Beethoven: The Trilogy of Last Quartets

Michael McMullin
March 1998. (8173 words)


Beethoven: The Trilogy of Last Quartets
Among the five last quartets of Beethoven the central three, op. 130, 131, and 132, or the quartets in C# minor (131), A minor (132) and B-flat(130) stand out as a special unity, or trilogy, because they all arise out of a single four-note motive, G# - A - F - E, and hence are linked thematically in a fundamental way. Beside this there are significant relationships and cross-references between movements from one quartet to another. A systematic demonstration of their thematic unity has already been given by Deryck Cooke (Music Review XXIV, Feb, 1963) and it need not be repeated here; but a few details may be added, and we may refer to certain inter-relationships between movements which he did not go into. We are confining ourselves to these three works because they form this trilogy, and so constitute an over-all whole which is of very special interest; and also because we are proposing that this very fact is the key to their meaning, not only in terms of musical form but in a symbolic and spiritual sense. The E-flat quartet (op. 127) is no doubt on the same level, and has a certain relationship to the following three. Deryck Cooke has shown, in a very competent analysis, that it too is monothematic, and built on a motive contained in the chordal introduction. This also relates to material in the other three, but it is the four-note minor motive already mentioned that mainly underlies these.
Leaving aside then op. 127, we have a trilogy of highly complex individual quartets, each a thoroughly satisfactory whole and unity in itself, while all nonetheless grow out of a single four-note germinal motive and form together a higher unity. This hierarchical principle, and the principle of growth, transmutation and development is fundamental in nature and the cosmos. Musically, the principle of thematic transformation which underlies the whole process is true development, while at the same time the underlying unity is true formal integration, as in a fugue. In a sonata movement there is no real development. The so-called development section is usually more of a dissociation of the thematic material, and in the recapitulation the material is simply repeated in its original form melodically, even if the second subject is now transposed into the tonic key. There is a Yang first theme, contrasted with a Yin second theme, and the action is dramatic, is contemporaneous with the rise of opera, and depends on this contrast of separate principles which remain separate. There is a lack of integration, and the form is less organic, much more rigid, prescribed and "scholastic" than in fugue, which is more of a "style", as Tovey wrote, than a pre-figured form. In the quartet trilogy there is a truly organic metamorphosis of themes and a far higher degree of formal integration and development. It is significant that Beethoven uses actual fugues at essential places, as first and last movements, and, in the sense which we are going to propose, as beginning and end of the whole trilogy. The order in which we place the quartets does not have to be the order in which they were composed, assuming this is definitively known. A composer is not debarred from writing the last section first, nor the first last, and he might have the three acts of an opera sequentially in mind, and for one reason or another write them down or work them out in a different order. In this case it is not of conclusive importance, nor what order, if any, was consciously intended; we are entitled to take them in the order in which they make the best sense. In the following interpretaton this is:
1. C# minor 2. A minor 3. B-flat

We shall take the Great Fugue as the finale of 3, as Beethoven wrote it, the substitute finale making, in this context, no sense whatever. Argument on this point can only undertaken on the basis of seeing nothing meaningful in any of the movements, nor in the trilogy as a whole. With this fugue ending No. 3, constituting such a momentous development of the four-note motive underlying the whole trilogy, it would certainly be an anticlimax to follow it with the slow fugue of 1; nor would the rest of 1 make any logic as a sequence. It would be comparable to putting the last act of Hamlet at the beginning of the drama, or somewhere in the middle, as though it were as meaningless as music; and to include the substitute finale that Beethoven was persuaded to write, on his death bed more or less, whether or not omitting the Great Fugue, comes into the same category.
Nos. 1 and 2 are largely monothematic - the first movement theme is transformed into those of subsequent movements, and this is easily recognisable by ear. The fugue subject of 1 is a version of the four-note motive, by interversion, a term used by Cooke meaning the use of the same notes or intervals but in a different order, though still easily recognisable; or at a different pitch. The motive is stated in its later form of G#-A-F-E - one might say its pure form - as a slow introduction to 2, but we can note that the first two notes consist in each case of an emphasis on the rising semitone of leading-note to tonic, (1 in C# minor, and 2 in A minor); then on the falling semitone of minor sixth of the scale to the dominant, in 1 below the tonic and with extra emphasis, and in 2 above. The slow introduction to 3 however is a different, darker version of it, from which much of the material is subsequently derived by a dissociative, disruptive process, different from the evolution of 1 and 2. The basic motive itself, as it occurs in the introduction to 2, comes into its full force of development only in the finale of 3, the Great Fugue, as though until then we were witnessing earlier or initiatory stages in its action and significance.
The other motive running through these quartets, which, as Deryck Cooke showed, is the principal theme of op. 127, is, in its complete form:

