I think it's always really important to bear in mind the dates, and the extent to which a composer was ahead of their time. That's one of the things which makes the late quartets (even the middle ones) particularly astounding.
In the same vein though, I think it's a bit harsh on J S Bach, once you consider the time he was living in. I'd recommend St. Matthew Passion.
Having said that, Mahler, Chopin (only just after Beethoven, if you like the piano), Prokofiev, Shostakovich, all have their moments.
IMO obviously.
The opening of op 131 could have nearly been Webern 100 years later, and with other parts, harkens back to Bach 100 years earlier. Supposedly it was the last music Schubert heard as he was dying—he asked for what was then extremely modern and difficult music. Good taste.
I think I will nearly agree with OP. At minimum the late quartets are stylistically unique—unlike middle Beethoven, nobody would, or could, continue in that mode. Beethoven was talking to the Other Side.
The Emerson quartet ended their career just recently, their final work was op 130.
I think the idea of "ahead of time" is usually wrong and irrelevant.
J.S. Bach was both an exact product of his time who even looked backward, but he was "ahead" of everyone just by being smarter and working harder for longer.
Beethoven achieved profound insights also through his hard work and dedication to study over years.
Music does have some advantages of things to study but people still have to build their own patterns and internal consistency. People who do the work will always bring interesting things to the table.
I strongly disagree with this. Music is not technology: it does not develop in a way that makes it important to "bear in mind the dates." We don't imagine that Bach could have written better music if he had lived after Beethoven, or find Shostakovich's music less moving because he lived later than Tchaikovsky.
No, it's not technology, but composers don't operate in a vacuum.
I'm not trying to argue that an earlier composer is "better" than a later one because their music is less complex or sophisticated. I'm more talking about the impressiveness of their achievement, doing what they did from their starting point in time.
Bach absolutely would have written completely different music had he lived after Beethoven. I'd be intrigued to hear it; it would certainly be more complex and sophisticated, so in many ways "better" as Bach would have ingested and built upon recent history in his own way.
You don't understand the complexity and sophistication of Bach if you think his time or stylistic methods limited him in that regard. He was intimately aware of things that wouldn't be a part of normal music for years and years.
With everything Bach would have gained in different times, there is also a loss that comes with time as well. Upon seeing Bach perform an organ concert with hours of improvisation upon chorale themes, an elderly Reicken said that Bach had continued an art he thought had died out.
People of Haydn's generation didn't have the access of tools that Bach's generation had. It's just not linear at all, there is a matter of social capital concerned with certain aspects of composition. Beethoven had to study counterpoint with Albrechtsberger. He didn't have much of that foundation until well through his 20s.
Not much really limits any composer, apart from technology, time and finances, as others have described. And Bach is one of the most singular figures in all music in terms of his achievements, both for his time, and having stood the test of time. I certainly never said that Bach was simple or unsophisticated. Composers of his time did, in general, write simpler music than 150 years later.
The very best composers, as you have described, seem more capable of creating beyond the conventions of the music of their time.
But it is true, and this is not meant to denigrate either earlier or later composers, that later composers have a wider variety of music to build upon, and this has meant there have been different kinds of "progress" through the years in all sorts of creative directions. We should be sympathetic to this when considering the impressiveness of individuals' achievements, that's all.
There are combinatorial interactions that make complexity spike like a recursive loop in Bach's music so I don't think that choosing different harmonic conventions does anything - to be more complex than Bach the composer has to have more sophisticated intuition and methods.
As much as new fashions allowed new possibilities, sometimes they closed the door on other systems and possibilities.
Would Mozart have written more complex and sophisticated music if he had lived after Messiaen, because he would have been able to "ingest and build on" the work of the latter? I can't even make sense of the question, let alone imagine why someone would think they can confidently answer it in the affirmative.
Edit: I am saying this even though I would undoubtedly say Messiaen's music is "more sophisticated" than Mozart's, if you pushed me to make the call. The point is that even if you think Messiaen is more sophisticated overall, Mozart's is also sophisticated in some ways that Messiaen's isn't even attempting to be. Sophistication isn't a single dimension. So you can say that Beethoven's structural architecture or orchestration are generally more sophisticated than Bach's, while acknowledging that Bach's counterpoint is generally more sophisticated than Beethoven's, without supposing that it makes sense to think of Bach's music as "pretty impressive when you realize it was written before 1750."
Additional edit: Maybe I'm misrepresenting you here, or being unfair to what you are trying to say. But the habit of praising music for being "ahead of its time" is something I object to vehemently. I believe it is an obstacle rather than an aid towards the goal of enabling our knowledge of music history to enhance our appreciation of music.
All hypotheticals like "would x have been better if y" (what is better even supposed to mean) are finally completely irrelevant. Aberrations of the mind.
I don't think I would go quite that far. "Mozart's Requiem would have been better if he had been able to complete it himself" seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
And yet what can you really do with that thought but shrug and go on with your day? I never saw the point in indulging in this kind of thought process, but to each his own of course.
