Beethoven String Quartet in F major, Op. 135

Ludwig van Beethoven was born at Bonn, Germany, and was baptized on 17 December 1770.  He died in Vienna, Austria on 26 March 1827.  The String Quartet in F major, Op. 135, was completed on 30 October 1826 at Gneixendorf and was first performed in Vienna on 23 March 1828 by the Schuppanzigh Quartet.  The work is dedicated to Beethoven’s friend Johann Wolfmayer, who was a wealthy textile merchant as well as a “keen musical amateur”.  Wolfmayer was intended to be the original dedicatee of the Quartet Op. 131, but Beethoven changed his mind.  At the suggestion of violinist Karl Holz, Wolfmayer was given the dedication of Op. 135 as compensation.  

The String Quartet Op. 135 marks the last complete quartet written by Beethoven.  He wrote to his publisher Moritz Schlesinger:

Here, my dear friend, is my last quartet.  It will be the last; and indeed it has given me much trouble.  For I could not bring myself to compose the last movement.  But as your letters were reminding me of it, in the end I decided to compose it.  And that is the reason why I have written the motto: ‘The difficult decision – Must it be? – It must be, it must be!’

Some of the difficulties Beethoven was experiencing in composing this work no doubt had to do with his tumultuous relationship with his nephew Karl.  During the summer of 1826 the relationship became particularly unpleasant, and on 5 August 1826 Karl unsuccessfully attempted suicide.  Karl spent more than a month in the hospital.  He was discharged on 25 September 1826 and was taken by Ludwig and his brother Johann to Gneixendorf.  Despite ill health and a depression related to his familial situation, Beethoven completed op. 135 in the middle of October.  

Like the Eighth Symphony, Op.135 seems to mark the composer’s farewell to a fully realized episode in his artistic journey.  This quartet is much more lighthearted in nature than his previous works in the genre.  Melvin Berger comments that “[t]he relaxed geniality of Op. 135 probably also provided Beethoven with a much-needed release from the intensity and emotional involvement with the works that preceded it.  In the letter to Schlesinger quoted above, however, we find that Beethoven was not completely satisfied with this work:

You see what an unhappy man I am, not only that [this quartet] was difficult to write because I was thinking of something else much bigger, but because I had promised it to you and needed money, and that it came hard you can gather from the ‘it must be.’  Now add to that… my being unable to find a copyist anywhere… and so I had to copy it myself, and was that ever a nice piece of work!  Oof, it’s done.  Amen.

The first movement begins with the viola stating a motive which is questioning in nature.  This sets of a Haydnesque dialogue between all four members of the quartet, with the thematic material constantly traded between voices as if they are having a friendly debate.  This movement is full of sly turns; a false recapitulation here, a deceptive cadence there.  

The second movement is a rollicking scherzo charactarized by playful syncopated rhythms and ostinato figures.  According to Michael Steinberg, the playful nature of the movement is accentuated by Beethoven turning to “one of his favorite tricks, the one where he simply picks up an idea bodily and puts it down again on another pitch the way you might pick up your cat and move it from your favorite chair to another.”

The third movement is a slow movement in variation form, a medium that Beethoven frequently used in his late-period works.  Beethoven meant it as a “sweet song of rest, a song of peace.”  This movement was actually added to the quartet as an afterthought; originally the work was only to consist of three movements.  

The fourth movement is subtitled “The difficult decision.”  Beethoven writes out two themes as a heading to the movement.  One is based on the question “Must it be?” and its inversion is set to the answer to this question, “It must be, it must be!”  Beethoven gives this an almost metaphysical importance in the letter to Schlesinger quoted earlier.  The supposed inspiration for the movement, however, is not as profound as one might expect it to be.  Berger recounts the story in his Guide to Chamber Music:

Presumably, Beethoven refused to give Ignaz Dembscher, a government official and friend, a copy of his quartet, Op. 130, because Dembscher had not attended the premiere performance.  Wanting to set matters right, Dembscher asked Karl Holz to intervene.  Holz suggested that Dembscher send Schuppanzigh, whose quartet gave the first performance, the cost of a subscription, 50 florins.  Dembscher asked, “Muss es sein?” and Holz replied “Es muss sein!”  When Holz recounted the story to the composer, Beethoven burst into laughter and immediately sat down to compose a canon on the dialogue.

Supposedly this canon was then expanded into the last movement of the quartet.  Joseph Kerman says in his book on Beethoven’s quartets that “I would think that those sections of the movement which develop the Muss es sein? motif sound more like a farcical depiction of an old miser’s discomfiture than like any deep speculation… Beethoven makes light of all previous decision-making perplexities.”  This supports the earlier assertion made by Berger that Beethoven composed this quartet as a source of relief to the monumental works composed before this quartet.

-Program notes by Dr. Daniel Doña