Last Quartets: Ludwig van Beethoven and T.S. Eliot Kayleen Asbo, Ph.D Mondays at 1:00 pm University Hall Room 150
"There are possibilities for verse which bear some analogy to the development of a theme by different groups of instruments; there are possibilities of transitions in a poem comparable to the different movements of a symphony or a quartet; there are possibilities of contrapuntal arrangement of subject-matter." -- T.S. Eliot, "The Music of Poetry"
T.S. Eliot’s great opus, “The Four Quartets” were written between 1936-1942 in the shadow of WWII when Eliot lived in the Kensington section of London. He had been deeply influenced by the practice of the Daily Office and the Christian mystics. In the back of his mind are also his studies in Dante, Greek philosophy and Classics, and Eastern religion, especially the Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata.
The deepest influence, however, is the Late Quartets of Beethoven, written at the end of the composer’s life, and notable for the profundity of expression and the terrible tension of the opposites. Specifically. The Quartet Op. 132 in A minor provides the musical framework for Eliot’s inspiration: five movements which recursively develops themes. As he wrote in a letter to a friend about Op. 132, “There is a sort of heavenly, or at least more than human, gaiety about some of Beethoven’s later things, which one imagines might come to oneself as the fruits of reconciliation and relief after immense suffering; I should like to get something of that into verse before I die.” Each of the Four Quartets, like OP. 132, also has five “movements”, and recursively develops the following oppositional themes:
1) Time, past and present 2) Birth and death 3) Stillness and motion 4) Path of negation, purging of emotion 5) Light and dark 6) Complexity/simplicity 7) Suffering and redemption
Each quartet also provides a meditation on: 1) The Elements 2) The Trinity (plus Mary) 3) Place: each poem is named for a place of particular meaning to Eliot 4) The Seasons
In this six week interdisciplinary course, we will weave together the study of Beethoven’s late quartets with the study of T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”. Music, story, history, mythology and image will deepen and enrich our understanding of Eliot’s profound poetic meditation which leads us to “ a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything”
September 26: Beethoven’s Journey to Simplicity From Heroic Struggle to Sublime Surrender Featured works: Piano Sonata Op. 2 No 1 in f minor Symphony No. 5 in c minor String Quartets Op. 132 and Op. 133
October 3: T.S. Eliot’s Journey and Influences: Childhood in St. Louis Summers at Cape Ann, Massachusetts Eastern Philosophy Studies at Harvard Medieval Literature in France and Studies at Oxford The Disastrous Marriage “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” “ The Wasteland” Conversion to Christianity
October 10: “Burnt Norton”: The Still Point of the Turning world Vivienne’s institutionalization Emily Hale Heraclitis and Greek Philosophy
October 17: “East Coker”: In My Beginning is My End John of the Cross and the Ascent to Mount Carmel Dante and the Dark Night Ancestral roots in England Mary, Queen of Scots
October 24: “Dry Salvages”: Fare Forward, Voyagers The Bhagavad Gita Desert Fathers and Mothers of Christianity Monastic Spirituality and Devotion to the Virgin Mary Two Rivers: The Ganges and The Missisippi
October 31: “Little Gidding”: Where the Fire and the Rose are One Dante’s Purgatory and Paradiso Nicholas Ferrar and the Little Gidding Community Julian of Norwich and Revelations of Divine Love