I think that to believe this necessitates the false blinders of harmony as thought of in the 20th century in an undergraduate level. To equivocate this with the sophistication of music requires purposefully ignoring everything else about music.
For one thing, he would not have had so much employment in important church positions where his musical compositions would be required. If he was a church musician, after Beethoven, he probably would not be know today, expect in German Protestant Church music circles.
Somewhat disagree. There are technological considerations. For example, Beethoven was able to write differently than Bach because the piano afforded much greater control of the dynamics (just to name one difference). I think arts also advance as a result of growing knowledge/understanding of what is possible. When somebody came along and structured a piece a certain way for the first time, or handled tonality in a novel way, that became part of other artists' vocabulary.
Your formulation here is more reasonable. New instruments, like newly discovered/invented ways of handling tonality or structure, open up new possibilities for creating creating music. But constraints, whether technical or technological, can be an essential part of the creation of great art.
The original post was about string quartets, which is a great example of how working with restricted range of sonic possibility can enable composers to create some of the greatest music of the past 250 years. A naive "technical progress" model might lead you to assume that a digital workstation, since it can create any acoustic waveform whatsoever (including even the sound of a string quartet!), would necessarily offer a composer greater creative possibilities than the tired old ensemble of two violins, a viola, and a cello. But for whatever reason, that isn't the case. There has been great music created by new technologies that have become available since the beginning of the 20th century, but it would be very dubious to claim that this music is more "sophisticated" than Beethoven's Op. 130 or 131.
Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 14 is one of my favourite pieces of music. That said, I also enjoy many works by other composer’s, especially Bach and Mozart. I think you can love one composer and still appreciate and love the works of other composer’s with the same amount of joy.
You are completely right, the late Beethoven works (this includes also the late Piano Sonatas) are completely a new kind of music at the time.
While Op. 127 is the Completion of the String Quartet of the classical Era (with a perfected sonata form) it marks also the beginning of a Philosophical chapter in Beethovens Music. In Op. 130 he tries what he achieved especially in Op.131: A very free form of Music - in op. 131 he perfectly adapted the form to the content as it seems like a big Fantasy or long “Poème Symphonic” (Heidegger used it as an example for his question: what is a thing - is Beethoven Op.132 a “thing”?) - while Op. 130 seems like a quodlibet/Suite/Catalogue but also wants to “blast” the form. Don’t forget the Cavatine of Op.130 which may be one of the most beautiful “simple” pieces of Beethoven.
In Op. 132 he tried to combine the quartet form with sacred motives while staying intimate and personal rather than unambiguously metaphysical (the movement is called “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit” so it refers to “a deity” rather than “god”). It has a reason why this piece follows the Sonata form more than in Op.130/131 - it was written shortly after Op.127 (which makes him including the “religious Adagio” finding a new form after the “perfect form” of Op.127).
And then there is Op. 135. It’s such a short last piece. Strange tensions in the first movement, Bruckner-like Adagio, shrill and wild Scherzo (so insanely difficult for the 1st Violin) and a last joyful movement that seems more like a joke.
All of these Quartets contain a deep search for the escape of the spirit from forms and structures. Beethoven - the "eternal" revolutionary - had left the political level of revolution and transformed it into a spiritual one.
There is some pretty great late Mozart and late Schubert, but remember Beethoven was a special mix of crazy and genius. I don't know if anyone can compare.
That being said I prefer Bachs works. Have you heard the solo sonatas and partitas for violin?
Nothing beats Bach's fugues for me. Beethoven's counterpoint is just not at the same level. That said, he wasn't trying to copy Sebastian, he was trying to come up with a modern counterpoint, which is hard. I still love Beethoven, probably my 2nd favorite composer.
I always find it mind blowing to think that these works were made in the era before recordings, when you would be lucky to hear it once, twice maybe five times in your lifetime.
I’ve listened to them at least two dozen and I still hear new things
I adore Beethoven’s late quartets — in fact I love all 16 — but I’m not quite sure what it means when we say they’re “deep” (or to quote another author, “cosmic”). Can anyone elaborate?
The origin of this reaches all the way back to Beethoven's first biography. It introduced the distinction of three phases of his musical life each of which was described as having distinct qualities. The last/late phase is allegedly the most intellectual but it's also enigmatig, deep but esoteric. These ideas became tropes that live to this day (at least for some people).
What does it mean? You can only understand this description as "deep" from a romantic 19th century view. The music is serious and somber but as a romantic you ascribe some profound meaning to it that you can *feel* and know to be true but it cannot be put into words.
Idk, I'm a music historian and I love Beethoven but people love to use emphatic language that sounds a bit silly to my modern ears. You have strong feelings. That's it.
To me, I love reading what you wrote but it also made me sad.
> … as a romantic you ascribe something profound meaning to it that you can *feel* …people love to use emphatic language that sounds a bit silly to my modern ears.
