the Rhetoric of Art

aMBUSH Gallery, Waterloo

23rd & 24th July, 7pm

Sydney Art Quartet

violin Thibaud Pavlovic-Hobba

violin Anna Albert

viola Andrew Jezek

cello Andrew Hines

painter/artist Juls Fraser

PROGRAM

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet No. 16 in F, Op. 135 (1826)

Allegretto

Vivace

Lento assai, cantabile e tranquillo

Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß. Grave, ma non troppo tratto (Muss es sein?) – Allegro (Es muss sein!)

Felix Mendelssohn - String Quartet No 2 in A minor Op. 13 (1827)

Adagio - Allegro vivace

Adagio non lento

Intermezzo: Allegretto con moto - Allegro di molto

Presto - Adagio non lento

PROGRAM NOTES

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet No. 16 in F, Op. 135 (1826)

Beethoven’s last quartet was written in October 1826 at his brother’s country estate about 50 miles northeast of Vienna, where Beethoven and his nephew Karl had taken refuge after Karl’s attempted suicide. It was, needless to say, a difficult time, but the Quartet is such a congenial and fun-loving work that it is fashionable to regard it as a sort of regression to Beethoven’s 18th-century roots, which is a common misconception about almost any later Beethoven work that isn’t full of thunderbolts.

The scherzo is rife with rhythmic jokes likely to convince players that they are counting wrong, or that the composer is off his rocker. The four parts tug at each other in four different rhythms or get together to run up and down and stop for no good reason. In mid-movement, the first violin gets lost in a series of syncopated leaps while the three lower parts repeat the same five-note sequence 48 times.

Then the ridiculous gives way to the sublime: a placid, seamless slow movement consisting of three variations of a softly rolling theme.

Before the finale, a brief slow introduction followed by an energetic allegro, Beethoven wrote “Der schwer gefasste Entschluss” (the decision reached with difficulty, or the difficult resolution). Beneath it, he wrote the three-note motif of the slow introduction with the words “Muss es sein?” (Must it be?), followed by the two three-note motifs that make up the Allegro’s principal theme, underlaid with the words “Es muss sein! Es muss sein!” (It must be! It must be!).

This motto, preceding the final movement of Beethoven’s final quartet, has occasioned much speculation. Its roots seem to lie in a story about Ignaz Dembscher, who put on chamber music events in his Vienna house and normally attended the subscription concerts of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, which premiered Beethoven’s later quartets. Beethoven normally let Dembscher use his manuscripts in Dembscher’s house concerts, but when Dembscher asked for the score of the Opus 130 quartet after having not subscribed to the concert in which it was first played, Beethoven said no. Karl Holz, the second violinist in Schuppanzigh’s quartet, told Dembscher that if he wanted to use the manuscript he would have to pay the subscription price of the concert he’d missed. Dembscher asked, apparently with a smile, “Must it be?” As the story goes, when Holz told Beethoven about the conversation, Beethoven immediately wrote a canon for four voices to the words, “It must be! Yes, take out your wallet!” to a theme recognizably the same as the “Es muss sein!” theme of the Opus 135 finale.

Beethoven gave a different explanation in a letter telling his publisher Moritz Schlesinger that he was enclosing the last of the quartets Schlesinger was expecting: “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 decision taken with difficulty – Must it be? – It must be, it must be!”

For Beethoven, composition was a series of agonizing decisions about which version of a theme to use or which direction to take it, and it must sometimes have been an act of extreme will to make his choices and finish a movement. “Es muss sein!” may mean “At last, I know how it must sound.” Whatever the motto means, the note of triumph is unmistakable.

Felix Mendelssohn - String Quartet No 2 in A minor Op. 13 (1827)

The year Beethoven died, 1827, was also the year that his last five quartets appeared in print. They must have been lightning on the brain of the teenaged Felix Mendelssohn, who studied them avidly. Another bolt of lightning struck him at about the same time: he fell in love. History does not record any specifics about this episode, even who the girl was, but it left some significant mementos. In June Mendelssohn wrote the words and music to a song titled "Frage" (Question). It was published as Op. 9, No. 1, with a fictitious "Voss" getting credit for the words, which are:

Is it true that you always wait for me there in the leafy path by the grape arbor and ask the moonlight and the little stars about me? Is it true? What I feel can only be understood by someone who feels it with me, and who will stay forever true to me.

