Exposition: Beethoven String Quartets Nos. 4–6

About the production

On the second day of the Lausitz Festival’s presentation of the complete Beethoven string quartets in the order of their composition, the Quatuor Danel will perform the second group of quartets from Op. 18, which the composer wrote at the turn of the 19th century in response to a commission from Prince Lobkowitz. 

The quartet No. 5 in A major will be performed first, a work which honors Mozart and is harmonically and rhythmically closely related to that composer’s String Quartet KV 464 – in both works, the second movement is a Minuet and the third is a series of variations. Carl Czerny recalled Beethoven’s reaction while looking at the score of Mozart’s A major quartet, »What a work! Here Mozart said to the world, ›Look what I could do if you were ready!‹« The dramatic mood at the opening of Beethoven’s quartet No. 4 in C minor signals a departure from this homage to convention: the first theme is characterized by grace notes and intervallic leaps. A series of fortissimo chords leads to secondary themes and recalls the Piano Sonata No. 8, the »Pathétique«, which is also in the key of C minor and was written directly before Beethoven began work on the quartet. 

After the interval, the String Quartet No. 6 in B flat major, composed in the early summer of 1800, is heard. The effervescent Allegro of the first movement is characterised several times by a double beat, which forms into the main theme with an ascending triad motif in the first violin. The double beat is taken up by the other instruments and is repeated in the development and recapitulation of this traditional sonata form movement. The fourth movement, which consists of two parts and is labelled »La Malinconia«, or melancholy, is particularly remarkable: it begins with a painful melody that begins several times and ends in a brooding sigh. After the Adagio, the second part of the quartet finale, an »Allegretto quasi Allegro« in 3/8 time, seems to be inspired by an exaggeratedly cheerful nature, but the Adagio from the beginning of the movement returns twice, so that the melancholy of the title is instead characterised by a rather manic-depressive mood. Beethoven's way of dealing with his incipient deafness is often cited for this and the music is understood as a commentary on his personal life, although art also conveys something about the Other in a universal form.