The Beethoven Quartet Companion

While the Beethoven string quartets are to chamber music what the plays of Shakespeare are to drama, even seasoned concertgoers will welcome guidance with these personal and sometimes enigmatic works.

This collection offers Beethoven lovers both detailed notes on the listening experience of each quartet and a stimulating range of more general perspectives: Who has the quartets' audience been? How were the quartets performed before the era of sound recordings? What is the relationship between "classical" and "romantic" in the quartets? How was their reception affected by social and economic history? What sorts of interpretive decisions are made by performers today?

The Companion brings together a matchless group of Beethoven experts. Joseph Kerman is perhaps the world's most renowned Beethoven scholar. Robert Winter, an authority on sketches for the late quartets, has created interactive programs regarded as milestones in multimedia publishing. Maynard Solomon has written an acclaimed biography of Beethoven. Leon Botstein is the conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra as well as a distinguished social historian and college president. Robert Martin writes from his experience as cellist of the Sequoia Quartet. And the book is anchored by the program notes of Michael Steinberg, who has served as Artistic Advisor of the San Francisco Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Robert Winter is Professor of Music at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of Music for Our Time (1992) and co-author of The Beethoven Sketchbooks (California, 1985). Robert Martin is Assistant Dean of Humanities and Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Perspectives

Beethoven Quartet Audiences: Actual, Potential, Ideal
JOSEPH KERMAN

Performing the Beethoven Quartets in Their First Century
ROBERT WINTER

Beethoven: Beyond Classicism
MAYNARD SOLOMON

The Patrons and Publics of the Quartets: Music, Culture, and
Society in Beethoven's Vienna
LEON BOTSTEIN

The Quartets in Performance: A Player's Perspective
ROBERT MARTIN

Notes on the Quartets
MICHAEL STEINBERG

The Early Quartets
String Quartet in F Major, after the Piano Sonata in E Major,
Op. 14 no. I
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18 no. I
String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18 no. 2
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 18 no. 3
String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18 no. 4
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 18 no. 5
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 18 no. 6

The Middle Quartets
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 no. I
String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59 no. 2
String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59 no. 3
String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 74
String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, Quartett[o] serioso

The Late Quartets
String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 127
String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130
String Quartet inC-Sharp Minor, Op. 131
String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132
Grosse Fuge for String Quartet, Op. I33
String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135

Glossary
Index