The Brentano String Quartet
Mark Steinberg, violin
Serena Canin, violin
Misha Amory, viola
Nina Lee, cello
Guest Artist Series
Katzin Concert Hall | Friday, October 28, 2011 | 7:30 PM

Program
String Quartet in F-Major, Op. 135
Allegretto
Vivace
Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo (Variations)
'The difficult resolution'-Grave, ma non troppo tratto
('Must it be?')-Allegro ('It must be! It must be!')

Ludwig van Beethoven
1770-1827

*****Intermission*****

String Quartet in A-minor, Op. 132
Assai sostenuto-Allegro
Allegro ma non tanto
Molto adagio-Andante
Alla Marcia, assai vivace-Allegro appassionato

Ludwig van Beethoven
1770-1827

The Brentano String Quartet appears by arrangement with David Rowe Artists
www.davidroweartists.com
The Brentano String Quartet record for AEON (distributed by Allegro Media Group)
www.brentanoquartet.com

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The Brentano String Quartet
Mark Steinberg, violin
Serena Canin, violin
Misha Amory, viola
Nina Lee, cello
Since its inception in 1992, the Brentano String Quartet has appeared throughout the world to popular and
critical acclaim. "Passionate, uninhibited and spellbinding," raves the London Independent; the New York
Times extols its "luxuriously warm sound [and] yearning lyricism.”
The Quartet has performed in the world's most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and Alice
Tully Hall in New York; the Library of Congress in Washington; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; the
Konzerthaus in Vienna; Suntory Hall in Tokyo; and the Sydney Opera House. The Quartet had its first
European tour in 1997, and was honored in the U.K. with the Royal Philharmonic Award for Most
Outstanding Debut. That debut recital was at London's Wigmore Hall, and the Quartet has continued its
warm relationship with Wigmore, appearing there regularly and serving as the hall's Quartet-in-residence
in the 2000-01 season. The Quartet has been invited to collaborate and perform with the competitors in
the renowned Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2013.
The Brentano Quartet has performed many musical works pre-dating the string quartet as a medium,
among them Madrigals of Gesualdo, Fantasias of Purcell, and secular vocal works of Josquin. Also, the
quartet has worked closely with some of the most important composers of our time, among them Elliot
Carter, Charles Wuorinen, Chou Wen-chung, Steven Mackey, Bruce Adolphe, and György Kurtág. The
Quartet has also been privileged to collaborate with such artists as soprano Jessye Norman, pianist
Richard Goode, and pianist Mitsuko Uchida. The Quartet enjoys an especially close relationship with
Ms. Uchida, appearing with her on stages in the United States, Europe, and Japan.
The Quartet has recorded the Opus 71 Quartets of Haydn, and has also recorded a Mozart disc for Aeon
Records, consisting of the K. 464 Quartet and the K. 593 Quintet, with violist Hsin-Yun Huang. In the
area of newer music, the Quartet has released a disc of the music of Steven Mackey on Albany Records,
and has also recorded the music of Bruce Adolphe, Chou Wen-chung and Charles Wuorinen. A
forthcoming release on Aeon will feature the Beethoven Quartets Op. 127 and 131.

The Brentano Quartet became the first Resident Quartet at Princeton University in 1999. The Quartet is
named for Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars consider to be Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved," the
intended recipient of his famous love confession.
Revised August, 2011. Please discard all previously dated bio material.

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Beethoven: String Quartet in F-Major, Op. 135
The String Quartet in F, opus 135, was the last complete work Beethoven composed, only a few
months before his death in March 1827. It is traditionally grouped together with his other late
quartets, opp. 127, 130, 131, 132 and the Grosse Fuge; but it’s hard not to wonder what
Beethoven would have thought of that grouping. Certainly opus 135 is the black sheep of this
bunch. Where the other quartets are monumental in scale, sprawling in their expressive reach
and scope, and often searching for a new formal basis for the quartet genre altogether, opus 135
stands apart: tightly reasoned, having an airy and transparent texture, playful and teasing in so
many places, it is the work of a composer who seems to have suddenly attained some new,
simple truth after miles of struggle. It is more similar in length and structure to his early opus 18
quartets than to the later ones, and yet it could not be mistaken for an opus 18 quartet: it is a
greater and deeper achievement than those quartets, yet somehow less ambitious, less reaching,
at the same time.
The first movement is as spare in texture as any quartet movement Beethoven ever wrote. It
begins with a four-note question in the viola, colored with a mock-serious minor note in the
cello; the first violin answers with a giggling echo. Right away the composer is signalling that
here he will have nothing to do with the old, earnest questions of existence or fate; this is to be
put aside, at least for the time being. What ensues is a genial, often Haydn-esque Allegretto in
2/4 time, which ambles along, four friends sharing a melody or two between them, breaking it
into fragments so that everybody gets a piece. The movement is a typical sonata form, with all
the responsible sections of exposition, development and recapitulation; but it feels more like an
airy distillation of that form, with its spareness, its fragmentation, and its economy of means. It
is music that speaks to us about the process of creating, a blueprint where we see all the parts laid
out before our eyes, and are given a glimpse inside Beethoven’s mind as he fits them together.
The second movement is a quicksilver scherzo. The parts at the beginning stage a rhythmic
comic act, ill-fitting and awkward, everyone sitting on the wrong beat, then suddenly falling
heavily onto a unison E-flat that is also off the beat, stuck in the wrong meter for awhile before
righting itself (sort of). This section is abruptly succeeded by a more brilliant one featuring a set
of rapid upward scales in the first violin, playful and yet tense and expectant. Then an
extraordinary eruption occurs, a fortissimo section where the lower instruments are stuck in an
infinite whirling loop while the first violin, berserk, goes off on an impossible tangent. This
eventually spirals down to a quiet unison, where, for a brief instant one hears the four simple
pitches that the movement is based on. Finally the opening section returns in all its
bumptiousness.
The third movement: a dark hymn, a whispered prayer. In early sketches, Beethoven designated
it “Süsser Ruhegesang oder Friedengesang”, a sweet song of calm or peace. It is one of the halfdozen slow movements that stand at the pinnacle of his late-period achievement, and it serves as
the expressive center of gravity for this quartet. In fact it is a theme with four variations, but

