Neurodiversity: Borromeo Quartet Brings Beethoven’s Op. 130 + Op. 133 Temperament to Life

I n but one extraordinary passage, marked ‘beklemmt’, does the first violin break into a kind of anguished recitative whose obstreperous rhythm challenges the solemn gait of the lower instruments and threatens to rupture the music asunder. The emotion is purged, however, and the violin rejoins its companions to murmur once again the theme of the opening. Beethoven left the question of the Quartet’s finale unsettled, so that the work may be performed with either the Große Fuge of the original version or the substitute Rondo movement that he provided for it shortly before his death. This latter movement, a splendid piece of music, was written in the manner of continuous thematic expansion and development that was central to the style of his last years. With its thrusting rhythms and brief returns of its Gypsy-tinged opening theme, the movement has about it a … stubborn unwillingness to be bent into the tonic key of B-flat major.”
  —  Richard Rodda, 2005.

I ts official title is really a misnomer, for the movement incorporates an introduction, a double fugue, a slower and only mildly contrapuntal section brought about with an abrupt modulation from B-flat to G-flat, a scherzo that is soon overwhelmed by a resumption of the fiercest fugal developments, followed by a stream of afterthoughts and retrospects.”
  —  Denis Matthews.

G reat wits are sure to madness near allied—
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”
  —  John Dryden, 1662.

W ell, if you ask writers and artists who have depression, severe depression or manic depression, what they feel is important to them about their illness and their moods in their work, what they almost always focus upon is the intensity and the range of emotional expressiveness. Learning from the pain and from the suffering, they experience the sorrow, they experience the despair of the nihilism and so forth. And on the other hand, very ecstatic and visionary states. So that’s what artists and writers focus upon. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. I think it’s also that people with manic depressive illness who have a particular temperament live a life of almost seemingly irreconcilable differences and opposite states that they somehow, on a day to day basis, have to reconcile. So people who have very disciplined and interesting and strong and creative minds, who also have this temperament, spend their lives having to make some order out of chaos and reconcile these opposite states. I think that a lot of what we ask from artists really is to experience extreme mood states, experience the extremes of human nature and experience, and put some new meaning and redemptive value in their work.”
  —  Kay Redfield Jamison, Live from Lincoln Center.

In late 1822, Prince Nikolas Galitzin of Russia commissioned several string quartets from Beethoven. Beethoven was preoccupied with work on the Missa Solemnis, Op. 123; the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120; and the Ninth Symphony, Op. 125, and delayed delivering the B-flat quartet and Große Fugue until 1825. Galitzin was understandably annoyed by the delays. He wasn’t chopped liver.

What’s more, in this third installment on the commission Galitzin got these six movements, including the two strange slow movements and the giant, fierce 16-minute Fuge. The two fugue subjects here are not playing nicey-nicey. They’re rhetorical adversaries, struggling with each other in musical armed conflict, taking no prisoners. There are winners and there’re losers.

The unhappy public reception of Op. 130 with the Fuge attached as-written led to the substitution of the alternate finale to Op. 130, the Rondo, which turned out to be Beethoven’s last finished composition. The deal was, Beethoven would provide the substitute Rondo on condition that the withdrawn Große Fuge would be issued separately, and Beethoven would get an additional fee. Right. The fugue was published posthumously as Op. 133. Why was the final release as Op. 133 delayed until after Beethoven had died? Who was the cause of the delays, and what were their motives? And how many composers today could engage their patrons in this way? The recklessness and extravagance of it are mind-boggling! Crazy!

In December, I did a post on bipolar (manic-depressive) illness and musical creativity. The occasion of last night’s performance by the Borromeo Quartet made me wonder once more about the diversity of varieties of depression that give rise to composers’ output. Several varieties are, I think, manifested in this Beethoven Quartet. Have a look at Larkin’s nice chapter in Cooper’s book on Beethoven for some extended analysis of signs and symptoms in Beethoven’s later life and works.

The Borromeo Quartet outdid themselves in last night’s incarnation of this wonderful, emotional work. The deep perplexity of the human condition was “in there”, in their performance of Op. 130 + Op. 133. The Rondo in place of the amputated Große Fuge? Somehow, it just doesn’t seem right. It’s a shame that Beethoven suffered so that we might have this work. And it’s possible that, back in his time, nothing could’ve been done to treat his condition or mitigate his suffering. But today the question is, ought such symptoms to be under-treated, so that we might have more works like this? Ought such symptoms to be medically induced, as a form of composer performance-enhancement?

