Quartet in E-flat Major, Op.74 “Harp”
The handful of years directly preceding the 1809 composition of the Op.74 string quartet was a time marked by severe social and political tumult in Western Europe. Napoleon’s quest for French domination of northern Europe meant that Beethoven’s homeland, Austria, was under nearly constant siege from 1800 until 1814. It’s all the more amazing then that while distracted by the sounds of fierce battles going on in and around Vienna, Beethoven was able to produce the Op.74 quartet, a work loaded with optimism and beauty (Beethoven, as it turned out, saved his impassioned response to the harshness of the war for his Op.95 “Serioso” quartet, which he wrote the next year). Despite the social turbulence of an unrelenting war and the personal realization that he was beginning to suffer from early symptoms of deafness, the years 1803-1814, Beethoven’s “middle period”, produced some of his most expansive and heroic works. During this brief time, Beethoven produced five string quartets (Op. 59 Nos. 1-3, Op.74 and Op.95), six symphonies (Nos. 3-8), two piano concertos (Nos. 4 and 5), his opera “Fidelio”, seven piano sonatas (including the “Appassionata” and the “Waldstein”), the Violin Concerto and the Triple Concerto.
The Op.74 “Harp” quartet signals a tipping point in Beethoven’s evolution as a composer in that we hear him simultaneously honoring the stylistic and formulaic traditions of the past while also beginning to experiment with innovative compositional techniques. The concise first movement begins with a slow, questioning introduction, featuring a motive played by the first violin that serves as the melodic seed for the entire movement. Shocking chords are followed by moments of silence, as Beethoven allows the listener to ponder the possibilities that lie ahead. After segueing to the main Allegro body of the movement, the optimism of the piece is finally disclosed, as Beethoven creates a first theme in the first violin from the music of the slow introduction. Plucked arpeggios in the viola and cello introduce the “harp” motif (for which the quartet was given its unofficial nickname) before passing the jaunty conversation to the two violins. A second theme comprised of running sixteenth notes, accompanied by a short-short-short-long rhythm that is immediately reminiscent of the famous motive of the Fifth Symphony, provides a lovely contrast to the more languid first theme. The first movement culminates with a dazzling coda made up of the now familiar “harp” motif (shared amongst the lower instruments) and a truncated version of the first theme (also shared by the viola and second violin) played against a virtuosic first violin line, all of which cascade toward a triumphant finish.
The slow second movement is one of Beethoven’s most sublime essays of lyricism and beauty. The expansive main theme, played by the first violin, is stated three times throughout the movement with each incarnation baring more ornamentation than the previous version. Beethoven creates a sense of variation through clever alterations not only to the accompanying voices but also through subtle changes in nuance in the main theme. Between these three utterances of the primary melody, Beethoven introduces two melodic episodes that take the music in slightly different emotional directions: first, through the use of the parallel minor, to darkness and despair, and then with a more soaring theme shared by the first violin and cello, back to a glowing beauty.
One of the most innovative aspects of Beethoven’s compositions was his ability to expand existing musical forms for greater emotional impact, a technique he chose to employ in the third movement. In the scherzo of Op.74, Beethoven constructs a double trio in which he introduces the scherzo (A), jumps to the first trio (B), restates the scherzo (A), revisits the trio (B), and then goes back to the scherzo (A) before ending the movement. The first violin led scherzo features a vigorous version of the short-short-short-long theme with a ferociously unrelenting accompaniment in the lower instruments. Ebullient arpeggios get tossed between the instruments between amid of the main theme in the scherzo before Beethoven moves to the sturdier sounding trio. The opening run in the cello part turns out to be the accompanying material to a canonic theme that is introduce by the viola and then taken up by the rest of the quartet. After traversing the supercharged framework of the scherzo, Beethoven steers the movement to a surprisingly gentle close before segueing directly into the last movement.
The finale of Op.74 is built on a genial theme, which is carried by the first violin, and a set of six charming variations. Each variation has a specific mood and character uniquely its own as Beethoven alternates between fast and slow variations, and spreads the music equally among the instruments of the quartet. The sixth variation begins an accelerando that continues all the way to the end of the movement, where Beethoven completes the quartet with a wink and a smile.
(notes by Kurt Baldwin)