_This theme, which Cooke called A, constitutes the chordal introduction to op. 127, while the section marked 'y' forms a very basic motive which also plays an important part in the trilogy. It finds its apotheosis as the fugue subject of the piano sonata op. 110, runs through the other two piano sonatas, op. 109 and 111, and, besides dominating op. 127 and 135, probably occurs all through late Beethoven - we can think of it at once in the Ninth Symphony.
The "dark minor motive":
was designated by Deryck Cooke as B, and so, to avoid confusion, we retain the same letters. This motive finds its apotheosis in the Great Fugue of op. 130, and it seems dominant and native to the trilogy. A, or mostly y, there acts as a kind of counter-subject, or second principle, of a very different nature: one could say as an extraverted or cosmic movement as against the introverted and individual movement of the minor motive.
All this evidently has a profound significance which, as far as we know, has not been seriously considered up to now. For the most part the thematic derivation, or rather evolution and relationship, is not recognised, and therefore the first and most elementary kind of understanding is lacking - a precondition to any real understanding. A mere formal analysis on paper, even a correct one, does not in itself disclose any meaning, but in this case it reveals significant relationships and implications which point to something of an entirely different order from the ordinary concept of a sonata-period string quartet. It is quite obvious from listening to these works that, besides being very unusual in form, they are not accessible to understanding on the same level as, for example, the op. 18 quartets. Writers have applied such adjectives as "tragic", "graceful", at random to various movements, and it is possible of course to listen to them with pleasure on a superficial level, and to enjoy what one takes to be merry rustic dances, slow hymns, deep adagios and so forth; but this is a time when our understanding has to change levels, in the domain of music as of everything else. These quartets are prophetic, and point the way to it.
The first step in understanding these works is obviously to see that they are a trilogy in the sense of arising out of the transmutations of one underlying motive. One has to be able to recognise the essential expressive character of significant themes, motives and figures, regardless of pitch or key, and even if they do not repeat exactly the same intervals - as in the case of the second entry of a fugue subject. The striking features, a characteristic leap, rhythm or emphasised melodic progression, such as a rising or falling semitone, are still recognisable, if one pays attention to the feeling, expression and effect conveyed; and we are talking about short and strongly marked motives or figures, like typical Bach fugue subjects. Occasionally the notes of a basic motive may be disguised in more complex ways, as in the second movement of the C# minor quartet where they form the first and emphasised notes of four -successive bars; but they are still recognisable. Even Joseph Kerman admits that "the main interest of the Great Fugue is thematic transformation", and "Beethoven is working less with fixed pitches than with the general shape of the theme". Once the thematic unity of the whole trilogy is acknowledged we can then take the next big step which is to consider why three quartets should be written devolving out of one four-note motive; and this question is inevitably tied up with the further and more important question of the meaning of this motive.
It has been rather foolishly suggested that, as regards the Great Fugue, Beethoven had the idea of emulating Bach's The Art of Fugue in working out all possible fugal treatments of his subject; as though there could be no other dimension of meaning than a technical one. The reference to Bach however does happen to be relevant, but in a quite different way. Thayer tells us: "A project that cropped up intermittently during 1823 was the writing of an overture" on the name of BACH. "The thought seems to have become fixed in his mind in 1822 ..." and a reference to "'this overture with the new symphony' (IX) appears amongst sketches for the last quartets in 1825", showing "that he clung to the idea almost to the end". The name of Bach in German terms of musical notation translates into B-flat-A-C-B-natural, a four-note motive of two falling semitones with a tone between them:


