INTERNAL COHERENCE: ANALYTICAL INTERPRETATIONS
At the 2017 conference dedicated to Op. 131 sponsored by the Boston University Beethoven Center, scholars presented papers and engaged in lengthy discussions regarding how to understand this quartet. Without the benefit of inscriptions found in other late works, they cleaved to the few annotations Beethoven left such as the “cantabile” of the fourth movement as a source of knowledge behind the meaning of the work. Their talking points centered largely on the contradictions in the music, such as how there could be unity amid disunity, conventional and non-conventional forms and harmonies, and classical and romantic styles together in one work. I too, engaged in conversation about the paradoxical musical style in this quartet characteristic of Beethoven’s late works in general, trying to understand it as part of a larger strategy for
coherence. When I told my colleagues that our topics of conversation were similar to those first critics of Op. 131, they seemed surprised. Could Beethoven scholarship really be that static?
My study shows that contemporary theories of Op. 131’s internal coherence date back to ideas about the finished work and sketches that first appeared in 1828 and 1844 respectively. The main explanations of coherence were based on cyclic form, continuity between movements, conventional aspects of form and harmony, and musical memories. This chapter also shows how the search for Op. 131’s internal coherence contributed greatly to the nineteenth-century
construct of Beethoven’s “late style,” which served to organize the otherwise diverse elements of the late works.
While Op. 131 has attracted a number of technical analyses, the reader will note the absence of certain names long associated with commentary on the late works in general. These include Heinrich Schenker, Ernst Kurth, Arnold Schoenberg, Felix Salzer, and Edward Cone.71 Also, in his analytic study of the late quartets, Daniel Chua limits his discussion to the “Galitzin” quartets (Opp. 127, 130, 132). As William Kinderman has noted, this was a somewhat
“arbitrary” decision “especially in light of [Chua’s] rejection of the received opinion that these subsequent pieces embody a kind of reconstruction of ‘reintegration,’” a central idea to Op. 131 analysis.72 Perhaps the strong biographical association of this work turned these analysts away from this quartet, or perhaps they merely never got around to committing their thoughts to paper. In any case, analyses of this quartet over the span of nearly two centuries have tended more toward the descriptive than the analytical. Theodor Adorno was the first to note this problem broadly for the late works in his notes for a biography on the composer published posthumously in 1993 as a series of fragmentary ideas the critic had on the composer from 1938 until his death in 1969. Yet the relative absence of technical analyses has not tarnished the image of this work as the paradigm of the composer’s late style. Rather, these circumstances have spawned a new paradox: the quintessential late quartet, and by extension late work, has received fewer in-depth, musically-driven analyses than its counterparts.
71 Heinrich Schenker, for example, planned a graphic analysis of Op. 131 in the centenary, but never followed
through. See Heinrich Schenker, “Diary Entry by Schenker December 3, 1927,”
http://www.schenkerdocumentsonline.org/documents/diaries/OJ-04-01_1927-12/r0003.html. Schoenberg cited Op. 131 as influential but does not analyze it (see Chapter 4).
72 William Kinderman, Review of The “Galitzin” Quartets of Beethoven: Opp. 127, 132, 130, by Daniel Chua,
The Finished Work Cyclic Form
Rochlitz’s lengthy 1828 response to the first rehearsal, performance, and publication of Op. 131 was the earliest analysis of this work. Although he found the quartet to be highly unusual, he was able to make a case for this work’s internal coherence, largely through its cyclic form. He did so through an examination of the quartet “as a whole and in its details,” enhanced by the second- hand perspective of a “friend” (likely Karl Holz from the Schuppanzigh quartet).73
At first, Rochlitz and Holz were confused over what appeared to be Beethoven’s lack of the “continuation or working out” of the main melodies across his quartet in a convincing way. In other words, they found it difficult to find the thread that kept the movements of this larger work connected. They argued that Beethoven made understanding these melodies
much more difficulty [in this work]—for the player, to give them sufficient weight; for the listener, to pick them out and follow their succession—through artificial treatment, now by humorously chopping them up or playing hide and seek, now by abundance of countersubjects, transitional subjects, and postscripts, that are in themselves also attractive, piquant, and only all too engaging, so that one is distracted by them.74
Despite their struggles, both men eventually were able to trace the main melodies throughout the entire quartet, allowing “the whole [to acquire] order, context, and clarity.” Rochlitz heard them “obscurely present” throughout the entire quartet and “occasionally breaking out in wonderful
73 GQ1, 494: “im Ganzen und im Einzelnen.” Translation in CRBC, 53. John Gingerich’s research on the premiere
of Op. 131 on March 9, 1828 in Vienna supports my quartet choice, and Holz was the likely candidate to speak about this event because he did in Beethoven’s conversation books from the summer of 1826, and in a later
correspeondance with Lenz. See Gingerich, “Ignaz Schuppanzigh and Beethoven’s Late Quartet,” 479–90. See also Karl-Heinz Köhler, Grita Herre, and Dagmar Beck, eds., Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1993), 10:163–4, 167; and BEK5, 216–19.
