Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets

Opp. 59, 74 and 95

Nancy November

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781107035454
• eBook ISBN: 9781107496798
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Beethoven's middle-period quartets, Opp. 59, 74 and 95, are pieces that engage deeply with the aesthetic ideas of their time. In the first full contextual study of these works, Nancy November celebrates their uniqueness, exploring their reception history and early performance. In detailed analyses, she explores ways in which the quartets have both reflected and shaped the very idea of chamber music and offers a new historical understanding of the works' physical, visual, social and ideological aspects. In the process, November provides a fresh critique of three key paradigms in current Beethoven studies: the focus on his late period; the emphasis on 'heroic' style in discussions of the middle period; and the idea of string quartets as 'pure', 'autonomous' artworks, cut off from social moorings. Importantly, this study shows that the quartets encompass a new lyric and theatrical impetus, which is an essential part of their unique, explorative character.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Beethoven’s Theatrical Quartets
• Music in Context
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Music examples
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Setting the scene: theories, practices and the early nineteenth-century Viennese string quartet
• 2 Curtain up: performing the middle-period quartets in Beethoven’s time
• 3 ‘Not generally comprehensible’: Op. 59 No. 1 and the drama of becoming
• 4 ‘With much feeling’: song, sensibility and rhapsody in Op. 59 No. 2
• 5 ‘Helden-Quartett’: genre, innovation and ‘heroic’ voices in Op. 59 No. 3
• 6 ‘Freudvoll und leidvoll’: songful impetus and dualistic voice in the ‘Harp’ Quartet
• 7 ‘The quick-witted brevity of the genuine dramatist’: Op. 95 and the idea of the fragment
• 8 A tale of heroic emancipation? Reception narratives for the middle-period quartets
• Select bibliography
• Index