Presents
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No.7 in A Major, Op.92
Arranged for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and Violoncello
What??? Who would do such a thing and why?? Hold your horses....Beethoven himself contracted for his Symphony No.7 to be made into several arrangements with the famous Viennese publisher Sigmund Anton Steiner, pictured on the left. It was Steiner's firm which Beethoven selected to publish his Symphony No.7 in 1816. At the same time, he and Steiner entered into a contract allowing Steiner and his team of skilled musicians to bring out several different arrangements of the Symphony in return for which Beethoven received a tidy sum. Arrangements of large scale orchestral works for chamber music ensembles were extremely popular during the first half of the 19th century and provided a lucrative source of income for both publishers and composers.Why? The answer, in part, lies in the aftermath and effect that the French Revolution had on European governments, which at the time were all run by kings, dukes, princes and the like. These governments were highly suspicious of large gatherings of men which might, so they thought, be formenting revolution. Hence, they discouraged such gatherings by means of police surveillance. And, of course, it took a large group of men to rehearse and perform a symphony. Add to this that a huge new market for chamber music came into existence about this time as home music making became one of the most popular pastimes for the emerging bourgeois classes of Western Europe. Both composers and publishers, with an eye toward profits, made a regular practice of having chamber music arrangements of large scale works brought out. The fact that Symphony No.7 became instantly popular upon its premiere was certainly an added impetus for having such arrangemetns made.
You might think that turning a symphony into a string quintet would be a hopeless task with the result being highly unsatisfactory, but you would be wrong. Publishers such as Steiner and Breitkopf & Härtel kept a large stable of highly trained musicians, many of whom were composers themselves, available to produce such arrrangements. While we do not know who it was that produced the Steiner 1816 arrangement of Symphony No.7 for String Quintet, we do know that this arrangement became quite popular and one of Steiner's best sellers. That this is so is testified to by the fact that it was frequently performed in concert right up until the First World War when the practice of playing large works in chamber music arrangement was no longer popular.
Not readily available, we were fortunate to find a clean copy of the 1816 Steiner edition of the symphony arranged for string quintet for which Beethoven had contracted. We believe both professionals and amateurs will find it a very satsifying work. And in the concert hall, it is sure to make a strong impression.
Parts: $29.95
