Goethe famously wrote in a letter:
I have always found [string quartet] performances … more intelligible than other instrumental music; you hear four rational persons conversing together, and fancy you get something from their discourse, and learn to know the peculiarities of their different instruments.
Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 5 is perhaps the most relaxed of the Opus 18 set, pervaded by a lightness and delicacy. The minuet has been moved to the second movement — unusual but not unprecedented, for Beethoven based this quartet on one of Mozart’s. It is a true minuet and trio, not a scherzo, and beguiling in its gentleness. The Andante that follows is a theme and five variations. In performance, it is often the longest movement, and tends to command the emotional center of the quartet. After the riveting time-stopping 4th chorale-like variation, the 5th variation seems grotesque in its flamboyance. A conciliatory coda attempts to resolve these contradictions, but not enough to assure us that all is well.
#Beethoven250 Day 129
String Quartet No. 5 in A Major (Opus 18, No. 5), 1799–1800
The French Quatuor Ebène is attempting to record all the Beethoven Quartets live “Around the World.” Let's wish them luck.