Bach himself had introduced this, his own name, into the double fugue at the very end of The Art of Fugue, which remained unfinished owing to his death. This in itself gives it a highly symbolic significance, in addition to its being the name of him whom we might call the great Buddha of Western Music, and especially of Fugue. Many have thought of using these four notes as homage to Bach, and a very impressive case in point is the Prelude and Fugue for Organ on the name of Bach by Franz Liszt. Though Beethoven did not write the projected overture, he transferred and expanded the idea into his trilogy of string quartets, slightly changing the note sequence to a rising semitone followed by a falling one, with the interval of a fifth between them. This gives a somewhat different implication and flavour, in accordance with the different circumstances and intention; but the similarity in shape, with the two semitones, is enough to establish the symbolic link with Bach. (In this new form, moreover, the motif has a striking similarity to the "dawn of consciousness" theme in Scriabin's Prometheus, in which not only is the context highly esoteric, but the theme of Prometheus is especially relevant to Beethoven.) The four notes in any case represent a fundamental quatemity, the quartering of the circle, the four gates of the city, a symbol of wholeness; or the descent into matter, symbolised by the number 4, followed by transcendence. They could be taken as the Tetragrammaton, or the four letters of the Name of God; a process of spiritual integration, on the individual level, while the symphonies address the question of spiritual evolution on the collective level.
The key to this process and the stages in it represented by each of the three quartets - the key, in other words, to the meaning of the quartets, is to be found if we have recourse to astrology. This will sound unconventional in our society, to the point of anarchy; but nevertheless it fits the quartets to a remarkable degree, and also Beethoven, and there is no other way of finding such a clue to their meanings. Astrology has to be understood as an occult or spiritual science, of profound antiquity, which deals in perennial symbols or archetypes, not theories but real components of the collective unconscious, of the same order as those of myths and religions, aligned with the rhythms of the solar system which form the background to human life. This is true of all religions, but here they are organised into a universal system or language consistent on an intellectual level, and applicable to everything in the context of understanding it in relation to everything else. That all things are inter-related is in itself an idea directly counter to current convention, in every subject, and conspicuously in musicology; but, equally conspicuously, not in the mind of Beethoven.
To explain how astrology provides the clue that we are claiming, it is necessary to refer to Beethoven's horoscope. This we have analysed elsewhere, but in the present context the important issue is the unusual pattern formed by the three outer planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and its relationship to the horoscope as a whole. These are situated in the first, fifth and ninth houses, the fire houses of creativity, forming the “triangle of fire" - "an energy flow often verging on the transcendental. . . where the subject has ceased to identify his ego with the creative forces flowing through him". These three planets themselves represent a transcendence of earth-consciousness, and are outside the limits of time and space (symbolised by the orbit of Saturn); they symbolise a change of mental and spiritual level. They form here a configuration known as a Grand Trine - that is, they form an angle of approximately 120° to one another, in a regular triangle, forming a special circuit of inter-related energy flow; and they occur in the same order in the horoscope as they have in the solar system: Uranus in the first house, close to the Ascendant, the most personal and individual position; Neptune in the fifth house of creativity - Neptune is the planet particularly related to the arts, and most of all music; while Pluto, in the ftteth, is in the house of expansion and relationship to the cosmos, or outer space; or to the transpersonal and spiritual dimension.
Since this significant planetaiv formation occupies such a conspicuous personal and creative position in Beethoven's horoscope, and the quartet trilogy is virtually a final consummation, and certainly the most inward-looking, complex and profound of his works, a comparison between these two phenomena does suggest itself. And if there should be a relationship between them, then it would be a veiy great advantage in helping us to understand the quartets; for these planets have in astrology very well recognised associations and types of meaning. "Types" of meaning, because archetypal meanings are never definitive but can be represented on different levels, in different ways and manifestations, and in different terms, while covering the same overall type of energy or action - and we are talking about an energy and not things, and the context is depth psychology. It is our contention that these quartets have never been understood by anyone writing about them; although it is more than likely that some of the musicians performing them have a good idea of their implications. But it has not been spelled out, and the only musicologist we know of who has analysed them correctly as a trilogy appeared to be completely unaware of their significance, or of the possibility that they should have any deeper message or meaning, or their author any serious purpose in composing such a work. A deliberate spiritual or initiatory purpose would in any case be something outside the scope or comprehension of someone trained in the accepted conventions of musicology, while being at the same time very native to Beethoven's whole life and character, and made clear in his own words.
The three outer planets can also be represented as stages in the initiatory process, and to see whether they are related to the quartets, and do in effect throw light upon them, we shall have to look at the meanings assigned to these planets, and consider which quartet can be seen to correspond to each. Then, if they seem to fit and make sense, whether this results in a deeper understanding of the music, and how it affects us. Since the attainment of this end must be well worth while, it is worth making the experiment.

