FLINDERS QUARTET
Elizabeth Sellars • violin
Wilma Smith • violin
Helen Ireland • viola
Zoe Knighton • cello

AGATHA YIM, POLYPHONIC PICTURES filming and editing
THOMAS GRUBB, MANO MUSICA sound engineering, editing and mastering

Filmed May 2025 in the Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre, Wurundjeri Country/Southbank

This project was made possible through support from Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne and FQ’s Fifth String donors

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
String Quartet No.11 in F minor, Op.95, "Serioso" (composed 1810)
I. Allegro con brio
II. Allegretto ma non troppo
III. Allegro assai vivace ma serioso
IV. Larghetto espressivo – Allegretto agitato – Allegro

This work was written without a commission, and if we are to believe a letter Beethoven wrote to his publisher, it may never have been heard in public at all. The note accompanying the manuscript read: “The Quartet is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public.” Dedicated to his dear friend, Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, the work seems to have been Beethoven’s own personal experiment; and what a riveting experiment it is.

It’s one of his shortest quartets, but don’t be fooled—it packs a punch. Beethoven himself gave it the nickname “Serioso,” most probably in reference to the third movement, but you can feel that serious intent right from the opening bars. The first movement is tense, compact, almost impatient in its fury. And just between us: the tempo marking for the first movement has caused more than one quartet to raise an eyebrow (and possibly a metronome in protest). It’s ridiculously fast. We’ve tried it. We’ve argued about it. And like so many things with Beethoven, we eventually just surrender to the energy of it and hang on for the ride.

The second movement (serving as a slow movement but, curiously, marked Allegretto) begins with a simple but purposeful descending scale which blossoms into a long melodious line and then embarks on an extended fugato, leaving us suspended before bursting into the third movement.

The opening eight bars of the last movement give us a glimpse of a slow movement, but eight bars is all that’s allowed. After this, nervousness and unrest ensue in agitated writing. The twist of the major key comes completely unexpectedly and as the American composer Randall Thompson puts it: “no bottle of champagne was ever uncorked at a better time.”