74 GQ2, 508: “B., bald durch sehr künstliche Verarbeitung, bald durch launiges Zerstücken oder Versteckens-
Spielen, bald durch vielerley für sich wieder anziehende, picante, nur allzusehr beschäftigende, mithin auch ablenkende Gegen-, Zwischen-, ZuSätze – dem Spieler, sie genugsm geltend zu machen, dem Zühorer, sie herauszufinden und ihnen neben jenem zu folgen, nicht selten sehr erschwert.” Translation in CRBC, 58
ways,” indicating his awareness of this quartet’s unique and unified structure.75 Given his understanding of the inner-connections between the main melodies of this quartet, it is possible that he understood it as cyclic in form. Broadly, by emphasizing how Beethoven placed the responsibility of understanding his music on the listener and performer, Rochlitz exhibited knowledge of the shift in Beethoven’s outlook (and that of his critics) from writing music based on the principles of rhetoric to hermeneutics.76
François-Joseph Fétis expanded on the reception of Op. 131 as a cyclic work, now for French-speaking audiences in his initial critique of this quartet in the Revue musicale (April 1830). This quartet was the first late Beethoven work performed in France on March 24, 1829 (the Ninth symphony was performed at the Conservatoire on March 17, 1831), and was also the work that Fétis believed to be paradigmatic of the composer’s late style. This was the case because it was uniquely positioned as the “easiest to understand, and the least incorrect harmonically.”77 It was “easy” to understand because the presence of overwhelming fantasy could be contained through cyclic integration and the strange new melodies were offset by well- known French ones; it was the least problematic harmonically because while “errors” were present, they were not egregious and could be analyzed using conventional music theory.
Fétis became the first critic to provide musical evidence for the cyclic form of this quartet, without using this specific terminology. He reasoned that the work was cohesively
75 GQ2, 506, 508: “durch die jedoch und deren Hervorhebung im Vortrage das Ganze erst Folge, Zusammenhang,
Deutlichkeit erhält.”; “eine Fortführung, Ausarbeitung derselben grossen-theils nicht zu erkennen, viel weniger zu verfolgen, und doch schien sie überall dunkel vorhanden, brach auch zuweilen bewundernswürdig hervor.” Translation in CRBC, 57–8.
76 Mark Evan Bonds, “Irony and Incomprehensibility: Beethoven’s ‘Serioso’ String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, and
the Path to the Late Style,” JAMS 70, no. 2 (Summer 2017), 336.
77 François-Joseph Fétis, “Les derniers quatuors de Beethoven (oeuvre 131e),” Revue musicale 7, no. 9 (April 3,
bound around “the radical ideas of the first theme,” namely the first five measures of the first violin that later re-appear in movements two, four, five and seven (see Music Examples 2.1a– e).78 While not entirely clear, these re-appearances draw on the pitches and intervallic content of the opening fugue theme. I transcribe them below as they appear in the original publication. Absent from this list is the often-cited example from the seventh movement beginning in m. 21 (see Music Example 1.2).
Music Examples 2.1a–e: Fétis’ Printed Musical Examples of the Opening Fugal Motif in Op. 131 2.1a: Movement 1, Violin 1, mm. 1–5:
2.1b: Movement 2, Violin 1, mm. 1–4
2.1c: Movement 4, mm. 1–8
78 Fétis, “Les derniers quatuors de Beethoven (oeuvre 131e), 282: “base les idées radicales du premier thême qu’on
2.1d: Movement 5: Violin 1, mm. 1–8
2.1e: Movement 7: Violin 1, mm. 2–5
Wilhelm von Lenz too sought coherence in this quartet in his 1860 publication of
Beethoven’s third period. Relying on thematic and harmonic evidence, he assessed the quartet as having cyclic form. He explained that “No. 7 is from the hands of No. 1 thematically…the finale is the substrate of the complete vision.” However, his examples for the re-emergence of the fugue theme in the finale differ from his predecessors. First, he explained that the first violin part in mm. 94–96 (whole notes E♯, F♯, G♯, followed by the quarter note A), is “by augmentation,” the fugue theme in the opening first violin measures of the quartet (half notes B♯, C♯, A) (see Music Examples 1.1 and 2.2). His next two examples, the unison first and second violin parts in mm. 30–31 and 34–35, relate more to the fugue theme, given their similarities in intervals, specifically the B♯ rising to the C♯ (see Music Examples 2.3a–b).79 Although Lenz did not print these examples, I have provided them below for ease of reference.
