Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) brought the symphony, the concerto, and the string quartet to heights not imagined by his musical predecessors or peers. Born in Bonn (Germany), he flourished in Vienna (Austria), where he moved in 1792. Soon famous as a pianist, his compositional style began to change course a decade later, when the first signs of his deafness began to appear. A decade after that (in 1812 and 1813), Beethoven suffered financially from the devaluation of Austrian currency. He also suffered emotionally from the illness of his brother and the resulting prospect (never fully realized) of becoming the guardian of his nephew Karl. Beethoven’s fortunes improved over the next few years, but his hearing continuously declined. The year 1822 saw the completion of what were to be his two final piano sonatas and the Missa Solemnis. The Ninth Symphony was begun in that year. Beethoven remained engaged with writing string quartets almost until his death.

Orchestral Repertory

Symphonies

Beethoven’s works were predominately for instruments, but among them there was immense variety of types and styles, ranging from 29 short piano pieces to his final choral symphony (the Ninth). His orchestral works and string quartets enjoy great currency today. Most of Beethoven’s nine symphonies and seven concertos make stellar contributions to their respective repertories.

Apart from No. 6, the “Pastoral”, which has five movements, and No. 9, which accumulates nineteen segments in its construction of a pyramid of sounds and textures, the symphonies are four-movement works with outer movements in relatively fast tempos. The second movement is typically slow and pensive. The third is a minuet or scherzo employing a common highly-patterned structure.

Manuscript and Early Printed Resources Online

Several repositories of Beethoven manuscripts, letters, and early printed editions offer access to these artifacts of the symphonies from their first conception onward.

The Beethoven-Haus [1] in Bonn has digitized more than 26,000 folios of music, letters, lithographs, and other artifacts associated with Beethoven, his family, friends, and contemporaries. Musical sketches housed in Bonn are confined to the period 1807-1815. Beethoven's transcriptions of portions of the works of other composers and music theorists constitute one of the unusual categories of inclusions.

The Beethoven Center in San Jose, California, holds more than 2,200 early editions of Beethoven's music together with much other documentation. In addition to 300 first editions, it also possesses a manuscript copy of the Fifth Symphony [2].

The State Library of the Prussian Cultural Heritage [3] in Berlin has an online viewer for such materials pertinent to the Ninth Symphony at http://beethoven.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/digitale-abbildungen/die-einzelnen-teile-der-originalhandschrift/.

MuseData Downloadable Editions of the Beethoven Symphonies

In the table below the scores are divided into movements. Additional tools and some parts are available at our website “The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven: A Digital Edition” (http://www.ccarh.org/publications/beethoven-symphonies/).

Opus	Title	Composition date	Publication date	Data	CCARH Score (PDF)
Op. 21	Symphony No. 1 in C major	1799-1800	1801	sym1	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 36	Symphony No. 2 in D major	1801-1802	1804	sym2	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 55	Symphony No. 3 in E♭ major ("Eroica")	1803	1806	sym3	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 60	Symphony No. 4 in B♭ major	1807	1808	sym4	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 67	Symphony No. 5 in C minor	1807-1808	1809	sym5	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 68	Symphony No. 6 in F major	1808	1809	sym6	full: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Op. 92	Symphony No. 7 in A major	1811-1812	1816	sym7	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 93	Symphony No. 8 in F major	1812	1817	sym8	full: 1, 2, 3, 4
Op. 125	Symphony No. 9 in D minor	1822-1824	1826	sym9	full: 1, 2, 3, 4

When selecting the "data" link, note that the "E" button should automatically generate a PDF (a useful capability for those who wish to re-edit the data before printing). This facility is still in course of development.

Other Downloadable Printed Editions

The first collected edition of the nine symphonies was published in Leipzig by Breitkopf & Härtel between 1862 and 1865. These are downloadable from the Munich Digitalization Center at the links indicated below:

    No. 1     [4]
    No. 2     [5]
    No. 3     [6]
    No. 4     [7]
    No. 5     [8]
    No. 6     [9]
    No. 7     [10]
    No. 8     [11]
    No. 9     [12]

Concertos

Although Beethoven’s concertos were largely composed within a single decade, several are hallmarks of the repertory. Celebrated for their balance of many musical factors in intricate ways and for the uniqueness of each work, they have been popular from Beethoven’s own time (during which he usually appeared in the first performance) to our own. Concentrated though the period of their composition may be, the piano was beginning to become a more robust instrument than its parent, the fortepiano. It was increasingly capable of dramatic extensions to dynamic contrast and pitch registers. Beethoven exploited these capabilities in both his concertos and his piano sonatas.

Piano concertos

• Violin concerto

• Triple concerto

Chamber Repertory

String Quartets and Quintets

Main article: Beethoven String Quartets

Beethoven's string quartets have been perennially popular from his time to our own. They fall into four groups. The early quartets (Op. 18) give distinct evidence of the composer's promise and already show his originality. The "Razumovsky" quartets Op. 59 (nicknamed for their dedicatee) come from one of Beethoven's most fertile and productive periods. Each is a classic in its own right. Collectively they show enormous strides in Beethoven's development and imagination. Opp. 74 and 95 continue in the same direction.

What is surprising is that Beethoven composed so few quartets between 1806 and 1825. He was of course busy composing many other works during the first part of that period. Chamber music was usually written to fulfill a specific commission, and in Beethoven's time typically written to order. The political vicissitudes of Austria, particularly in its battles with Napoleonic France, were periodically inhibiting. Beethoven's personal battle with his progressive hearing difficulties is usually considered the likely explanation for many otherwise inexplicable behaviors.

Opus	Title	Key	Nickname	Date	CCARH score/parts (PDF)	MuseData digital scores
Op. 18/1	String Quartet No. 1	F  Major		1798-1800	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 18/2	String Quartet No. 2	G Major		1798–1800	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 18/3	String Quartet No. 3	D Major		1798–1800	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 18/4	String Quartet No. 4	C Minor		1798–1800	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 18/5	String Quartet No. 5	A Major		1798–1800	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 18/6	String Quartet No. 6	B♭ Major		1798–1800	full	01 02 03 04 05
Op. 59/1	String Quartet No. 7	F Major	"Razumovsky"	1805–6	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 59/2	String Quartet No. 8	E Minor	"Razumovsky"	1805–6	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 59/3	String Quartet No. 9	C Major	"Razumovsky"	1805–6	full	01 02 03 04
Op. 74	String Quartet No. 10	E♭ Major	"The Harp"	1809	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01 02 03 04
Op. 95	String Quartet No. 11	F Minor		1816	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01 02 03 04
Op. 127	String Quartet No. 12	E♭ Major		1825	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01 02 03 04
Op. 130	String Quartet No. 13	B♭ Major		1825–27	full	01 02 03 04 05 06
Op. 131	String Quartet No. 14	C♯ Minor		1825–27	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01 02 03 04 05 06 07
Op. 132	String Quartet No. 15	A  Minor		1825	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01 02 03 04 05
Op. 133	Grosse Fuge [No. 13b]	B♭ Major		1825–27	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01
Op. 135	String Quartet No. 16	F Major		1826–27	full vn1 vn2 va vc	01 02 03 04a 04

Audio examples from each movement of the three Op. 59 quartets are provided by the Digital Archive of the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, the city of Beethoven's birth.[13]

Arrangements

Beethoven was a frequent arranger of his own music. Apparently there was more demand for quartets than there were quartets being produced. In 1802 Beethoven arranged his piano sonata Op. 14, No. 1 as a string quartet in F Major for Baroness Josefine von Braun. A third-party arrangement of the piano trio Op. 1, No. 3 (corrected by Beethoven) appeared in Vienna and London in 1819.

Patronage

The quartets enjoyed the support of three highly discriminating patrons--Prince Lobkowitz for Opp. 18 and 74; Count Razumovsky for Op. 59, and Archduke Rudolf for the Grosse Fuge Op. 133. Remaining patrons were less well known: Zmeskall von Domanovecz (Op. 95), Prince Nikolay Golitsin (Opp. 127, 130, 132), Baron Joseph von Stutterheim (Op. 131), and Johann Wolfmayer (Op. 135).

Editions of and Source Materials for Beethoven's Quartets

Like Beethoven's symphonies, Beethoven's string quartets were published between 1862 and 1865 by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. The rightmost column in the table above gives links to the digitized version of these prints.

A copyist's score (c. 1816) of the seven quartets dedicated to Count Lobkowitz is held by the Beethoven Center in San Jose [14].

String Quintets

Beethoven composed only two string quintets--Op. 29 in C Major (1802) and a posthumous work (also in C Major) that was published in Vienna in 1838. The latter survives only tangentially in a piano transcription.