String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 ‘Serioso’ (arr. Mahler for string orchestra)

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. The Allegretto ma non troppo is not so much a slow movement as an expression of unease, which proves to be well founded when the Allegro assai vivace forces an abrupt entry. 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.

In fact, the secret of the all-through continuity of Beethoven’s quartets is in the middle movements, as he was obviously aware when he wrote his tense Op.18, No.4, in C minor. Op.95 in F minor, which he completed ten years later, in 1810, follows the pattern of that quartet but intensifies its effect to an almost frightening extent. There is nothing playful in this work. As well as keeping the tempo moving after the closely concentrated first movement, he sustains an uneasy mood in what one can scarcely call the slow movement. The Allegro assai vivace is no scherzo, as the ma serioso qualification indicates. Then there is the (after this preparation) inevitably persecuted finale, which unexpectedly finds refuge in the radiant F major coda.

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.

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

arranged for string orchestra by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Allegro con brio

Allegretto ma non troppo -

Allegro assai vivace ma serioso - più allegro

Larghetto espressivo - allegretto - allegro

One of the greatest conductors of his time, Gustav Mahler anticipated much of what is now common practice in his profession. But what he did not anticipate, except where his own works were in question, was the present concern for authenticity. No matter who might have written the score he was working on, Beethoven, Schumann, Bruckner… if he thought anything in the orchestration didn’t work he would change it. He had no compunction either about compiling a new “Bach Suite” of movements selected from Bach own orchestral suites or about arranging string quartets - Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” Beethoven’s Op.95 in F minor, Beethoven’s Op.131 in C sharp minor - for string orchestra. So “the Philistines,” as Mahler described them, who “rose up as one man” against the performance of Beethoven’s Op.95 by the Vienna Philharmonic on 15 January 1899 were, in a very limited sense, the more progressive faction in the Musikvereinsaal that Sunday morning.

The intelligent attitude - as adopted on this occasion by Eduard Hanslick, who was no push-over as a critic - was to wait and see how the arrangement sounded before condemning it. In the event he found it “an unusual pleasure.” It would be idle to pretend that Mahler’s string-orchestra version of Beethoven’s String Quartet in F minor is in every respect as effective as in the original. On the other hand, while it says something about Mahler, it says much also about that particular work and the string quartet in general. It is difficult to imagine Mahler or any sensible composer arranging a quartet by Haydn or Mozart in this way. But by 1810, when Beethoven wrote his Op.95 - and still more by 1824, when Schubert wrote his “Death and the Maiden” - the string quartet had developed a dramatic dimension which sometimes seems , as Mahler said, “to demand a string orchestra.” His intention to perform Beethoven’s Op.131 with a string orchestra was fortunately never carried out: there is far too much intimacy and intricacy in it to bear that kind of exposure. The“Quartetto serioso,” Op.95, is different. It is a rigorously economical work the effect of which depends to a large extent on its sustained tension but also on extreme dynamic contrasts within a relatively small-scale structure.

Obviously, although conditions vary according to the acoustic, a string orchestra has a wider dynamic range than a string quartet. The heightened contrast between the angry octaves at the beginning of the Allegro con brio and the sensuous legato counterpoint a little later is only the first example. The added pizzicato colouring of the descending scale on cellos at the beginning of the Allegretto ma non troppo is of dubious value but the direct link between the pianissimo ending of this movement and the forte beginning of the next is even more dramatic in the orchestral version. Most effective of all perhaps is the suddenly radiant, suddenly F major, suddenly much quicker ending to the last movement: in its mainly quiet pattering figuration it has always seemed an orchestral concept and here it is realised according to its nature.