This volume adds to our understanding of the Viennese string quintet, revealing the tip of a vast repertoire that has been little studied to date. The string quintet was a popular chamber genre and was one of the most popular media for arrangement in the early nineteenth century. String quintet arrangements were published for a great number of Beethoven’s works during his lifetime, including all of the symphonies except the third and ninth; many overtures; and Fidelio, in two parts. The string quintet arrangements in this volume are of particular significance in this publication history: they appeared as part of a new policy on the part of Beethoven and his publisher Sigmund Anton Steiner, which included the publication of orchestral scores simultaneously with the first editions of the orchestral parts and with arrangements for various instruments, from piano solo to larger ensembles.

Early nineteenth-century composers, publishers and writers evolved influential ideals of Beethoven's symphonies as untouchable masterpieces. Meanwhile, many and various arrangements of symphonies, principally for amateur performers, supported diverse and 'hands-on' cultivation of the same works. Now mostly forgotten, these arrangements served a vital function in nineteenth-century musical life, extending works' meanings and reach, especially to women in the home. This book places domestic music-making back into the history of the classical symphony. It investigates a largely untapped wealth of early nineteenth-century arrangements of symphonies by Beethoven - for piano, string quartet, mixed quintet and other ensembles. The study focuses on three key agents in the nineteenth-century culture of musical arrangement: arrangers, publishers and performers. It investigates significant functions of those musical arrangements in the era: sociability, reception and canon formation. The volume also explores how conceptions of Beethoven's symphonies, and their arrangement, changed across the era with changing conception of musical works.

This volume represents two important aspects of early-nineteenth-century taste in chamber music: a predilection for “mixed” groupings, including winds and strings; and a preference for larger groupings, including nonets. The sheer number of such works composed, along with data from publishing catalogs and concert programs, is evidence of the contemporary taste for varied chamber music. The present volume gives a selection of three large-scale chamber arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies. Michael Gotthard Fischer’s arrangement of the sixth symphony for string sextet provides an example of this less common format. The nonet arrangement of the second symphony for flute, two horns, two violins, two violas, cello, and bass by Ferdinand Ries shows the flexibility of performance forces in this repertoire as well as the publishers’ and composers’ desires to capitalize on their popularity, given that this arrangement can be performed with or without the addition of winds. The arrangement of the fourth symphony by William Watts stands between the sextet and nonet arrangements noted above in its combination of one flute with six strings.

The three selections in this edition of quartet arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies are chosen to represent the diversity of quartets as a medium for arrangement in the early nineteenth century. Only the arrangement by Carl Zulehner, of Beethoven’s first symphony, is a string quartet. The arrangement by Johann Nepomuk Hummel of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, for pianoforte, flute, violin, and violoncello (or pianoforte alone), is part of an extensive collection of arrangements that he made for that grouping, while the arrangement for piano quartet by Ferdinand Ries of the Eroica Symphony represents the particular popularity of chamber groupings involving stringed instruments and piano.

Chamber Music: A Research and Information Guide is a reference tool for anyone interested in chamber music. It is not a history or an encyclopedia but a guide to where to find answers to questions about chamber music. The third edition adds nearly 600 new entries to cover new research since publication of the previous edition in 2002. Most of the literature is books, articles in journals and magazines, dissertations and theses, and essays or chapters in Festschriften, treatises, and biographies. In addition to the core literature obscure citations are also included when they are the only studies in a particular field. In addition to being printed, this volume is also for the first time available online. The online environment allows for information to be updated as new research is introduced. This database of information is a "live" resource, fully searchable, and with active links. Users will have unlimited access, annual revisions will be made and a limited number of pages can be downloaded for printing.

A unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making provided by the study of domestic musical arrangements of opera.

Contains nearly 1000 pages of precise and accessible information on all musical subjects.

These are the letters of a great love story. In 1917, the Czech composer Leos Janáçek met Kamila Stösslová while on holiday at Luhaçovice, a spa resort in Moravia. He was sixty-three and locked in a loveless marriage; she was twenty-six, the wife of an antique dealer frequently away from home. After the holiday, Janáçek began writing to Stösslová. Undeterred by her lack of interest in his work and her spasmodic replies, he continued to send her letters until his death eleven years later. An extraordinarily self-revealing portrait emerges of an isolated artist at the height of his creative powers and the beginning of his international fame. It is also a portrait of a lonely man who, as the years went by, came to fantasize about Stösslová as his true "wife"--the inspiration for many of the works of his old age. Most of these letters were suppressed until changing conditions in Czechoslovakia allowed their full publication in 1990. John Tyrrell has edited and translated a comprehensive selection, concentrating on the almost daily letters of the final eighteen months. Supported by a diary of meetings between Janáçek and Stösslová, a decoding of the erotic references in the letters, and a selection of mostly unknown photographs, this remarkable book breathes life into the story one of the greatest of operatic composers and provides vital clues to the nature of his creative genius. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.