The Planet Uranus:
Uranus represents a higher energy and a transcendence of the material level. Its function is breaking down accepted and rigidified forms, traditions and egos, which are all represented by Saturn, or the Saturn principle, and the material world as we know it on earth. It is awakening, crises of transformation, "the opener of doors", and can apply to the creative artist, breaking new ground, originality, or eccentricity. Uranus is rising on the Ascendant in Beethoven's horoscope, and this is the most individual point in the mandala, the moment of birth. It determines the most personal characteristics, among which are certainly eccentricity, but above all originality and creative genius. He is said to have expressed his personal preference for the C# minor quartet. Uranus is "the focusing of energy, or the power of the Galaxy", the descent of power, or involution. This can take the form of invocation, by focusing inwardly, meditation, hence Uranus is the initiate, the adept or the White Magician. Or it can take the form of the descent of power, or spiritual light, from above; hence Uranus is also lightening. All these powers can be destructive if the transformative process is resisted. Uranus is connected with the dance of universal energy, with vibrations (of the ether), electricity, electromagnetic radiation, and, like Shiva, is creator as well as destroyer. The gods, in the various traditions, derive from these archetypes, which are built into the collective unconscious. Uranus is connected with the zodiacal sign Aquarius (the Universal), of which the glyph or symbol is a wave-vibration: It is also connected with science and technology, and universal communication, and it is perhaps interesting to note in passing that the planet's glyph resembles a television aerial - - and is even not unlike the sign for a sharp in music.
Quartet in C# minor (No.l)
I. Adagio:
Joseph Kerman in his book on the Beethoven Quartets, among other felicitous (but not sustained) insights describes this quartet as representing integration. The first step in psychological integration is meditation, or "sinking into the centre of the self ... the silence at the centre of the hurricane"; the attainment of spiritual light from within. Or, as Rudhyar7 puts it: "to become inwardly still and to let the vibrations of galactic space impress themselves upon our consciousness". Just such a profound meditation is the slow fugue, the first movement of this quartet - a sinking into the depths, a retreat from the world. The sforzando falling onto A, the fourth note of the subject, gives this feeling:

One can understand this theme affecting Wagner as "the saddest thing ever said in notes", as it represents initially a renunciation of the outer world and an intense concentration upon one's existence as a separate, suffering individual, in subjective isolation. But as Kerman says, "later there are distinct stirrings of vital energy, and an ethereal vision unmatched even at the serene high point of Tristan's Delirium". He refers to "the ethereal 2-part canonic episode", and to the "strength of the great authoritative cello augmentation", as things that emerge from this meditation, as well as the sense of fulfilment given by the development of every possible melodic and harmonic permutation of the subject. We have had this subject in an entirely different, Promethean kind of mood in the C minor piano sonata, op. 111:

II. Allegro molto vivace:
The second movement - an "ephemeral dance", "shimmering rhythms", "evaporating octaves" (Kerman) - is like an awakening to new life, or the dawning of another dimension of reality. One thinks of the theme of play, or a dance of the waves - a sort of cosmic dance suggesting the dance of Shiva, which is very much a dimension of the archetype Uranus, a form of this god closer to our traditions. The fugue subject metamorphoses in a magical way; of its two halves, S1 is comprised in the circled notes, and S2 interpenetrates it thus:

III. Allegretto:
The movements alternate between the inner and the outer aspects of Uranian symbolism, or between the idea of invocation and seeking for the light within, or initiation, and the descent of illumination from the cosmos, associated with the three movements that suggest a cosmic dance. This third movement, relatively slow again in tempo and in variation form, has the feeling of a soul-searching, and reaching out to a higher world. The variation theme is close to the fugue subject by interversion (D to C# instead of B# to C#, since here it is in A; while in C#minor, D to C# is a progression with almost the same implications as B# to C#). It is also intermediate between the fugue subject and the G#-A-F-E motive (not to mention its direct resemblance to B-A-C-H). The leap of a diminished fifth instead of a minor sixth is not very different in effect when they occur at the same point in the phrase, while the descent of a semitone after it is much more telling. Again, F to E would be impossible in the key of A. Although the key is major, the effect of this variation theme is very minor at first, because of these descending semitones:

