such a heightened level and resolve not with beauty but with a joke, as if to say, "what does it all matter, in the end?", cements this as something truly special.

Finally, the replacement finale. The famous last work of Beethoven, submitted to a publisher who demanded the unruly Grosse Fuge be rejected. A nice work which does pale in comparison to its predecessors. Yet I think it serves a brilliant palette-cleanser, and would highly recommend listening to the first five movements, then the Grosse Fuge, then this.

N. 14. Opus 131. In terms of absolute music, that theory of music as structure, as form, as a vessel for philosophical arguments and storytelling ascetically pared down to notes on the written page, Opus 131 may be the greatest of them all. Context only helps matters.

To start with a six-minute fugue is bold. To start with a six-minute adagio fugue is very bold. To start with a six-minute adagio fugue which prefigues the harmonic material of the finale is very bold indeed. A scherzo follows, a good scherzo, let it be known, to clear the palate. Then, as blatant a palette cleanser as possible, comes a forty-second hodge-podge of an interlude. To lead into one of the great slow movements. The melody seems so simple as to be comic, in the words of Peter Schaffer, but as variation upon variation pass by the astonishing potential of the material becomes evident. Then, a gruff scherzo (also excellent). Yet, another palette cleanser. Why so many cleansers?

From the first note of the sixth (!) movement, the listener understands. In a single note, the plaintive sorrow of the massive fugue which starts the piece reasserts itself. But now its energy is focused with unerring precision. Every line is calculated perfectly, every note placed in exactly the correct position. The listener is given only two minutes to brace themselves for what will follow. And they cling on every note in the hope that the inevitable can be prevented. But the violin errs, sighs into a register far above the staff, and, suddenly, pulled frighteningly back down to Earth announces...

The finale. The slight pause in this moment, between the sixth and seventh movements of the 14th String Quartet, is in my opinion the climax, the pinnacle, of the ten-hour set of string quartets. It reminds me of the moment when riding a bike after your feet have left the pedals, your hands have left the handlebars and you hang, suspended, for a terrifying moment, a foot or two above the rapidly approaching asphalt. The rush of the finale cannot be described. Herculian, Nobelian... words can be thrown around, but this is the original thing. This is the spirit, the sensation, these words are trying to evoke. Unbelievable energy, power, awe, beauty, and pain expressed in exquisite technical perfection.

N. 15. Opus 132. Yes, I've cheated, and Opus 132 is really written before ns. 13 and 14 in the cycle, but I feel its presentation here is somehow more fitting. It is the transitional work between 14 and 16 for the listener, if not for its composer. The opening movement is astonishing, a hodge-podge of tempi and motives which flow in free-fall in a odd double recap Sonata-form. The second, fourth, and fifth movements have their charms. But this is a one-movement show, and that movement is the famous Heiliger Dankesang.

Three Lydian chorales, separated from one another with a Pachelbelian expression of joy which serves simultaneously as palette cleanser. An odd pitch, but it works. Each chorale builds on the last, adding nuances and details which weaken the simplicity and power of the opening but imbue the material with a vulnerability and sincerity which melts the heart. And, by the ending, crystallizes into an expression of strength, of will, of faith, and of unbreakable purpose and resolution.

N. 16. Opus 135. Which makes the final of Beethoven's major works even more interesting by contrast. There is nothing explicitly programmatic here, but I hear my own invented program all the clearer in spite of this. The opening movement is spare, mature somehow, as though it represents an old person who somehow, in their age, has it all figured out. The music is doddering, it swerves in odd directions but always back-justifies the choice. At times it lands on the wrong key and feels embarassed. At times it lands on the wrong key and stubbornly guides it back to the right key. And it doesn't overstay its welcome; when it reaches an ending point it just ends, with no fanfare.

A scherzo dance follows, but one that's subtler and more mature than its vulgar (but very fun) predecessors.

And then... the slow movement. It spreads out on two pages, you can see it all in one go. Five statements of a theme, stretched to seven minutes. The theme is hushed, full of tension, the tension of a life lived through moments good and bad, which steps away from its most uncomfortable elements sadly, but doesn't deny them wholly. The first variation is simple but direct, proceedingly seamlessly from the theme, but keeping a layer of discomfort, moving around in its chair, aching, creaking, never quite set. The second variation matches the expressive power of the Beklemmt, with its aching pauses (the pulsing heartbeat has been removed entirely... any note at all feels like an accomplishment). It starts in minor, because that makes the sudden fleeting turn to major filled with indescribable joy. Forcefully, laboriously, but fruitfully, the music keeps on going -- like a patient on a deathbed breathing their last breaths, saying their last words. It is then, suddenly, cut short. The third variation proceeds naively like the start. You know exactly what note is coming, but this does not cheapen the emotion, but only serves to strengthen it. The music is at peace, rowing on to the afterlife. And then the fourth variation. Fluttering up and down. Perhaps not rowing to any afterlife, but content to "just" fertilize the flowers. A motif starts to form, grow, and change, and on its eighteenth reaches up towards the sky but is held at Bb, only a half-step higher than that mythical A from thirty years before. On its twenty-first iteration it finally reaches its perfect statement. And then the movement ends.

But Beethoven can't go out on this. So he includes a finale, with a bizarre collection of motifs lending words to the music. "Must it be?" asks the first. "It must be!" respond the latter two. A torturous introduction follows. "Must I die?". And then the briefest of expositions. "It must be!". And out comes a jolly, vigorous finale with all the temperament and fragile tenderness, and mercurial character and vulgarity of Beethoven in his younger days. The music grinds to a halt somewhere in the development, as though the composer is having second thoughts. "Must it be?" the viola proclaims to hideous writhing rhythms in the violins, a music seized with terror. But the recapitulation lands. "It must be!" There's one last moment of fear, a single measure, and out of it comes, with childlike wonder, a pizzicato section which appreciates the novelty and adventure of passing on. And then -- there are no histrionics -- it is just over. Like that.

[Au Yong · Rating 5 out of 5]

An inexpensive edition of the complete 16 string quartets. The string quartet eventually became a major form of musical composition due largely to the efforts of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven during the Classical era. Haydn wrote some 78 string quartets. Mozart wrote 23 string quartets but only those numbered from 14 to 23 have been considered as his mature works - in other words, the last 10 string quartets. Beethoven wrote a mere 16 string quartets. Therefore, in terms of pure statistics, he was the least prolific of the trio.
But wait - on the other side of the fence, if we chose to look beyond mere numbers, most music crticis have considered all of his 16 string quartets as part of his major oeuvre. For instance, the music critic JWN Sullivan found the last 5 string quartets compelling enough to be included in his discussion of "Beethoven: His spiritual development."
If all the 16 string quartets were worthy enough to be ranked as Beethoven's major works, that would have put them on the same scale as his 32 piano sonatas. Surely reason enough for those who liked to hear Beethoven's string quartets to get a copy of this volume.

[Blaine Snow · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s the complete Beethoven string quartets! Need anything more be said? Maybe: it’s one of life’s greatest artistic journeys, full of worlds of discovery, revered by those who know, study, and play great music. And here it lies, waiting for YOU to discover. But it will take some work on your part like all great art requires. In this case, the more you give, the more you get. If you have the time and patience, Beethoven delivers beyond your wildest dreams.

[Pipebre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent quality. No regrets.