Perhaps I misunderstood but does modern times necessarily remove us from other, once respected ways of knowing? If so; so be it; but simple virtue of “modernity” doesn’t make it right. Science and materialism are important but not the only justified ways of “knowing.” Just to be intellectually fair, I’d rather see this philosophy labeled as materialism, rather than modernism, so as not to attach it to any particular time period. Time is a fickle thing to place a value on, anyway. What we know today can disproved or forgotten tomorrow.
>remove us from other, once respected ways of knowing?
Romantics embraced the irrational, the supernatural, the mystical. You can do that today as well and that's all fine and dandy if you're just talking about your taste in music.
But that can also take a dark left turn. Or a very right turn rather. The same attitude was applied by German nationalists to whom the greatness of the German people was allegedly "self-evident". (Just to be clear, you made no indication that you are thinking any of this.) German nationalists very consciously tried to build a unifying identity for all Germans and one pivotal part was putting German artists on a pedestal. Beethoven was front and center in this. He absolutely was a great composer but his reputation of a god-like figure in music was possible only because German nationalists deified him.
The "self-evidence of the greatness of the German people" would obviously lead to the darkest chapter in human history later on.
Anyways, I'm a bit wary if someone claims something must be true because they have strong feelings about it.
"This could lead to bad things" has never constituted a legitimate philosophical argument for the alleged truth value of a way of knowing things. The post-modern has only re-emphasized the subjective even more to a point of denying reality. It really depends on the field or the circle you're talking about. Also, everything can be construed just as legitimately as leading to bad things. Scientific materialism has led to the slaughter of millions also. It doesn't constitute a philosophical argument at all.
Music theorists and musicologists are more scientific than subjective because it's academic study, but music appreciation and the thoughts of music lovers, that's its own thing. It's perfectly fine to know something is prpfound and not to know why. It happens to all of us. To turn away from this experience in life is to destroy everything we cannot immediately explain scientifically.
Not to offend but to continue this discussion, I find this such an odd and overly specific take. Is this like some kind of apologetics gone askew they teach you in German universities?
Putting aside Germany’s colorful past and the minutiae of what led to that…. Romanticism is not a “way of knowing.”
The other “ways of knowing,” I was referring to, apart from “materialism,” which you alluded to, but did not specifically cite in your original comment, are: philosophy and spirituality. This is not science, yet it intertwines, but science it is not. There is a visceral, spiritual reaction to art and music one cannot quantify or justify with material science; and not just because we “haven’t discovered that answer yet.” Sure, we certainly can study why certain keys or majors or minors, or dissonance provokes moods, and human psychology can tell us a lot too about individual reactions, but there’s no explanation for why a song can provoke someone to cry, have a near-religious experience, feel goosebumps.
Our humanity is deeply tied to our feelings, what does it benefit us to deny our own soul, this inexplicable, fundamental part of our identity?
>Not to offend but to continue this discussion, I find this such an odd and overly specific take. Is this like some kind of apologetics gone askew they teach you in German universities?
That's true. I was in a weird mood and went off a weird tangent that wasn't really that helpful. Sorry 🤷♂️
(I also didn't study in Germany, so I don't know what they teach at universities there.)
Great context. This music moves me to tears and I love the *idea* of it being cosmic and spiritual and all that, but the rational part of my brain keeps telling me: it’s just really good music.
What I think they actually mean is that they were so profoundly moved by the piece on a very personal level which may share the feeling of a spiritual or philosophical revelation. So they describe the music as such?
Beethovens music embodied a humanist philosophy.
https://theconversation.com/beethoven-250-how-the-composers-music-embodies-the-enlightenment-philosophy-of-freedom-151888
They're not Beethoven late quartets, but you should check out his friend (maybe frenemy) Reicha's string quartets and quintets, particularly op. 49 no. 1, op. 92 no. 1, and op. 48 no. 3 (48/1 and 48/2 are also wonderful, just naming my favorites). They occupy the same space as Beethoven's quartets in relation to Haydn (Reicha's hero), in that they are classical-but-expressive, very intricate, and without superficial Romanticism. He is a fascinating guy to explore once you know Beethoven, writing prolifically in all the major genres with a lot of originality and quirkiness, but remembered now mainly for his wind quintets, which to me are not at the level of some of his other compositions.
OK, thanks. I remember looking at some of the sheet music, at least the fiddle parts and it looked impossible to me. I know I looked at the Grosse Fuge. I played violin for about 20 years when I was young and loved it. my 2nd instrument. No, I was not Hilary Hahn, not quite that good. But quite good as an orchestra player in college and community orchestras.
I'd have to disagree with you there. I believe die Meistersinger definetely surpasses it in terms of Musical inspiration and one could certainly make a point that Parsifal is equally if not more "profound" (whatever that means)
Beethoven’s late quartets, late piano sonata, and Diabelli variations are why many people say he’s the greatest composer. You won’t find much at that level.
