Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets

Abstract

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.

Louis Spohr, String Quartets, Opp. 29 and 45, ed. Nancy November. Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, vol. 85. (Middleton, WI: A–R Editions, 2022). xvi + 423 pp. $500.00

“…These topics inevitably evoke gestures and movements of the body, as well as the physical pleasure of dancing for the listener and the musicians 13 especially those of the periodwhich contrasts with the 'spiritual ideal, which was related to the increasingly disembodied and lofty conception of the string quartet'. 14 The example of waltz topics in Spohr's Op. 45 quartets also invites us to question the opposition between popular, entertainment music and high concert music.…”