Before we get into the varation theme there is an interesting cadenza-like passage on the first violin, which occurs again at the end of the movement, and also, very conspicuously, in the A-minor quartet, in its first movement and especially as a kind of passionate cadenza preceding the last movement. In a psychological context this strongly suggests something like the "anima" or "soul" - the archetype that acts as intermediary or guide between the conscious mind and the unconscious; or leads the way into and in the underworld, like Dante's Beatrice. The theme follows this, with the feeling of a berceuse, and the first variation is rather similar. The whole movement has the character of looking within, even looking back, reviewing or saying farewell to personal life, and strikes us as the most personal or individual movement in the whole trilogy. It can also be felt as having an "atmosphere of prayer", as Kerman says of the sixth variation. In another sense it is a "series of revelations", of the psyche, or a soul-searching. Variation 6 he calls, rightly perhaps, "the spiritual centre of the entire quartet". It reaches the greatest intensity of prayer or invocation, or the soul seeking God (see for example The Cloud of Unknowing); and perhaps it also has a feeling of thanksgiving. The insistent urge of the cello figure in the background strikes "a dramatic note of menace", perhaps of the coming lightening, and rather similar to the relentless urging of the trill variation (Var..3), recalling in turn the fugue subject of the Hammerklavier Sonata. The last variation with the "glowing trills" has a mood of confidence that the prayer will be answered.
IV. Presto:
Here we have again the cosmic dance, only more so. This may be like a descent of spirit or a sudden revelation or initiation; a dance of creativity, and again the play theme. It suggests irresistably the god Shiva dancing on the waves. It is based this time on the A theme, or y, the outward-looking motive rather than on the dark minor four-note one. This is followed by a quite short or curtailed
V. Adagio: a return to the slow and inward-looking mode, and suggesting a feeling of thanksgiving or peace.
VI. Finale, Allegro:
Another fantastic, truly elemental dance, which suggested to Wagner "the dance of the whole world itself . . . lightening flickers", and he felt in the background an "ungeheuer Spielmann" - a colossal fiddler. A dance of worlds, or "a visitation of the spirit", in a Uranian context: "Uranian creativity", and the "creative power of the universal spirit".7 In the last section there is something like running lightening, while the descent of spiritual lightening might be felt in the constant reappearance of the fugue subject in this form:

The occurrence of this subject at the beginning of the quartet, and again in its transformation at the end, is certainly not meaningless, and represents illumination, first from within, and finally from without, or the linking of the self with the cosmos. In addition the basic four-note motive appears in fugato, as an ascending scale in semi-breves (whole-notes) - E#-F#-G#-A - a fulfilled version, and the same descending, while the first three notes of the original fugue subject, in diminution (faster), become prominent at the end; so that this Finale is a kind of apotheosis of the thematic material of the quartet. Kerman compares it in dynamics and intensity to the Great Fugue at the end of 3.
It is essential for understanding this quartet to realise that it is continuous, and that the first three movements arise from the fugue and develop or metamorphose out of it. It is necessary to hear the fugue subject behind each of these matamorphoses to feel their significance. The fugue is an integration into the unconscious, or the conjuring up of the "second attention". The second movement is the subject in a faster tempo or transformation; the third movement - variations - is the various facets of the subject developed or differently emphasised - a realisation of the different facets of the psyche, an exploration into the deepest aspirations of the soul, or a crisis of transformation. After this we have a transformed vision, a descent of the lightening, an impersonal and cosmic frame of reference. At the same time the thematic source changes from 'B' to 'A', and we suggest that this gives us the clue to the nature and import of the two contrasting principles; that 'B' is subjective, introvert and invocative, while 'A' is objective, extravert and expansive or evocative. It is the approach to transcendence by turning within to the "God in the depths", alongside that of receiving spiritual inspiration from without, finding the self, and the divine, in the outside world and the unity of everything. The E-flat quartet is like (and Kerman discerns this) an evocation of nature-spirits, while opus 135, the most seemingly extraverted of the five, has little in common with the other four, and seems to be a return to the mundane world, perhaps to brush it off, or perhaps because there is nothing more to be said after the fundamental experiences of the trilogy. The latter constitutes stages in the process of individual transcendence, or three stages of initiation. We might associate this first quartet, in C# minor, with Inspiration. The following work, in A minor, would then be Aspiration.
The Planet Neptune:
If Uranus symbolises transformation, or transcendence of the material world of polarity and individual egos, Neptune can perhaps be thought of as trans-substantiation. Neptune rules the ocean, and what is limitless - the vastness of space as well as the seas, and water generally, and in astrology the sign Pisces. Psychologically this means the unconscious, and an entirely different reality. Water is also associated with feeling values, and Neptune stands for the world of higher feeling - that is, transcendent feeling, which includes religious, devotional feeling and mysticism - Neptune is "the mystic" in Hoist's Suite The Planets. In esoteric terms Neptune rules or refers to the astral world, the world of dreams and the world after death, and also of colour - colours are feeling values. Music too is particularly related to this planet, and most of all the music of stringed instruments.
It is through the unconscious psyche that we are in contact with this different world and can enter into it, and our guide and mediator is the anima, or soul, our feminine half, representing feeling values, and a longing for the ideal. This of course has a lot to do with romantic love, which is a dimension of Neptune; but in a higher dimension it is a religious longing, for a higher world of unity, that we feel we have left at some time, but to which we really belong. The anima often appears in legend and fairy tales as a mermaid, siren or nixie - an Ondine, drawing the hero to water, into the collective unconscious, and submergence in it. This can result in death - that is, in not returning; or in insanity and delusion, the negative end of this archetype. But it can also be a necessary experience before initiation or enlightenment, and the aim of religious mysticism, which obviously has its own anima figures in the Virgin or the Queen of Heaven, Athene or Sophia. Such a figure, perhaps closer to the folklore type, since we are directly referring to water, seems to be represented in the A-minor quartet by the passionate violin cadenzas, at the beginning of the first movement and preceding the last. It must be evident at first hearing that this quartet is distinguished by its predominantly emotional character, that its world is very much that of feeling. More than this, we hope to be able to pass on the crucial impression that it is very strongly suggestive of water, at least in its second and last movements.

