# Quartet Op. 131, favorite first movement performance?



## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

I am wondering which performance of the first movement of the Op. 131 Beethoven quartet you enjoy most. I am currently most intrigued by the Busch recording, but I do not know many other recordings very well.


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## HistoryJoe (Mar 12, 2019)

Beethoven14 said:


> I am wondering which performance of the first movement of the Op. 131 Beethoven quartet you enjoy most. I am currently most intrigued by the Busch recording, but I do not know many other recordings very well.


Such an elegiac movement. Still sounds modern. My favorite is the Lasalle Quartet from 1977


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The Lindsay Quartet, their first recorded cycle.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Beethoven14 said:


> I am wondering which performance of the first movement of the Op. 131 Beethoven quartet you enjoy most. I am currently most intrigued by the Busch recording, but I do not know many other recordings very well.


The thing about this movement is that it's democratic, I mean all of the instruments have an equal say as they dance around each other, it's not like one instrument leads. I'm not sure that the Busch Quartet really got that idea, sometimes I feel as though in what they do, they let the first violin steal the show. There's an old one I like more by The Calvet Quartet, I can't see it on youtube.

As far as modern performance goes, Brooklyn Rider Quartet started to explore using portamento, and that may well be what Beethoven was expecting, I don't know. Maybe one of the Beethoven experts who post here knows more about how slides were used by violinists in the mid c19. Again, not on youtube unfortunately -- but worth hunting out because it's a real challenge to your expectations.

And Ebene Quartet have started to explore doing it. I rather like their delicate and nuanced approach, see what you think






Apart from that one recording which has always caught my imagination is the Vlach Quartet, because it's so eerie


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Busch by far for me.

When I think of the greatest all time Beethoven “tracks” I think first of that one, Schnabel’s Op. 109, 1st mov, and Furtwangler’s ‘43 Coriolan overture and ‘42 9th, 1st mov.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

As a boy I used to own a single acoustic Vocalion 78 of Op.131 by the London Quartet which contained the first three movements - abridged - as I was later to discover, but I never forgot the sound of the beginning, recorded through a horn, so sad and mournful.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Listening to it again last night I was struck by how interesting the music is, with that tension between C sharp and D in the first couple of movements; that extraordinary playful, flirtatious, erotic, coquettish, set of variations, masques, he was very good at variations; the way the variations seem inexhaustible, just when you think it's over he finds something new and unexpected to say; the really fabulous transitions between movements; and return of the mood of the first movement in the 6th. Hagen are playing it in London at the end of the year and I'm looking forward to hearing which they make of it now.

I think this was his best bit of music, he was right to be proud of it.



David Phillips said:


> so sad and mournful.





HistoryJoe said:


> Such an elegiac movement.


The idea that it's sad and mournful comes from Wagner I think, it doesn't need to be like that.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> The idea that it's sad and mournful comes from Wagner I think, it doesn't need to be like that.


I also don't find it necessarily sad or pained, but it is beautiful music. Kind of reminds me of time and eternity. Puts me in almost the same kind of mind frame as the "Abîme des oixeaux" or "Louange à l'éternité de Jésus" etc of Messiaen.

Still looking for a great performance myself. I have two in my library: Kodály Quartet and Colorado String Quartet, and both are serviceable, but not suitable for this kind of discussion.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The fugue seems very different from op 133, or the fugues in op 110. 

This may be silly, but the latter ones seem more baroque, while op 131/i seems more like renaissance counterpoint. I can’t explain that very well I’m afraid, it has to do with the way the voices envelop each other, wind around each other, rather than confronting, supporting, echoing and clashing with each other. Think of Ockeghem’s counterpoint.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

This is a cracker from start to finish. Slow but beautifully played and recorded.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Quartet Op. 131, favorite first movement performance? *

I don't want to be a quibbler ….
But, my first thought at seeing the title of this post was that it seems odd to single out a single movement of a work for a "favorite performance". Though I suspect this is a legitimate concern.

