THE V I O LIN AND ITS MUSIC, GEORGE HART, "HE VIOLIN: ITS ...

THE VIOLIN IN GERMANY.
to the year 1 824, when Beethoven received a
message from Prince Galitzin, a Russian nobleman,
to compose three String Quartetts. This commission
does not appear to have been accompanied
with any remuneration, since the composer disposed
of the completed works to the publishers.
The first in E flat,
Maestoso.
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was partly written at Baden, towards the end of
1824.
The second Quartett, published as 0p. 1 3 2, was
sold to Peters for thirty pounds. In a letter to the
publisher, Beethoven mentioned it "as a grand one,
too," but drew his pen across the words, as though
his love for his own work had caused him to say too
much in its praise ! "A work," Moscheles writes,
"in which Beethoven storms heaven itself, ,and yet
again what child-like simplicity and passionate
grief!" Here we have the composer's "Song of
thanksgiving to God for convalescence," which has
been well described as "the full force of the spirit of
poetry entering the very marrow of his soul."
The third, in B flat, Op. 1 30, was finished in