Kenneth Burton, FRS

Kenneth Burton, FRS — a tribute

(Born: 1926; FRS: 1974; Died: 22^nd  Nov 2010)

It will be well known that Professor Kenneth Burton was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974 (incidentally, the same year as Stephen Hawking); a distinction that marked him as lying in the top 1,200  scientists in Britain, at that time. I see it as my first objective to explain, in non-technical terms, what Kenneth's achievements amounted to that were so valued by his peers, and what mental qualities and circumstances allowed Ken to make those contributions.  I shall then refer briefly to his years as Professor of Biochemistry at Newcastle, and end by quoting a short paragraph from Professor George Petersen, Kenneth's second research student and a lifelong friend.

The American golfer, Arnold Palmer, famously remarked that the more he practiced the luckier he became. In this sense there is an element of luck in science as well as in sport. Many scientists have one stroke of luck; geniuses like Sir Hans Krebs strike lucky over and over throughout their lives. Kenneth Burton had three occasions when he struck lucky.

The best known of these was his citation classic of 1956 in which he described a sensitive and reproducible assay of DNA which proved so popular that it is known as "the Burton Method". This paper has been cited by other scientists 17,000 times, and is still being cited 50 years later; that is some 1000 times more often quoted than the average scientific paper. His 'stroke of genius' on that occasion was to leave the half-completed assay tubes on the bench overnight instead of staying late and finishing the experiment properly. Ken Burton observed that the colours developed by themselves overnight much better than by the traditional protocol. He next observed that the colours that developed with Chicago acetic acid did not develop in Oxford. Well, that was the serendipitous part; the rest of the achievement was having the curiosity and the ready mind to interpret and exploit the observations; for example, by adding acetaldehyde that presumably contaminated the Chicago acetic acid. [Burton K. (1956) Biochem. J. 62, 315 - 20; "A study of the conditions and mechanism of the dipehnylamine reaction for the colorimetric estimation of deoxyribonucleic acid."]

Much more important, scientifically speaking, was Ken's paper of the previous year in which he showed that viral DNA synthesis (in bacteria) required viral proteins to be synthesised first. This is a very fundamental point in understanding viruses, and of course anti-viral medicines. Virus reproduction requires viral proteins.[Burton, K. (1955)  Biochem. J. 61, 473–483; Relation between the synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid and the synthesis of protein in the multiplication of bacteriophage T2.]

It is argueable, however, that Ken Burton's greatest achievement was his publication of the following year, i.e. of 1957. He wrote an appendix to a massive paper by Krebs and Kornberg, in which he calculated and listed the free-energies of formation of all the compounds of energy metabolism, from the sugar we eat to the CO₂ we breath out, and everything in between. Things fall downwards, in biochemistry as in every other field. Ken's tabulation allows us to see which direction is downwards (in this metaphor.) It allows us to understand why thing happen, everything, from the contraction of muscle to the synthesis of protein. Countless students of biochemistry learn and quote the values from that table and never realize they are quoting Ken Burton. Were it possible to count citations in this case I think it would run to millions.[Krebs HA, Kornberg HL, Burton K (1957) Ergebnisse der Physiologie; 49: 212-298; "A survey of the energy transformations in living matter"]

Some of this may be news to Ken's friends, for I never heard Ken talking proudly about his successes. He was a  singularly un-boastful man. Most of us are motivated, at least in part, by self-love, prestige, and scoring over ones contemporaries. This can get so bad, in a mediocre department, that one person's success is generally bemoaned, as implying failure for the rest. Ken rose above that. His objectives were more remote, more absolute; he was motivated, I think, less by the glory of doing science, than simply by the fun of it. Characteristically he liked to tell, not of his fame, but the story of a failure, or of bad luck; of how he missed identifying the role of co-enzyme A in citric acid synthesis, thus allowing Fritz Lipmann to announce that discovery a year or two later and share the 1953 Nobel prize with Hans Krebs. Ken's mistake (he said), on that occasion, was too much veneration for the opinions of colleagues; a fault I believe he subsequently corrected![Novelli G. D., Lipmann F. (1950) J. Biol. Chem. 182:213–228.]