As I reflected further (which, for my current mind, lacking much of its former _current_, can be a considerable amount of time), I came to realize that I myself have been guilty of single movement comparisons. In fact, it goes even further than that: over the years I've found myself considering favorite performances of the _first eight notes _of the Beethoven Fifth, the great, single fantastical _chord _introducing the development section of the 1st movement of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, the opening sunrise of Strauss's _Also Sprach the Z-guy_, and … well, you get the gist.

Which brought me about to wonder exactly how deeply "ill" I am with this affection I have for music, and especially classical music in all its facets, including performance, and favorite performances of even single movements, opening passages, strings of notes, and, for god's sake, chords!

That confessed, I have decided that I deeply appreciate the way Rudolf Kempe handles the opening of Beethoven's Fifth in his Munich Philharmonic Orchestra recording; how James Levine strikes the Tchaikovsky chord in his Chicago Symphony recording of the 6th Symphony; and how William Steinberg paces the sunrise opening of the Strauss work on his Boston Symphony recording … but, unfortunately, I have come to no judgment of the opening movement of Beethoven's Op.131. Which likely means, once again, that my post here is all for naught.

But it does inspire me to dig out my assortment of Beethoven string quartet records/discs and begin listening to that Op. 131 opening in order to judge a favorite among those available for my hearing. Which brings me to the further thought: _What_ has happened to me!?


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## HistoryJoe (Mar 12, 2019)

flamencosketches said:


> I also don't find it necessarily sad or pained, but it is beautiful music. Kind of reminds me of time and eternity. Puts me in almost the same kind of mind frame as the "Abîme des oixeaux" or "Louange à l'éternité de Jésus" etc of Messiaen.


Yes! Messiaen is exactly what it brings to mind. I pulled out all the different performances I have around and was struck by the way each ensemble approaches it. Made for a nice little window of listening.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> The thing about this movement is that it's democratic, I mean *all of the instruments have an equal say* as they dance around each other, it's not like one instrument leads.


This is the general idea behind the classical string quartet:
_"... a new balance, one sometimes associated the very ideals of the Enlightenment. It is as if the elements of old-style fugal writing, with its strict independence of the voices, has somehow been combined with the new-style, melody-and-bass simplicity, in a 'modern' texture which has obvious elements of melody and accompaniment, but which constantly injects into this a sense of independence among the parts. No single instrument accompanies for very long: each of them plays an essential part in both the melodic development and its accompaniment. People near the time gave this new, more complex texture a severe-sounding German name; they called it thematische Arbeit, thematic working - all elements of the ensemble are independent (and individual), but each works with the others to produce the total effect."_
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lecture/transcript/print/mozart-quartet-in-c-major-k465-dissonance/

I think what makes Op.131 special is that it is a multi-movement work where the ensemble plays virtually "non-stop" from start to finish. I heard in one philosophical lecture that said something to the effect this piece can teach about family life and friendship to the players. Over the course of 40 minutes in performance of this Op.131 quartet, strings can become loose and go out of tune. Players must be flexible enough in technique to adjust themselves to the tuning of other players in order to compensate for the "failures". They must keep going together to the finish. The lecturer said "Likewise, we must sometimes adjust ourselves to the needs of our loved ones, try understand them and put ourselves in their shoes, to establish balance and harmony in family life" or something along the lines. I can't remember exactly though.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Vegh Quartet stereo, but this is a single-movement work (sic), so how they manage the next six might be significant?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

CnC Bartok said:


> Vegh Quartet stereo, but this is a single-movement work (sic), so how they manage the next six might be significant?


It's the same as people wanting to listen to op 133 or the Bach violin chaconne as a separate piece.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

One thing I’d be very keen to see is Beethoven's notebooks about this quartet - I bet he took an enormous amount of care, that there were an enormous amount of experiments rejected.


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## Beethoven14 (Feb 14, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> One thing I'd be very keen to see is Beethoven's notebooks about this quartet - I bet he took an enormous amount of care, that there were an enormous amount of experiments rejected.


See _Compositional Origins of Beethoven's Op. 131_ by Robert Winter which exhibits and interprets the sketches for this quartet.


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