Music Example 2.2: Augmented Fugue Theme, Op. 131, Movement 7, Violin 1, mm. 94–96
79 BEK5, 262: “Nr. 7 reicht Nr. 1 thematisch die Hand (siehe Nr. 6). Dieses Finale ist das Substrat der Gesammt
Music Example 2.3a–b: Recurrences of the Fugue Theme in Op. 131 According to Lenz 2.3a: Movement 7, Violins 1 & 2, mm. 30–31
2.3b: Movement 7, Violins 1 & 2, mm. 34–35
In 1885, music critic Theodor Helm crafted a largely descriptive analysis of Op. 131 as cyclic, based on Wagner’s 1870 program for this quartet. He explained that the motif in the finale beginning in m. 21 of the first violin (see Music Example 1.2) was “strikingly reminiscent of that of the first movement.” The first four notes of the fugue motif (G♯, B♯, C♯, A) are the same as those presented here in the finale (C♯, B♯, A, G♯).80 While Helm was not, as John Crotty declared, the first to note this thematic link between the outer movements of this quartet, he was the first to do so using the theme beginning in m. 21.81 Although Joseph de Marliave’s Les Quatuors de Beethoven (1925) is known today largely as a translation and paraphrase of Helm’s work, either he or the editor of this posthumous monograph, Jean Escara, expanded upon Helm’s
80 BSA, 250–51: “deren Motiv auffallend an Jenes des ersten Satzes des Cis moll-Quartetts erinnert.” 81 Crotty, “Design and Harmonic Organization in Beethoven’s String Quartet, Opus 131,” 14.
idea of the return of the fugue in m. 21 by claiming that this motif also returned in the first measures of the finale, as Fétis noted in 1830 (see Music Example 2.1e).82
Hugo Riemann became the next music theorist to make a substantial contribution in the search for Op. 131’s internal coherence. In his 1910 book on the string quartets, he argued that the “unity of motives upon which this whole quartet is built,” would be a surprise to listeners who approach this work as “a disruption of formal traditions.” Like his predecessors he heard the fugue theme in the opening of the second movement (see Music Example 2.1b) and the finale (see Music Examples 1.2, 2.1e and 2.3b). He expanded the list to include new possible connections in the fifth movement (see Music Examples 2.4a–c) and in the finale (see Music Examples 2.4d–e).83 Vincent d’Indy (1933) would later show an interest in the return of the fugue them in mm. 5–13 of the finale (see Music Example 2.4d), relating it specifically to the tail of the opening fugue theme beginning in m. 3. He explained that this repetition of thematic material was a kind of “free reversal” of ideas from the fugue.84
82 Kerman noted the link between both books. See TBQ, 384. Prior to Kerman, this connection was pointed out by
Martin Bernstein in the 1928 edition of Marliave’s book. The original French edition was published as Joseph de Marliave, Les Quatuors de Beethoven, ed. Jean Escara (Paris: Librarie Félix Alcan, 1925); Trans. Hilda Andrews as Beethoven’s World, preface by Gabriel Fauré and Introduction by Jean Escarra (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928); Reprinted as Beethoven’s Quartets (New York: Dover Publications, 1961). For a discussion of this quartet as cyclic see Marliave, Beethoven’s Quartets, 321–22.
83 BS, 147–49: “Die Einheitlichkeit der Motive, auf denen dies ganze Quartett aufgebaut ist…das ein Zersprengen
der formalen Traditionen bedeutet.” Warren Kirkendale did not agree with Riemann’s assment of the return of the fugue theme in the second and fifth movements. See his footnote 225 in Warren Kirkendale, Fugue and Fugato in Rococo and Classical Chamber Music, trans. by Kirkendale and Margaret Bent (Durham: Duke University Press, 1979), 270.
Music Examples 2.4a–e: Fugue Theme in the Op. 131 According to Riemann85 2.4a: Movement 5, Violin 1, mm. 68–72
2.4b: Movement 5, Violin 1, mm. 110–18
2.4c: Movement 5, Violin 1, mm. 307–10
2.4d: Movement 7, Violin 1, mm. 5–13
2.4e: Movement 7, Violin 1, mm. 289–92
In “Some Aspects of Beethoven’s Art Forms” (1927), music scholar Donald Francis Tovey (1875–1940) related the perceived abnormalities of Op. 131 to one alleged as relatively standard, the Piano Sonata in B♭ Major, Op. 22, to show how both are equally abnormal and conventional in form.86 He maintained that while previous critics had been caught up in the idea
