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.

Classic of music analysis by a noted musicologist for those with a serious interest in Beethoven's symphonies. Fascinating background on composer's historical era, plus quotations, letters, and anecdotes. Includes 436 musical passages.

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 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.