Beethoven, Ludwig van: The Complete String Quartets

Beethoven was almost thirty years old when he ventured to compose a string quartet for the first time. Could he have been intimidated by the influential models of this young genre of Haydn and Mozart? When Beethoven completed his six string quartets op. 18 in 1799 – almost exactly one year after Haydn’s six quartets op. 76 – he was by no means completing a work of his youth. Nevertheless, they are often called his “early” quartets in order to distinguish them from the “middle quartets” op. 59, op. 74 and op. 95 (1807–1816) as well as the “late” quartets op. 127, op. 130, op. 131, op. 132, op. 135 and the “Große Fuge” op. 133. This genre occupied Beethoven for the rest of his life – even his last completed composition was a string quartet. His works revolutionised this central chamber music genre, just as his symphonies did for that respective genre: for 200 years, Beethoven’s string quartets have been perceived as giants in the realm of string instrument music in terms of quality, musical innovation and influence. New: Now the study score with op. 74 and 95 (TP00918) also includes the “Allegretto” in B minor in a scholarly critical edition. Written by Beethoven in 1817, this miniature for string quartet was only rediscovered in the late 1990s.