Analysis of progressions in the highest register offers an illuminating perspective on the notion of cyclic unity, expressed as an overarching linear coherence. As illustrated in Figure 3.17, the three quartets outline a progression in which B3 acts as a lower neighbor note, between C4 as dominant, in op. 59 no. 1, and C4 as tonic, in op. 59 no. 3. This neighbor-note pattern is a higher-level manifestation of the C4–B3 motif found within the works themselves, especially op. 59/2, and thus further expresses the cyclic unity of the set. Yet there is a sense in which C4 acts as a peak throughout, its different facets generating a coherent narrative process.
In op. 59 no. 1, C4 represents the peak of a linear structure that reinterprets it as a dissonance in the second movement, requiring resolution in the finale. C4 is a dis-sonance in op. 59 no. 2, a peak rather than a goal, which underlines the Neapolitan conflict at the heart of the tonal and motivic argument of the work. As used in op.
59 no. 3, C4 is transformed from dominant to tonic and again functions to resolve tension created by the linear pattern moving to B in the second movement, trans-forming it to the diatonic pattern in C major. Thus there is both symmetry and pro-cess across the three works, with the enigmatic C 4 of op. 59 no. 2 remaining unre-solved at the set’s midpoint. Yet there is a sense in which the C 4–C4 transformation
Example 3.4. Op. 59 no. 3, IV, mm. 381–429.
&
Figure 3.17. Cyclic coherence in op. 59.
Example 3.4, continued.
high register and structure 85 emanates from the Neapolitan tension central to the E-Minor Quartet, resolved via C4 to B3 in the last movement. And it is that Neapolitan relationship, as expressed in the C-major implication of the Thème russe finale of op. 59 no. 2, which has led Kerman and other commentators to suggest connection between the second and third quartets.
Conclusion
The recognition of the highest register as a distinctive sonorous domain harboring its own possibilities of connectedness has far-reaching structural implications. As analysis demonstrates, the linking up of “high events” in the op. 59 quartets reveals significant linear patterns. Most often these are rising lines, which Robert Fink dubs
“arrows of desire,” quite distinct from the descending linear structures of the hierar-chical Schenkerian approach, yet at some points the patterns correlate. The Meyerian approach has enabled us to highlight the large-scale coherence of the upper regis-ter both within and between the movements. All three quartets may be seen to project large-scale linear patterns that maintain tension within each movement and across the four-movement span, with some implications for cyclic coherence. In each work, strategic deployment of the upper register articulates and reinforces Beethoven’s individual exploration and expansion of the Classic-Romantic sonata principle, add-ing its own layer of narrative coherence. For instance, in each first movement, the second subject groups generally extend the first group and transition, moving from a lower to a higher register. My analyses further suggest that investigation of high register structures in other instrumental and vocal works by Beethoven would bear fruit in interpretation of style and expression.
In the “Razumovsky” Quartets, the expansion of structure characteristic of Beethoven’s heroic period extends into the domain of extreme registers. The deploy-ment of high registral patterns here is far more complex than in the more classical op. 18 set and anticipates the more radical use of high register in the late quartets, for example the strategic emphasis on C4 in the coda of the finale of op. 131. Kerman has described the “Razumovsky” Quartets as “explorers, experimenters,”46 and Maynard Solomon has drawn attention to “the startling use of pizzicato for expres-sive purposes in the slow movements of no. 1 & 3, the brilliant string writing and voicing, which refashions the characteristic Classic style, the rich harmonic patterns and the extraordinary rhythmic drive; and the creation of flowing and continuous melodies.”47 To this list we may add Beethoven’s innovative structural deployment of the highest register, which distinguishes these masterpieces as peaks of heroic musi-cal inspiration.
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Notes
1. Lewis Lockwood, “Process versus Limits: A View of the Quartet in F Major, Opus 59 No.
1,” in Beethoven: Studies in the Creative Process (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 198–208; see particularly 200–205.
2. Ibid., 198.
3. Ibid., 200.
4. “[T]he violin I soars into its highest register and reaches the pitch c in the stratosphere.
It is then dramatically left hanging at this great height while the exposition figure from mm.
20–29 returns as the first item in the recapitulation.” Ibid., 203.
5. “[A]t mm. 373–87 it resumes the opening c–f tetrachord and expands it, reaching a high point in the first violin in a way that is reminiscent of the development . . . at last the theme appears in its upper register in the first violin and fortissimo.” Ibid.
6. “[T]he dynamic tension created by the thematic, harmonic and registral strategy for the entire movement, achieved by postponing a root-supported tonic statement of the first theme until the coda.” Ibid., 208. Lockwood’s analysis of the autograph manuscript argues that the cancellation of the repeat of the development and recapitulation was motivated by structural decisions relating to proportions and the desire to delay the final statement of the main theme until the very last moment.
7. Bruce Campbell, “Beethoven’s Quartets Opus 59: An Investigation into Compositional Process,” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1982.
8. Ernst Oster, “Register and the Large-Scale Connection,” in Readings in Schenker Analysis and Other Approaches, ed. Maury Yeston (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977), 54–
71. The article was originally published in the Journal of Music Theory 5/1 (1961).
9. Heinrich Schenker, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, vol. 2 (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1926), cited ibid., 54–55.