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they unfold in such a continuous fashion that this is not immediately obvious. Set in D-flat
major, it feels a universe away from the sunny F major key of the rest of the quartet; we have
been pulled out of the public eye and find ourselves hearing an intimate confession. The theme
is in the lowest register for all four instruments, husky and sorrowing. The first variation lifts us
higher up, visiting some painful harmonic moments, but maintaining much of the tone of the
original. In the second variation, we are taken to the minor key; the flowing rhythms of the
earlier music are lost, and replaced with stony, halting steps. This is one possible answer to the
prayer, an unthinkable rejection, a bereft state. Some measure of relief comes in the final two
variations, as we return to the major, and the cello reassuringly takes the melody. The last
variation is the most extraordinary part of the movement: the first violin, winged, hints at the
theme in gentle, gasping rhythms, while the other instruments describe simple upward
arpeggios. It is a movement that overflows with forgiveness and love, but is also full of great
sadness.
The final movement bears a strange inscription: “Der schwer gefasste Entschluss”, or “The
Difficult Resolution.” The slow introduction, which features a rising minor-key question in the
lower instruments, is marked “Muss es sein” -- must it be? Here we have the Beethoven who
poses difficult questions, literally. This brief introduction reaches an anguished climax before
subsiding. Then follows the main Allegro section, joyful and affirmative, marked “Es muss
sein!” -- it must be! Two-thirds of this movement then unroll with barely a cloud on the
horizon. All is happiness, high jinks, carefree melody, playfulness. It is all the more shocking
when the minor-key introductory question -- muss es sein -- returns gigantically, terrifyingly, and
almost without warning. It is one final struggle; and this time, it appears, the beast is tamed, the
doubts laid to rest. The music dances away through the coda, teasing, pianissimo, and is
crowned by one final boisterous affirmation.
There has been endless debate about just what this “difficult resolution” was, and many theories
have been advanced. Is it about facing and accepting death? Is it another weighty philosophical
question? Is it the laundry bill that has to be paid? Beethoven’s note to his publisher hints that it
might simply be the necessity of finishing the composition, and bidding farewell to a favorite
genre: “Here, my dear friend, is my last quartet. It will be the last; and indeed it has given me
much trouble. For I could not bring myself to compose the last movement. But as your letters
were reminding me of it, in the end I decided to compose it. And that is the reason why I have
written the motto: “The difficult resolution--Must it be?--It must be, it must be!”
© by Misha Amory