Quartet in A minor (No.2)
I. Assai sostenuto - Adagio - Allegro:
We start with the brooding germinal motive B, as the direct source of its thematic material, followed by the cadenza-like passage in the first violin - already encountered in the third movement if 1. Here it is at its most conspicuous, and introduces the movement and the whole quartet. Water, and the unconscious, is the world of the soul, and the context of the first movement is not dissimilar to that of the third of 1; in the latter perhaps searching within, and here reaching out - aspiration rather than inspiration. There is a strong feeling here of yearning for an ideal, of an intense idealism and a remembrance of and searching for another realm or another level of feeling:

Here again the exact interval of the leap - a minor third, diminished fifth, or minor sixth, is unimportant and does not alter the character of the motive B except by a very subtle shade of feeling. This motive reappears from time to time in the movement as an insistent urge in the background, in very emphatic unison octaves in one place - an urge to transformation, behind the itself urgent idealism of the theme. The movement is a continuous metamorphosis and recurrence of this theme, in one form or another, and to try to see sonata form in it is to miss the whole point. There is furthermore a certain lilt which can be felt in it, and which suggests a wave-like movement, and this is fully brought out in the second movement.
II. Allegro ma non tanto:

The theme here bears a similar relation to the first movement as does the second movement of op. 131 to its first movement. Here we have such an obvious rocking motion that the suggestion of floating on waves is irresistible, and the whole piece is like a berceuse, or a dancing of waves. This association at once gives us a vital understanding of the movement and its relation to I; it is scarcely necessary to stress the Neptunian symbolism.
III. Molto Adagio:
"Beethoven's most extraordinary vision" (Kerman), and he refers to "its celebrated mystic aura". The most transcendent dimension of Neptune, and in this sense, as in intensity of feeling, probably the most Neptunian creation in the history of music. Kerman also speaks of an "increasing spiritualization" in the course of the movement, and this too, in astrological terms, is the effect of the higher vibrations of Neptune, for those who can respond to them. In this music we seem to get a direct experience of a higher realm of existence, its separate context reinforced perhaps by the use of the Lydian mode, and the reference this implies to the devotional chant. Naturally we are not suggesting that Beethoven was conscious of these archetypes, and the planet Neptune had not been discovered in his time as an astronomically obseivable body. He describes the movement as a "Holy Song of Thanks to the Godhead from a Convalescent", and we need not take the convalescing part too literally, any more than some of his prefixes to the Sixth Symphony; the important thing is the experiencing of a state of spiritual exaltation, arrived at through baptism in water (integration with the unconscious, or the inner self). In the intermediate sections (neue Kraft), an exhilaration resulting in a state of joy - related to the hymn Sections as involutionary and evolutionary phases, as between the first and second movements, here and in opus 131.
IV. AMa Marcia:
In this section there is a deliberate confidence that seems a perfect sequence to the previous movement - a perfectly balanced feeling of wholeness and stability.
V. Allegrt) appassionato:
At the end of the previous section the violin cadenza passage comes in, in a particularly wild and passionate version, to be followed by the sea itself, where it is absorbed into the dance of the waves. The whole of this movement is like a tone-poem on a wave theme, in a watery setting, with moments of squalls. If anyone doubts this let them listen immediately after to Sibelius' tone-poem "Oceanides"; there will be found even identical echoes from one to another.
This quartet may well be, as Kerman quotes from Romain Rolland, Beethoven's most profound work; and among the quartets, far from being "tragic" (Cooke), it is in the end the most exhilarating, until we come to the Great Fugue itself. It fits perfectly the attributes of the archetype Neptune, so much so that there is no other way of understanding it, or accounting for its peculiar sequence of associations and moods, or its spiritual context. In the last movement we have committed ourselves to the ocean of the collective unconscious; the name of the Virgin, the Christian anima figure, is Mare, the sea, and Christianity itself incorporates the symbolism of the Age of Pisces, of which the principle is Neptune. The B-flat quartet then represents the dangers one has to face in confronting the unconscious, dangers of dissociation, the whole trilogy representing the stages in the initiation process of individuation, the full development and integration of the four-note motive. In Jungian terms this may represent the archetype of the self, and the integration of the four dimensions of the psyche.
The Planet Pluto:
When we come to Pluto, this is a symbol more complex and difficult to grasp, as well as the most recently discovered as an astronomical body. As the name implies Pluto, as god of the underworld, is associated with darkness and the depths, with death, but also with rebirth and germination; hence death and regeneration, or transfiguration. Pluto "reduces to essentials that which has reached the end of a cycle", hence dissociation, disruption and decay; but it is also "the moment of re-integration into a larger cycle"7. This planet rules the sign Scorpio, of November and the death of the old season and decay of its surface growth, when nature becomes dormant; but it is also the start of the process of seed-formation. Pluto produces conditions for a change of level. It is the destroyer of all out-dated forms or residues from the past, and is "ruthless in an impersonal and karmic manner", and awesome. It is associated with hidden power, both of these words being essential characteristics, and referring to power of destruction or of germination; and with the liberation from past memories, or "the descent into dark memories". It forces one to abandon the surface and plumb the depths of the unconscious, and it is "the pearl of great price retrieved from the depths".
Many of these characteristics fit the B-flat quartet if a careful consideration is given to it in this light, and the dark seed motive which particularly relates to this quartet, and finds its culmination in the Great Fugue, is nothing if not Plutonic in its very essence. Deryck Cooke referred to the emotional character of this work as being "compounded of a tremendous positive depth and power", and this too is eminently Plutonic, as is the character of dissociation given to it by Joseph Kerman.