Ken's were significant achievements! But why did they happen to Ken Burton? Well, he was very sharp; he was well grounded in chemistry, physics and maths (his undergraduate subjects); he had a roving curiosity, a sense of enjoyment in science, and persistence. He studied for his PhD under a master of benchwork biochemistry in Malcolm Dixon; a legendary enzymologist, an intensely shy man, but a very considerable pianist . It was said of Malcolm Dixon that he was as happy fixing a gas boiler as doing biochemistry. When Kenneth moved to Sheffield in 1949 he came under the mantle of one of the worlds great scientists; Hans Krebs was hard-working, methodical but imaginative. He was remarkable amongst scientific bosses in not letting his name get onto the papers of colleagues merely because he was their boss. Krebs encouraged Ken's independence of mind. Kenneth was remarkable too, in a similar way, in that a high proportion of his papers were single author papers. He did his own thinking and his own experiments. Medawar pointed out that to achieve a big answer you have to tackle a big problem; Krebs gave Ken Burton access to the big question of Free Energies.

Following those 3 classic papers of the mid fifties Ken Burton followed two other major projects, with equal tenacity and skill, but to less acclaim. He and his students followed up the diphenylamine reaction for several years, developing methods for cleaving the long threads of intact DNA in the hope of finding a way of determining the sequence of bases and thus "reading" the genes. In this they initially had some success. Last year, in her Nobel acceptance speech, Elizabeth Blackburn admitted using Ken Burton's depurination reaction in her 1975 investigations of "satellite DNA". But much more powerful methods of sequencing were developed by others and "Burton's depurination method" has been forgotten.

[Burton K. (1965) Essays Biochem. 1, 57-89. Sequence determination in nucleic acids.].

In 1966  Ken Burton became the first professor of Biochemistry at Newcastle upon Tyne. Designing the course and selecting staff took over his time and energies, but did not completely prevent active research, nor indeed bench work. Ken soon started an investigation into the mechanism by which adenine is actively taken up by bacteria, a project he pursued almost single-handedly till retirement. It was not fashionable. ('Bacteria take up everything; so what?') The trend in science was towards progressively bigger research groups getting more and more of the money. With great ingenuity and a "shoestring", Ken eventually brought the subject to a satisfactory conclusion with his last scientific paper in 1994, identifying a gene and proposing a proton-linked uptake and intense product inhibition.  

[Burton K. (1994) Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B; 255:153-7; Adenine transport in Escherichia coli.]

I have tried to show Kenneth Burton the scientist; but that is only one aspect of the whole man. I understood that Ken had enjoyed building the department from scratch but had found the deeply entrenched Medical Faculty aloof, if not actually hostile. Successful integration of Biochemistry into the Medical School only came in 1985 when Ken was Dean of Science. "Prof Burton" was universally regarded as completely fair, singularly unaffected by egotism, unusually given (for a head of Department) to working at the bench, and an enthusiastic walker. Malcolm Page, who did his PhD with Ken and subsequently worked with me, writes: "Having now supervised a few students myself, I realize what a special quality [Ken] had and I have endeavoured to give my students the same freedom". Thus we see the baton passed on.

George Petersen, one of Kenneth Burton's first research students and a lifelong friend has written a charming and well balanced personal tribute from which I shall quote a short paragraph. It shows how well George knew Kenneth. Professor Petersen writes:

"Kenneth Burton had an endearingly impish sense of humour and many little human quirks.  In conversation, he had a disconcerting way of drifting off while speaking and going into some sort of trance.  Whether he actually lost consciousness, I don't know. But, after a short interval of gazing into space, he would return to continue the conversation as though nothing had happened.  And it has to be said that he was not the world's most lucid lecturer.  Basil Smith, another DPhil student in Ken's laboratory, once said, "Ken could mystify for England".  Perhaps this was part of the same phenomenon.  Ken told us once that, after a lecture, he could not recall much of what he had said and could only conclude that he had fallen asleep during his own lecture." 