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Beethoven: String Quartet in A-minor, Op. 132
A poem by Dylan Thomas begins:
Your pain shall be a music in your string
And fill the mouths of heaven with your tongue
Art has the capacity to take on the burdens of existence and lend to them in reflection beauty and
nobility which both console and edify. Ludwig van Beethoven was a man within whom the trials
and triumphs of being resonated loudly. His ability to translate these into music was not
something he took lightly; sensing the pressure of time in his final years he chose to renounce the
felicities of life and devote his energies fully to composition. For Beethoven the act of
composition was an act of giving, of doing for others, and the last years of his life saw the birth
of a remarkable set of works which are indeed a gift. His late period works offer hope of
transcendence through penetrating insight into the nature of suffering and difficulty. Inspired,
perhaps, by the inherent intimacy and flexibility of the medium, Beethoven wrote five epic string
quartets during these years.
The quartet Op. 132, in a minor, begins in shadows, tenuously searching, reaching towards the
unknowable. The introductory material of the quartet encompasses the sense of the infinite
within the merest of whispers filled with portent and possibility. The voices echo one another
with a four note motif which is to permeate the first movement, unstable and yearning. A brief
torrent of whirling notes unleashed in the first violin gives way to a restless theme which will be
wrestled with throughout the movement. In all of Beethoven this is perhaps the movement
which best embodies a sense of process. One gets the feeling of being inside the composer’s
mind and imagination as he wends his way through the argument, including not only forward
progression but distractions and digressions as well, all integrated into the evolving shape of the
movement. Beethoven displays here what musicologist Maynard Solomon calls the “potential
for coherence within the fragmentary.” In embracing disorder, the composer manages to create a
compelling structure achieved through careful balancing of musical quanta. Coherence is earned
through struggle with confusion, purification through tribulation.
The second movement perhaps owes its inspiration to its counterpart in Mozart’s A Major
quartet, K 464, a piece of which Beethoven was fond. As in that earlier piece the movement
opens with a unison figure gently poised between the graceful and the austere. A more tender
melody is then intertwined with the opening material in a somewhat odd pas-de-deux. Irregular
rhythms and slightly anxious expressive markings lend the dance a quirky, uncertain lilt. As if to
assuage this unease the trio section could hardly be more open, simpler, or more innocent.
Evoking bagpipes and childlike play, the flow of the music gets interrupted once briefly by an
ominous and threatening pronouncement initiated by the viola and cello. It is a frightening
moment, seemingly unprovoked, the darkness lurking behind our fragile states of happiness. It is

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quickly dispelled by the return of the bagpipes and then of the main dancing section of the
movement, but the sense of portent hovers in the air even at the movement’s close.
Certainly one of the most expansive of Beethoven’s slow movements, the third movement is
entitled “song of thanksgiving to God from a convalescent, in the Lydian mode.” This is a
profound and deeply personal utterance, rooted certainly in biographical fact, but perhaps in
metaphysical metaphor as well. The ancient modes, with a slightly different color than the major
and minor scales on which most music of this period is based, and thus exotic in sound, suggest
piety and devotion. (Among Beethoven’s unrealized plans at the end of his life were a “pious
song in a symphony in the ancient modes” and a “chorus in the ancient modes” as part of an
oratorio.) Hymn-like sections alternate with sections marked “feeling new strength.” In this
quicker, far more ornate music, there is the sense of a vibration of the soul as it aspires upward
toward heaven, of illumination born of a struggle with darkness. At each return of the hymn-like
music it becomes more sensitive, more vulnerable. At its third and final appearance Beethoven
writes in the score above the material which weaves through the intoned hymn melody “with the
most intimate feeling.” The movement builds to a climax of nearly unthinkable intensity, filled
with love and recognition of the sublime. Its denouement leads to an almost complete stillness,
with only the merest suggestion of a vibration within, a sense of peace. The last moments
perhaps relate to something Beethoven had copied into one of his notebooks of this period, from
an Indian religious text, “for God, time absolutely does not exist.” This movement must be
counted among the greatest of Beethoven’s creations.
Having reached toward the celestial, Beethoven reestablishes the terrestrial with an “alla
marcia.” This march is one which continually dissolves into more delicate, playful music, as if
unsure of exactly in which direction the march should head, not yet ready for a triumphant
conclusion despite all that has preceded it. Uncertainty gains the upper hand with a quickening
of the pulse ushering in a recitative in the first violin accompanied by quaking, fearful tremolos
underneath. The most famous use of recitative to introduce a large scale final movement is
surely in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and in fact the sketches for the theme of the last
movement of the Op. 132 quartet were originally intended for a purely instrumental finale of that
work. Whereas in the choral finale Beethoven eventually wrote for the Ninth Symphony the
recitative serves to cast aside doubt and obscurity in favor of light and joy, the route he chose to
take in the Op. 132 quartet is wrought with further struggle. An anxious yearning characterizes
this finale, with the composer indicating that the main theme should be passionately expressive.
To an even greater degree than in the second movement, where an inherently dance-like
rhythmic meter is slightly distorted by unsettling surface elements, here the same meter is almost
rent asunder by heaving, nervous figuration. No respite is to be had, even when more simply
lyrical material attempts to assuage the unrest. About two thirds of the way through the
movement the tempo accelerates and the music reaches fever pitch, with the cello crying out in
the register usually reserved for the violins, approaching a feeling of terror. This is the crisis that
at long last brings resolution, although not in one fell swoop. The key of A major is entered into
gently, with a sense of freedom attained, open and soaring. The quartet gathers strength toward a
conclusion affirming victory of the spirit, only to be thwarted by brief hesitation and uncertainty.
When this moment of uncertainty is reached for the second time, however, there is hesitation no
longer and the quartet ends having triumphed over adversity. Perhaps this is the greatest gift that

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Beethoven has given us. He grapples with the vicissitudes of our inner and outer lives, in full
acknowledgement of our native suffering, and through the transformative power of art leads us to
recognition of beauty and faith in humanity.
 2004 by Mark Steinberg

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