7. Coffee Concert

Beethoven’s answer to Haydn, his mentor and teacher

When Beethoven moved to Vienna, he sought out Haydn to be his composition teacher. It turned out that Haydn was not a great teacher and Beethoven was an impossible student for he always went his own way. In the last days of the 18th Century both Haydn and Beethoven were commissioned to compose a new set of six quartets. Haydn was now in his late sixties while Beethoven was not yet thirty. Haydn never completed the commission, while Beethoven’s six Op.18 quartets show him already to be a master craftsman with a mature understanding of form while bursting with new ideas that did not yet break the boundaries set by his teacher. The A major Quartet is a work of great beauty, in particular the Andante cantabile should be treasured for its glorious set of variations that culminates in a great shout of joy, an emotion that Beethoven, despite a life of sorrows, could always find ways to express. The B flat Quartet explores deeper parts of his psyche, each movement veering suddenly from elegant innocence to eerie keening, until we reach the famous La Melanconia that opens the Finale, where the conventional surface keeps slipping to reveal the darkness beneath.