Late string quartets (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's late string quartets are the following works:

These six works are Beethoven's last major completed compositions. Although dismissed by the musicians and audiences in Beethoven's day, they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time, and have inspired many composers and musicians. Igor Stravinsky described the Große Fuge as "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever". Richard Wagner, when reflecting on Op. 131's first movement, said that it "reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in music". The quartets have been performed and recorded by string quartets worldwide.

Prince Nikolai Galitzine commissioned the first three quartets (numbers 12, 13 and 15) and in a letter dated 9 November 1822, offered to pay Beethoven "what you think proper" for the three works. Beethoven replied on 25 January 1823 with his price of 50 ducats for each opus. Beethoven composed these quartets in the sequence 12, 15, 13, 14, 16, simultaneously writing quartets 15 and 13.

Beethoven wrote the last quartets in failing health. In April 1825 he was bedridden, and remained ill for about a month. The illness—or more precisely, his recovery from it—is remembered for having given rise to the deeply felt slow movement of the Fifteenth Quartet, which Beethoven called "Holy song of thanks ('Heiliger Dankgesang') to the divinity, from one made well." He went on to complete the quartets now numbered Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth. The last work Beethoven completed was the substitute final movement of the Thirteenth Quartet, which replaced the difficult Große Fuge.

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Opus 132, 130 and 131 are sometimes called the "ABC" quartets because of their successive tonalities - A minor, B flat major, and C sharp minor. They are thematically linked together over the four notes of the second tetrachord of the harmonic minor scale. This is explained by A. David Hogarth in his notes written for the recording of all six quartets by the Quartetto Italiano:

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Wikipedia