“With striking symbolism, the last of Beethoven’s Op. 18 quartets — the only one to be composed entirely in the first year of the new century — combines elements of the classical past and the early romantic present with two remarkably prescient visions of the future” – Angus Watson
Few things in Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 are what they first seem. Although the opening Allegro is engaging enough, it soon fades in significance when the Adagio begins developing and exploring chromatic frontiers, yet never losing its lyrical core.
The 3rd movement of Beethoven’s 6th String Quartet is a Scherzo whose syncopations and driving rhythmic entanglements have been compared to Bartok, and the Trio section gets even weirder.
Beethoven’s 6th String Quartet is most famous for its last movement, which Barry Cooper calls “one of the most vivid illustrations of a mental state in the whole of music history.” (Beethoven, p. 102)
It is common for Beethoven to begin a first or last Allegro movement with a slow introduction, but this is something else altogether. The movement is labeled “La Malinconia” (“Melancholy”) and Beethoven instructs the musicians to play it “with the greatest delicacy.”
This is not just another slow introduction to an Allegro movement. It is longer, deeper, and yet with an undeniable bittersweetness to it. “This is not the first time I’ve been depressed,” it seems to say. “I know this place. Just let me be.”
And yes, “La Malinconia” snaps out of it, and we finally get the Allegro we thought we were supposed to be hearing in the first place. In context, however, it’s a false gaiety, a distraction. It’s busy, busy, busy work until the wave hits again. Another crash, another recovery, wistful depression, an anxious respite, until we’re not quite sure whether it’s going to end in jubilation or suicide.
#Beethoven250 Day 130
String Quartet No. 6 in B♭ Major (Opus 18, No. 6), 1800
The Boston-based Parker Quartet performing live for a radio audience.
Extraordinary in ‘La Malinconia’ are the mysterious chromatic progressions, which for all their effect of harmonic disorientation are masterfully shaped into an integrated dramatic progression … [and] enigmatic harmonic labyrinth. — William Kinderman, Beethoven, p. 68
It’s tempting to associate the melancholy in String Quartet No. 6 with Beethoven’s progressive realization of his hearing loss, but get this: “For the whole time I have been plagued with asthma; and I am inclined to fear that this malady may even turn to consumption. Furthermore, I have been suffering from melancholia, which in my case is almost as great a torture as my illness.” That was Beethoven in a letter in 1787 when he was 16 years old. Depression wasn’t unknown to him, although challenges would continue to mount.