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.
The scherzo is full of 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 difficult decision). 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!).
Enough words! Here is Beethoven’s music of his final quartet:
