This volume represents two important aspects of early-nineteenth-century taste in chamber music: a predilection for “mixed” groupings, including winds and strings; and a preference for larger groupings, including nonets. The sheer number of such works composed, along with data from publishing catalogs and concert programs, is evidence of the contemporary taste for varied chamber music. The present volume gives a selection of three large-scale chamber arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies. Michael Gotthard Fischer’s arrangement of the sixth symphony for string sextet provides an example of this less common format. The nonet arrangement of the second symphony for flute, two horns, two violins, two violas, cello, and bass by Ferdinand Ries shows the flexibility of performance forces in this repertoire as well as the publishers’ and composers’ desires to capitalize on their popularity, given that this arrangement can be performed with or without the addition of winds. The arrangement of the fourth symphony by William Watts stands between the sextet and nonet arrangements noted above in its combination of one flute with six strings.

Early nineteenth-century composers, publishers and writers evolved influential ideals of Beethoven's symphonies as untouchable masterpieces. Meanwhile, many and various arrangements of symphonies, principally for amateur performers, supported diverse and 'hands-on' cultivation of the same works. Now mostly forgotten, these arrangements served a vital function in nineteenth-century musical life, extending works' meanings and reach, especially to women in the home. This book places domestic music-making back into the history of the classical symphony. It investigates a largely untapped wealth of early nineteenth-century arrangements of symphonies by Beethoven - for piano, string quartet, mixed quintet and other ensembles. The study focuses on three key agents in the nineteenth-century culture of musical arrangement: arrangers, publishers and performers. It investigates significant functions of those musical arrangements in the era: sociability, reception and canon formation. The volume also explores how conceptions of Beethoven's symphonies, and their arrangement, changed across the era with changing conception of musical works.

The three selections in this edition of quartet arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies are chosen to represent the diversity of quartets as a medium for arrangement in the early nineteenth century. Only the arrangement by Carl Zulehner, of Beethoven’s first symphony, is a string quartet. The arrangement by Johann Nepomuk Hummel of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, for pianoforte, flute, violin, and violoncello (or pianoforte alone), is part of an extensive collection of arrangements that he made for that grouping, while the arrangement for piano quartet by Ferdinand Ries of the Eroica Symphony represents the particular popularity of chamber groupings involving stringed instruments and piano.

This volume adds to our understanding of the Viennese string quintet, revealing the tip of a vast repertoire that has been little studied to date. The string quintet was a popular chamber genre and was one of the most popular media for arrangement in the early nineteenth century. String quintet arrangements were published for a great number of Beethoven’s works during his lifetime, including all of the symphonies except the third and ninth; many overtures; and Fidelio, in two parts. The string quintet arrangements in this volume are of particular significance in this publication history: they appeared as part of a new policy on the part of Beethoven and his publisher Sigmund Anton Steiner, which included the publication of orchestral scores simultaneously with the first editions of the orchestral parts and with arrangements for various instruments, from piano solo to larger ensembles.

Domestic musical arrangements of opera provide a unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making. These arrangements flourished in especially rich variety in early nineteenth-century Vienna. This study reveals ways in which the Viennese culture of musical arrangements opened up opportunities, especially for women, for connoisseurship, education, and sociability in the home, and extended the meanings and reach of public concert life. It takes a novel stance for musicology, prioritising musical arrangements over original compositions, and female amateurs' perspectives over those of composers, and asks: what cultural, musical, and social functions did opera arrangements serve in Vienna c.1790–1830? Multivalent musical analyses explore ways Viennese arrangers tailored large-scale operatic works to the demands and values of domestic consumers. Documentary analysis, using little-studied evidence of private and semi-private music-making, investigates the agency of musical amateurs and reinstates the central importance of women's roles.

This Companion, first published in 2000, provides a comprehensive view of Beethoven and his work. The first part of the book presents the composer as a private individual, as a professional, and at the work-place, discussing biographical problems, Beethoven's professional activities when not composing and his methods as a composer. In the heart of the book, individual chapters are devoted to all the major genres cultivated by Beethoven and to the elements of style and structure that cross all genres. The book concludes by looking at the ways that Beethoven and his music have been interpreted by performers, writers on music, and in the arts, literature, and philosophy. The essays in this volume, written by leading Beethoven specialists, maintain traditional emphases in Beethoven studies while incorporating other developments in musicology and theory.