Similarly, in his second manner, Rembrandt shifts his attention from the scene to the figure – it is not the biblical protagonist that interests the artist here, but Christ as a human being enduring trials. It is hard to distinguish him from the other figures; one has to look for him. Moreover, all trivial elements seem to be eliminated, and it is the face of Christ that appears: he becomes a portrait, even a self-portrait, insofar as the face expresses the inner world, just as Beethoven confines the quartet to the realm of the intimate. This tendency becomes more pronounced in the composer’s late period, when highly unusual expression marks begin to appear in his music. On the score of the Adagio of op.132, he wrote a paraphrase of words he had noted in his conversation book on 13 May 1825: ‘Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit’ (A convalescent’s hymn of thanksgiving to the Deity), adding ‘in der lydischen Tonart (in the Lydian mode). And farther on, when the time signature changes to 3/8, we read ‘Neue Kraft fühlend’ (Feeling new strength). Finally, at the return of the Molto Adagio tempo, all the parts are marked ‘Mit innigster Empfindung’ (With the most inward feeling). The music expresses what the words say, with crescendo-decrescendo hairpin marks that apply to a single chord, a single note. It is as if time stops on the threshold of silence. And indeed, indications of silence abound in the score, emblems of possible worlds too vast to be expressed. 48 BEETHOVEN • THE COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTAwOTQx