String Quartet in C minor, Op.18 No.4

You don’t have to know much about Beethoven to be aware that C minor – the key of his Fifth Symphony, Third Piano Concerto and Pathéthique Sonata – was a special challenge to him. It is as though the sound of C minor represented a threat that had to be overcome and, where possible, converted into its happy antithesis in C major – a resolution which is achieved through heroism in the Fifth Symphony and by magic in the Third Piano Concerto but not achieved at all in the Pathétique Sonata.

In the String Quartet in C minor, one of the set of six dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and published as Op.18 in 1801, the outcome is uncertain until the very end. The opening of the Allegro ma non tanto is entirely characteristic in its C minor seriousness and, although there is an amplitude of contrasting material, including a comparatively relaxed second subject, the end of the movement is as grim as the beginning. Perfectly balanced as they are, the two middle movements, a witty Scherzo in C major and an impulsive Menuetto in C minor, advance the argument in neither direction. It is as though, by omitting a slow movement which might have committed him in one way or the other, he is keeping the issue alive for the last movement. The fugitive main theme of the final rondo in C minor does not promise a happy ending, least of all when it is accelerated to Prestissimo near the end. But then, when it is nearly all over, the mode changes to C major – subtly rather than triumphantly but clearly enough.