LENTO ASSAI: CANTANTE E TRANQUILLO FROM STRING QUARTET NO. 16, IN F MAJOR, OP. 135

Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827), arr. A Far Cry

Composed 1826; 7 minutes

Last works of composers are often met with a sense of wonder and reverence mixed with curiosity. It is as if they are whispering to us from their death beds. We lean in, desperately wanting to know what it is they mean to say. In the case of Beethoven’s Op. 135, he ’speaks’ directly to us. The communication is through the subtitle of the last movement, Der schwer gefasste Entschluss (The difficult decision) and two brief sentences written in the score that he emphasized musically using syllabic rhythm, Muss es sein? Es muss sein! (Must it be? It must be!). Explanations for this puzzle span the comic (a friend who owed him money) to the poignant (Beethoven knew this would be the last quartet of his life). 

Whatever the reason for the inscription, the Op. 135 quartet does seem to be tinged with an air of reminiscence. It has been described as “a brilliant study in Classical nostalgia.” In other words, at the end, Beethoven was thinking back to his beginning. Indeed, by the standards of the adventurous musical terrain covered by Beethoven’s other last quartets and piano sonatas, Op. 135 seems almost conservative, though still punctuated with unmistakably defiant Beethovenian gestures (and the seemingly ever-present suggestion of a fugue that crops up again and again in the late works). The exquisite centerpiece is the third movement with the expressive marking Lento assai: cantante e tranquillo (very slow and singing peacefully) and an essence halfway between a lullaby and a hymn.