String Quartet in G major Op 18 No 2 (1799-1800)

The opening theme of the Quartet in G is so gracious in its rococo melodic flourishes that in German-speaking countries the work is known as the “Compliments Quartet.” But Beethoven was not a naturally deferential composer. His first six string quartets were written not only with a healthy respect for the achievements of Haydn and Mozart but also with a will to assert his own individuality. Polite though the thematic material is – the    second subject is no less civil than the first – within a few bars of its D minor beginning the development passes into an eerie area of alien harmonies where whispered fugal counterpoint on a chromatic line is weirdly combined with a rhythmic ostinato from the first subject. Before the development is over, an eager cello starts the recapitulation so ungraciously that it takes the two violins some time to restore the material to its original poise.

In a discarded earlier version the slow movement retained the same tempo throughout. In the boldly unconventional final version a melodious Adagio cantabile proceeds more or less as normal until the first violin is provoked into seizing on an apparently insignificant phrase, running off with it and engaging the other instruments in a brisk exchange of semiquavers. The Allegro episode ends as abruptly as it began and the Adagio cantabile continues as though nothing had happened.

A third-movement scherzo rather than minuet was nothing new in 1800. It was unusual, on the other hand, to link the two central movements, as Beethoven does here by suggesting a relationship between the opening theme of the Scherzo and the phrase so surprisingly taken up by the first violin in the Allegro episode of the Adagio cantabile. Like Haydn, Beethoven does not confine his sense of humour to the scherzo. In the cheerful Allegro molto finale he is merciless in teasing the main theme by allowing it to reappear in any tonality but its own G major. Even at as late a stage as the coda, after its long-awaited definitive recapitulation, he threatens to divert it yet again in the wrong direction.

Beethoven was not a composer to be intimidated. Before he approached his first set of string quartets, however – at a time when Haydn was still imposingly active in the medium – he prepared himself by working first in other, less competitive kinds of chamber music with strings. Even then, before he released his first six quartets for publication, he took even more care than usual in ensuring that he would be represented at his best. At about the same time as their publication in 1801 he sent an urgent message to his violinist friend Karl Amenda, to whom he had given a copy of an early version of the Quartet in F major Op 18 No1: “Be sure not to pass on your quartet to anyone else,” he wrote, “because I have substantially altered it. For only now have I learnt to write quartets properly – as you will see when you receive them.”

This does not mean that he was unwilling to take risks: no true successor of Haydn and Mozart would be as timid as that. Even in the Quartet in G major, which is not the most adventurous of the Op.18 set, Beethoven is always ready to depart in some unexpected harmonic or structural direction. The opening theme of the first movement is so gracious in its rococo melodic flourishes that in German-speaking countries the work has come to be known as the “Compliments Quartet.” The second subject is scarcely less polite. Given that material to work on, the development might seem to have little potential for surprise and yet, within a few bars of its D minor beginning, it passes into an eerie area of alien harmonies and whispered fugal counterpoint on a chromatic line combined with a rhythmic ostinato from the first subject. Before the development is over, an eager cello starts the recapitulation so ungraciously that it takes the two violins some time to restore the material to its original poise.

The most surprising departure of all came as an afterthought. In an early version, like most classical example of its kind, the slow movement retained the same tempo throughout. In the present version a melodious Adagio cantabile proceeds more or less as normal until the first violin is provoked into seizing on an apparently insignificant phrase, running off with it and engaging the other instruments in a brisk exchange of semiquavers. This Allegro episode ends as abruptly as it began and the Adagio cantabile proceeds as though nothing had happened – though not without asserting its right to the provocative phrase at the end.

A third-movement scherzo rather than minuet was nothing new in 1800. It was unusual, on the other hand, to link the two central movements, as Beethoven does here by suggesting a relationship between the opening theme of the scherzo and the phrase taken up by the first violin in the Allegro episode of the Adagio cantabile. As for introducing a transitional passage between the end of the central trio section and the repeat of the scherzo, if it was not an innovation it was certainly a happy inspiration.

Like Haydn, Beethoven does not confine his sense of humour to the scherzo. In the cheerful Allegro molto finale he shows no mercy in teasing the main theme by allowing it to reappear in any tonality but its own G major. Even at as late a stage as the coda, after its long-awaited definitive recapitulation, he threatens to divert it yet again in the wrong direction.

Gerald Larner©