Source for notes: The String Quartet, A History by Paul Griffiths, Thames and Hudson 1983, and Charles
 Rosen's The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Norton & Co. 1972

 
1. By the time Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) projected a series of quartets the repertory was already well stocked, with nearly a hundred works by Haydn and Mozart alone. This situation would make any young composer think long and hard before embarking upon quartet composition.
2. He waited some six years after his arrival in Vienna (1792) before beginning work (1798) on the set of six quartets op.18 finishing and publishing them in 1800.
3. So it was that Beethoven was working on his first quartets as Haydn was finishing his last. The op.18 (as well as his quartet op.74 and other major works) is dedicated to Haydn.
4. Though there are numerous points to be made concerning the influence of Haydn found in these quartets, Beethoven is far from mere imitation which was a highly respected method of learning the art of composition.
5. Beethoven introduces his own kinds of structural complication: 1) the use of small motifs which bind material together (though this might remind us of Baroque practice, Beethoven's use of motive is in a developmental and transformational context wholly in keeping with Classical concepts) also 2) a very great expansion of the materials even by comparison with Haydn's last quartets, and 3) a new importance given to the coda which will take on monumental proportions in his maturity.
6. His approach to tonality and key scheme is already daring. The quartet op.18 #4 in C minor restores the minor mode after the recapitulation has appeared in the major and this is not the first time the major has broken through. The use of third-related keys is a feature of Beethoven even more than Haydn. An example in op.18 is the D major quartet #3, where the second movement is in Bb major. The scherzo modulates not to the dominate but to the relative minor of the dominant - f# minor. This type of relationship is not unique to Beethoven. Many composers had been experimenting in such a way for at least a decade, however the fifth relation was the only point of real stability while other keys were merely transitory. Beethoven, however, extends these relationships considerably which delays the appearance of the dominant or the tonic in the recapitulation and gives the secondary areas much more importance and character.
7. With this first collection Beethoven had changed the nature of the quartet and even its sound.
8. Rather than pair the first two violins as partners (as he sometimes does) he more often associates the second violin with the viola as an alto instrument (as Haydn had occasionally done) which makes the quartet sound weighted more in the center.
9. Beethoven approached the quartet medium only after intensive preparation. He left it, after this first encounter, with every indication that it would be the vessel of his most exploratory thoughts.

"RAZUMOVSKY QUARTETS", OP.59

1. In 1805 (the same year of the publication of the 3rd Symphony the Eroica) Beethoven began the set of three quartets dedicated to the Russian ambassador to Vienna, Count Andrey Razumovsky.
2. And whereas there is a relation between his symphonic experimentation and the breakthrough with such works as the 3rd Symphony and the Sonata for Piano Op.57 Appassionata 1804 particularly in terms of length, the quartets op.59 are not as symphonic as the op.18.
3. They are much more concerned with inventions of texture and syntax in an intimate medium.
4. That they are much longer than any previous quartets is true. What is remarkable is the extension of the material but not necessarily through repetition. The quartet #1 op.59 is the first sonata allegro to dispense with the customary repeat of the exposition. This first movement is nearly four hundred bars long in common time.
5. On a more deeply structural level, the absence of repeats makes the movement a single broad sweep, since the beginning is now only a beginning, never to be rediscovered. He even points this out at the beginning of the development giving the expectation of repeat but not granting it. The second quartet, e minor, is in complete contrast as, instead of doing away with repeats, it repeats as much as possible: not just the exposition but the second half as well (enforcing a practice which was beginning to die out, and the scherzo is not the usual da capo, but a further repetition of both parts to make an ABABA pattern. The third quartet, C major, is more typical in its' use of repeats.
6. All three quartets of the op.59 last for approximately 40 minutes (as compared with the 20-30 minutes of Haydn or Mozart). The length is crucial. On a typical concert today a Haydn or Mozart quartet requires another composition to complete half a recital program, whereas one of the op.59 quartets can easily stand alone.
7. This is not just a matter of duration. Each quartet is sustained by a singleness of thought and psychology throughout its length. As in the 5th symphony the 3rd and 4th movements of the first and third quartets of op.59 are joined with movement three leading directly into the last.
8. The effect of this joinery is to give each of the finales the force of a recapitulation, which tonally, of course, it necessarily is, so that the principles of sonata form begin to apply not just to each movement but to the four-movement cycle as a whole.
9. There is a harmonic unity among the three quartets. The second quartet in E minor involves the key of F major as a significant sphere of interest (the key of the first quartet) and in its' last movement the rondo theme is in C major before the movement devolves strongly into E minor, the home key, thereby looking forward to the third quartet which is in C major.
9. An added touch of a unification to the set as a whole is the short fugato in the first movement of the first quartet which telegraphs, perhaps, what is to come in the last movement of the last quartet - a complete 'show' fugue. The op.59 is a triptych, a totality which altered the medium as profoundly as had Haydn's op.33. There was, however, no great contemporary to be pressed into emulation. The growing vogue in string quartet writing among his contemporaries was to make their quartets concerto-like rather than symphonic and was particularly pronounced when the first violinists were themselves composers. Quartets of this type were no more than trio accompaniments to the leaders' bel canto. Beethoven was in his op.59 and all successive quartets insisting that the string quartet was still the appropriate medium for the most challenging of musical thinking.

