Hybrid forms in Beethoven's first string quartets: Op. 18 No. 4, Marco Alejandro Gutierrez

    Beethoven’s Op. 18 is the subject of debate, speculation, and uncertainty when referring to the order in which the pieces in the opus (6 total) were composed. It is suspected that Op. 18 No. 4 was the last one to be composed of the set.

    Built from C minor it has a stormy mood throughout the first movement, which has a very recognizable and rather famous and catchy Main Theme. (Spoiler: The most recognizable and catchy themes are found in Rondos). I highly recommend Quator Ebene's recordings as a wonderful example of this music in performance.

Main theme of first movement.

    If we take a typical four movement piece (from the Classical epoch), we expect the second movement to be a slow one and the third to be a light, generally Scherzo or Menuet-like composition. Nonetheless, in this opus, the second movement is characterized by a very different character, tempo, and role. It is marked as Andante Scherzoso Quasi Allegretto, as opposed to the more typical Andante or even slower and calmer tempo markings. This imbalance, being in the presence of a Great Master as is Beethoven, is not out of carelessness but rather carefully thought out and dealt with. Compensated so to speak by the rather serious 3rd movement.

Main theme of 2nd. Movement.

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Main theme of 3rd. Movement.

    The form can be generally and superficially described as Sonata Form in the first and second movements, a Menuetto with trio in the third, and a Rondo in the last. Beethoven is notorious for his organic treatment of form. Never easy to understand, always exploring and pushing boundaries of what can be done while maintaining balance in a composition, what separates a great composer from the rest is accountability due to deep understanding. The new for sake of the new is nothing but a fad, while from understanding the true nature of music and its problems, the path for the next steps in its evolution become clearer. Therefore it is certainly worth it to look at each and every movement individually and in detail (the third and fourth movements are excluded from this analysis).

    A quick (or long…) search on the internet for analyses of the 1st movement of Op. 18 No. 4 will turn out a very superficial and disappointing “Sonata form” as the answer. This is most appalling as this movement stands out by having a fascinating combination of different forms. The second movement also has an interesting juxtaposition of forms. A Sonata is characterized by its Main Theme, a transition or modulatory section, a Subordinate Theme, a conclusive section, a development, and most importantly of all a recapitulation of the Main and Subordinate themes both in the original key, sometimes followed by a coda. These can be generally expected in most sonatas but some sections such as the coda are optional. Maybe the only true unbreakable rule in Sonata form is the appearance of the Subordinate theme in the main key later in the piece. Therefore we can expect this sonata movement to look like this according to most analyses found online:

Superficial and unfortunately common form scheme of 1st movement.

    Nonetheless a quick glance at the development should make anyone scratch their heads (I scratch mine thinking why nobody mentions the following in their analyses). The development has two phenomena that are out of place and strikingly so.

    #1: The beginning of the development features the Main Theme in its entirety! All 13 measures of it are present, albeit in a different key. This is not a typical occurrence, usually the start of the development contains only fragments of previous themes.

Appearance of all 13 measures of the Main Theme at the start of the development.

    #2: The subordinate theme makes a most shocking appearance in m. 112. In the key of Subdominant! In the middle of our development section (if looking at the piece as being only a Sonata). This is well before the recapitulation of course. These two events are most unusual and have driven me to come up with an explanation about the form of this piece. It is in fact a Sonata with the heart of a Grand Rondo or a Grand Rondo dressed as a Sonata. Either point of view is satisfactory.

Appearance of Secondary Theme in the middle of the development.

    A Grand Rondo is characterized by the general form A B A - C - A B A. This indicates A as the main theme, B as the subordinate (which modulates), C as the second subordinate (which often modulates too, generally appears in the key of subdominant). Modulatory sections, or transitions between keys/themes in a Grand Rondo are more extensive than in its smaller counterpart (Petit Rondo) and “C”, which only appears in the Grand Rondo is the germ that gives rise to the birth of what is strangely called “development” in Sonata form. Schoenberg disliked this term and rightly so as music is in fact always developing! Nonetheless, this is a zone where tonal balance is put in jeopardy by the presence of the subdominant (taking into account the natural gravitation of tonality to fall to the subdominant). 

    This Sonata movement has the following form combining both Sonata and Grand Rondo: A B A - C- A B Coda. I would like to point out that C is seen here as another repetition of the Secondary Theme (B) of this special sonata but because of its second modulation and the fact that it is to the subdominant it has the function of a traditional C, expected to be found exclusively in a Grand Rondo. Only the Grand Rondo is capable of having two modulations, all other forms have 1 if any.

Therefore a more detailed analysis of the first movement is:

Actual Form Scheme of the first movement.

