Arts & Events

On Sunday, August 30, The New Esterházy Quartet presented the third and final concert at Berkeley’s Hillside Club in their series devoted to the Late Quartets of Ludwig von Beethoven. The Sunday program featured the14th Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, and the Grosse Fugue. Prior to performing these works, New Esterházy violist Anthony Martin noted that they would play these works through without stopping to re-tune their period instruments between movements; and he begged our indulgence if by the end of each work their instruments were no longer in tune. This, of course, is a problem with period instruments and gut strings. I for one do not mind the re-tuning between movements that occurred, for example, during Wednesday evening’s concert, though some members of the audience had problems with this. (Pace Larry Bensky.) My attitude toward period instruments is to cherish the advantages they offer while tolerating their limitations. In any case, on a hot, humid Sunday afternoon, in a packed to the brim Hillside Club where 200 bodies were seated in the audience, thereby raising both the room temperature and the humidity, both of which are inimical to gut strings, The New Esterházy Quartet managed to complete each work without a pause and without sounding out of tune. To this I can only say “Bravo!” 

Beethoven’s C-sharp minor Quartet, Op. 131, has been hailed by J.W.N. Sullivan as “the most mystical of the quartets, and the one where the mystical vision is most perfectly sustained.” This is a debatable proposition, for I’m by no means sure what is meant here by the term “mystical.” Sullivan also asserts that, “the opening fugue [of the C-sharp minor Quartet] is the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven has ever written.” This too is debatable, especially in the context of a concert program offering both the C-sharp minor Quartet and the Grosse Fugue. One might just as readily name the Grosse Fugue as the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven – or anyone -- has ever written. I think what Sullivan is trying to get at is the way these Late Quartets of Beethoven often venture into transcendental realms where words no longer suffice to communicate an experience far beyond our ordinary human, all-too-human lives. In any case, Beethoven himself considered the Op. 131 Quartet his finest quartet, though this work was never performed in concert during Beethoven’s lifetime. 

Sticking to the music itself of the C-sharp minor Quartet, we note the soft, poignant opening notes played only by the first violin. The 2^nd violin and viola quickly add their soft voices. Thus begins the opening fugue, which will undergo a myriad of sublime and quite serene variations throughout this slow movement, becoming ever-changing yet remaining ever-the-same. After the exultant trills of the last variation, the music assumes a lilting and lively quality. This airy dance music is ushered in by stepping a semi-tone up the scale. This seems an expression of pure gaiety. A bit later, there are lovely little duets between viola and cello. There are also amusing four-way echoes of pizzicato plucking that resound among each of the instruments in turn. There are also strenuously choppy rhythms here and there. But these do not betoken struggle. Rather, they too seem part and parcel of a serene vision.  

Maynard Solomon takes note of both the totally integrated quality of the C-sharp minor Quartet and of its pressures towards discontinuity. Of the latter, he notes, “six main keys, thirty-one changes of tempo (ten more than in Op. 130), a variety of textures, and a diversity of forms within the movements – fugue, suite, recitative, variation, scherzo, aria, and sonata form –which makes the achievement of unity all the more miraculous.” In the finale, marked Allegro, Beethoven uses fragments of the fugue theme from the work’s opening movement. Thus the work is rounded off, ending where it began, yet having traveled far and wide. Is this a mystical vision? I’ll leave that for others to debate. Whatever else it may or may not be, it is beautiful music – and it was here beautifully played by The New Esterházy Quartet. 

Following an intermission, The New Esterházy Quartet returned to play Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue. However, violist Anthony Martin announced that they would first play a 30-second piece of music for string quartet marked Allegretto that was found in the early 20^th century in Beethoven’s papers. After this little gem, Martin announced, they would play the Cavatina from Beethoven’s B-flat Quartet, Op. 130, which originally led into the Grosse Fugue before Beethoven, at the urging of his publisher, detached the Grosse Fugue from Op. 130 and issued it as a separate work, substituting a more accessible finale to the B-flat Quartet. The Cavatina, of course, is a heart-wrenching expression of anguish. What this anguish is about I discussed in my review of Wednesday’s concert. Suffice it to say here that after writing the Cavatina’s testament to an anguished struggle, Beethoven, in the Grosse Fugue, seems to say, “Now I’ll show you how a musician, a composer, overcomes sorrow, struggle, and pain.” He goes back to Bach and the basics of classical music, and he tears into this primary material in the most courageous, even ferocious manner, mastering it in ways that no one else has achieved before or since.  

Though it may seem artificial to do so, the Grosse Fugue may be divided into three major sections – an introduction, a slow movement in a new key, and a scherzo finale. All throughout this work, however, innumerable variations of the basic fugal material are explored. So thorough is this exploration that one has the impression that no uncharted territory remains once the work is completed. If the first five movements of the Op. 130 Quartet expressed the pain and suffering of Beethoven’s struggles, one may well see in that work’s original finale – the Grosse Fugue – Beethoven’s Herculean overcoming of all obstacles, of all pain and suffering, in the creation of a courageous, totally uncompromising piece of music. As played here by The New Esterházy Quartet, the Grosse Fugue was a fitting climax to this group’s three-concert series featuring Beethoven’s Late Quartets. 

Errata: In my review of Wednesday’s concert, I stated that Berkeley’s Hillside Club is a 100-seat theater. This is erroneous. In its theater set-up it seats 200 people, though a 100 seat limit is enforced when set-up for serving dinners. I thank Bruce Koball of the Hillside Club for this clarification.