85 Examples published in BS, 142, 146–48.
86 Prior to the publication of this article, Tovey had lectured on the topic of form in Op. 131’s coherence in 1925,
explaining that while the work “is considered…fantastic and revolutionary,” there was not a work he could think of since Bach “in which, taking it on its own footing, a larger percentage of the notes in the whole thing can be
that in his late works Beethoven had broken the formal “molds” used by composers such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven himself, there was in fact, no “mold to break.” If there were molds, then “indeed Beethoven’s last works [would] require a separate [one] for each.” Instead, Tovey argued for a new definition of “forms,” as the “inner principles by which the music grew.” For Op. 131, a work he believed to be “a perfect unity,” a large part of the internal logic derived from its cyclic integration. Although “generally skeptical about such long-distance resemblances, where the composer has no means of enforcing his point,” he reasoned that with this quartet, Beethoven “goes out of his way to accentuate his point,” through the return of the fugue theme in the finale. He characterized the second theme as “mournful” and called particular attention to the answer in the second violin part in m. 22, and the way in which it is recapitulated in the flat supertonic and then in tonic (see Music Example 1.2).87
Music analysist, critic, composer, and musician, Rudolph Réti (1885–1957), provided in 1951 a short analysis on the relationship between the quartet’s fugue theme and the one
beginning in m. 21. He argued that in addition to familiar transformations such as “inversions, contrary motions, and reversions,” Beethoven invented new devices that were “never mentioned in any textbook.” One such example was an “interversion,” a transformation he found
prominently in Beethoven’s late works, that “consists of interchanging the notes of a thematic shape in order to produce a new one.” As an example, Réti pointed to the resemblances between
accounted for.” See Donald Francis Tovey, The Classics of Music: Talks, Essays, and Other Writings Previously Uncollected, ed. Michael Tilmouth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 537. In 1934 he reaffirmed his thesis that there was “predestination” in the supposedly “formless” Op. 131 just as there was “free-will” in his
“conventional” Op. 22. See Donald Francis Tovey, Essays and Lectures on Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949), 181. And again in 1941 Tovey referred to his centenary essay where he showed how “the C sharp minor Quartet was the strictest of all Beethoven’s works, if by strictness we mean the necessity of the material to be shaped as it is.” See Donald Francis Tovey, A Musician Talks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), 2:46. In this same collection Tovey also refer to Op. 131 as work that “covers the widest emotional and musical range of anything that I know.” See Tovey, A Musician Talks, 2:88.
the opening theme of Op. 131 and the finale theme in m. 21. While the second part of these themes are “clear inversions,” the opening four notes represent interversions because they are related yet interchange the note order (G♯, B♯, C♯, A and then C♯, B♯, A, G♯). Not only does this theme appear after interversion in the finale, it also appears in the second and fifth
movement if the melodies are transposed (see Music Examples 2.1b and 2.1d).88
From Tovey’s concept of “perfect unity,” Kerman extended the argument by claiming that this quartet was “the most deeply integrated of all Beethoven’s compositions.”89 He later reiterated it as “the most closely integrated of all his large compositions…the culmination of his…effort[s] as a composer ever since going to Vienna.”90 (Spitzer would repeat this sentiment in 2006 calling it Beethoven’s “most unified cyclic composition.”)91 Kerman suggested that since this quartet was rhythmically and harmonically coherent, “it may not be surprising that Beethoven should have taken another unprecedented step,” for coherence by including a “quote or near quote” of the opening fugue theme in the finale: “What a unique, original, sensational stroke that was!” Or, perhaps it was merely one additional way for Beethoven to reiterate
coherence in a somewhat predictable manner. Kerman noted that even Tovey, who was skeptical of such long-distance thematic relationships, supported this case of “allusion” to the fugue theme in the finale.92 Kerman differed from Tovey in that he viewed Op. 131’s case of thematic
integration as part of a long history of such coherence in Beethoven’s oeuvre, rather than a unique example among others. What was in fact exceptional about Op. 131’s cyclic form
88 Rudolph Réti, The Thematic Process in Music (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), 72–74. 89 TBQ, 325–26. Emphasis in the original.
90 Joseph Kerman and Alan Tyson, The New Grove Beethoven (New York: W.W. Norton, 1983), 136. 91 Spitzer, Music as Philosophy, 169.
according to Kerman, was that here for the first time Beethoven makes “normal” (Tovey’s word), an “artistic device that has hitherto been problematic or tendentious. Perhaps he brings it for the first time to expressive clarity.”93 Stephen Rumph later claimed that Kerman had
“purchased coherence at the price of history, leaving the late works as problematic as ever.”94 In other words, Kerman’s failure to adequately contextualize the specific type of coherence he