Inward Movements
An online course with Dr. Paul Berry
of the Yale School of Music
Exploring the emotional core of string quartets: the slow movements
Audience:
for everyone
Dates:
Wednesday May 20th at 7PM - Haydn
Wednesday May 27th at 7PM - Mozart
Wednesday June 3rd at 7PM - Beethoven
All enrolled students will have access to all the recordings until two weeks after the final session.
String Quartet. Shalev Mann. Courtesy of Saatchi Gallery
Enroll
$50 for the full series of classes and access to recordings
Enroll today! Full scholarships are available for music educators and students! Email Peter to get your scholarship access.
The Slow Movement:
The Emotional Core of the String Quartet
Between the dynamic opening movements of Classical string quartets and the courtly dances and lighter finales with which they closed lay the emotional core of the genre: the slow movement. Here, unencumbered by goal-directed action or aristocratic convention, composers fashioned delicately poised musical landscapes that encouraged introspection from performers and listeners alike. The three lectures in this series explore these landscapes and the nuanced senses of personhood they created. We begin amid the endlessly inventive variety of Haydn’s slow movements and their myriad allusions to the world beyond the notes: the church, the theatre, the outdoors and its creatures, the interpersonal dynamics among string players. In the second lecture, we plumb the emotional depths of Mozart’s mature slow movements, with a focus on the Andante cantabile from the “Dissonance” Quartet, K. 465, and its dual capacity to confront and to console. Finally, we end with slow movements from Beethoven’s late quartets, especially the Cavatina from Op. 130 and the Heiliger Dankgesang from Op. 132, in which the composer’s sense of self, imagined in the act of performance, recalls to us our own selfhood and offers transformation.
Paul was a featured speaker at the 2025 Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival and taught our online course on Beethoven’s String Trios in January!
Dr. Paul Berry
Paul Berry is Deputy Dean and Associate Professor (Adjunct) of Music History at the Yale School of Music. He earned his BA in Humanities and Music from Yale College (2000) and his PhD in historical musicology from the Yale Department of Music (2007). His scholarly work focuses on compositional process and interpersonal communication in the chamber music and songs of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and other composers and performers of the nineteenth century.
As a tenor, Paul specializes in early music, German lieder, and recent compositions.
Watch again
Can't make Wednesday evenings but don't want to miss out? No problem, you can watch (or watch again) at you leisure..
Each session is recorded and made available to you for the duration of the course, up until 2 weeks after the final session.
Format
Each session lasts for approximately 1 ½ hours and includes a lecture delivered by the Paul with ample time for questions and discussion.
Handouts and recommended listening will be available via your Student Page.
Optional homework is provided to help you prepare for the following week's session.
Booking information
This is an online ticketed course hosted on Zoom.
You will be emailed an E-ticket with instructions on how to access your student page approximately 24 hours after we receive your payment. All course information including your Zoom link, weekly handouts, and recordings will be available here.
Booking after the course has started
You are welcome to join the course at any point during its three-week run. You will gain access to all the recordings until two weeks after the final session.
You must enroll for the full course
Your $50 enrollment gives you access to the full three session course. Unfortunately, due to space constraints we can’t sell tickets to individual sessions.