Preview: Beethoven Quartet Cycle @ Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth
—Commentary by Gregory Sullivan Isaacs
The Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth presents the Miró Quartet this week in a rare opportunity: to hear all 16 of Beethoven’s string quartets played together, over the span of a week. Onstage music critic Gregory Isaacs previews the event.
It is a generally accepted truism that the string quartet is one of the most difficult compositional assignments in Western music. This is because of the challenge of writing four independent voices that combine to make a whole. The quartet form was very popular from its inception: in the days before public concerts, a small group of friends or family could train its members on the four instruments and produce an enjoyable evening of music-making. Publishers soon realized this was a lucrative market and encouraged composers to write a lot of quartets, especially if they weren’t difficult—and playable after dinner.
Haydn started the trend, and Mozart elevated the quartet to sublime levels. However, as in all other musical forms he addressed, it was Beethoven who transformed it into transcendental and deeply personal works. His output in the form falls into three chronological tranches.
Beethoven waited to approach the string quartet until he felt ready. When the first group were written, he was a hotshot 27-year-old pianist and composer. He wrote the second tranche in his late thirties, reaching a new level of maturity. But it was in the final group of five quartets, written when the composer was profoundly deaf, that he transcended the mortal world of sound—unbound, as it were, from the limits imposed by human ears.
And this week, the highly distinguished Austin-based Miró Quartet will pick up the challenge of playing them all over the course of a few days in Fort Worth. They will take audiences on a musical trip through Beethoven’s life, as he revealed it to the world with these remarkable string quartets. The players: Daniel Ching, violin; William Fedkenheuer, violin; Joshua Gindele, cello; John Largess, viola.
Why should we want to hear them played all in one week? Beyond this being a feat of musical stamina and excellence, the answer to that question is this: To have the rare opportunity of hearing the amazing growth of Beethoven’s stylistic and technical abilities over the course of a lifetime—taking him (and us) from Haydn’s 18th century to late work that would feel at home in a concert of 20th century modernist music.
But to follow Beethoven’s metamorphosis through hearing the quartets, we have to understand they were not published in the order of their composition. For example, his first quartet (1798) was published as #2, although it was written fourth. Only #6 has the proper designation. This confusion is only found with the early quartets: the most Haydn-esque of the bunch is the quartet in F Major (published as #1 though it was the second one completed), with a slow movement reportedly inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. At the opposite end of the timeline is the Grosse Fuge written in 1827, a work that truly sounds as if it was composed more than a hundred years later.
Copious notes (and pre-concert talks) will serve as listening guideposts. Here are a few interesting “teasers”….
String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op.132 was written after the composer recovered from a serious illness. So Beethoven (one can almost feel his spiritual and physical relief) named the third movement ”Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart" ("Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode”).
String Quartet No. 14 in Bb minor Op. 130, was written in 1825. It is especially notable because the proposed finale is an astonishing work that proved too difficult to be played. Reluctantly, Beethoven dashed off another finale and published this masterpiece later as…
The Grosse Fuge, published in 1827 as Op. 133. Sometimes it is played in its proper position, but more frequently, the "substitute" finale is used instead. On first hearing, the Grosse Fuge sounds amazingly like it was penned in the heat of 20th-century modernism. In addition, it is a compendium of fugal techniques equal to Bach's Art of the Fugue. The Grosse Fuge is much studied by composers, and attempts at analysis abound. We will have to see in this performance whether the “substitute” finale is used, or the one Beethoven wrote first.
FROM THE CMSFW WEB SITE: The Miró Quartet is one of America’s most celebrated string quartets. Based in Austin, the Miró has performed on some of the most celebrated stages in the world, and it specializes in innovative programming to bring the tradition of chamber music to new audiences. The quartet has performed Beethoven’s complete string quartets at Chamber Music Northwest, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Chamber Music Tulsa, and the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival. A boxed set of the quartet performing Beethoven’s 16 string quartets was released on the Pentatone label in November 2019.
WHEN: November 7, 9, 10, 11, and 13
WHERE: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
WEB: cmsfw.org