    I would like to point out that to justify naming this a Grand Rondo, it is most important to note how many times the Themes appear. Remember that a Gran Rondo is characterized by the form A B A - C - A B A. If the first A is the main theme, B is the Secondary, then A would be the Main Theme that appears in the beginning of the development. Therefore satisfying the initial ABA of a Grand Rondo. C, which is typically a second subordinate theme, is shown in the middle of the development and rather out of place in a traditional Sonata form (whose developments notoriously lack a “theme” of any sort). The recapitulation brings us back to the final A (main theme) and B (Secondary theme in home key). With a Coda as the last and closing section substituting the last A of the Grand Rondo form.

Coda.

    What occurs in m. 91-111 and 129-135 can be characterized as stereotypical parts of a traditional development in sonata form. The transition in the recapitulation has some important differences from the transition in the exposition. For starters, its length. In the exposition we find an unusually large transition, divided in two clearly separate parts but which share the function of modulation and moving towards the Secondary theme. By contrast, in the recapitulation the transition is rather brief, in great part due to the lack of a need to modulate as it is expected that the secondary theme appears in the home key.

    Nonetheless, in this transition in the recapitulation we do observe the presence of modulation, taking us rather deep into subdominant and then restoring forcefully and quickly the tonal balance through the chords of GM, AbM, DbM, BbM, and EbM before arriving at CM in the Secondary Theme. A long arduous path from Cm to CM is one of Beethoven’s favorite manipulations of form as seen in his Piano Sonata No. 5 and eventually his Symphony No. 5. As expected, pieces with similar keys have some common factors.

Transition in recapitulation.

    It is most important to mention that the form known as a Rondo-Sonata is something else entirely which unfortunately we have no time to discuss in this present article in order to stay on topic. This movement is not a Rondo-Sonata, I prefer the rather ornate: Grand Rondo dressed as a Sonata.

Lastly, there is a notable phenomenon that I would like to highlight:

The motiv in measure 1:

    Characterized by an eighth note or eighth note rest, followed by three grouped eighth notes by articulation and ending with a kind of tension-resolution in the form of a suspension, appears in a myriad of variations either in its full form or in sections throughout the piece. A few examples can be appreciated in:

m. 8 in the cello

m. 11 in the violin

m. 16 in the middle voices in augmentation

m. 24 in violin 1 and 2

m. 26 in violin 1

m. 29 in violin 2

m. 49 and 50 in the three lower voices

    Amongst many other examples… The rest followed by the three short notes gives a sense of movement and even urgency throughout the piece and helps to set its mood. It is also clearly reminiscent to our ears of the famous motiv of the 5th symphony.

    Moving on to the second movement, it also has a most peculiar form as well, not so much in its core, as it is indeed more straightforward a Sonata. However, its Main theme has what at first glance looks like a Fugue rather than presenting us with the typical Der Satz (Beethoven almost exclusively uses Der Satz or hybrid themes containing the ideas of Der Satz as his Main themes in Sonata Form (I only know of 2 exceptions to this rule thus far)). The entrances of the voices are vln 2 in m.1, vla in m. 6, vln 1 in m. 10, and cello in m 13. Because this is most definitely not a fugue, but rather a sonata by form, then we can note how the cello enters with a “false entrance”.

Main theme of 2nd. Movement.

    The boundaries in this movement between the different sections are masterfully blurred. Like a color gradient at sunset where a dark purplish blue when looking East becomes a bright green, brown, and even orange when looking West in the most subtle of ways. This is how Beethoven treats the different transitions, starting with the one from Main Theme to the modulatory Section. The cello’s m. 13 marks both the end of the main theme and our immediate process of departure away from the main key. This is also the beginning of the transition. The same happens in m. 155 and the following measures where a soft transition can be appreciated taking us from the main theme to the bridge/transition/modulatory section. Of course, in the recapitulation, this “bridge” or “transition” does not modulate.

Example of soft transition from Main Theme to Modulatory Section in Exposition.

Example of soft transition in recapitulation.

This movements’ form looks like this:

    This analysis is based on my studies following the New Vienna School tradition with my teachers, Vladislav Soyfer and Semyon Vekshtein. I would also like to thank my colleague and friend Varvara Soyfer for lending me her time and valuable commentary in an initial draft of this article. I would also like to thank Profs. Inge Pasmans and David Lodewyckx from Conservatorium Maastricht for their patience and guidance, without their suggestions I would not have done an analysis of this specific piece likely for a very long time as I consider the entirety of Op. 18 to be too early in Beethoven's mastery of this genre (string quartet). I still hold this view, but I have found Op. 18 to be a great example of Beethoven's treatment of form.

    If you are interested in learning more about music, you are welcome to visit my personal website https://www.learningmusicasalanguage.com where you can obtain more information about my courses and approach to music and arts education.