Recording
- III. Molto adagio — Heiliger DankgesangThe Griller String Quartet: Sidney Griller and Jack O’Brien, violins; Philip Burton, viola; Colin Hampton, cello18:13
Beethoven wrote this movement, a “holy song of thanksgiving” for four string players, after a serious illness in 1825. The Griller Quartet plays the long hymn and the two D major passages, over which Beethoven wrote that he felt new strength.
Listening notes · joins
- Opening phrase and chorale
A short phrase passes from the first violin down through the quartet. The players then move into long chords in hymn style. Beethoven headed the movement “holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode”.
- B natural in the Lydian hymn
The hymn centres on F, but its scale has B♮ where F major has B♭. Beethoven’s Lydian mode uses the seven white notes of a keyboard, with F as the final.
- Illness and completion, 1825
In the spring of 1825 a serious illness interrupted Beethoven’s work on this quartet. He returned to it during his recovery and completed it in July. Above the slow movement he wrote his own words of thanksgiving.
- First Andante, D major
The music moves to D major and a faster 3/8. A trill in the first violin is followed by short runs, and the cello carries the tune in brief rising figures. Beethoven marked the section Neue Kraft fühlend (feeling new strength).
- Return of the hymn, varied
The slow hymn returns, with longer notes in the first violin and moving lines in the lower parts. The other instruments play around the melody, sometimes alternating with it, sometimes continuing while it holds a note. The music is again in F, on the scale of the white notes.
- Galitzin’s commission, 1822
In November 1822 Prince Nikolai Galitzin, an amateur cellist in St Petersburg, asked Beethoven for “one, two or three” quartets, and Beethoven named a fee of 50 ducats each. Galitzin went bankrupt in 1826. His son settled the debt with Beethoven’s nephew Karl in 1835 and 1852.
- Copying the parts, August 1825
The parts had to be copied before the quartet could be played. The cellist Joseph Linke worked from the manuscript, but the effort gave him a headache, and the violinist Karl Holz took over the last movement. Beethoven checked and corrected the parts himself.
- Letter from Galitzin, 14 January 1826
On 14 January 1826 Galitzin wrote that he had read in a Leipzig journal that the new A minor quartet had been played in Vienna. He was so impatient, he said, that he begged Beethoven to send it by post “without further delay”.
- Second Andante in D major
D major and the Andante return. The first violin decorates the tune with runs and trills, and the lower strings keep its springing accompaniment.
- Paris and Berlin editions, 1827
Schlesinger bought this quartet and the F major, Op. 135, for his Paris “Collection complète”. They are the only Beethoven quartets first published outside the German-speaking lands. Schlesinger’s father issued a parallel Berlin edition.
- Final Molto adagio
The marking Mit innigster Empfindung (with the deepest feeling) stands beside each player’s returning phrase. In the final hymn the voices enter one after another, and its long notes and turning figures pass among all four instruments. The dance-like music does not return.
- Rehearsal and first performance, 1825
On 8 September 1825 Karl Holz wrote to Beethoven: “Yesterday was the rehearsal of the new quartet; Carl was there too: we were delighted.” George Smart noted that Beethoven himself conducted the players at the first performance the next day.
- Karl’s report, 6 November 1825
After the concert of 6 November 1825, Beethoven’s nephew Karl reported that the hall was “infinitely full”, and that “it went very well together, and Linke played better than ever”.
- Leipzig review, 1825
Reviewing that concert, Leipzig’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung said that what “our musical Jean Paul” gave here was “great, splendid, unusual, surprising and original”, and must be studied as well as often heard. The reviewer found a monotony in the very long Adagio.
- Vienna review, 24 November 1825
A Vienna paper of 24 November 1825 wrote that Beethoven “hurries far ahead of his time” while the understanding of his listeners and critics “still pants laboriously behind”. Its reviewer counted himself among those left behind.
- Private hearings, September 1825
On 9 September 1825 fourteen invited guests heard the quartet at Vienna’s Zum Wilden Mann inn. It was played again two days later, and the visiting British musician George Smart was among the listeners.
- Final F chord
The hymn approaches its final F chord. Moving phrases end in held notes, and Beethoven marks pianissimo. The first violin holds a high note above the cello’s F, and all four players sustain the ending under a fermata.
Joins
- From F to D major
The hymn closes on F, with the first violin holding its upper note under a fermata. Neue Kraft fühlend introduces a D major Andante in 3/8. F♯ and C♯ enter the signature; the first violin trills and the cello starts a short rising figure.
- Return from Andante to the hymn
Above a descending cello line the Andante’s violin figures become quieter. At Molto adagio Beethoven cancels the two-sharp signature and restores common time. The F-Lydian hymn returns in long notes in the first violin, and the lower strings move more freely beneath it.
- Return of the Andante, with ornamentation
The second hymn closes over F in the cello. The bass moves to D, and the two-sharp signature and 3/8 return with Andante. The first violin leaps into the upper register and plays its tune with quicker flourishes above a rising accompaniment in the lower strings.
- Andante to the final Molto adagio
The second Andante ends, and Molto adagio restores common time and F Lydian. Second violin, viola and cello enter in turn, and then the first violin joins their moving phrases. Beethoven wrote Mit innigster Empfindung beside each entry. The hymn’s long notes appear among those lines bit by bit.