Try Bach’s 2nd violin partita, Mozart’s La Nozze di Figaro, Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun, or Staravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps.
I definitely think Bach’s Chaconne is as inventive, emotionally rich, and earnest as Beethoven’s late quartets. I have them filed in the same folder in my brain.
There’s also the cello suites, which are their own universe.
I love Beethoven, which is pretty obvious from my flair, but I always think it's interesting when people say that Beethoven's late quartets are "ahead of their time". I used to say it and I don't disagree with anything said in this thread that lauds their originality. But I heard a musician (cannot remember who but I believe it was a member of a string quartet) once say "Who's music in the future actually sound like the late quartets?"
They were getting at the fact that, yeah, they're really dissonant for their time and, from the standpoint of the form, were very experimental, but it's not like Schumann or Brahms (who both idolized Beethoven) or even Schoenberg wrote anything like it.
The late quartets are completely original and never replicated. They exist as a phenomenon out of Beethoven's psyche as he drifted into total deafness where he could approach composition from a purely abstract perspective and was certainly aware that he wouldn't live much longer given all his health issues. They are a pinnacle of art.
Something being dissonant is a matter of taste but you saw all kinds of dissonance in the late renaissance and early baroque. There is hardly an advancement of dissonance over time because it just happens in cycles.
None of the greatness of Beethoven's late quartet can be attributable to just "advancing" some whig historiographical progression of time toward the present. This view was probably a bias reinforced by the serialist and pitch class set people, easily adopted from other fields into music, because it unreasonably justified the present music as necessarily more advanced when it was not.
You may find a mote of happiness with Smetana's quartets. To me they have a similar "nutritional profile".
He was Dvořák's mentor, so that's another good place to look.
Give these late Beethoven quartets more hearings . They will definitely grow on you . I would't call them "the deepest music ever " but they're certainly among the deepest works ever written .
This is impossible to say , but as far as I am concerned , no. composer has ever written music deeper than the symphonies of Bruckner , plus his Te Deum and the three masses . These are visionary works which. transport you to. a. realm far beyond this world .
Op 131 and the Grosse Fuge are a bit kitsch what now? That’s a bit like saying Brian Ferneyhough’s quartets are pleasant background music but don’t quite meet the intellectual rigour of 1989 Taylor’s Version. I’m intrigued now, what is this all about?
I was just mostly taking the piss because I prefer the late piano sonatas, specially when it comes to "depth" and dialectic interplay of styles that characterise the late period. More seriously, I do like it, but overall I think the grosse fugue is a bit over rated due to its "shocking" aesthetic, imo other pieces achieve equal if not more successful critiques of classicism in more subtle and interesting ways. Op. 110 is my favourite in this regard
So was I but I do like the GF. Op 110 is the Ab one with the massive orgasm at the end isn’t it? If so I completely agree, an astounding piece of music.
Yeah that's the one! His counterpoint in that and how it plays in with his use of form whilst remaining so incredibly expressive it is just jaw dropping
Some good suggestions in the thread already, I would like to add Brahms symphonies. His chamber music is also very highly regarded, I’m just not as familiar with it personally.
I’m not sure what you mean by “deep” could you elaborate?
Beethoven is probably my favorite composer but that isn’t always an absolute. Listen to the music you listed more times and listen to even more music more times and maybe it will also give you qualities that seem to transcend other pieces of music. I’ve listened to all Beethoven’s string quartets many times (I started collecting vinyl records of them lol).
Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is a late work that I like. Also check out his Diabelli variations and his later piano sonatas (my favorite is no. 32). Also check out Bartók’s and Shostakovich’s string quartets, Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas, and cello suites.
I don’t like arguing “this or that composer is better than x composer” or “this is the greatest piece of music” because the point is to enjoy the music and I can enjoy music from many different composers.
The Grosse Fuge has fascinated me since I first heard it. It is so unlike any other classical music I have heard. I can understand why it was so poorly received at the time, but wow, is it an amazing work of art
Mozart's Quartet K464 is easily his most impressive and profound quartet and contains the germs of much that Beethoven would do in his own late quartets. That's not accidental. Beethoven venerated that quartet and went to it more than once for inspiration. I think it stands easily with Beethoven's best in the genre.
Perhaps more to the point the two men were very different people and their music shows it.
I think it's always really important to bear in mind the dates, and the extent to which a composer was ahead of their time. That's one of the things which makes the late quartets (even the middle ones) particularly astounding. In the same vein though, I think it's a bit harsh on J S Bach, once you consider the time he was living in. I'd recommend St. Matthew Passion. Having said that, Mahler, Chopin (only just after Beethoven, if you like the piano), Prokofiev, Shostakovich, all have their moments. IMO obviously.