I concur, but would not have dared say it.

Ian West, 12 Longhirst, 

MORPETH, NE61 3LT

++++++++++++   OOOOOOOO  ++++++++++++

Tuition Fees 3

This 'Tuition Fee Fiasco' is threatening to become the present government's 'Poll Tax'; a tax however sensible, that is so misunderstood and loathed it has to be revoked. Heads and windows are being broken and thousands of well intentioned youngsters are wasting time and energy protesting, but in ignorance of the true nature of "the beast". 

Shaun Ley on 'World at One' (Thursday 9^th Dec., 2010) tried over and again to get the coalition minister Danny Alexander to explain how the present proposals for student loans is progressive; i.e. how it comes harder on the  better off than on the less well off.  Shaun Ley could not see it. The minister could not explain it, so he quoted the Institute for Fiscal Studies. "No!" said Shaun Ley, "I am asking you, as Minster."  It turns out that we (the public) don't yet know enough of the detail to make a sensible decision. Let us hope that Parliament does.

The media flash a headline, alarmist or scoffing depending on the political colour of the owner. But they seldom give us the proposals. I think this could be done quite simply in a 10 x 10 cm²  advert; not the analysis, justification, spin, excuses, apologies, etc.; just the proposals.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies does a good job, in websites that are available, but not accessible, to all. Even there one has to read between the lines ("we calculate that total the taxpayer burden.. " presumably means "…the total taxpayer burden.. "); and guess at the meaning of 'levy', 'discount' etc.

It turns out that the 'fairness' question hinges on [1] the rate at which the loan is paid back (9% of earnings), [2] the interest rate that is charged on the outstanding loan for every point on the salary scale above £21,000 pa, below which no money need be repaid, and [3] the number of years after which the debt is wiped (30). Without this information the question cannot be discussed as to of how "Fair" or "Progressive" the education burden is. Given only a 30 second 'sound-bite' the best that ministers can do is to shout over and over that "the bottom 25% of students will be better off", and that education is "free at the point of use", till they are hoarse and we are bored.

Nothing is free. The government's proposals aim to place the cost of education on the presumed beneficiaries. But the entire discussion presupposes that the 'benefit' of an education is a financial benefit to the educated. Were that the case, the proposals make a lot of sense. The system would adjust; graduate salaries would presumably rise to allow the loan repayments. But is that the only 'benefit', or even the main benefit of education. The benefit of street-sweepers is not the salary it brings the sweeper, but the clean streets it brings everyone else.

Occidentis, MORPETH

Programme Notes

Sonata n. 31 in A♭, Hob.XVI. 46    —     Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

i. Allegro moderato, ii. Adagio, iii. Finale: Presto)

Haydn was not himself a great keyboardist (c.f Mozart and Beethoven), but was certainly competent, and composed chiefly at his own little clavichord (an instrument which makes a minute and rapidly fading sound compared with a modern piano, but which is capable of considerably more expression than the harpsichord). His 60 odd keyboard sonatas were mostly written early in his career, and with clavichord or harpsichord in mind (though by 1780 Haydn had a fortepiano). They are nevertheless inventive, carefully wrought pieces in classical form, mostly in 3 movements, with the middle movement in a different (but related) key from the outer movements. Sonata 31 (called a divertimento on the cover) was composed in 1767/8 and is one of the more substantial of this 'middle' period. The outer movements are in A♭ major and thematically related; the middle movement is in D♭ major.