Quartet in B-flat, op. 130 (No.3) I. Adagio ma non troppo - Allegro:
Mystical transcendence and being cradled on the ocean is not enough (does the violin cadenza at the end of 2 IV indicate this ?), for there must be disintegration of the past, or the old cycle, and germination of the seed. As Kerman observs, the main principle at work in the earlier parts of this quartet is dissociation, and there seems to be an extraordinary disruptive and hidden power at work. The slow introduction is a darker form of the B motive, and is in two distinct sections. The first of these (Intro.I) is plainly an inversion of B, while the second (Intro.II) is a development, and an elision of its two phrases:


Intro. I

Intro. II



The rest of the material derives from dissociated forms of these phrases. At the Allegro we have the violent semiquaver figure derived from Intro.II combined with the figure:

This can be regarded as an urgent and Plutonic form of Intro.I, emphasizing the first and highest notes - or related to the leap of a fourth in Deryck Cooke's ‘y’ figure, as he has it. The next figure:

is also a version of Intro.I, and it is followed by dissociative semiquaver figures, until the section D-E in the score, where we get, against the semiquaver figure, these fragments:

The first two of these are from Intro.II, while the third is very clearly from Cooke's 'y', from the A theme. There follows a section based on the "rocking motive" from the end of Intro.II, as a background to both (i), in which the leap of a fourth becomes an octave, and (ii), these two motives being used in direct sequence here, and at the same time savouring strongly of (iii) in a forte passage leading to what is regarded as the recapitulation, but is admitted to be as much a development as anything else in the movement. The repeat of (ii) intact makes it look like a sonata form - in any case sonata form is itself a dissociative form and might be appropriate here. We have a succession of fragments, the main one being (i), and then (ii) looking like a second subject - and also very like an inversion of the fugue subject of the C# minor quartet. There are two main blocks which are more or less an exposition and recapitulation, and between them a short section in which (i) and a slightly transformed version of (ii) come together. They are dissociated again in the "recapitulation". Perhaps (ii), really the inverted subject of the C# minor fugue, is the main feature of this movement; it is the only passage that looks like a theme, as opposed to a fragment, and it forms, with (i), the climactic and urgent central point of the movement it may be a kind of rebirth theme, or expansive version, at least at its climax, of the inward-looking fugue subject, and here associated with the expansive 'y' theme. Otherwise the movement is dominated by the dissociative effect of the semiquaver figures, and fragment (i), which is always a fragment, evaporating at the end like smoke. The violent eruption of the semiquaver figure at the beginning has been likened to the cadenza-like violin passages in the preceding quartets, and if so it takes on a Plutonian character here.