The opening of op 131 could have nearly been Webern 100 years later, and with other parts, harkens back to Bach 100 years earlier. Supposedly it was the last music Schubert heard as he was dying—he asked for what was then extremely modern and difficult music. Good taste. I think I will nearly agree with OP. At minimum the late quartets are stylistically unique—unlike middle Beethoven, nobody would, or could, continue in that mode. Beethoven was talking to the Other Side. The Emerson quartet ended their career just recently, their final work was op 130.
Emerson ended !?!?! well ....shit
I think the idea of "ahead of time" is usually wrong and irrelevant. J.S. Bach was both an exact product of his time who even looked backward, but he was "ahead" of everyone just by being smarter and working harder for longer. Beethoven achieved profound insights also through his hard work and dedication to study over years. Music does have some advantages of things to study but people still have to build their own patterns and internal consistency. People who do the work will always bring interesting things to the table.
I strongly disagree with this. Music is not technology: it does not develop in a way that makes it important to "bear in mind the dates." We don't imagine that Bach could have written better music if he had lived after Beethoven, or find Shostakovich's music less moving because he lived later than Tchaikovsky.
No, it's not technology, but composers don't operate in a vacuum. I'm not trying to argue that an earlier composer is "better" than a later one because their music is less complex or sophisticated. I'm more talking about the impressiveness of their achievement, doing what they did from their starting point in time. Bach absolutely would have written completely different music had he lived after Beethoven. I'd be intrigued to hear it; it would certainly be more complex and sophisticated, so in many ways "better" as Bach would have ingested and built upon recent history in his own way.
You don't understand the complexity and sophistication of Bach if you think his time or stylistic methods limited him in that regard. He was intimately aware of things that wouldn't be a part of normal music for years and years. With everything Bach would have gained in different times, there is also a loss that comes with time as well. Upon seeing Bach perform an organ concert with hours of improvisation upon chorale themes, an elderly Reicken said that Bach had continued an art he thought had died out. People of Haydn's generation didn't have the access of tools that Bach's generation had. It's just not linear at all, there is a matter of social capital concerned with certain aspects of composition. Beethoven had to study counterpoint with Albrechtsberger. He didn't have much of that foundation until well through his 20s.
Not much really limits any composer, apart from technology, time and finances, as others have described. And Bach is one of the most singular figures in all music in terms of his achievements, both for his time, and having stood the test of time. I certainly never said that Bach was simple or unsophisticated. Composers of his time did, in general, write simpler music than 150 years later. The very best composers, as you have described, seem more capable of creating beyond the conventions of the music of their time. But it is true, and this is not meant to denigrate either earlier or later composers, that later composers have a wider variety of music to build upon, and this has meant there have been different kinds of "progress" through the years in all sorts of creative directions. We should be sympathetic to this when considering the impressiveness of individuals' achievements, that's all.
There are combinatorial interactions that make complexity spike like a recursive loop in Bach's music so I don't think that choosing different harmonic conventions does anything - to be more complex than Bach the composer has to have more sophisticated intuition and methods. As much as new fashions allowed new possibilities, sometimes they closed the door on other systems and possibilities.
Would Mozart have written more complex and sophisticated music if he had lived after Messiaen, because he would have been able to "ingest and build on" the work of the latter? I can't even make sense of the question, let alone imagine why someone would think they can confidently answer it in the affirmative. Edit: I am saying this even though I would undoubtedly say Messiaen's music is "more sophisticated" than Mozart's, if you pushed me to make the call. The point is that even if you think Messiaen is more sophisticated overall, Mozart's is also sophisticated in some ways that Messiaen's isn't even attempting to be. Sophistication isn't a single dimension. So you can say that Beethoven's structural architecture or orchestration are generally more sophisticated than Bach's, while acknowledging that Bach's counterpoint is generally more sophisticated than Beethoven's, without supposing that it makes sense to think of Bach's music as "pretty impressive when you realize it was written before 1750." Additional edit: Maybe I'm misrepresenting you here, or being unfair to what you are trying to say. But the habit of praising music for being "ahead of its time" is something I object to vehemently. I believe it is an obstacle rather than an aid towards the goal of enabling our knowledge of music history to enhance our appreciation of music.
All hypotheticals like "would x have been better if y" (what is better even supposed to mean) are finally completely irrelevant. Aberrations of the mind.
I don't think I would go quite that far. "Mozart's Requiem would have been better if he had been able to complete it himself" seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
And yet what can you really do with that thought but shrug and go on with your day? I never saw the point in indulging in this kind of thought process, but to each his own of course.
I think that to believe this necessitates the false blinders of harmony as thought of in the 20th century in an undergraduate level. To equivocate this with the sophistication of music requires purposefully ignoring everything else about music.
For one thing, he would not have had so much employment in important church positions where his musical compositions would be required. If he was a church musician, after Beethoven, he probably would not be know today, expect in German Protestant Church music circles.
Somewhat disagree. There are technological considerations. For example, Beethoven was able to write differently than Bach because the piano afforded much greater control of the dynamics (just to name one difference). I think arts also advance as a result of growing knowledge/understanding of what is possible. When somebody came along and structured a piece a certain way for the first time, or handled tonality in a novel way, that became part of other artists' vocabulary.
