When Prince Nicholas Galitzin ordered “one, two, or three new quartets” from Beethoven in November 1822, he could hardly have realized that he was instigating a series of works by which all later generations would judge profundity. Beethoven had not completely abandoned the quartet medium during the twelve years since the F minor Quartet, op. 95, but the commission gave him the impetus to turn sketches into finished works.

Though the prince may have sensed something new in the first of the quartets (E-flat major, op. 127) and might have raised an eyebrow when the second (A minor, op. 132) appeared with an “extra” march and recitative before the finale, he must have been astounded by the third (B-flat major, op. 130). Composed between August and November 1825 in its original version, the B-flat Quartet began with an outwardly normal first movement only to be followed by a suite of four shorter movements and capped by a fugue of incomprehensible scope and difficulty. The prince pronounced himself pleased with the Quartets, but was only able to make one payment before going bankrupt and joining the army. Too late for Beethoven himself, but in the proper spirit, a son of Galitzin paid with interest what was owed into the Beethoven estate.

The ever-faithful Schuppanzigh Quartet premiered the B-flat Quartet on March 21, 1826, and the second and fourth movements had to be encored on the spot to satisfy the clamorous applause. The colossal fugue, however, met with some resistance and the usually headstrong Beethoven was somehow persuaded to detach it and compose another concluding movement. When the Grosse Fuge was published separately as Opus 133 in 1827, Beethoven received as much money as he had previously for the entire Quartet. Though it took approximately a century for quartets to begin playing the B-flat Quartet with its original finale, such performances now predominate.

The Quartet opens with an Adagio that soon reveals itself to be more than a traditional slow introduction. Its frequent reappearances provide intense contrast, one of the chief features of this sonata-form movement. One is struck by the almost verbal nature of many of the movement’s utterances—sometimes hesitant, sometimes gushing—which many observers have linked to Beethoven’s overwhelming need to “speak” in his late works. The second violin, for example, has something insistent to say in the first Allegro, something that needs saying in various guises throughout.

A breathless, diminutive scherzo bursts on the scene in the tonic minor. A brief dance, a major key trio, a delightfully varied reprise, a bit of coda—all are over almost before they’ve begun. Beethoven decided on “Andante con moto ma non troppo” as the tempo marking for the highly original third movement, which incorporates sighing and melancholy along with a bit of jocularity and wit. The sonata-form structure unfolds with a sense of timelessness and grace, basking in some of Beethoven’s most inventive textures.

Jolted from the D-flat major of the preceding movement, the Alla danza tedesca (in the manner of a German dance) begins brightly in the far-removed key of G major. Following its more contrapuntally textured trio, the “tedesca” returns in varied guise. Beethoven toyed with the popular style by adding incredibly detailed dynamic nuances, including a plethora of “hairpins” (localized crescendo/diminuendo markings). One of the movement’s most celebrated passages occurs near the close when the melody is parceled out one bar per instrument with the fragments appearing in the “wrong” order!

The Cavatina, one of Beethoven’s most introspective and eloquent pieces, borrows its title from the term for an operatic aria—hence another “verbal” movement. The emotional force of this “prayer” never failed to touch the composer himself. His friend, violinist Karl Holz reported that “the Cavatina was composed amid tears of grief; never had [Beethoven’s] music reached such a pitch of expressiveness, and the very memory of this piece used to bring tears to his eyes.” In an outwardly simple three-part form, the movement climaxes with the heartrending sobs of the first violin—Beethoven marks these “beklemmt” (oppressed, fearful)—before the condensed reprise of the opening.

We have heard less than two-thirds of the Quartet when the Grosse Fuge begins. With this tour de force Beethoven produced, not so much his “Art of Fugue” as many have suggested, but his “Art of Thematic Transformation,” ingeniously clothed in fugal raiment. The extraordinary introduction, Overtura, previews the various incarnations of the main subject in reverse order in a key sequence of fifths. The main body of the Fugue is organized in three “movements.” The first, Allegro, presents a double fugue in which Beethoven develops the jagged countersubject as extensively as the main subject. His notation of the sustained notes of the fugue subject—each pitch written as a pair of tied eighth-notes instead of as a quarter note—continues to provoke discussion on what he meant by this rare form of emphasis.

The slow middle “movement,” Meno mosso e moderato, shifts to a rich new key, not for a strict fugue but for a fugato (imitative texture) in which the main subject is treated as a cantus firmus (fixed melody) around which the other parts weave their counterpoint. The “finale” (Allegro molto e con brio) begins with a dancelike section in the original key, based on the main subject, but abruptly shifts into a fugue in a remote key. This unpredictable fugue abounds with modulations and contrapuntal complexities. Beethoven delights in treating mere fragments of the subject. He recalls his slow section—and the introduction in an even more condensed style—and closes his “Art of Thematic Transformation” with a brilliant coda, which despite all its seriousness introduces a touch of levity.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe