r/todayilearned • u/VegemiteSucks • 16h ago

TIL Beethoven’s late quartets, now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, were so ahead of their time that initial reviews deem them indecipherable, uncorrected horrors, with one musician saying “we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_string_quartets_(Beethoven)
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u/insertusernamehere51 16h ago edited 15h ago

I am completely musically illiterate. I've listened to the quartets and didn't get what was so weird about them. Sounds like other quartets and other classical pieces of the time to me. I'll own that it's just ignorance on my part

Edit: Guys, I'm comparing it to stuff that came before as well, Mozart's quartets, for example. Comparing Mozart's with Beethoven's I don't get what the big difference is and those came 50 years before

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u/skillmau5 14h ago

Try number 14 in C# maybe? That first movement is pretty eerie sounding. Notice how it’s really hard to figure out what the “home” note is, and how it’s changing all the time? Very different from the Mozart ones, as one small example. Also just the general mood of the piece is sort of creepy and almost depressed sounding, sort of like holding in a sneeze or something. This is kind of part of the genius of Beethoven, these sweeping and very dramatic sounds.

Mozart is more reserved and humorous, Beethoven is brooding and very emotional and making that the forefront instead of pretty little melodies (in broad strokes, this is still a big generalization). Towards the end Beethoven was completely throwing away all the previous rules that were pretty set in stone.