Beethoven String Quartets (notes on animated graphical scores)

I made my first graphical scores in the 1970s, my first animated graphical score in 1985, and the first of these for a movement of a Beethoven string quartet in 2010. In 2014 I began collaborating with the Alexander String Quartet (ASQ) on selected Beethoven quartet movements, and in April 2019 we decided to honor the 250th anniversary of his birth by extending the collaboration to the full set. By October 2019 I'd made videos based on ASQ recordings for all the movements, but given how I feel about this music, I expect to continue working on this project indefinitely.

This YouTube playlist, with all the Beethoven's string quartets in opus#/movement order, will be updated with new versions of the animations as they are completed, and I will be adding notes about them to this page.

If there are things you're curious about that aren't discussed here, you might want to look at this background material, but if you don't find what you're looking for there either, please feel free to contact me with questions or suggestions.

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Index

Conventions, deviations, and techniques

The organization Beethoven's string quartets is based on a design that was in widespread use at the time: four movements, with a first movement in sonata-allegro form, a fast fourth movement (often in rondo form), and two middle movements (the order of which varied): one slow, and one a minuet (or scherzo). Beethoven mostly adhered to this template, but he occasionally strayed from it (sometimes significantly), especially in the later quartets.

Likewise, my animated graphical scores mostly work according to a consistent set of conventions, but I sometimes vary things—usually in response to a particular feature of the music, but sometimes just on a whim. These conventions include:

Pitch shown by vertical position . The only variation from this is to have a note move vertically toward the pitch of the following note; this is mostly done for melodic lines that are played in a legato manner.

. The only variation from this is to have a note move vertically toward the pitch of the following note; this is mostly done for melodic lines that are played in a manner. Time shown by horizontal position . The center of the display corresponds to the now position, with the past to the left and the future toward the right. There are two main ways the start (onset) and end of notes are indicated: in one, these correspond to the left and right edge of the note in the display; in the other, the note is centered at the onset position (and, in some cases, also moves from that point toward the next note, so that its center remains at the now position while the note is sounding).

. The center of the display corresponds to the position, with the past to the left and the future toward the right. There are two main ways the start (onset) and end of notes are indicated: in one, these correspond to the left and right edge of the note in the display; in the other, the note is centered at the onset position (and, in some cases, also moves from that point toward the next note, so that its center remains at the position while the note is sounding). Instrument indicated by color . The main exception to this is when tonality/harmony plays an especially important role, and I use a system I call " Harmonic Coloring " to indicate the pitch class of the notes.

. The main exception to this is when tonality/harmony plays an especially important role, and I use a system I call " " to indicate the pitch class of the notes. Note function distinguished by shape and motion. Function is possibly not the best word for this; notes assigned a given shape and way of moving might be said to share the same meaning, or feeling, or nature, or identity, ... The main idea is shape and motion are used to emphasize the effect of the notes, and to highlight differences in these effects. A catalog of my shape/motion conventions (which I call renderers) is given on this page, and you can find some related discussions in the Techniques section of this page. Here are the renderers I use most often in these pieces:

GenAlpha is the simplest, most flexible renderer; it can draw notes in a variety of shapes (as shown here: ellipse, octagon, polygon, circle, triangle, rhombus, inverted ellipse) with a variety of behaviors when the note is sounding ("aura" highlight, shrinking center, traversing to the following note, etc.). It is used more than any other renderer. The "gen" in its name means "generic" because it's designed to be a way of showing notes that doesn't bias the viewer. This renderer was designed for the animated graphical score of The Rite of Spring; page two of this PDF explains how it was designed. V-Ring Alpha is the main renderer I use for notes for which the motion from one note to the next is important. Unlike the GenAlpha motion, these note forms move completely horizontally for most of their duration and only move vertically when they get close to the next note. Crescent is like V-Ring Alpha, but it is somehow stronger and more expressive. As far as I know, the first person to use this kind of shape to represent a musical note was Oskar Fischinger. (His use was much more expressive than mine.) Neon is meant to suggest neon bulbs (see here for background on how I developed this and the other V-Ring renderers). Neon Stretch is like Neon, but with the neon "tube" stretching and bending as the note is sounding. Spline is like Neon Stretch, but with the connecting curve being a cubic spline. Spline Ribbon is like Spline, but with the curve width varying based on loudness. The Voronoi renderer is described in detail here. Shaded Rectangle looks like Voronoi, but the shapes are just simple rectangles (not Voronoi tessellations). V-Ring (which I've nicknamed "bird of paradise" because of its shape) points to the following note and unrolls toward it as it sounds. V-Ring Delta is likd V-Ring but it changes size continuously with dynamics, and rotates at the rate related to the tempo. Roll Box is mostly used for fast passages that move mostly by step (scales). Sonar bounces from note to note (and sometimes send out rings of ripples). Coil notes unroll toward the following note. Calligraphy looks best when notes alternate alternate between high/low pitches. Trailing Balls wiggle in rhythm after the notes are played; I usually use them when Beethoven puts in notes to "mix it up"—make the feeling more chaotic. Trailing Ribbon gets drawn after notes sound, and fades away (and straightens out) as they retreat into the past. Cylinder is the most "formal" renderer; I tend to use it for slow-moving themes that are structurally very important.

In the descriptions that follow, I'll mention significant variations on and deviations from these conventions.

Quartet No. 1 in F Major, Op. 18, No. 1

Quartet No. 2 in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2

Quartet No. 3 in D Major, Op. 18, No. 3

Quartet No. 4 in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4

Quartet No. 5 in A Major, Op. 18, No. 5

Quartet No. 6 in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6

Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1

Quartet No. 8 in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2

Quartet No. 9 in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3

Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major, Op. 74

Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 95

Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127

Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Major, Op. 130

Große Fuge in B-flat Major, Op. 133

Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131

Quartet No. 15 in A Minor, Op. 132

Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op. 135