Beethoven, L.V. – String Quartet in A minor; Opus 132 Edited by Jonathan Del Mar, Barenreiter Urtext

After years of several personal and creative crises, the last two years of Beethoven’s life were marked by an irrepressible creative urge that was directed almost exclusively towards the string quartet genre.

Of all these late works, it is the Quartet in A minor op. 132 that most impressively addresses the overcoming of the depression of the past years. The middle of the five movements is a “Canzona di ringraziamento” entitled: “Holy Song of Thanksgiving of a recovered person to the deity in the Lydian key”.

In this movement a slow introduction is followed by the heading: “Feeling renewed strength”. Due to the middle movement full of “divine power”, this string quartet is certainly one of Beethoven’s most emotional compositions.

For this new edition of the Quartet op. 132, Beethoven specialist Jonathan Del Mar consulted the autograph as well as several sets of parts corrected by Beethoven, enabling him to correct countless inconsistencies and unconvincing editorial decisions of previous editions.