10. Oster, “Register and the Large-Scale Connection,” 55.
11. Ibid., 60.
12. Ibid.
13. Robert Fink, “Going Flat: Post-Hierarchical Music Theory and the Musical Surface,” in Rethinking Musicology, ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (London: Faber, 1996), 102–37.
Fink’s article is based on his doctoral dissertation, “‘Arrows of Desire’: Linear Structure and the Transformation of Musical Energy,” University of California, Berkeley, 1994.
14. Ibid., 109.
15. Ibid. Regarding the Missa, Fink observes that the “choral tessitura leads us to associate pitches according to a surface variable only intermittently respected by reductive analysis: the strain inherent in choral high notes.”
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid., 107, 112.
18. Ibid., 112.
19. Ibid., 109.
20. Ibid., 112. Fink’s interpretation of the large-scale progression is as follows: “A coherent linear ‘plot’ emerges: a full Mixolydian ascent at bar 17; a dramatic cadence a2–b2 at bars 117–
18 without the Mixolydian inflection—a cadence which on repetition stalls on a2; the retak-ing of a2 after 75 bars of Adagio at bars 196–201; the retakretak-ing of B2 after almost 100 more bars at bars 290–4, and a final ecstatic Mixolydian ascent through A2 and A2 to B2 at bars 430–
3.”
21. William Kinderman, Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 238–83.
22. Ibid., 240.
23. Ibid., 241. “Here the full orchestral forces drop out, with a precipitous plunge in
regis-high register and structure 87 ter for the Incarnatus . . . the descent from heaven is thereby reflected in a sudden transfor-mation of the musical texture.”
24. Ibid., 242. The peak pitch A at mm. 199–200 is “a point of reference back to the sus-pended unresolved sonority at the end of ‘descendit de coelis,’ . . . the beginning of an ex-tended thematic unit . . . later repeated . . . leading up to the recapitulation.”
25. Ibid. Kinderman observes that “the F major sonority used for the word ‘heaven’ is thus a cornerstone in the formal architecture of the Credo, linking its first and third sections and initiating the development, while at the same time creating a symbolic role for the music that transcends any details of tone painting.”
26. See Chapter 10 in Kinderman’s Beethoven. He later highlights a similar structural signifi-cance in the E- chord initially stated at the outset of the Credo, which becomes a “referential sonority.” He points out that it always appears with G2 as highest pitch, later echoed in the high G2 used by the solo violin in the Benedictus, there interpreted as tonic of G major, not mediant of E.
27. Fink observes, “There is certainly no reason for a Schenkerian reduction of the Credo to fail: or any a priori reason why the structural levels of such an analysis might not actually but-tress some of the deliberately loose ‘prolongations’ outlined.” Fink, “Going Flat,” 114.
28. Leonard B. Meyer, Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations (Chicago: University of Chi-cago Press, 1973). For a theoretical extension of Meyer’s theories, see Eugene Narmour, The Analysis and Cognition of Basic Melodic Structures: The Impact-Realization Model (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1977).
29. The graphic notation is an original approach that I have also used in my article
“Beethoven’s Early Piano Quartets WoO 36 and the Seeds of Genius,” in Arietta: Journal of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe 4 (Spring 2004).
30. Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 106.
31. Wilhelm Altmann, in his introduction to the Eulenberg Score of op. 59 no. 1 (London and Mainz), iii, observes that although Beethoven’s autograph score shows the first violin as F3–G3–D3 at m. 434, which is followed by various editions (including the Henle Urtext edition), other editions adopt F3–B3–D3, assuming an error on Beethoven’s part and reproducing the melodic outlines used eight measures earlier by the cello.
32. Ibid., 112. Kerman describes the passage as “perfectly gauged in psychological justness and in its larger rhythm.”
33. See Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), 408–9, and Gregory Mason, The Quartets of Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 111.
34. Campbell does not comment about the use of register here, except to make an initial general remark about the Trio’s “airy texture” and enhanced use of the “upper registers.” See Campbell, “Beethoven’s Quartets Opus 59,” 184.
35. Ibid., 230. Campbell observes that the significance of the first peak C4 is motivic, not-ing, “The highest register is used over the dominant pedal, characteristically highlighting B3– C4, the basic motivic half-step. The high register is maintained as the recapitulation begins, removing one parameter of emphasis.” As this statement indicates, the lack of contrasting registers in this case is also significant.
36. Ibid., 234.
37. Ibid., 250.
38. Campbell and other commentators, who note a lack of connection between the slow introduction and main movement, have hitherto ignored these connections. See Robert Simpson, “Chamber Music for Strings,” in The Beethoven Companion, ed. Dennis Arnold and Nigel Fortune (London: Faber, 1967), 241–78.
39. Ibid. Due to the recapitulation of the second group first, Robert Simpson has described
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the movement as a “reversed sonata form.” Campbell underlines the “unusual hybrid of ter-nary form (song form) and sonata procedure,” in which the “complexity and control of So-nata Form enlarges the central section to equal the outer sections.” Campbell, “Beethoven Quartets Opus 59,” 278.
40. Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 148–49.
41. Campbell, “Beethoven’s Quartets Opus 59,” 265.
42. Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 144.
43. Campbell, “Beethoven’s Quartets Opus 59,” 310.
44. Ibid., 315.
45. The motive at mm. 387–88 also transforms the fugal motive with its supertonic harmony, whereas the implication of the low D continuing down to the tonic C is left unresolved until C reappears, rising again to C4.
46. Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 153.
47. Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer, 1977), 201.
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