Piano pieces for children: Breeze & Clouds   —   Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996)

Takemitsu, Japan's best known and best loved composer, wrote some 260 works including 97 film scores. Aged 15 when the war ended, he shunned traditional Japanese style as it "always recalled the bitter memories of war" and he developed his own language which can be seen as bridging Western techniques and Eastern moods. Piano was his favourite instrument (along with guitar and flute). The two short pieces we hear today were written for a piano lesson programme given by the pianist Naoyuki Inoue and shown on national television in 1979.

Miroirs        ————————————      Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937)

For 12 years Ravel studied piano and composition at the Paris Conservatoire, but finally left in 1903, having failed to gain a medal in either discipline. He joined a group of like minded artists who called themselves "Hooligans" (Apaches). 'Miroirs', composed in 1904 -1905, followed his first piano masterpieces, 'Jeux d'eau' (1901) and 'Pavane pour une infante défunte' (1902). It comprises 5 sections each dedicated to a fellow Apache and each invoking an image and mood which might be experienced had the dedicatee looked in a mirror.

1. "Night Moths", dedicated to the poet and essayist Léon-Paul Fargue, opens with chromatic pianissimo sound-painting up and down the keyboard.

2. "Sad Birds", dedicated to the pianist Ricardo Viñes who gave the first performance. A lone bird sings its sad song at the beginning. Other birds join in, but the piece ends as it began.

3. "A boat on the Ocean", dedicated to the painter Paul Sordes.

4. "Dawn Song of a Clown", dedicated to M. D. Calvocoressi (music writer and Slavophile of Greek descent). This piece is heavily influenced by Spanish themes, with the introductory chords reminiscent of guitars. (The section of repeated notes is notorious as one of the more difficult passages in the piano repertoire.)

5. "The Valley of Bells", dedicated to Maurice Delage (pianist and composer, and Ravel's first pupil). Numerous bells, and some of Ravel's most striking melodies, can be heard in this piece.

 

++++++++     Interval of 20 minutes     ++++++++

Variations on a theme of Corelli, Op. 42 — Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943)

On 22 December 1917 Rachmaninov, deprived of his estate, fled St. Petersburg with his wife and two daughters on an open sled, heading for the United States where, from the necessity of earning money, he largely abandoned composition and set himself to carve out a new career as a concert pianist. Opus 42, composed in 1931, was his only composition for solo piano composed after leaving Russia, and represent a drier, less romantic, style (followed in 1934 by his popular Paganini Variations). The theme is not in fact by Corelli but is an old Portuguese melody called "La Folia" used by many composers (including Corelli, Geminiani, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, and many others) as the basis for sets of variations. Rachmaninov's set contains the theme and 20 variations, plus an intermezzo and coda. These can be grouped into three movements: An Allegro/Scherzo section in D minor containing the first 13 variations, an Adagio containing 2 variations (in D major), and a Finale (vars. 16 – 20), again in D minor. Rachmaninov himself never played the whole set; if he thought the audience was flagging, he would skip sections.

Sonata no. 31 in A♭, Opus 110   —   Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

i Moderato (Cantabile molto espressivo), ii Scherzo (Allegro molto), iii Finale (Allegro ma non troppo)

In 1819 Schlessinger's of Berlin commissioned a set of 3 sonata of which Opus 110 is the second. The opening movement ("in an extremely expressive singing style") has been described as 'orderly', and 'Haydnesque'. (We note, very much in passing, that Beethoven's 31^st sonata is in the same key as Haydn's 31^st.) After a 4-bar introduction, the cantabile melody sings out over a simple bass line of repetitive semiquavers. Towards its end the 1^st movement contains a brief reference to the see-saw theme of the finale's fugue. The Scherzo lives up to the name for it is a cheerful little movement containing two robust (ungenteel) folk songs tunes, repeated after a 'trio' section containing some scary leaps. The deeply moving Finale, a complex but integrated mix of tempi and keys, comprises: recitative, arioso, fugue, arioso, link, inverted fugue, conclusion.        

