Recording
- I–VII. Complete quartet — seven linked movementsLéner String Quartet: Jenö Léner and Joszef Smilovits, violins; Sándor Roth, viola; Imre Hartman, cello · 11, 21 and 22 February; 25 August 1924, London40:42
The Léner Quartet play Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 131, complete in its seven linked movements. A solo violin begins, and a dance, a song shared among the four players and a Presto played close to the bridge come before the final C♯ major chords.
Listening notes · joins
- Opening fugue, first violin
The first violin begins a slow fugue in C♯ minor, marked Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo. The other three instruments enter in turn with the subject while the earlier voices continue. The cello has a melody of its own.
- Conversation books, December 1825
Around 11 December 1825 Beethoven wrote the fugue subject into a conversation book. In January 1826, with rehearsals for Op. 130 under way, his friend Karl Holz suggested trying something of the C♯ minor quartet too, and asked whether the first piece was already finished.
- Léner Quartet recording, London, 1924
The Léner Quartet recorded the work in 1924 at Columbia’s Petty France studios in London. The fugue was recorded on 11 February, and the variations and most of the later movements on 21 and 22 February. The dance and the recitative followed on 25 August.
- Beethoven and Karl Holz
“My dearest friend, I have had another idea,” Beethoven told Karl Holz, second violin of the Schuppanzigh Quartet. He also told Holz that he thought this his best quartet.
- Wagner on the opening fugue, 1870
Writing in 1870, Richard Wagner called this opening movement one “than which probably nothing more melancholy has been expressed in tones”. He described it as the awakening on the morning of a day that would grant not one wish.
- Schubert’s last illness, November 1828
In November 1828, during his last illness, Schubert asked to hear this quartet, and Holz’s quartet played it for him. Holz recalled that “Schubert was sent into such transports of delight and enthusiasm and was so overcome that we all feared for him.”
- Dedication to Stutterheim, 1827
In March 1827 Beethoven asked Schott to put Baron Joseph von Stutterheim’s name on the quartet. Stutterheim had accepted Beethoven’s nephew Karl into his regiment.
- Move from C♯ to D major
The fugue ends with all four instruments on C♯. The next movement, an Allegro molto vivace in 6/8, rises a semitone to D major. The first violin plays the tune, accompanied by the other three.
- Attacca instruction and retuning
Beethoven marked the seven pieces to be played without a break. The musicians asked when they would have the chance to retune their instruments.
- Columbia issue, November 1924
Columbia issued the quartet in November 1924 on five double-sided discs, as L 1581–1585 in Britain and as Masterworks Set No. 6 in the United States. Side 3 held the dance and the recitative together. Side 7 held the end of the variations and the start of the Presto.
- Third movement, eleven bars
The dance ends and short, speech-like phrases follow. They pass down through the quartet before the first violin plays running notes above held chords. The movement is eleven bars long and leads into the next.
- Variation theme, two violins
The two violins share a melody in A major, one continuing where the other stops. The viola holds a quieter line between them, and the cello plays the accompaniment pizzicato. This theme opens the quartet’s longest movement, a set of variations.
- Publication in parts, 1827
Schott published the quartet in parts in May and June 1827, first in Paris and then in Mainz. Beethoven had died in March, and the first players read from single parts. The full score followed in February 1828.
- Announced as Op. 129, April 1827
In April 1827 Schott announced the quartet as Op. 129. Artaria’s Op. 130 had not yet appeared, and the publishers’ numbering had gone wrong. On 27 April Artaria corrected the sequence, and the C♯ minor quartet was registered as Op. 131.
- Engraver’s copy for Schott, 1826
Schott asked whether the quartet was new. In August 1826 Beethoven sent the engraver’s copy with a joke written on it: “Stolen together from this and that.” He then had to assure the publisher that the music was brand new.
- Dedication to Wolfmayer, 1827
On 22 February 1827 Beethoven told Schott that the quartet was for his friend Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer. On 10 March he wrote again, begging Schott “by everything in the world” to change the dedication if it had already been engraved. Wolfmayer later received Op. 135.
- Engraver’s copy in Bonn
The copyist’s manuscript that Beethoven corrected and sent to Schott spent 177 years elsewhere before it reached the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, with help from the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Its cover page carries corrections in Beethoven’s own hand.
- Schumann on this quartet and Op. 127
Robert Schumann wrote that this quartet and Op. 127 seemed to him to stand, with some of Bach’s choruses and organ pieces, “on the extreme boundary of all that has hitherto been attained by human art and imagination”.
- Opening of the Presto, cello
A short cello figure opens the E major Presto. The other three players enter with clipped notes, and rests break up the phrases. Later Beethoven asks for sul ponticello — bowing close to the bridge — which gives the same strings a thin, metallic edge.
- Performances in the first fifty years
In its first fifty years the quartet was played 260 times. Op. 130 reached 214 performances over the same period, and Op. 132 reached 274.
- Sul ponticello near the end of the Presto
Near the end of the Presto all four players bow sul ponticello, close to the bridge, at pianissimo. A museum exhibition guide calls the instruction unique and the sound thin, metallic and uncanny. A marked return to ordinary bowing leads to a loud close.
- Sixth movement, Adagio
The viola begins a slow G♯ minor melody in 3/4. The sixth movement, Adagio quasi un poco andante, lasts twenty-eight bars, and a first-violin flourish leads into the finale.
- Finale, Allegro in C♯ minor
The finale, an Allegro in cut time, returns to C♯ minor. All four players play the opening figures together. The first violin then takes the melody above an offbeat accompaniment.
- First public performance, Halberstadt, 1828
The first public performance took place in Halberstadt on 5 June 1828, more than a year after Beethoven’s death. Müller organised it.
- Arnold Schering’s Hamlet reading
The musicologist Arnold Schering heard Hamlet in this quartet. He took the finale for the last scene of the play, with the duel between Hamlet and Laertes, the queen’s collapse and Hamlet’s death.
Joins
- From C♯ octaves to D major
The four lines of the fugue converge on quiet C♯ octaves, held under a fermata. The cello then moves up a semitone to D, and the first violin begins a tune in D major. The tempo changes from Adagio to Allegro molto vivace, in 6/8 with two beats to the bar.
- From the D major dance to recitative
The D major dance ends in pianissimo notes and rests. Beethoven adds G♯ to the key signature and changes the metre from 6/8 to common time. Chords separate short phrases, which pass from one violin to the other and then to the viola and cello. The marking is Allegro moderato, and an Adagio follows within this eleven-bar recitative.
- Third movement into the Andante
The first violin plays runs over held chords, and the harmony moves towards A major. At Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile a new theme begins in 2/4. The two violins share it, and the viola holds an inner line. The cello changes to pizzicato and plays short groups of quavers under the theme.
- Variations to Presto: cello leads
The variations end softly in A major, with the lower strings playing pizzicato under a violin note held beneath a fermata. The cello takes up the bow again and begins the E major Presto alone. After its opening figure comes a bar of silence, and then all four players take up the short, quick music in cut time.
- From the Presto into the Adagio
After the Presto’s near-bridge passage, ordinary bowing returns and the quartet closes firmly in E major. The viola begins the G♯ minor Adagio, and the other players then enter beneath it. The Presto’s two beats become three slow beats, and the cello joins with sustained notes.
- Violin flourish into C♯ minor
The first violin decorates the last phrase of the G♯ minor Adagio while the lower strings sustain its harmony. The key signature loses one sharp. C♯ minor returns at Allegro, in cut time, with a fortissimo C♯ struck in octaves by all four players.