II. Presto: 
The schrzo theme
taking the last note of each phrase, is clearly derived from the second phrase of Intro.I:


cf Adagio

and Deryck Cooke with reason derives the trio from his A theme. The juxtaposition of the B and A elements is particularly well defined here, while the scherzo theme is a continuation of the fragmentation process of the first movement, combined with the urgency and explosive energy of its opening figures.
III. Allegretto:

As Cooke pointed out, we have here a relationship to 'y' (or yy), and a link to the first movement - it is very like (ii) there. But this is not enough to explain this movement, with its gentle wistfulness, suddenly occurring in the context of the preceding two, and though it has been greatly admired for its "grace", "lyricism" etc., it seems the most incomprehensible movement in all these quartets, and the most difficult to relate to anything. It has a certain parallelism with the variation theme of op. 131, and the three staccato quavers have an effect of walking on or taking steps, which is developed further during the movement. One eventually realises that it is closely related to the first movement of the A minor quartet:






and later


Compare with:

Seen in this light, it can be understood as a looking back to the A minor quartet, and a transformation of the latter's theme and its passionate idealism to a mood of quiet resignation in this new context. Its essential mood is that of the "quiet, intense sigh" (Kerman) with which it starts, B-flat to A (as the first two notes of Intro.I), and which recurs during the movement, especially for five bars near the end (bars 71-75). One may also refer this sigh to a similar passage in the C#minor fugue:

and thus see this movement in the context of the first movements of both the previous quartets, as well as of the present one:


17 IV. Alia tedesca:

(i) above, (or y inverted); and B
with its lilting rhythm one can also refer it back to the two wave movements of the A minor Quartet.
There is a certain kind of resigned sadness haunting this quartet so far - quite different from the previous one - that is encapsuled in that sigh, B-flat to A. The third movement is wholly given over to this mood, its theme a resigned stepping onward to meet one's fate. This sadness is still to be felt in the Alla tedesca in spite of its lilt and grace, which only makes it more poignant; it is an exact translation of this same mood into a dance. Its middle section combines the bursting-forth semiquaver passage and the urgent figure (i) of the first movement, in a new version contrasting with the tedesca.
V. Cavatina - Adagio molto esspressivo:
Here the mood of sadness gives place to a "dark night of the soul", as though looking back on all the sorrows of life, or “acquainted with grief” - all the world's grief. The melody is of course related to Intro.I, particularly stressing the falling second at the end of the first phrase. It is perhaps here that the implications of Intro.I find their full realisation, and the "sigh" becomes temporarily a "dark night":
"Wer nie sein Brot mit Tranen ass,
Wer nie die kummervollen Nachte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Machte."
VI. Allegro molto e con brio: Great Fugue.
Here the "heavenly powers" become known indeed! "The character and reality of the spirit as power can only be experienced in the darkest and most crucial hour of nearly total lack of all other power ..." (Rudhyar). This is probably one of the most phenomenal compositions in the history of music, and one must conclude that it can only have issued from a superhuman level. Here we have the apotheosis of the germinal four-note motive B on which the whole trilogy is based, stated emphatically ff in unison and octaves at the beginning of this movement; in every sense, this alone can be its finale. This motive itself is a seed, or nucleus, that contains locked up hidden forces, which are now unleashed. "The real truth of things lies .... in the Being of which Power is the dynamic value" (Aurobindo). We associate supreme Power with the ultimate Divinity - we may refer to Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, the Finale of which develops into an enormous double or triple fugue, in a peroration, ff and fff for 170 bars, on the theme of Divine Power. This finale presents an obvious parallel to the Great Fugue, and is moreover in the same key, B-flat, which was regarded by Beethoven, Prof. Wilfred Mellers tells us, as a power key. The fugue is surely a matter of death and transfiguration; the dark motive gives rise to tremendous forces, of destruction, perhaps, and, certainly in the latter half of the movement, of germination, of new life, on a new level. The profound mystery of the four-note motive is brought out in the slow middle section, to contemplate in the context of life and death. Near the end, in the "coda", we are referred back to the finale of the A minor quartet.
The theme of these quartets, particularly the last one, is highly contemporary. Having never been understood up to now, they are evidently addressed to an age when they will be intelligible. The implications and symbolism of the three planets referred to here is also extremely relevant to the stage at which humanity finds itself in the contemporary world, and it is very significant that we have only become aware of them as astronomical bodies progressively over the last couple of centuries. It is no coincidence that Plutonium came to named after the planet Pluto - or both after the Lord of the Underworld, and its relevance in this connection does not need to be laboured. Pluto in astrology has much to do with karma and fate. Without the special constellation of meanings attached to this planet it is hard to see how the B-flat quartet can be made intelligible as a whole, once we have advanced beyond the stage where everything appears to us as haphazard and incidental.