Beethoven Op 95 curious little passage ...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

at the remarkably fine concert in Stamford last Saturday by the Cropper Welsh Roscoe Trio & Friends Cropper Snr and Moray Welsh were joined by Martin Cropper and Louise Williams for a performance of Op 95 [the programme continued with Op 96 and Op 97 for a very fine recital]

in the third movement of the quartet Op 95 Serioso, III Allegro assai vivace maserioso there is an odd passage, very piano as played on Saturday, for the first violin, here at about 12.50

i wondered at this on the night, perhaps an idiosyncratic playing by Peter Cropper but i think not .... any thoughts on this little episode in such a serious and dark piece?

[rauschwerk]

Kerman (in The Beethoven Quartets) also finds it curious. He writes, "A sort of schwärmerisch (I think he means quixotic) chorale in block chords never even gets past its initial phrase; between repetitions of the same phrase, the simple violin figuration keeps going in a curious club-footed fashion."

With Beethoven, a serious and dark piece such as this still contains a variety of moods, some of them hard to fathom.