As was promised this past Monday, today was the day on which the first of the two Beethoven Marathon recitals, was uploaded for viewing at the Front Row: 2020 Online Concert Series video archive on the SFP Web site. The concert was presented by San Francisco Performances (SFP) and performed by the SFP Ensemble-in-Residence Alexander String Quartet (ASQ), whose members are violinists Zakarias Grafilo and Frederick Lifsitz, violist Paul Yarbrough, and cellist Sandy Wilson. They played two of Ludwig van Beethoven string quartets, the second (in the key of G major) of the “early” Opus 18 quartets and the “middle” Opus 95 (“Serioso”) quartet in F minor.
These were performed in reverse chronological order and were preceded by one of Beethoven’s earliest compositions, the duet in C major catalogued as the first of the WoO 27 compositions. This was played by the duo of violinist Yuri Cho and violist David Samuel. Their performance was videotaped at the Music Theatre for the School of Music on the campus of the University of Aukland in New Zealand, while the ASQ performances were recorded in Herbst Theatre.
The six Opus 18 quartets were first published in 1801, composed on a commission for Prince Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz. They were composed between 1798 and 1800, and their order of appearance in the publication was not chronological. Thus, the G major quartet in the publication was actually the third that Beethoven composed. What is more important is that Beethoven was well into his career by the time he received the commission, since the three Opus 1 piano trios were published in 1795, shortly after they were first performed for their dedicatee, Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky.
These works composed at the end of the eighteenth century show an abundant sense of humor. I have always speculated that Beethoven had been inspired by the abundant wit of his teacher, Joseph Haydn, and was motivated to outdo “the master” at this game. In that context wit is particularly abundant in the G major quartet, particularly in the second movement, when the Adagio cantabile theme is oafishly interrupted by an aggressive Allegro section, almost as if the Scherzo movement was jumping the gun. However, there are any number of eyebrow-raising turns of expression over the course of all four movements of this quartet; and, between the ASQ performance and the video account, the attentive listener can enjoy Beethoven’s exuberant sense of playfulness in this quartet.
Ironically, that capacity was still with Beethoven by the time he began work on Opus 95. He may have called this quartet “Serioso” to reflect listener expectations where the key of F minor is concerned. However, even when the rhetoric for this key is at its most “serious,” there is always a devil or two lurking in the details. I have, for some time, found that, even when the surface structure of the music tends to reflect one of those “scowling Beethoven” paintings, there is always a devil or two in the details just waiting to pull a prank on the attentive listener.
Yuri Cho and David Samuel playing the first of Beethoven’s WoO 27 duets in C major (screen shot from the Front Row video for this concert)
WoO 27 is another matter. Most likely it was composed in Bonn, possibly around the time that Beethoven first met Haydn, who was traveling to London in 1790. The duo was originally composed for clarinet and bassoon, probably written for the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, Maximilian Friedrich von Königsegg-Rothenfels, who had a wind ensemble that kept him entertained during his meals. The IMSLP Web page for this composition accounts for a wide variety of instrument pairings for this composition in a manuscript edited in 2010 by Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre. One of them has a viola playing the bassoon part one octave higher with the upper voice taken by violin, flute, or oboe. The composition itself consists of three short movements, which make it clear that Beethoven (at least at a young age) could be entertaining when called upon to be so.
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