Beethoven: the Late Quartets

1.As Beethoven enters his 30's and the new century begins, the scale of the music becomes bigger, and the gestures are often heroic.
2.The "Eroica" (1803) defines the new manner: the "Emperor Concerto composed six years later represents its summit. The "Razumovsky" Quartets, Op.59, fall into the middle of this phase, and the two single quartets Op.74 and Op.95 'serioso' are strong postscripts.
3.Then comes a period of exploration and near-silence, one in which the string quartet is not
represented at all.
4. In June 1822, Beethoven again turned his mind to string quartets. He had done nothing in that genre for fourteen years. Some unfinished sketches (of op.127) are the only result of that year. It must be noted that Beethoven is completely deaf at this time of taking up quartets again.
5. Another Russian, Prince Nicolaus Galitzin then commissioned Beethoven to write three quartets. This commission will result in the Opp.127,130, and 132; before beginning work on this project however in the summer of 1824, he finished the Ninth Symphony, the Diabelli Variations, and the Missa Solemnis. The String Quartet in Eb Op.127 was completed in February 1825.
6.In all, the late quartets number five highly individual, complex and without doubt the most interior music Beethoven ever wrote. They are: (the opus #'s do not reflect the order in which they were written) - Eb major op.127 (1822-24-25), C# minor op.131 (1825-26), A minor op.132 (1824?-25), F major op.135 (1826), and Bb major op.130 (1825-26). Of the Bb major the fugue was so overpowering that he published it separately as Der Grosse Fuge op.133, and wrote an alternate finale (1826).
7.There is enough material in these late quartets to fill volumes and to certainly overtax my ability to talk about them. That they were ahead of their time is a given, as practically everything Beethoven ever wrote was ahead of its time. The critics, while recognizing him as the 'greatest living composer', complained that his music was 'bizarre and difficult to hear'. These quartets, however, are on the frontiers of musical art even for Beethoven.
8.Experimental in form, the Op.127 in Eb has 4 multi-sectioned movements, Op.132 in A minor has 5 movements, Op.130 in Bb 6 movements (with alternate last movement to substitute for the Grosse Fuge) and the C# minor Op.131, has seven movements designed to be performed without a break. The Opp. 132, 130, 133, and 131 form a cycle with melodic, motivic, and tonal relationships. Each of the quartets exhibits material drawn from the upper four notes of the minor scale as, in the key of A minor for instance, E,F,G#,A.
9. The four-note motive that opens Op. 132, the first of the four quartets to be composed, is embedded in the thematic material of all the quartets in the cycle and appear within the initial theme in the Overtura of the Grosse Fuge.
10. If a 'circle of thirds' i.e C,E,G,B,D,F#,A,C#,E,G#,Cb,Eb,Gb,Bb,Db,F,Ab,C,Eb,G,Bb,D,F,A, is constructed and then applied to the quartets opp.127,130,131, and 132 it will be found that Beethoven explores nearly all these keys in contiguous segments. There is no evidence that he planned these quartets in such a way, but "equally there is no doubt that his awareness of the extent and range of harmonic landscapes was without peer in the whole history of music".