Harlem Quartet Ludwig van Beethoven (born Bonn, December 16, 1770; died Vienna, March 26, 1827) Quartet in F minor, op. 95 (“Serioso”) (composed 1810) Incidental music to Goethe’s “Egmont” occupied much of the early months of 1810 for Beethoven. The Hofburg Theatre never paid him for that score, even though they further imposed upon him to help prepare for the May 24th opening performance of the 1788 tragedy. Still, he remained in fairly good spirits. The reason? Probably his hopes of a possible marriage, thanks to the intercession of his friend Count Ignatz von Gleichenstein. The Count, an official in the Viennese War Department, was enamored of Anna Malfatti, one of two sisters in an artistic family. Therese, the second sister, had been Beethoven’s piano student for some time, but in 1810, Therese was eighteen and Ludwig was in love. Gleichenstein, who would marry Anna in 1811, acted as a go-between in the futile wooing and eventually had to break the bad news to the stricken 39-year-old composer. Beethoven survived the disappointment and even remained friends both with the Malfatti family and with Therese herself. She would marry a baron in 1817. A relative who knew her well would later say that she would always speak of Beethoven with reverence but “a certain reserve.” The tone of the “Quartet in F minor,” completed in October 1810, could be attributable to the composer’s frame of mind, although such one-dimensional correspondences oversimplify the process of composing and its relationship to living. Nonetheless, the autograph score is inscribed “Quartett Serioso” and stands as one of the few works whose nicknames sprang from Beethoven’s own pen. Serious it is, at least for the first three movements. The impetuous unison opening fragments into four separate voices bouncing off each other; calm is restored with the second theme. Following a startling key change, the succinct development dwells exclusively on the first theme, as does the coda. As abruptly as it began, the movement ends, though quietly now and sounding oddly unfinished. Alone, the cello introduces the “Allegretto ma non troppo,” then passes the lead on to the first violin, which weaves a long, increasingly chromatic tune. The viola instigates the fugal midsection. A return of the cello’s prelude signals the return of the first section, now an octave higher and beginning to meld with the viola theme. After a mere pause, the “Allegro assai vivace ma serioso” springs to tense and turbulent life. The syncopations and silences of the opening bars pervade the scherzo, contrasting sharply with the trio’s chorale-like melody in the three lower strings and odd first violin accompaniment. The scherzo sounds three times, alternating with the twice-heard trio. Each repeat is shorter than the one before. The brief “Larghetto espressivo” gives way to the rondo-sonata “Allegretto agitato,” the violins trading honors until the brief development. The coda is announced by a change in meter and key as entirely new thematic material sweeps to the unison close.
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