Breaking the Ice with Ludwig van Beethoven

The Heiligenstadt Testament is a well-known document and has been exhaustively studied as one of the clearest windows we have into the composer’s thinking. And yet, Beethoven’s description of himself as a man who wanted “the society of [his] fellows” generally plays little part in the popular conception of him. On the contrary, we tend to remember him as deliberately, fiercely individualistic—an icon for those who prefer to go their own way, unconcernedly leaving the rest of humanity trailing in their wake. In fairness, Beethoven himself contributed considerably to his own reputation with his distinct lack of social graces, including a notorious carelessness about hygiene and a manner that could be abrupt to the point of rudeness. This helps to explain why posterity has tended to gloss over, or even ignore, his expressed longing for companionship. Yet Edward Dusinberre suggests that we shouldn’t, and he brings to the subject the perspective of a musician who has spent his life playing in one of the world’s great string quartets, the Takács. He takes his title from Beethoven’s rejoinder to critics who found his Opus 59 quartets too radical: “They are not for you, but for a later age!”

That might seem to go well with the portrait of Beethoven as an isolated genius against the world. Nonetheless, that’s not the Beethoven that Dusinberre hears after having worked for so many years on his quartets—arguably one of the most social forms of music.

To be part of a quartet, Dusinberre explains, requires not just great musicianship but also an ability to play well with others, both onstage and off. He learned this very early in his career. Dusinberre was a reserved young Englishman just out of Juilliard when he got the chance to audition for the recently vacated position of first violin of the Takács Quartet. Suddenly, he found himself in the middle of a gregarious group, prone to lapsing into their native Hungarian and able to read each other’s signals during rehearsals and performances with a quickness that caught him off guard. As a candidate for first violinist, he was supposed to be displaying leadership skills at a time when he was still struggling not to feel like an outsider.

During that strenuous audition period, he found himself grateful for the particular Beethoven piece they were working on (Opus 59, No. 3):

Throughout his book, tracing Beethoven’s history and experience with string quartets along with his own, Dusinberre continues to find him an inspiring, if unconventional, guide—both to music and to life with other musicians. The tensions and stresses of the composer’s personal relationships drove him to create music that offered something more idealistic: “Grieving the loss of companionship, Beethoven created his own ideal dialogues in his Opus 18 quartets, conversations over which he had complete control.”

If that statement can be read cynically, it’s still not altogether condemnatory. For as much as he might have liked to, Beethoven wasn’t able to exercise complete control over others in real life. In order to have this idealistic music realized, Beethoven had to work with real musicians, with all the difficulties and struggles that entails—and that Dusinberre would come to understand. Recalling one recording session, he writes:

I was reminded of the laconic observation by another quartet player that the hardest aspect .  .  . was the constant need to respect one’s colleagues’ opinions. At times I just wanted to forge ahead with my own idea, impatient with the complexities inherent in working so closely with three other musicians.

But there’s little room in quartet playing for forging ahead. In rehearsals, in performances, and even over meals, the four musicians were constantly rethinking and reworking their phrasing, emphasis, timing, and the myriad other details that go into making great music. The whole exercise requires a sense of humor, an ability to compromise and cooperate, and a healthy amount of humility, all of which Dusinberre displays here.

He quotes Goethe’s description of a string quartet as “four rational people conversing with each other,” and even if the Takács often looked more like three excited Hungarians and an impatient Englishman wrangling with each other across a breakfast table, that was the standard for which they strove. Over the years, through the harmonious moments and the dissonant ones—and as various members dropped out because of illness or other career opportunities, and had to be replaced—the remaining members have grown closer, chiefly through the deliberate practice of “emotional restraint.”

“Unlike in some kinds of reality show,” Dusinberre quips, “the aim is to keep four people on the island.”

Dusinberre uses the two different endings of Beethoven’s Opus 130 as an analogy for their relationships—the original, turbulent Grosse Fuge movement, in which “the voices cry out against their interdependence,” and the more peaceful and conventional movement with which Beethoven reluctantly replaced it. The Takács has played both versions of the work, and is very familiar with both moods: “Every now and again we experience a Grosse Fuge of sparky interactions that while leaving us briefly raw and vulnerable allow a return to the daily cheer of the alternative finale,” he recounts. “Keeping the peace is something I value now much more than I did 20 years ago.”

Yet even as he celebrates this personal and professional achievement, Dusinberre wryly imagines the composer’s reaction:

He may be right about that. But it may also be that Beethoven, after a lifetime of strained and difficult relationships, would have understood the need for a little peace. If interpersonal harmony was something he struggled for, this wise and perceptive book suggests, at least his sublime quartets hint to us that he knew it was worth the struggle.

Gina Dalfonzo is the editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.