NORA GRUNEBAUM (Soprano) THE BROSA STRING QUARTET
(BROSA—GRUNEBAUM—RUBENS—PINI)
'THE last string Quartets' of Beethoven, as they are always called, are admittedly difficult and obscure, but, to his devout admirers they are a very precious, even sacred, part of his noble work. More than anything else ho wrote, they are regarded as intimate revelations of his own spirit, full of the deep sadness and of the physical suffering which made his last years a martyrdom, but touched, too, with something of the splendid courage and hope which animated him even then. Begun in the summer of 1824, and finished in November, 1826, only a few months before his death, they were clearly written down as expressions of what he felt, without much, if any, thought of those who were to hear them.
Opus 127, in E Flat, is the least tragic and mvsterious. and has its moments of happiness as of real lyrical beauty. The first movement, with its majestic introduction and its main swiftly moving part, is in effect, a long melody decorated with the most varied motives.
The slow movement has a dignified thems, with something mysterious and seraphic in ite strain, on which there follow variations ; and the Scherzo ranks along with that in the Ninth Symphony and the first of the Opus 59 Quartets as among the biggest and most fully developed of Beethoven's.
The last movement, and this has been thought to be deliberate on Beethoven's part, has no indication of the speed at which it is to be.played.
More than the other three movements it has hints of gaiety.