P revailing conceptions of creativity in psychology and psychiatry derive from romanticist ideas about the creative imagination—they differ considerably from notions that are central in modernism and postmodernism. Whereas romanticism views creative inspiration as a highly emotional, Dionysian, or primitive state, modernism and postmodernism emphasize processes involving hyper-selfconsciousness and alienation (hyperreflexivity). Although manic-depressive or cyclothymic tendencies seem especially suited to creativity of the romantic sort, schizoid, schizotypal, schizophreniform, and schizophrenic tendencies have more in common with the anti-romantic sensibilities of modernism and postmodernism. I criticize the book by Kay Redfield Jamison, ‘Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament’, for treating romantic concepts of creativity as if they defined creativity in general. I argue that Jamison’s denial or neglect of the creative potential of persons in the schizophrenia spectrum relies on certain diagnostic oversimplifications: an overly broad conception of affective illness and an excessively narrow conception of schizophrenia that ignores the creative potential of the schizophrenia spectrum.”
  —  L Sass, Creativity Research J 2000; 13: 55-74.

T  aking the new antidepressants, some of my patients said they found themselves more ‘confident’ and ‘decisive’. Is this, I wonder, a categorically ‘good’ thing? I used these claims as a jumping-off point for speculation: what if future medications had the potential to modify personality traits in people who had never experienced mood disorder? [Drugs like MK-801, for example.] If doctors were given access to such drugs, how should they prescribe them? The inquiry moved from medical ethics to social criticism: what does our culture demand of us, in the way of assertiveness? What is the price of conformity?”
  —  Peter Kramer, There’s Nothing ‘Deep’ about Depression, 2005.

Nine Temperament Characteristics

• Activity level refers to the amount of physical energy in the child. Does the child have to be constantly moving or do they have a relaxing approach?
  
• Regularity / Rhythmicity refers to the level of predictability in a child’s biological functions such as waking, becoming tired, feeding.
  
• Approach / Withdrawal refers to how the child responds to new people or environments either positive or negative. Does the child check out people or things in their environment without hesitation or do they shy away?
  
• Adaptability refers to how long it takes the child to adjust to change. Does the child adjust to the changes in their environment easily or are they resistant to what is happening around them?
  
• Intensity refers to the energy level of a positive or negative response. Does the child react intensely to a situation or do they respond in a calm and quiet manner?
  
• Mood refers to the child’s general tendency towards a happy or unhappy demeanor.
  
• Distractibility refers to the child’s tendency to be sidetracked by other things going on around them. Does the child get easily distracted by what is happening in the environment around them or can they concentrate despite the interruptions?
  
• Persistence & Attention Span refers to the child’s ability to stay with a task through frustrations and length of time on the task. Can the child stay with an activity for a long period of time or do they just give up when they become frustrated?
  
• Sensitivity refers to how easily a child is disturbed by changes in their environment. Does the child get bothered by external stimuli in their environment such as noises, textures, lights, etc. or do they just seem not to be bothered by them at all?

• Borromeo String Quartet website
  
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• Aylward E, Roberts-Twillie J, Barta P, Kumar A, Harris G, Geer M, Peyser C, Pearlson G. (Basal ganglia volumes and white matter hyperintensities in patients with bipolar disorder. Am J Psychiatry 1994; 151:687–93.
  
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• Kramer P. There’s nothing ‘deep’ about depression. NYT Magazine, 17-APR-2005.
  
• Larkin E. ‘Beethoven’s medical history’, in Cooper M, Beethoven: The Last Decade 1817–1827. 2e. Oxford Univ, 1985, pp. 439–64.
  
• Lilienfeld S, Lynn S, Lohr J, eds. Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology. Guilford, 2004.
  
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• DSM. Stage Fright: More Treatment Options. [PTSD and music] CMT blog, 04-JAN-2008.
  
• DSM. Composing as a Symptom and a Health Outcome. CMT blog, 11-DEC-2007.
  
• DSM. The Five and the One. CMT blog, 23-JAN-2008.