String Quartets in Beethoven's Europe

Nancy November is currently Associate Professor in musicology at the University of Auckland. Combining interdisciplinarity and cultural history, her research continues to center on chamber music of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, probing questions of historiography, canonization, and genre. Recent publications include Performing History: Approaches to History Across Musicology (Academic Studies Press, 2020); Beethoven’s Theatrical Quartets: Opp. 59, 74, and 95 (Cambridge University Press, 2013); a three-volume set of fifteen string quartets by Emmanuel Aloys Förster (A-R Editions, 2016); and Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven’s Vienna (Boydell Press, 2017). She is the recipient of a Humboldt Fellowship, and three Marsden Grants from the New Zealand Royal Society.

“Studies of string quartet compositions have long been skewed toward works by the triumvirate: Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. This collection of essays fills in some of the gaps by broadening that scope to consider other leading composers of their time, including members of Beethoven’s circle (Ferdinand Ries, Louis Spohr, Anton Reicha, Andreas Romberg, Franz Weiss), and the Frenchmen Pierre Rode and Hyacinthe Jadin.”— The Beethoven Newsletter (Winter 2023)“The nine essays November… has collected provide a broad view of the string quartet in Viennese musical life around 1800. This topic has been insufficiently studied, and the book helps remedy that. … Expanding the lens through which to view the period, analyses are in depth and detailed and comprehensive bibliographies and useful footnotes are included. … Recommended.” — M. N.-H. Cheng, Colgate University, CHOICE (April 2023: Vol. 60 No. 8)

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. His Master’s Voice? Ries, Reputation, and the String QuartetAllan Badley2. The “Middle Period” String Quartets of Spohr and BeethovenNancy November3. Counterpoint without Anxiety? Andreas Romberg’s String Quartets Op. 2, Dedicated to HaydnW. Dean Sutcliffe4. On the Fugues in Anton Reicha’s Quatuor Scientifique: Between Tradition and InnovationMai Koshikakezawa5. The Other “Razumovsky” Quartets: Franz Weiss’s Op. 8 and the Formation of Vienna’s KennerpublikumMark Ferraguto6. Hyacinthe Jadin and the Sound of Revolution: Recovering French String Quartet Aesthetics in 1790s ParisCallum Blackmore7. “One for the Rode”: The Contribution of Pierre Rode and the Quatuor Brillant to the Early Nineteenth-Century String QuartetSam Girling8. A Surprise to the Ears, an Amusement for the Eyes: Compositional Strategy and Audience Response to String Quartets ca. 1800Yoko Maruyama9. The Canonization of Beethoven’s String Quartets in the Musikalisches Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1803 Christian SpeckEpilogueAuthors’ BiographiesIndex