String Quartets in Beethoven’s Europe

String Quartets in Beethoven’s Europe is the first detailed study of string quartets in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Europe. It brings together the work of nine scholars who explore little-studied aspects of this multi-faceted genre. Together, this book’s chapters deal with compositional responses to Beethoven’s string quartets and the prestige of the genre; varied compositional practices in string quartet writing, with a particular emphasis on texture and performance elements; and the reception of Beethoven’s string quartets ca. 1800. They include discussions of quartets composed for the amateur and connoisseur markets in Beethoven’s Europe; virtuosity, the French Violin School, and the quatuor brillant; the relationship between quartet composers and their audiences during Beethoven’s era; and the cross-pollination of quartet styles in Europe’s musical centers such as Vienna, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

“Nancy November has assembled a strong team of scholars for these detailed and copiously illustrated studies of the richly varied string quartet repertoire in ‘Beethoven’s Europe’. It is no surprise that her earlier monograph Beethoven’s Theatrical Quartets has affected the discussion. ‘Theatrical quartets’ join more familiar sub-genres such as the quatuor brillant, practically a concerto for the first violin, and its antithesis, quartets that have been understood as a conversation among equals. A strength of these essays is their interrogating barriers between sub-genres by studying of composers outside the traditional ‘Viennese’ canon: the virtuosos Spohr and Rode, the unfortunately short-lived Jadin, Beethoven’s student Ries, and composers of a more contrapuntal bent, Romberg and Reicha, many of whom paid explicit tribute to the quartets of Haydn or Mozart. Much of their work is hardly known, but is well worth the attention of modern performers as well as scholars.”

—Julian Rushton, Emeritus Professor of Music, University of Leeds