Beethoven Morning: String Quartets Nos. 10–12

About the production

This year the Lausitz Festival will present Quatuor Danel in various locations around the region performing the complete Beethoven string quartets in the order of their composition. The Quartet No. 10, Op. 74 is often called the »harp quartet« because of the pizzicato notes in the first movement. Beethoven composed this work in 1809 in the same key as his last piano concerto and the piano sonata »Les Adieux«, which were written at about the same time: E-flat major. The use of this heroic key was a protest against Napoleon, who occupied Vienna in May of that year and won the war against Austria in October. Although early critics questioned the piece’s »dark spirit« and »unnecessary jumble of harsh dissonances«, the quartet immediately found favor with both aristocratic and bourgeois listeners. 

Beethoven began work on the String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 in 1810 and revised it again before the premiere in 1814. The piece is the last of the Middle Quartets and is extremely compact, both formally and harmonically. Beethoven himself said this »Quartetto serioso« was intended »for a small circle of sophisticated listeners and … should never be performed in public.« The dark mood of the work has often been ascribed to Beethoven’s unhappiness in love, but the lively theme in F major of the Rondo-Finale is radiantly joyful – a sign of triumph over his loneliness or simply ironic romantic hope?

After completing the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven began his series of Late Quartets in 1824 with the String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127. This piece was published in 1826, the only one of the late quartets to be published during his lifetime. The Russian prince Galitzin had commissioned Beethoven to write three quartets. No. 12 is the first of this group and begins with a concise, chorale-like Maestoso that appears three times in the first movement. The movement ends with a tender melodic exchange, which Beethoven said »deserves to be preferred above all others.« The premiere in 1825 was a fiasco: not only were the players under-rehearsed, one of the violinists’ strings broke during the performance. In the years since, however, this technically difficult yet poetic work has become much admired.