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TheAllegro that concludes the definitive printed edition of theQuartet op.130 is the
last completedwork Beethovenwrote. It situates the work’s earlier discontinuities
in a much more orderly space. The violent contrasts, the reticent interrogations
that were previously so striking now make way for a fervently energetic, but
somewhat superficial race, which prolongs the ambiguities instead of resolving
them. This movement is something of a tribute to Haydn, though from a great
distance; it offers a manifestly more conventional outcome to the most radically
experimental of all Beethoven’s quartets.
The adventure of the
Great Fugue
, with its wild tension, with all its dislocated
reality, seems to many commentators to form a better conclusion. Nevertheless,
the lesser signification, the tranquil, even fragile appearance of the Allegro confer
a quite different meaning on all the earlier movements; it is by no means certain
that we should totally disregard this ultimate Beethovenian ‘point of view’, even
if the anecdotic, historical circumstances of its composition make it seem slightly
suspect to us today.
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TALICH QUARTET