How many String Quintets did Beethoven write?
There’s Opus 4 (Day 57) but that’s an arrangement of the Opus 103 Wind Octet (Day 34).
There Opus 104, but that’s an arrangement of the Opus 1, No. 3 Piano Trio (Day 43).
Then there’s today’s composition, Opus 29, in C Major.
Beethoven’s Opus 29 String Quintet opens with an Allegro that is a worthy successor to the amazing late Mozart quintets, and the Adagio that follows likewise, both with long sweeping melodies. But what’s that weird unexpected outburst towards the end of the Adagio?
The Scherzo brings back some of the pastoral atmosphere and rustic dances of the Piano Sonata No. 15 (Day 141) but breaks into insistent tiny repeated phrases played with a savage Bartokian energy. The Trio careens in like a drunken uncle.
This work is sometimes called the Storm Quintet for the tremolo forebodings of its Presto last movement. The gathering clouds threaten to break up the country party, but the dancing continues, and even gets more structurally and contrapuntally complex.
#Beethoven250 Day 143
String Quintet in C Major (Opus 29), 1801
A celebrity in this ensemble is Chilean-American violist Roberto Díaz, the president/director of the Curtis Institute of Music (@CurtisInstitute).