page_title: String Quartet No. 2 (Mendelssohn)
section_title: Analysis
hierarchical_section_title: String Quartet No. 2 (Mendelssohn) / Analysis
caption_attribution_description: English: The fugal motif from the Adagio of string quartet opus 13 by Felix Mendelssohn, compared with the fugal motif from Opus 95 by Ludwig van Beethoven.
context_page_description: The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1827. Written when he was 18 years old, it was, despite its official number, Mendelssohn's first mature string quartet. One of Mendelssohn's most passionate works, the A minor Quartet is one of the earliest and most significant examples of cyclic form in music.
context_section_description: The three-note motif from "Ist es wahr?", presented in an opening Adagio in the key of A Major, establishes the cyclic form of the quartet; derivatives of the motif appear in all four of the movements, and the opening theme concludes the quartet.  After the Adagio introduction, the quartet breaks into a tumultuous Allegro Vivace in Sonata form in A minor.  "You will hear its notes resound in the first and last movements, and sense its feeling in all four" wrote Mendelssohn to a friend.  So the quartet, which is mostly in minor keys, and is primarily minor in character, opens and closes in a major key — a rather daring departure from standard quartet-writing practice of the time.  Many writers have seen a resemblance to Beethoven's Op. 132 quartet: that quartet, also, has an opening adagio, then a first theme built of running sixteenth notes and a lyrical passage, which is loosely akin to an inversion of Mendelssohn's theme.
  The Adagio movement has a middle slow, fugal section which is modelled after the fugal middle section of the slow movement of Beethoven's Op. 95.  The subjects of both fugues are sinuous melodies that slide down chromatically, moving from viola to second violin and then to the other voices.  Like the Beethoven model, the fugue goes through a series of increasingly complex variations with cross-rhythms in the different instruments.
  The Intermezzo movement opens with a light, gossamer theme which is Mendelssohn's signature style.  The lilting theme in the first violin, with pizzicato accompaniment in the other instruments, recalls the A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture and scherzo movements from many of Mendelssohn's chamber works.
  The final movement of Beethoven's Op. 132 quartet is a prototype for the opening of Mendelssohn's last movement: it begins with a cadenza interlude in the first violin, leading into a fast, melodic movement with a driving bass line in the cello which is similar to the cello part of Op. 132.
caption: The fugal motifs from the slow movements of Mendelssohn's Opus 13 (top) and Beethoven's Opus 95 (bottom). Second violin and viola parts are shown.
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