J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

which had such a similar subject (Ex.5.5), imbues the work with a compelling sense at
once of potentiality and restraint. At any moment we expect him to burst out of the
strait-jacket and reveal himself; when he does not, we are both disappointed and
curiously impressed.
The only audible link between these pieces and the music of the ‘real’
Beethoven is a similarity between the prelude in C, Hess 31, and the trio to an
Allegretto in C minor, WoO 53, written perhaps a year or two later (Exx.5.6 and 5.7).
The Allegretto is a genuine example of Beethoven’s famous ‘C minor’ mood, and
reminiscent of the C minor sonatas opp.10/1 and 13 which originated around the same
time. 39
The rather bland material of his early Nachahmungssatz is a perfect foil for the
bristling outer sections. The way in which he uses it, however, indicates the great gulf
between the exercises he wrote for Albrechtsberger and the individual style he was fast
developing. The string quartet develops its subject in conjunction with a variety of
loosely maintained semiquaver countersubjects. Although (like much later eighteenth-
century contrapuntal writing) it does tend to fall into two- or four-bar segments, any
joins are smoothly woven together and the first significant cadence does not occur
until thirty two bars into the piece. By contrast the counterpoint in Ex.5.7 is purely
ornamental, and in no way obscures the fact that the first strain consists of two
balanced eight-bar clauses. The second strain is less obvious in this respect—
Beethoven develops his ‘subject’ sequentially with the aid of a new, chromatic
‘countersubject’ in a lean, bitingly chromatic invertible counterpoint that is a long way
from the mellifluous part writing of the quartet. Most imaginative however, in my
view, is the way he varies the brief return to the opening theme. Instead of following
the contour of the bass as it did at the beginning, the treble starts high and step by step
39 However, apart from questions of key, the Allegretto has at least as much in common with other
minor-key 3/4 movements in the sonatas opp.10/2 and 14/1.
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