WikiProject iconClassical music: Compositions
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Tone edit

This article seems to me to have the tone of a review or essay. Does anybody else share this opinion? Iotha 02:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree; also is this somewhat dangerous analysis with no proper referencing really necessary on a wikipedia article about a piece? 128.86.156.16 (talk) 10:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

What about now? edit

My own feeling is that the article has taken a step backward. The new analysis is sketchy, full of sentence fragments that are pretty meaningless to someone who is not a musicologist with score in hand, and some important information has disappeared (like the fact that the theme is the same as the opening of the fugue - it is not merely a half-step motif, whatever that means). Totally agree. I have no idea what to make of "One finds in Beethoven's sketches that the theme, like that of the theme of this rondo, was originally meant for an instrumental conclusion to his Ninth Symphony.

If others share this view, I will do a major rewrite of this version. But if others like it the way it is, I will leave it be. So speak. --Ravpapa (talk) 17:03, 19 October 2008 (UTC)Reply


I don't like having the "half-step" plonked down, take it or leave it, as though everybody knew what it meant. When I look it up in Wikipedia I find it's simply alternative jargon for "semi-tone", which is certainly an interval, but not exactly a motif. The "common theme" of Beethoven's three linked late quartet is a context in which a semitone can be found, but out of context the interval is meaningless in itself. Interesting though the analysis of the first movement is, like the analysis of the rest raises more problems than it solves. Themes presented in contrasting tempi seem to drive this quartet even more than Op 130. "Pseudo-development" doesn't quite cut it, perhaps, as a description of what Beethoven seems to be doing with them. II is a very odd kind of minuet, because of its bar-rhythm. Can't the B theme of the Adagio be heard as a minuet? Try dancing to movement II, which moves throughout the main section in two-bar periods only, (and in most performances this has a clear, and probably intended halting, rather lame, effect) - half-steps in themselves. Since the finale is based on a variant of the "common theme" it might be worth facing the issue of its supposed relationship to the Ninth Symphony. Did the common theme originate in the sketches for the Ninth? At what stage? Do other thematic links with the Ninth exist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Delahays, who apologises 94.192.64.37 (talk) 14:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC) Manually signed by DelahaysDelahays (talk) 15:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Incidentally, without prejudice, in both this and the A major Quartet Op 18.5 he seems to be interested in the interval of the sixth - and in the Quartet Op 132 (possibly because of experience with Bartok the quartets of the thirties - including the Budapest and the Lener - didn't have), nowadays one hears the background of drones more than in the past. The tezture of the trio of rthe second movement seems to be echoed and anticipated at other poits in the work.Delahays (talk) 21:50, 27 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

Is there a free recording of this quartet? edit

There is a public domain recording of four movements of this quartet at Musopen (https://musopen.org/music/1028/ludwig-van-beethoven/quartet-no15-in-a-minor-op-132/), but there is no information about whose recording it is - Perhaps the Lener? Does anyone know of any other public domain recordings? Ravpapa (talk) 15:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Unless there has been a change of recording on this site since Dec 2013 the claimed 'European Archive' performers aren't the Lener, despite some archaic (sorry-'historically misinformed') touches in their playing. This is a modern quartet recorded in genuine stereo. With a little effort two Lener (they were the first to record the quartet in full and their style is unmistakeable) performances can be found online86.165.154.123 (talk) 10:11, 15 November 2016 (UTC)Reply


Scherzo with "repeated trio", beginning with the second symphony???Delahays (talk) 11:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)Reply

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