Beschreibung:

BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN Grand Quintetto per due Violini, due Viole, e Violoncello dal Sigr Luigi van Beethoven Opera IV, Vienna: Artaria e Comp, [c.1796] FIRST EDITION, corrected issue, 4to (35.2 x 24.5cm), engraved parts for 2 violins, 2 violas and cello (11, 8, 7, 7 & 7 pages), plate number 627 ("626" on p.6 of Violin I), title page to Violin I (with engraved opus number, imprint and price "f.2"), engraved corrections to p.3 of Violin I and p.6 of Violin 2, crowned eagle watermark lettered GFA with 3 crescent moons, title annotated below pricing ("25/i") RARE: We have traced no copy of the first edition of Beethoven's String Quintet "Opera IV" at auction. The autograph manuscript is lost, with only a single sketchleaf from 1795 extant; so Artaria's first edition is an important source for the work. There are several variant issues, some lacking the original engraved opus number, price and imprint (all present here), and some, as in copies in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and here, containing a few alterations to the text. It is not known whether Beethoven asked for these emendations or when they were made. The Beethoven Werk-Verzeichnis (2014) lists sixteen copies of Artaria's edition in all, before Tranquillo Mollo took over publication of op.4 in c.1802. This String Quintet was Beethoven's first published chamber work for strings and, in its scoring for two violas, it emulates Mozart's quintets, rather than Schubert's or Boccherini's. The wind octet ("Partita") of 1792-93 was Beethoven's starting point, but his revision is so complete that the resulting quintet constitutes a new and independent work. The wind octet was not published in Beethoven's lifetime: only in 1830 as op.103. LITERATURE: Hoboken 27; Hirsch IV 241; K. Dorfmüller et al., Beethoven. Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis (2014), p.24; cf the copy HCB C op.4(a) in the Beethoven-Haus Bonn. The corrections engraved here are described in the Bonn copies C 252/17,15 and HCB C op.4(a).