String Quartet in F minor, Op.95 (“Quartetto serioso”)

It wasn’t a publisher or, still worse, a journalist who called it “Quartetto serioso” but Beethoven himself. And he meant it. Once the intimidating main theme of the first movement takes hold it is difficult to escape its grip, which is retained in one way or another almost to the end of the work. A parallel lyrical impulse is evident from an early stage, even before the entry of the second subject on an expressive viola, but it is regularly suppressed by the angry group of semiquavers from the opening bar. The short development section is concerned with little else but the main theme, which is initially presented in fortissimo ferocity. In the recapitulation the lyrical material survives rather longer without interruption than in the exposition and the movement ends quietly. It does not, on the other hand, end peacefully.

The Allegretto ma non troppo in D major is not so much a slow movement as an expression of a vague unease set in motion by the downward steps of the cello at the beginning. While there is room for modest melodic expansion on first violin, it is in association with a restless quaver figuration in the inner parts and with some bizarre instrumental colouring. The second theme, introduced by viola, initiates a fugal episode, which is still more unsettling, particularly on the entry of the counter subject in staccato semiquavers.

The apprehension implied by the downwards steps of the cello at the beginning and at several other points of the Allegretto ma non troppo is proved to be well founded when, without a pause, the Allegro assai vivace forces an abrupt entry. So the F minor tonality of the first movement immediately regains its grip and, though it is relaxed in the two trio sections, it is actually intensified as the tempo accelerates towards the end. The Larghetto espressivo introduction to the last movement briefly laments the situation and the uncompromisingly bleak Allegro agitato seems to confirm it – until, that is, the magical change of key to F major and the brilliantly radiant coda.

What inspired this taut little drama, with its joyfully liberated ending, we do not know. But it might be worth recalling that the work completed just before it, in the spring of 1810, was the incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont.