Busch Quartet
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This was Beethoven's last work: only the new finale for his Quartet Op.130, substituting for the original 'Grand Fugue', was still to come. It was the young second violinist of the famous Schuppanzigh Quartet, Karl Holz, who related the incident that gave rise to the finale of Op.135. A wealthy music-lover by the name of Ignaz Dembscher wanted to hear the Quartet Op.130, but had been equally anxious to avoid having to pay for the privilege of attending the Schuppanzigh Quartet's concert. Instead, he decided to have the new piece played in his own home. Beethoven, however, refused to let Dembscher have the music; and when the latter asked Karl Holz how to overcome this obstacle, Holz told him to send the composer 50 florins - the cost of the subscription to the original concert. When Beethoven heard that Dembscher had responded by asking "Must it be?", he was so amused by the man's stinginess that he dashed off a witty canon on the words, "It must be! Out with your purse." Both the words and the theme of that canon were to leave their mark on the Quartet Op.135.
This is the most modestly-proportioned among Beethoven's late string quartets, and one whose opening movement, in particular, seems imbued with the spirit of Haydn. Its finale carries the heading, Der schwer gefasste Entschluss - 'The decision grasped with difficulty'. Beneath the heading appear two musical mottos - one, slow and with heavy minor-mode undertones, setting the question 'Must it be?'; the other, a free inversion in the major, providing the carefree answer, 'It must be!'. In order to illustrate the difficulty with which this seemingly metaphysical dilemma is finally resolved, the two motifs interact throughout the movement. No one listening to this profoundly spiritual music could suspect that it was based on so mundane a matter as money; but as an example of Beethoven's down-to-earth sense of humour, the paradox is altogether typical.
©Misha Donat