Changing The Clocks

Changing The Clocks: the 'Lighter Later' campaign

"Any questions" this weekend (29^th Oct. 2010) was not remarkable for its good sense, but on one issue the majority of the panel seemed to agree; switching to European Time is absurd. The audience (if they understood Jonathan's confusing question) seemed to be largely of the opposite opinion. I understand that a serious campaign is currently being waged to get the present system (alternating between GMT and BST) to be changed in favour of the UK joining western Europe and making the same alternation but an hour ahead, so that the sun is at its zenith at 13.00 hrs in winter and 14.00 hrs in summer. (See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10362295)

This seems to me quite daft. The issue does not seem to be one that is up for grabs. Noon is when the sun is at its zenith. Calling that 14.00 hrs is plain perverse. It is like calling Monday 'Sunday' so that you can spend the morning in bed. (Admittedly, calling it 13.00 hrs as we have since 1916, seems a little perverse, but the measure was brought in during World War One, to save daylight and to increase the production of armaments.)

If there is an advantage in us getting up in the dark then let us do so by all means; we can get up at 06.00 hrs and call it 06.00; we don't have to call it 07.00 or 08.00 in order to get up. There may well be an avantage in the City of London opening for business at the same time as Frankfurt. So let them do that. It will be darker here than in Germany; that cannot be helped by any fiddling with the clock. It may well be that conditions for school children in Scotland, for mill workers in Lancashire and for dairy farmers in Cornwall are widely different. We don't need to agonize over a compromise. Let each working day be adjusted to suit.

My main reason for resisting the suggested change to western European time is that I am sure we would soon learn to adapt; we would soon learn to stay in bed till the clock said 09.00 hrs. if that suited us. After all, starting work at 09.00 is not an integral and unalterable part of the human condition. On the other hand, walking about in the dark does not suit the species, and never will.

Occidentis, MORPETH

Tuition Fees 2

Tuition Fees 2

    Let me try again (if I failed to make my points in Tuition Fees 1). 

    On 'Any Questions'  (Friday 15th Oct. 2010), Ed Vaizey (a Minister in the Coalition Government) said that there was no evidence that high tuition fees would put poor students off from going to university. Well, it would put me off, so there is a little bit of evidence. 

    I am beginning, however, to think that the withdrawal of direct public funding for the universities might have some benefits. Perhaps the sector will decline from its present grossly hypertrophied condition. Perhaps half, or more, of the present stock of universities will have to close. Perhaps 2-year and 1-year courses will finally be introduced, instead of being merely talked about for decades. Perhaps the Government and Industry will realise that they, and the country, need a supply of graduates mentally trained in specific skills, and sponsor candidates directly, paying all or part of their university fees. Other school-leavers might gain entry to apprenticeship schemes, and learn a craft, which is of course much more than a manual skill, but which is not best taught by lecture, nor practised merely by thinking. 

    We might even evolve by stages till we rediscover a system like that we had in my youth where 10% - 15% of school leavers went to university, funded by the state as National Assets, while the rest of our youth learnt a manual-based craft. 

    Let us go forward, for it might be the quickest way of getting back.

(Dear Minister, 

    While I have your 'ear', may I suggest that we do not want to know each summer which school-leavers have achieved grade A (whatever that means); we want to know which students fall in the top 10% of candidates, as was the system in the sixties, before it was "fixed". 

    The proportion gaining A-grades has changed considerably over the years, and has now got so high that it can hardly inflate any more. Ability, on the other hand, is presumably rather constant. In any case, if universities are built to take the top 10% they cannot take 15% in the event of more candidates presenting with grade A.)

Occidentis, MORPETH, UK.