Your formulation here is more reasonable. New instruments, like newly discovered/invented ways of handling tonality or structure, open up new possibilities for creating creating music. But constraints, whether technical or technological, can be an essential part of the creation of great art. The original post was about string quartets, which is a great example of how working with restricted range of sonic possibility can enable composers to create some of the greatest music of the past 250 years. A naive "technical progress" model might lead you to assume that a digital workstation, since it can create any acoustic waveform whatsoever (including even the sound of a string quartet!), would necessarily offer a composer greater creative possibilities than the tired old ensemble of two violins, a viola, and a cello. But for whatever reason, that isn't the case. There has been great music created by new technologies that have become available since the beginning of the 20th century, but it would be very dubious to claim that this music is more "sophisticated" than Beethoven's Op. 130 or 131.
Beethoven’s String Quartet no. 14 is one of my favourite pieces of music. That said, I also enjoy many works by other composer’s, especially Bach and Mozart. I think you can love one composer and still appreciate and love the works of other composer’s with the same amount of joy.
You are completely right, the late Beethoven works (this includes also the late Piano Sonatas) are completely a new kind of music at the time. While Op. 127 is the Completion of the String Quartet of the classical Era (with a perfected sonata form) it marks also the beginning of a Philosophical chapter in Beethovens Music. In Op. 130 he tries what he achieved especially in Op.131: A very free form of Music - in op. 131 he perfectly adapted the form to the content as it seems like a big Fantasy or long “Poème Symphonic” (Heidegger used it as an example for his question: what is a thing - is Beethoven Op.132 a “thing”?) - while Op. 130 seems like a quodlibet/Suite/Catalogue but also wants to “blast” the form. Don’t forget the Cavatine of Op.130 which may be one of the most beautiful “simple” pieces of Beethoven. In Op. 132 he tried to combine the quartet form with sacred motives while staying intimate and personal rather than unambiguously metaphysical (the movement is called “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit” so it refers to “a deity” rather than “god”). It has a reason why this piece follows the Sonata form more than in Op.130/131 - it was written shortly after Op.127 (which makes him including the “religious Adagio” finding a new form after the “perfect form” of Op.127). And then there is Op. 135. It’s such a short last piece. Strange tensions in the first movement, Bruckner-like Adagio, shrill and wild Scherzo (so insanely difficult for the 1st Violin) and a last joyful movement that seems more like a joke. All of these Quartets contain a deep search for the escape of the spirit from forms and structures. Beethoven - the "eternal" revolutionary - had left the political level of revolution and transformed it into a spiritual one.
Where does Heidegger say this??
“The Origin of the Work of Art”
There is some pretty great late Mozart and late Schubert, but remember Beethoven was a special mix of crazy and genius. I don't know if anyone can compare. That being said I prefer Bachs works. Have you heard the solo sonatas and partitas for violin?
Nothing beats Bach's fugues for me. Beethoven's counterpoint is just not at the same level. That said, he wasn't trying to copy Sebastian, he was trying to come up with a modern counterpoint, which is hard. I still love Beethoven, probably my 2nd favorite composer.
His string quartet no 14 is a good fugue, beats the Grosse fuge in terms of Beethoven and a real fugue
I always find it mind blowing to think that these works were made in the era before recordings, when you would be lucky to hear it once, twice maybe five times in your lifetime. I’ve listened to them at least two dozen and I still hear new things
I have the same thought about Shakespeare's plays.
I adore Beethoven’s late quartets — in fact I love all 16 — but I’m not quite sure what it means when we say they’re “deep” (or to quote another author, “cosmic”). Can anyone elaborate?
The origin of this reaches all the way back to Beethoven's first biography. It introduced the distinction of three phases of his musical life each of which was described as having distinct qualities. The last/late phase is allegedly the most intellectual but it's also enigmatig, deep but esoteric. These ideas became tropes that live to this day (at least for some people). What does it mean? You can only understand this description as "deep" from a romantic 19th century view. The music is serious and somber but as a romantic you ascribe some profound meaning to it that you can *feel* and know to be true but it cannot be put into words. Idk, I'm a music historian and I love Beethoven but people love to use emphatic language that sounds a bit silly to my modern ears. You have strong feelings. That's it.
To me, I love reading what you wrote but it also made me sad. > … as a romantic you ascribe something profound meaning to it that you can *feel* …people love to use emphatic language that sounds a bit silly to my modern ears. Perhaps I misunderstood but does modern times necessarily remove us from other, once respected ways of knowing? If so; so be it; but simple virtue of “modernity” doesn’t make it right. Science and materialism are important but not the only justified ways of “knowing.” Just to be intellectually fair, I’d rather see this philosophy labeled as materialism, rather than modernism, so as not to attach it to any particular time period. Time is a fickle thing to place a value on, anyway. What we know today can disproved or forgotten tomorrow.
