♫ …which is what makes what follows all the more bonkers. You could be forgiven for thinking, at this point in the lecture, that I’ve overstated the strangeness of Op. 54. Patience, friends. ♫ I think perhaps Beethoven marked this movement “In Tempo d’un Menuetto” because “Menuet Interrupted by a Stampede of Wild Elephants” felt cumbersome to him. This is outrageous stuff, and like much of Beethoven’s more outrageous music, at least some of the motivation here is comic: the kind of comedy that comes from a person performing a trivial, or silly, or ridiculous task with total earnestness. The “much ado about nothing” strain of humor. It’s not just that it’s unrelentingly loud: it’s vertical, with all of those sforzandos killing any sense of a long line, any hint of lyricism. No, this music is constantly banging its head against a wall. And most significantly: It. Will. Not. Stop. In absolute contrast to the opening menuet, which was formed of small, and VERY regular units of a couple bars each, this trio – because, really, that’s what this is – begins with 124 triplets in a row, without taking a breath! I carped that the menuet isn’t “seamless”, but I’m not sure this run-on sentence should be described as “seamless” either; it is an out-of-control, musical motormouth. And, 124 triplets in, it’s just getting warmed up! This motormouth trio is not just more forceful and obnoxious than the menuet: it’s far longer as well. Having delivered this diatribe in the home key of F Major, Beethoven, without any hint of a modulation, repeats and extends it in A flat Major, three links down the circle of fifths, a key that feels instantly exotic after the harmonic stability of the piece up until this point. ♫ It is, in every respect, entirely inelegant, and totally riveting. More riveting in the “look at the crazy man on the street” sort of way than in the “listening to this stirring oratory” kind of way, but Beethoven was an expert in performative belligerence, and this is probably the ultimate example of it. There is, amazingly, a transitional passage that takes us away from this stampeding elephants trio, and back to the business-as-usual menuet, and it features a transformation of the trio’s material which is actually quite moving. After all of that octave screaming, Beethoven keeps the rhythm, but moves to single notes played piano; and after all of that hammering home of the same key – 14 bars of F Major followed by 15 bars of A flat – Beethoven starts moving keys, phrase by phrase: doubt has set in. ♫ And then, at last a silence. It’s a relief, in a sense, after all that NOISE. But it is still decidedly a question mark. And now another question, fragmented this time. ♫ And another fragment question. ♫ And a more loaded one. ♫ And finally, we reach the dominant. ♫ And here, in the final “approach” back to the menuet home, Beethoven does the impossible: he finds the common ground between these two totally opposed musics. We get the obsessive, dog-chasing-its-tail repetitions of the trio, but with a sonority far more reminiscent of the menuet. ♫ And at long last, it gives way to the return of the menuet itself. Opposites attract, indeed. So, when the menuet returns, I think we experience it a bit differently. It’s a little bit like how the parents of young children might feel about a quiet evening at home, pajamas on at 8 pm: years earlier, they might have though it dull, but now they are just grateful for the peace and quiet. Coming out of that onslaught, ♫ the calm predictability of the menuet feels more like of a gift. ♫ This time around, the menuet’s written-out repeats are ornamented – this doesn’t change the essential shape of the phrases, but the decoration does mitigate the slight awkwardness of the music – with more going on, we feel the stops and starts less. ♫ And the repeat of the second half. ♫ So really, the movement could – perhaps even should – end here. A menuet is typically an ABA – menuet, trio, menuet, da capo. Perhaps a brief coda, just to wrap a bow around the movement. But no, not here. ♫ The elephants have returned! We have a second B section – a second trio. This is not the only time Beethoven did this: I can think of at least a handful of menuets and scherzos which are not merely ABA, but ABABA – the Eroica and Pastorale symphonies, the A Major Cello Sonata, the “Harp” quartet. But it is a particular jolt here in opus 54 because the trio’s material is both so relentless, and such a departure from what comes before and after.