Tuition Fees

Tuition Fees

"The media's favourite blunder: Yacht-owners are (on average) rich; but I strongly advise against buying a yacht in the hope of becoming rich. "

    Our coalition government has welcomed the Browne Report's recommendations on funding universities in England. The suggestion is that universities will lose a chunk of central funding but a can charge students as high a fee as they need to make good the loss (figures of £6000 - £7000 per annum have been mentioned); that students borrow the £21,000 - 36,000 odd needed to get them through their 3 year degree (accommodation plus tuition); that this debt immediately attracts commercial rates of interest (2.2% above inflation); payback commences when the graduates earns more than £21,000 p.a. and continues as the rate of 9% of income for the next 30 years, if necessary. [See the helpful briefing by the Institute for Fiscal Studies: http://www.ifs.org.uk/pr/browne_review.pdf]

    There seems to be a lot of nonsense written about this matter and I propose to add my twopennyworth here.

    First, "If it is not broken, don't fix it!". Higher education was funded in my day out of taxes (on a means-tested basis) on the grounds that it was of benefit, not merely to the recipient, but to the nation. That system worked for many years, but maybe it does not now, for many reason(s). [a] There has been a grotesque expansion of the university sector. [b] Politicians are squeamish about putting 2% on income tax to pay for it. [c] The "fairness" argument has suggested that the beneficiaries are the graduates themselves, forgetting the benefit to the rest of society. (A point to which I shall return, below.)

    It has been pointed out by the media that graduates earn (on average) some £100,000 more than non-graduates in a lifetime, as though this might justify spending £36,000 at the beginning of your adult life — as an investment. But might this not be another instance of the media's favourite blunder? Yacht-owners are (on average) rich; but I strongly advise you not to buy a yacht in the hope of becoming rich. I am a great advocte of education, as a means of improving society, but not as a means of becoming rich. I (who have taught at universities for > 30 years) think at least 50% of degrees contribute little or nothing to the wealth of the graduate, nor to GNP. Even if your school-leaver decided to spend £36,000 as an investment, it seems a very poor one (on average). The FTSE 100 index began on 3 January 1984 at 1,000 and now stands at 5,700; £36,000 invested 26 years ago would be worth £205,200 now (on average).

    I think fees of £7000 per annum and debts of £36,00 will certainly put students off university. And I think they should put students off. (Taking 9% out of your income for 30 years sounds appalling to me and considerably worse than a 2% rise in income tax.) Drastic shrinkage of the University sector may occur, but may be the best outcome of the present proposals, though one vigorously denied by the proposers.

    I hate the idea, however true, that a medical degree is a means to grow rich. It has already had a disastrous effect on the profession, for it has bred a generation of doctors with a very mercenary outlook (mixed in with, and corrupting, or depressing, the genuine philanthropists). I do not know who to blame for this trend, though I have some preliminary culprits in mind; everyone who has ever said "Get real!" for a start; for should we not rather say "Get ideal!". When I find the culprits I have a great load of  'scorn' to pile on them.

    The notion that a degree is valuable to society is as much in need of qualification as the other notion (that it is a means of making money). It should be a very simple matter for a committee to decide which degrees are valuable and which not. Indeed, it could be left to market forces, or so it will be argued, though the great debate between the "free-marketeers" and the "planners" did not end with the collapse of the Berlin Wall, for we are now sending spies to Scandinavia to find out why their banks are solvent, their pensions funded in perpetuity, and their citizens living contentedly with >50% income tax. What we principally need in this country are more waiters, bus-drivers, and plumbers. We seem to be overstocked (even to 30-fold) with psychologists, media students, and those hoping to improve water quality by looking at river wildlife. (Gambling bankers contribute nothing, except tax.)

    None of which reflection gets us very far forward, so here is a positive thought. Pehaps we should encourage businesses, and government departments who need graduates, to recruit school-leavers and sponsor their university studies, as was done on a small scale in the sixties and seventies of last century; I mean pay the tuition fees. I do not think I would take a university course under Mr. Browne's proposals unless I were sponsored in this way, and I would not urge any child or grandchild of mine to do so either.

Occidentis, MORPETH, UK.