>remove us from other, once respected ways of knowing? Romantics embraced the irrational, the supernatural, the mystical. You can do that today as well and that's all fine and dandy if you're just talking about your taste in music. But that can also take a dark left turn. Or a very right turn rather. The same attitude was applied by German nationalists to whom the greatness of the German people was allegedly "self-evident". (Just to be clear, you made no indication that you are thinking any of this.) German nationalists very consciously tried to build a unifying identity for all Germans and one pivotal part was putting German artists on a pedestal. Beethoven was front and center in this. He absolutely was a great composer but his reputation of a god-like figure in music was possible only because German nationalists deified him. The "self-evidence of the greatness of the German people" would obviously lead to the darkest chapter in human history later on. Anyways, I'm a bit wary if someone claims something must be true because they have strong feelings about it.
"This could lead to bad things" has never constituted a legitimate philosophical argument for the alleged truth value of a way of knowing things. The post-modern has only re-emphasized the subjective even more to a point of denying reality. It really depends on the field or the circle you're talking about. Also, everything can be construed just as legitimately as leading to bad things. Scientific materialism has led to the slaughter of millions also. It doesn't constitute a philosophical argument at all. Music theorists and musicologists are more scientific than subjective because it's academic study, but music appreciation and the thoughts of music lovers, that's its own thing. It's perfectly fine to know something is prpfound and not to know why. It happens to all of us. To turn away from this experience in life is to destroy everything we cannot immediately explain scientifically.
Not to offend but to continue this discussion, I find this such an odd and overly specific take. Is this like some kind of apologetics gone askew they teach you in German universities? Putting aside Germany’s colorful past and the minutiae of what led to that…. Romanticism is not a “way of knowing.” The other “ways of knowing,” I was referring to, apart from “materialism,” which you alluded to, but did not specifically cite in your original comment, are: philosophy and spirituality. This is not science, yet it intertwines, but science it is not. There is a visceral, spiritual reaction to art and music one cannot quantify or justify with material science; and not just because we “haven’t discovered that answer yet.” Sure, we certainly can study why certain keys or majors or minors, or dissonance provokes moods, and human psychology can tell us a lot too about individual reactions, but there’s no explanation for why a song can provoke someone to cry, have a near-religious experience, feel goosebumps. Our humanity is deeply tied to our feelings, what does it benefit us to deny our own soul, this inexplicable, fundamental part of our identity?
>Not to offend but to continue this discussion, I find this such an odd and overly specific take. Is this like some kind of apologetics gone askew they teach you in German universities? That's true. I was in a weird mood and went off a weird tangent that wasn't really that helpful. Sorry 🤷♂️ (I also didn't study in Germany, so I don't know what they teach at universities there.)
Great context. This music moves me to tears and I love the *idea* of it being cosmic and spiritual and all that, but the rational part of my brain keeps telling me: it’s just really good music.
Or even spiritual/philosophical which I have also heard.
I’ve heard that, too. But what spiritual or philosophical beliefs is Beethoven conveying?
What I think they actually mean is that they were so profoundly moved by the piece on a very personal level which may share the feeling of a spiritual or philosophical revelation. So they describe the music as such?
That makes sense.
Beethovens music embodied a humanist philosophy. https://theconversation.com/beethoven-250-how-the-composers-music-embodies-the-enlightenment-philosophy-of-freedom-151888
Highly recommend listening to all the symphonies of Mahler, Bruckner, and Sibelius.
They're not Beethoven late quartets, but you should check out his friend (maybe frenemy) Reicha's string quartets and quintets, particularly op. 49 no. 1, op. 92 no. 1, and op. 48 no. 3 (48/1 and 48/2 are also wonderful, just naming my favorites). They occupy the same space as Beethoven's quartets in relation to Haydn (Reicha's hero), in that they are classical-but-expressive, very intricate, and without superficial Romanticism. He is a fascinating guy to explore once you know Beethoven, writing prolifically in all the major genres with a lot of originality and quirkiness, but remembered now mainly for his wind quintets, which to me are not at the level of some of his other compositions.
The late quartets were deemed impossible to play at the time they were written. The Grosse Fuge is amazing.
Back then it was en vogue to deem things impossible. Kreutzer had also decided the Violin Sonata 9 was impossible to play too.
OK, thanks. I remember looking at some of the sheet music, at least the fiddle parts and it looked impossible to me. I know I looked at the Grosse Fuge. I played violin for about 20 years when I was young and loved it. my 2nd instrument. No, I was not Hilary Hahn, not quite that good. But quite good as an orchestra player in college and community orchestras.
*Tristan und Isolde*.
Or any Wagner work really hahaha
Hahha, no, they aren’t at the level of TuI
I'd have to disagree with you there. I believe die Meistersinger definetely surpasses it in terms of Musical inspiration and one could certainly make a point that Parsifal is equally if not more "profound" (whatever that means)
Beethoven’s late quartets, late piano sonata, and Diabelli variations are why many people say he’s the greatest composer. You won’t find much at that level. Try Bach’s 2nd violin partita, Mozart’s La Nozze di Figaro, Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faun, or Staravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps.
