The Lindsays
This was the second in the group of three string quartets Beethoven composed for Prince Nikolas Galitzin, who had organised the first complete performance, in St Petersburg, of the Missa solemnis . The brief, mysterious slow introduction with which the quartet opens was sketched out at the same time as the subject of the Grosse Fuge which originally formed the finale of Op.130, and the thematic shape of the two beginnings is similar. The main Allegro of Op.132 bursts in as though propelled by the subdued tension of its opening bars, whose four-note motif is threaded into the Allegro's main theme.
The second movement is not a scherzo, as it was to be in the Quartet Op.130, but to all intents and purposes an old-fashioned minuet. It's based entirely on two tiny melodic fragments which are presented over and over again, in every conceivable combination. The trio section looks nostalgically back to the world of Beethoven's youth: it begins with a floating melody unfolding high above a rustic drone, and continues with a quotation from an unpublished piano Allemande he had composed in the early 1790s.
Beethoven had been seriously ill during the early months of the year in which he composed the Op.132 Quartet, and its deeply effecting slow movement bears the heading of 'Holy Song of Thanksgiving from a Convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode'. It consists of a series of wonderfully serene chorale variations whose spaciousness seems to open up infinite horizons, interwoven with a livelier variation theme headed 'Neue Kraft fühlend' ('Feeling new strength') whose wide skips contrast strongly with the smoothness of the chorale.
The fourth movement is a lively march, but in place of any conventional trio section Beethoven seizes on the march's closing cadence and uses it as the launching-pad for a brief but passionate burst of recitative for the first violin, to a shimmering tremolo accompaniment from the remaining players. Nor does the march reappear: instead the recitative is linked seamlessly to the rondo finale.
©Misha Donat
