Episode Details

I'm always tickled by composer trivia questions, like which standard canon works begin in a major key and end in a minor key? I'll give you one, but please comment others below: Mendelssohn's 4th Symphony. Well, how about this one: how many of Beethoven's 16 string quartets end in a minor key? The answer? Just one, Op. 59, No. 2, the subject of today's show. And that minor key is hugely important to this darkest of the three Op. 59 quartets, three towering achievements that changed the string quartet repertoire for good.

Beethoven, as I've said many times on the show, was a revolutionary within limits, always expanding, rethinking, and reshaping what was possible without breaking anything beyond repair. But make no mistake: the Op. 59 quartets were revolutionary works. No one had written anything like them before in terms of scope, emotional intensity, difficulty, and complexity. In fact, like a few of Beethoven's greatest works, they were received with confusion and, in some cases, anger by musicians, audiences, and critics. Famously, the cellist of the first string quartet to receive the parts of Op. 59, No. 1 saw the Morse code-like, one-note theme of the second movement, threw the music aside, and stomped on it!

These quartets were Beethoven going out on a limb, applying the intensity and drama of his Middle Heroic Period to a genre that had been at least partly the province of amateur musicians, but not anymore. Op. 59, No. 2, as I said, is the darkest of this group: four movements all centered around the key of E, and with the exception of the glorious second movement, all in minor, presenting a seriousness and directness of purpose that is powerfully compelling. This might be my favorite of the Op. 59 quartets, and so I'm very excited to dig into it with you today. We'll discuss the enigmatic and ecstatic aspects of this quartet, as well as Beethoven's own philosophical views on life, which come to light in the second movement, one of Beethoven's greatest creations.

Recording: Cleveland Quartet