On Thursday night the program was titled "Seasons of Beethoven". It included just two works, one fairly early and one very late. You could easily convince yourself that they were composed by two different people.
The Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 5, Op. 24, the so-called "Spring" Sonata, was presented first by violinist Moshe Hammer and pianist Glen Montgomery. Although predominantly in a style which can easily be related to Haydn and Mozart, this sonata does contain a few quirky features -- such as the brief, almost epigrammatic scherzo and trio -- which foreshadow the mature Beethoven to come. It's a lovely piece, the tone of the music amply justifying the popular name, and these artists played it with a light, clear scale of tone that suited the work perfectly. Montgomery did a great job of keeping the rapidly repeated chords of the finale lightweight, unlike some pianists who begin playing here as if they were in a piano concerto!
I'm devoting the bulk of this article to the String Quartet in C Sharp Minor, Op. 131. As soon as you mention "the 131" to many music lovers, they get a distinct look of awe in their faces. This is one of those rare works of art which come along every century or so, whether in music, literature, theatre, painting or sculpture, which appear to have sprung out of nowhere. The mere existence of these earth-shaking artistic creations is totally unaccountable. Even their creators may have trouble explaining where these works came from!
Beethoven was famous for his ability to ignore the rules of classical structure and form which he inherited. One story, perhaps apocryphal, relates that an "expert" took Beethoven to task for using consecutive fifths in a work, a procedure not allowed in classical harmonic practice. Beethoven's angry response was, "I allow them!" Well, breaking the rules is one thing. After all, rules are made to be broken. Many people refer to the finale of the Choral Symphony as an example, but that work is conventionality itself next to the C Sharp Minor Quartet. Putting a choir and vocal soloists into a symphony unquestionably stretched the rules of symphonic form. Beethoven's Opus 131 doesn't just stretch the bounds of the classical string quartet; it blasts them wide open on every side.
In a way, it's not surprising that no other artist (with the possible exception of Schubert in his G Major Quartet) ever really followed the example of Beethoven's Opus 131 -- the universe of uncertainty and vast potential that it opens up is almost too frightening to acknowledge. I'm referring to the uncertainty in the art of composition. There's no uncertainty whatsoever about the music itself.
The uncanny nature of Op. 131 begins with its unprecedented structure: no less than seven movements of varying lengths, all to be played without any interruption from start to finish -- a total playing time of about 45 minutes, give or take a bit. Then, instead of the conventional key relationships sanctioned by custom and usage -- mainly revolving around tonic, subdominant and dominant keys, or relative minors and majors, you get the really off-the-wall collision -- and it does have that impact -- between the C sharp minor of the first movement and the sunny D major of the second movement. The variations of the A major fourth movement are light-years away from the simple structure common in the variation movements written by the young Beethoven. The third and sixth movements are so brief that they really function only as transitions and introductions to the more substantial following movements. The work opens in adagio time with a sad fugue on a most unsettling progression of notes: G sharp, B sharp, C sharp and down to A natural. It ends with two of the most vehement fast movements ever written by its creator, separated only by the short sixth movement adagio. The finale stays in C sharp minor almost down to its final bar, only switching into the major at the very end.
This is either the third or fourth time I have heard the work played live at the Festival. Each time it has left me in a state between exhaustion and exhilaration. I'm quite sure it's a wearingly intense experience for the players too -- you can tell that just by watching them!
The Penderecki Quartet gave us a splendid reading of this amazing masterpiece. Tempi were well chosen throughout and sat well in relationship to each other. Playing remained crisp and clear even in the most helter-skelter passages (such as the final coda). The opening fugue was sombre and melancholy, yet with a luminous quality in the playing that kept it from descending into dreariness. In the D major second movement the players really captured the dance-like feel of the music. The variation movement (No. 4) was particularly fine, with the individual character of each variation highlighted without losing the overall sense of forward motion within the movement.
For me, the performance of this work always stands or falls by the execution of the last three movements. Those two wild fast movements, the scherzo and the final allegro, were both cleanly played yet with no lack of energy. The final pages of the whole work built to a coda of truly wild ferocity, a moment in which the music must seem to be on the verge of going out of control without actually coming apart at the seams. The Penderecki Quartet's reading certainly achieved that result!
I've always regarded Op. 131 as Beethoven's most revolutionary work -- as did such great composers as Schubert, by the way. This performance captured that quality very well while still keeping all the diverse elements of the piece firmly linked to each other. Again, a well-deserved ovation!
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