A few months after writing the song, Mendelssohn composed his second string quartet. The song underlies the entire quartet, as Mendelssohn emphasized when he had the published quartet include the complete song.

He wrote to a friend: "The song that I sent with the quartet is its theme. You will hear it - with its own notes - in the first and last movements, and in all four movements you will hear its emotions expressed. If it doesn't please you at first, which might happen, then play it again, and if you still find something 'minuetish,' think of your stiff and formal friend Felix with his tie and valet. I think I express the song well[.]"

So Mendelssohn wrote a quartet about being in love, and there is nothing stiff, formal, or old-fashioned about it. Young as he was, Mendelssohn had already produced a series of mature masterpieces, including the Octet and Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, but nothing in those shining works foreshadowed the stormy power of this quartet.

The transformation can be attributed to a combination of early love and late Beethoven quartets. Listeners who know those quartets will hear many echoes of them in Mendelssohn's. It begins with a gentle, reflective prologue in A major, the end of which quotes the song's opening phrase, "Ist es wahr?" (Is it true?) The long-short-long of that phrase is the basis for much of follows.

It plays a role in all four movements, though it is sometimes less obvious to the ear than it is on paper. It dominates the principal theme of the allegro that follows, which is ushered in with a dramatic touch: a flurry of sixteenth notes sets the agitated mood, then the three lower parts foreshadow the theme, much as the orchestra might introduce a big operatic aria by hinting at the theme before the diva takes it up. An even more operatic touch is the movement's final cadence, a closing formula common in opera arias since Mozart (think of the Queen of the Night's famous second-act aria in The Magic Flute). What comes between is a tightly constructed movement about yearning and conflict, driven by dissonance and intricate counterpoint.

In the second movement, like the first, a peaceful major-key prelude gives way to an unsettling contrapuntal movement - this time a fugue with a chromatic subject. It sounds very modern for 1827 and at the same time archaic and modal, like a mannerist fantasy of the 17th century (or some movements in Beethoven's late quartets). It is doubly unsettling for being rhythmically puzzling. Though the basic rhythm is in three, the fugue subject is seven beats long, and the next voice unexpectedly enters as the first one reaches the seventh beat. The prelude returns, and its strains are blended with those of the fugue, now softened into major.

The third movement is another three-part structure. It begins as a graceful, sober nocturne, but soon runs off to fairyland for one of those shimmering, darting scherzos that Mendelssohn always had up his sleeve. The nocturne returns, but the fairies and moonbeams get the last word.

The fourth movement starts with another device characteristic of opera and Beethoven's last quartets: a tempestuous recitative by the violin over tremolos in the three lower parts. The main body of the movement recalls the mood of the first movement, and literally recalls its main theme, along with the second movement's fugue, now in duple rhythm instead of triple in one more rhythmic surprise. As themes from the different movements are telescoped together, the movement subsides into the music that began the first movement, and then the quartet ends with a quotation of the second half of "Frage" - "What I feel can only be understood by someone who feels it with me, and who will stay forever true to me." Mendelssohn seems to be telling us that we've just spent half an hour listening to what love feels like to him. Rarely did he let his listeners see so much of him.

Juls Fraser - painter/artist

In my current artistic journey, I am exploring the world of the human figure within a specific context. I am captivated by the idea of interplay of motion of the figure within an environment, weaving together a harmonious narrative. My work often revolves around themes of identity and self-portraiture, but I approach these topics subtly. Placing the figure in a specific context challenges our assumptions about who we are. By delving into the idea of movement, I hope to reveal the underlying dynamism in all of us. I hope my art will spark a conversation between the viewer and the subject, thinking about the stories that emerge when the figure and its surroundings become one. My work is an opportunity to observe the intricate dance of life and identity, with every stroke and composition reflecting our ever-changing selves.