The String Quartets of Ludwig Van Beethoven

[eestlinc]

Haydn was very influential to the young Beethoven, and much of early Beethoven bears a striking resemblance to late Haydn.

Trout, right? I heard a lot of hype, so I bought it, and I still much prefer death and the maiden.

Not Trout. That's a quintet for violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano. I'm referring to the string quintet which is for two violins, viola, and two cellos. It's most often performed or recorded by an established string quartet that brings is another famous cellist to play the fifth part. It's a quite substantial work, around 50 minutes. It's definitely in the same realm as Death and the Maiden, but perhaps better.

[Hambone]

Beethoven and Mozart are so famous because they were so damn good. From my small amount of experience they were better than most other composers. (Not to say that the others weren't good) Beethoven is famous, and rightly so, because of how revolutionary and creative his stuff was.

Bach is my favorite, though. Handel isn't bad, but alot of his choral stuff is in English and that bothers me. I prefer to not know what is being sung. Haydn is good but I'm unfamilliar with alot of his stuff. I don't know much about those other composers.

Ohh I know why Mozart and Beethoven are so popular. They wrote the most music. I may be wrong. I probably am wrong. I went to an Austin String Quartet private concert a while ago with my school orchestra teacher and I like quartets but they do have their dull movements. I'd much rather hear a viola or cello concerto. Symphonies are fun also.

[farplaner]

Not Trout. That's a quintet for violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano. I'm referring to the string quintet which is for two violins, viola, and two cellos. It's most often performed or recorded by an established string quartet that brings is another famous cellist to play the fifth part. It's a quite substantial work, around 50 minutes. It's definitely in the same realm as Death and the Maiden, but perhaps better.

Yes, I know the instrumentation of Trout and also the basic concept behind bringing someone in with a quartet in order to perform a quintet...

Aside from that, thanks for clarifying. I'll definitely check it out!

Ohh I know why Mozart and Beethoven are so popular. They wrote the most music. I may be wrong. I probably am wrong. I went to an Austin String Quartet private concert a while ago with my school orchestra teacher and I like quartets but they do have their dull movements. I'd much rather hear a viola or cello concerto. Symphonies are fun also.

...:rolleyes2 Actually Beethoven wrote relatively little music compared to Mozart, Haydn, Bach, and many of the earlier composers. You are, in fact, wrong, but then again, so are we all from time to time.

Even symphonies have dull moments. Who did the quartet perform? Maybe the style wasn't to your liking. Personally, I like more stuff from Beethoven on then from before Beethoven.

[Hambone]

I mentioned that I was probably wrong so you didn't have to point it out. I don't remember what they performed. I'll ask...

[eestlinc]

Beethoven had 135 opus-numbered works published in his lifetime (although some are sets of works like op 18 which includes six string quartets) plus another probably couple hundred works that were either published posthumously or just never given numbers. While most of these unnumbered works are probably insignificant or even intentially disregarded by Beethoven, perhaps his most well known work, the short piano solo Fur Elise, was never numbered either.

By contrast Bach has well over 1000 works in his catalogue, although keep in mind that he lived longer and was employed for most of his life as official composer of various churches where he was expected to produce works for everyday church use almost constantly.

In general if a composer has a huge body of work it means people were paying him to write a lot of it, with the implication that much of that music would never have been written without the impetus of being paid.

Yes, I know the instrumentation of Trout and also the basic concept behind bringing someone in with a quartet in order to perform a quintet...

Just trying to be generally informative to all readers of the thread.

[farplaner]

I mentioned that I was probably wrong so you didn't have to point it out. I don't remember what they performed. I'll ask...

Oh, but I did! I did!

EDIT: uhhhh....anyway, I just picked up a few CD's:

Smetana's The Moldau, with Sibelius' Finlandia and Palleas and Melisande, and Liszt's The Preludes;
Prokofiev's complete concertos, which is playing now as I type (piano concerto No. 2). There's something so eclectic and alluring about his music.;
and some Shostakovich string quartets (which I've not yet heard) No's. 2, 3, 7, 8, & 12.
Also, I have that Schubert string quintet on order, should be in stock in about a week.