I use this title as my answer to the questions put about Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130 in B Flat are very much parallel to what Rosenblatt said in her book, The Reader, the Text and the Poem. In it Rosenblatt says that the whole of a written text is a combination of what the writer produces and what the readers infers. That is, the reader brings as much to the work as the writer. When we read something we interpret it according to what our experience has been. Each time we read the same work it is different, even if we read it twice in immediate succession, because the act of reading it has changed us, so we bring something different to the work.
Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 130 in B Flat is possibly my least favorite of all of his work. I have listened to much of his work, because I like it. I find most of it to be absolutely thrilling. However, for me, this work is not memorable. The first section is too long, and though it has several (I counted four) interwoven melodies, it seems more like an exercise than music. It is briefly relieved by the short little presto and the following two lightly complex parts. It begins to sound like Beethoven to me in the Cavatinia, the original finale. However, it also seems unfinished when that ends.
While I firmly believe that the artist/composer is always right, the audience has the last word. I am certain that there are reams of writing and music and dozens, may hundreds, of unsold paintings which languished unsold and were finally destroyed or painted over. We seldom come across these, because the audience did not want to preserve them, and the artist’s life is finite. There must be somebody, a great many somebody’s, who appreciate this piece more than I do, or it would not have been saved.
To use the word saved could easily be applied to the Groβe Fuge. For me, it saves the composition. It completes the rather morose journey and ends with a more satisfying note. There is a narrative to music for me, even when there are no words. It is not a story pre se, but rather a complete piece. Just as many paintings have no real story, if some part were left out, they might suffer from the loss. Without the last part I find this piece unsatisfying.
Just as I have no liking or appreciation for Newman’s paintings of stripes, music that does not do any more than make me think. When I listen to music I want to be completely involved, emotionally and even physically. This piece does not have any such involvement until the last two parts, being mostly an interesting combination of sounds which involve me intellectually. The Cavatina begins to stimulate some feeling, but it leaves me feeling that I am missing something. It is the Groβe Fuge which I will remember for its very complex musicality and emotional content. Art is not something which can exist in a vacuum. There must be an audience to appreciate it or it is not art. It is the essence of art that it communicates something. When I listen to most of this piece I imagine Beethoven twiddling his thumbs or playing cat’s cradle. I would never want to put this on stage without the Allegro. I think the audience would be left paddling around in a void. I realize that there are many who would disagree with me, but then, that is also the nature of art. Some people do not like Picasso either and there are those who find Shakespeare boring. I value this diversity.
References
Rosenblatt, Louise M. 1978. The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827). String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 130. Grosse Fuge, Op.133. Kodaly Quartet. Naxos Music Online. Web.