The Emersons on Beethoven

David Finckel talks about Beethoven’s career. (3:04)

Background

For more than 200 years, the work of Ludwig van Beethoven has had a profound impact on the musical world. Not only did Beethoven redefine the genres for which he was most famous—the symphony, the concerto, and the overture, as well as the string quartet—but his extraordinary work in those genres turned what previous generations of composers had regarded as just one part of a successful composer’s output into the core of what it meant to be a serious composer.

Beethoven’s string-quartet output spans his entire creative career. Not only are the quartets masterpieces in their own right, but they also clearly outline the course of his career. In the early-period works, we see Beethoven synthesizing earlier developments in the genre while also exhibiting the extraordinary dynamism and mastery of form that would be his hallmarks throughout his career. In the middle-period works (the Opp. 59, 74, and 95 quartets), we see the fully mature Beethoven expanding the Classical forms to create works of unprecedented size and complexity. Finally, in the late quartets, the master, by now completely deaf, moves beyond those forms altogether, pointing toward the Romantic era that would follow (and casting such a shadow that no composer of that era could write a work in the genre without being keenly aware of Beethoven’s influence and example).