| String Quartet No. 11 (beethoven) |
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Beethoven is considered to be the first non-Italian composer to use his native language in his expressive markings, and the op. 95 quartet is an interesting example of one of the first non-Italian tempo markings. As is standard for String Quartet s, the piece is in four movements: # Allegro con brio # Allegretto ma non troppo #Allegro assai vivace ma serioso # Larghetto espressivo; Allegretto agitato; Allegro It is one of the shortest and most compact of all the Beethoven quartets, and shares a tonality (F) with the first and last quartets Beethoven published ( Op. 18, No. 1 , and Op. 135 ). In character and key, as well as in the presence of a final frenetic section in the parallel major, it is related to another composition of Beethoven's middle period — the Overture to His Incidental Music for Goethe 's drama '' Egmont '', which he was composing in the same year he was working on this quartet. The autograph manuscript for this quartet is marked October 1810, but the paper it is printed on doesn't match the paper he was using at that time. It is more likely that he finished it around 1811. It premiered in 1814 and wasn't published until 1816. Beethoven was quoted as saying "The Quartet 95 is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public." When one listens to the piece, it becomes clear why he said that. This piece would have been quite out of character in 1810, and is an experiment on compositional techniques he drew on later in his life. (Techniques such as shorter developments, interesting use of silences, metric ambiguity, seemingly unrelated outbursts, and more freedom with tonality in his sonata form.) The historical picture of this time period helps to put the piece in context. Napoleon had invaded Vienna earlier that year, and this upset Beethoven greatly. All of his aristocratic friends had fled Vienna, but Beethoven stayed and dramatically complained about the loud bombings. FORMAL ANALYSIS OF MOVEMENTS Movement I (Allegro con brio) This movement is in Sonata Form . Exposition (mm. 1-59) 1st tonal area, fm (mm. 1-21) Neapolitan important (m. 6, 19) Transition 2nd tonal area, D♭M (mm. 24-57) Closing (mm. 58-59) Note: There is no repeat of this already very short exposition. This adds to the startling nature of this piece as a whole. Development (mm. 60-81) FM cm CM m. 60 ? m. 77 Recapitulation (mm. 82-128) 1st theme is shorter this time (4 measures is all. 2nd theme begins in D♭M again (it does not need to be in the primary key like one would ordinarily expect in the recap because the second theme is not in the dominant or relative major. Also, this time, measure 103 is in the supertonic (ii) instead of the neapolitan (bII) like it was in measure 34 in the exposition Coda (mm. 129-end) Begins on neapolitan. Primary scalar motive of the beginning is developed. This coda is shorter than one might expect considering the already short development. As Arnold Schoenberg notes in an essay reprinted in the collection Style and Idea, also, most of the themes and events of this movement- and the main theme of the second movement- contain some form of the motive D♭ - C - D - E found in the second bar, even if transposed and changed in some way. Movement II (Allegretto ma non troppo) |
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