Oct'10 Programme Notes

String quartet in E major (Op. 54/3)  —  Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

i Allegro, ii Largo cantabile, iii Menuetto (Allegretto), iv Finale (Presto)

Haydn was the son of uneducated peasants (a wheelwright and a cook), and though his talent gained him access to some first class models, he was essentially self taught as a musician and composer. He is nevertheless regarded as the "father" of the symphony, of sonata form, and of the classical string quartet. From 1761 to 1790 Haydn was employed as Kapellmeister  by the wealthy Esterhazy family. In 1779, the aging Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy gave Haydn a new contract permitting him to accept external commissions and market his compositions. (Haydn was also the first composer in Vienna to sell his compositions commercially.) For the next 11 years, till the Prince's death, Haydn was able to frequent the Viennese musical world for 2 months each year, meeting, and indeed playing quartets with, the younger Mozart, and in consequence to develop considerably his concept of the quartet into a more fluid and complex form. This quartet, composed in 1788, is from one of three sets known as "Tost" quartets (dedicated to the Esterhazy violinist Johann Tost). This dedication explains the virtuosic nature of the first violin line, for example in the triplet runs in the first movement, the florid ornamentation that almost overloads the melody in the slow movement with hemidemisemiquavers (64^th notes), and the stratospheric leaps and runs of the finale. The outer movements, both in E major, are both introduced on the 2^nd violin. The Largo is in A major with a middle section in A minor.  The Minuet forms a brief uncomplicated interlude, before the developmental sonata-form of the last movement, the main theme of which spins out of the trio section of the Minuet.

Quartet in F minor (Op. 80)   —   Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847)

i Allegro vivace assai (presto), ii Allegro assai, iii Adagio, iv Finale (allegro molto)

In May1847 Mendelssohn's musical older sister Fanny died prematurely, inconsolably affecting the composer. This quartet, Mendelssohn's last major work, was composed in the following months under great emotional tension, but in November Felix himself died, probably of the same cerebral seizures that had affected his sister, both their parents, and their grandfather Moses. One can see in this work both anger and despair. The 1^st movement starts with an agitated presto interspersed with a gentler tune and ends with a chordal coda. There is neither a Haydnesque minuet nor a Schubertian scherzo; instead a rhythmically thrusting or searching rondo-like allegro as 2^nd movement, which fades out as though feeling the need of a slow movement. The adagio that follows is more wandering than searching, ending in a stillness that is not really peace. The finale, more muscular and less agitated than the 1^st movement, ends with a driving but rather bleak climax.

Quartet in E minor (Op. 59/2) — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827)

i Allegro, ii Molto adagio, iii Scherzo (allegretto), iv Finale (presto)

This product of Beethoven's "middle" period, published in 1806, is the second of three quartets commissioned by the Russian ambassador in Vienna, Count Razumovsky, who asked Beethoven to incorporate a Russian tune in each work. Though a gifted violinist himself, Andrei Razumovsky also employed a quartet of professional musicians which included the famous Schuppanzigh. This E minor quartet opens with no less than 5 false starts, and 4 grand pauses or empty bars, but eventually settles down to spin out extended lyrical motifs. Part of the impact of the music is in its rhythmic novelties; extended off-beat passages, repeating motifs. The second movement is in E major. Above it Beethoven carefully, but unnecessarily, wrote (in Italian) "This movement is to be played with much feeling". It opens with a hymn-like contemplation (of the starry heavens – according to Beethoven's pupil Czerny) after which the lower 3 voices introduce a wonderful singing melody, ornamented and pointed by the 1^st violin. There follows a rich development of the thematic and rhythmic material in contrasting moods. The "thème russe" occurs in the second (E major) section of the Scherzo. It is a Ukrainian song ('Glory to the Sun'; published a few years earlier) with a curious off-beat rhythm. In fact Beethoven uses only half the tune. It is introduced on the viola against a running triplet accompaniment, but passes canonically through all 4 voices. The finale is a rondo whose main theme has an irresistible and unforgettable skippety rhythm.