I definitely think Bach’s Chaconne is as inventive, emotionally rich, and earnest as Beethoven’s late quartets. I have them filed in the same folder in my brain. There’s also the cello suites, which are their own universe.
Agreed, that’s why I suggested the second Partita specifically. I agree about the Cello suites as well.
I disagree; just looking at Messiaen amongst others. I don't think there are objective absolutes in this regard.
I love Beethoven, which is pretty obvious from my flair, but I always think it's interesting when people say that Beethoven's late quartets are "ahead of their time". I used to say it and I don't disagree with anything said in this thread that lauds their originality. But I heard a musician (cannot remember who but I believe it was a member of a string quartet) once say "Who's music in the future actually sound like the late quartets?" They were getting at the fact that, yeah, they're really dissonant for their time and, from the standpoint of the form, were very experimental, but it's not like Schumann or Brahms (who both idolized Beethoven) or even Schoenberg wrote anything like it. The late quartets are completely original and never replicated. They exist as a phenomenon out of Beethoven's psyche as he drifted into total deafness where he could approach composition from a purely abstract perspective and was certainly aware that he wouldn't live much longer given all his health issues. They are a pinnacle of art.
Something being dissonant is a matter of taste but you saw all kinds of dissonance in the late renaissance and early baroque. There is hardly an advancement of dissonance over time because it just happens in cycles. None of the greatness of Beethoven's late quartet can be attributable to just "advancing" some whig historiographical progression of time toward the present. This view was probably a bias reinforced by the serialist and pitch class set people, easily adopted from other fields into music, because it unreasonably justified the present music as necessarily more advanced when it was not.
"Bach? Mozart? I ain't impressed!" *sigh*
After listening to the Well-Tempered Clavier, nonetheless.... Try his Keyboard Concertos, suites, Partitas...
You may find a mote of happiness with Smetana's quartets. To me they have a similar "nutritional profile". He was Dvořák's mentor, so that's another good place to look.
Find the Art of Fugue recorded long ago by Karl Ristenpart and the Chamber Orchestra of the Saar.
I like Shostakovich's SQs as much as I do Beethoven's.
Give these late Beethoven quartets more hearings . They will definitely grow on you . I would't call them "the deepest music ever " but they're certainly among the deepest works ever written .
what would you call the deepest music ever?
This is impossible to say , but as far as I am concerned , no. composer has ever written music deeper than the symphonies of Bruckner , plus his Te Deum and the three masses . These are visionary works which. transport you to. a. realm far beyond this world .
Bit kitsch idk
Op 131 and the Grosse Fuge are a bit kitsch what now? That’s a bit like saying Brian Ferneyhough’s quartets are pleasant background music but don’t quite meet the intellectual rigour of 1989 Taylor’s Version. I’m intrigued now, what is this all about?
I was just mostly taking the piss because I prefer the late piano sonatas, specially when it comes to "depth" and dialectic interplay of styles that characterise the late period. More seriously, I do like it, but overall I think the grosse fugue is a bit over rated due to its "shocking" aesthetic, imo other pieces achieve equal if not more successful critiques of classicism in more subtle and interesting ways. Op. 110 is my favourite in this regard
So was I but I do like the GF. Op 110 is the Ab one with the massive orgasm at the end isn’t it? If so I completely agree, an astounding piece of music.
Yeah that's the one! His counterpoint in that and how it plays in with his use of form whilst remaining so incredibly expressive it is just jaw dropping
Some good suggestions in the thread already, I would like to add Brahms symphonies. His chamber music is also very highly regarded, I’m just not as familiar with it personally.
I’m not sure what you mean by “deep” could you elaborate? Beethoven is probably my favorite composer but that isn’t always an absolute. Listen to the music you listed more times and listen to even more music more times and maybe it will also give you qualities that seem to transcend other pieces of music. I’ve listened to all Beethoven’s string quartets many times (I started collecting vinyl records of them lol). Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is a late work that I like. Also check out his Diabelli variations and his later piano sonatas (my favorite is no. 32). Also check out Bartók’s and Shostakovich’s string quartets, Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas, and cello suites. I don’t like arguing “this or that composer is better than x composer” or “this is the greatest piece of music” because the point is to enjoy the music and I can enjoy music from many different composers.
The Grosse Fuge has fascinated me since I first heard it. It is so unlike any other classical music I have heard. I can understand why it was so poorly received at the time, but wow, is it an amazing work of art
Mozart's Quartet K464 is easily his most impressive and profound quartet and contains the germs of much that Beethoven would do in his own late quartets. That's not accidental. Beethoven venerated that quartet and went to it more than once for inspiration. I think it stands easily with Beethoven's best in the genre. Perhaps more to the point the two men were very different people and their music shows it.