Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven's Vienna

Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven's Vienna
Author: Nancy November
Publisher:
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2017
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781783272327

The first detailed contextual study of chamber music in Beethoven's Vienna, at a time when the string quartet reigned supreme among the different chamber genres

String Quartets in Beethoven’s Europe

String Quartets in Beethoven’s Europe
Author: Nancy November
Publisher: Academic Studies PRess
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2022-04-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1644697890

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.

Three String Quartets, Op. 8

Three String Quartets, Op. 8
Author: Franz Alexander Pössinger
Publisher: A-R Editions, Inc.
Total Pages: 131
Release:
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1987209125

Franz Alexander Pössinger (1766–1827) was a highly respected Viennese violinist, composer, and arranger who spent the majority of his life working for the opera orchestra of the Nationaltheater and later the Hoftheaterorchester. Among Pössinger’s yet-unstudied chamber music are four sets of string quartets. Despite forming a large part of his oeuvre, studies, editions, and recordings of his quartets have been notably lacking. This new edition of Pössinger’s three opus 8 quartets (in C minor, F major, and A major) aims to raise awareness of the composer’s work, which is often of a high standard: indeed, a contemporary review of the opus 8 quartets compared them favorably to the quartets of Mozart, Haydn, and Andreas Romberg. Moreover, Pössinger’s quartets reflect the complex and multifaceted nature of chamber music in Vienna during the age of Beethoven.

Beethoven's Symphonies Arranged for the Chamber

Beethoven's Symphonies Arranged for the Chamber
Author: Nancy November
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2021-06-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1108923879

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.

Music in Vienna 1700, 1800, 1900

Music in Vienna 1700, 1800, 1900
Author: David Wyn Jones
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783271078

Focussing on three different epochs (1700, 1800 and 1900), this book explores the history of music in Vienna, allowing the very different relationships between music and society that existed in each of these periods to be distinguished

The Viennese Ballroom in the Age of Beethoven

The Viennese Ballroom in the Age of Beethoven
Author: Erica Buurman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2021-12-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1108852564

The repertoire of the early Viennese ballroom was highly influential in the broader histories of both social dance and music in nineteenth-century Europe. Yet music scholarship has traditionally paid little attention to ballroom dance music before the era of the Strauss dynasty, with the exception of a handful of dances by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. This book positions Viennese social dances in their specific performing contexts and investigates the wider repertoire of the Viennese ballroom in the decades around 1800, most of which stems from dozens of non-canonical composers. Close examination of this material yields new insights into the social contexts associated with familiar dance types, and reveals that the ballroom repertoire of this period connected with virtually every aspect of Viennese musical life, from opera and concert music to the emerging category of entertainment music that was later exemplified by the waltzes of Lanner and Strauss.

Opera in the Viennese Home from Mozart to Rossini

Opera in the Viennese Home from Mozart to Rossini
Author: Nancy November
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2024-01-18
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1009409808

A unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making provided by the study of domestic musical arrangements of opera.

Beethoven for a Later Age

Beethoven for a Later Age
Author: Edward Dusinberre
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2016-01-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0571317154

'They are not for you but for a later age!' Ludwig van Beethoven, on the Opus 59 quartets. Tackling the Beethoven quartets is a rite of passage that has shaped the Takács Quartet's work together for over forty years. Using the history of the composition and first performances of the quartets as the backbone to his story, Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the Takács since 1993 - recounts the life of the Quartet from its inception in Hungary, through emigration to the US and its present-day life as one of the world's renowned string quartets. He also describes what it was like for him, as a young man fresh out of the Juilliard School, to join the Quartet as its first non-Hungarian member - an exhilarating challenge. Beethoven for a Later Age takes the reader inside the life of a quartet, vividly showing how four people enjoy making music together over a long period of time. The key, the author argues, is in balancing continuity with change and experimentation - a theme that also lies at the heart of Beethoven's remarkable compositions.

Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets

Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets
Author: Nancy November
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2014-01-09
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1107512425

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.

Schubert's String Quartets

Schubert's String Quartets
Author: Anne Hyland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2023-04-20
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1009210920

A fresh analytical and musicological exploration of Schubert's incorporation of lyric elements into sonata form by way of his string quartets.