Everything about String Quartet No 14 Beethoven totally explained
The
String Quartet No. 14 in
C-sharp minor,
opus 131, by
Ludwig van Beethoven was completed in
1826. The number traditionally assigned to it's based on the order of its publication; it's actually the fifteenth
quartet in order of composition. Atypically, the work is in seven movements totalling approximately 40 minutes; they're as follows:
- Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo
- Allegro molto vivace
- Allegro moderato
- Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile — Più mosso — Andante moderato e lusinghiero — Adagio — Allegretto — Adagio, ma non troppo e semplice — Allegretto
- Presto
- Adagio quasi un poco andante
- Allegro
This quartet, which is dedicated to Baron Joseph von Stutterheim, was Beethoven's favourite from the late quartets. He is quoted as having told a friend his evaluation of the quartet: "thank God there's less lack of imagination than ever before." It goes beyond everything Beethoven had written up until that point, with the possible exception of the string quartets op.
130 and
132. (Indeed, Op. 131 is the conclusion of that trio of great works, written in the order 132, 130, 131 with the Grosse fugue ending; and they may be profitably listened to and studied in that sequence.) It is said that upon listening to a performance of this quartet,
Schubert remarked, "After this, what is left for us to write?"
Book
Robert Winter, who has since co-edited the
Beethoven Quartet Companion (ISBN 0-520-08211-7, 1994, University of California Press Berkeley), wrote in 1982 the
Compositional origins of Beethoven’s opus 131 (ISBN 0-8357-1289-3), published by UMI Research Press in Ann Arbor. The author is an authority on Beethoven's sketches, and the latter book specifically reprints the early version of the opening of the concluding Allegro movement, in its present version a pair of
unison phrases. Either book – the more recent may also be more available – should contain interesting information on Beethoven's quartet writing. The middle section of the
Companion comprises extensive analyses of the quartets themselves by the musicologist / annotator Michael Steinberg.
TV and movie appearances
The sixth movement of this piece was used in the ninth episode of the
Band of Brothers miniseries,
Why We Fight. A spooked-up rendition of the first movement's opening bars appears repeatedly in the soundtrack to the horror movie
Scanners.
Further Information
Get more info on 'String Quartet No 14 Beethoven'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://string_quartet_no__14__beethoven.totallyexplained.com">String Quartet No. 14 (Beethoven) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
