When Prince Nicholas Galitzin ordered “one, two, or three new quartets” from Beethoven in November 1822, he could hardly have realized that he was instigating a series of works by which all later generations would judge profundity. Beethoven had not forgotten the quartet medium in the twelve years since the F minor Quartet, op. 95, but the commission gave him the impetus to turn sketches into finished works. Nevertheless, he could not concentrate on quartet writing until after completing the Missa solemnis, the Diabelli Variations, and the Ninth Symphony, so the project did not begin in earnest until mid-1824.

Beethoven completed the E-flat major Quartet, op. 127, in early 1825; the present A minor, op. 132, that July; and the B-flat major, op. 130, in early 1826. The prince loved the Quartets, but was able to make only one payment before going bankrupt and joining the army. The floodgates had been loosed, however, and out of inner necessity Beethoven completed two more quartets in 1826, the C-sharp minor, op.131, and the F major, op. 135, to arrive at the five works known as the “late quartets.” It should be noted that, too late for Beethoven himself but in the proper spirit, a son of Galitzin paid with interest what was owed on his father’s three quartets into the Beethoven estate.

While pestering Beethoven in 1823 and 1824 about when he would received his quartets, Galitzin was always quick to say he understood that genius couldn’t be rushed. Beethoven’s problem was not a lack of ideas, but his hectic life as a world-famous composer, as mentioned above. With the A minor Quartet, illness was a major impediment. Though he began work late in 1824, from mid-April to mid-May 1825 he suffered from such a serious intestinal inflamation that part of the time he was bedridden. Though considerably weakened, he managed to complete the A minor Quartet by July, his recovery having prompted one of the few genuinely autobiographical manifestations in his music: he included a slow third movement entitled “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart” (A Convalescent’s Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode).

The opening of the Quartet’s first movement has won special comment ever since the late quartets were considered as a group. Its signature four notes—an ascending half step then a descending half step—bears striking similarity to the main theme of the Grosse Fuge (the original finale of the B-flat Quartet) and the opening fugue subject of the C-sharp minor Quartet. Some have even traced it in all five quartets. Whether Beethoven intended the motive as a unifying feature or recognized instances where he or other composers had used it previously, it seems to have been associated with painful emotions, which fits with these profound, introspective late works and particularly with this Quartet’s underlying script of pain transcended.

A remarkable aspect of the first movement is how Beethoven is able to relate this motive—of which he gives several permutations in the brief slow introduction—with the distinctive opening gesture of the fast main part. Another noteworthy feature of the movement is the “double recapitulation,” the first in the “wrong” key and the second capped by an especially key-confirming coda.

For his second movement he wrote a new style of waltzlike scherzo with a pastoral musette (bagpipe piece) for a trio. In this slightly contemplative dance, pairs of half steps reappear, but with a third note added, which makes the lilting main theme so distinctive. Pronounced utterances of the half steps gruffly interrupt the end of the ethereal musette.

Beethoven employs the Lydian church mode (like F major, but with B-naturals instead of B-flats) to give his convalescent’s hymn an archaic, reverent tone. This exquisitely calm music returns in two equally slow-moving variations, twice contrasted by livelier music with wide leaps and trills that he labeled “Feeling new strength.”

At a very late stage Beethoven decided the “German dance” that had originally followed the Thanksgiving movement should be replaced by an almost fierce march. (The original movement wound up transposed as the Alla danza tedesca in his next quartet, the B-flat.) He often seemed to require something earthy after something heavenly, or a witticism after something poetic, which is just what the Alla marcia provides. Shortly, however, the first violin plunges into the dramatic recitative that introduces the finale.

This rondo—Beethoven’s last except for the replacement finale of the B-flat Quartet—employs a main theme that he had originally sketched as a “Finale instrumentale” for his Ninth Symphony. He gives the lyrical, pensive melody a sense of unrest with his agitated rocking accompaniment. Toward the end Beethoven increases the speed to a dizzying Presto with the cello playing this theme in extremely high register. Having slipped into a scintillating A major, Beethoven decided at the last phase of composition to extend his coda significantly to provide the proper tonal balance in this key for the entire Quartet.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe