Luogo e data di registrazione		Théâtre Vevey, Vevey (Svizzera): - 18-31 agosto 1967 (Op. 132) - 26 luglio / 3 agosto 1969 (Op. 131)
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Vittorio Negri | Ko Witteveen (Op. 131), Tony Buczynski (Op. 132)
	Edizione LP		Philips | 6768 347 | 2 LPs
	Prima Edizione CD		Vedi link alla prima edizione in long playing.
	Note		La collana "Musica da Camera" della Philips riedita negli anni '80 alcune registrazioni del Quartetto Italiano.

THE LATE STRING QUARTETS II During the lest five years of his life, from 1822 to 1827, Beethoven was occupied with the composition of five string quartets that are the mighty summit of his achievement in the sphere of chamber music. The revival of his interest in the string quartet after a dozen years during which he had neglected it completely was due mainly to an enquiry from Prince Nicholas Galitsin, who visited Vienna in 1822 and asked him to write three quartets. The first of the three works resulting from this commission was Op. 127 in E flat, composed between 1822 and 1825, first performed by Schuppanzigh, Holz, Weiss, and Lincke on March 3, 1825, and published by Schott in Mainz in March 1826. The second quartet in order of composition (though not of publication] was Op. 132 in A minor, which was begun towards the and of 1824 and finished in July 1825, first performed by the Schuppanzigh Quartet on November 6, 1825, and published by Schlesinger in Berlin in September 1827. The third was Op. l30 in B flat, which was composed between August and November 1825, first performed by the Schuppanzigh Quartet on March 21, 1826, and published by Artaria in Vienna in May 1827 - two months after Beethoven's death. In its original form it had as its sixth and final movement the colossal "Grosse Fuge,", but when some members of the audience at the first performance complained that it was disproportionately long for the rest of the work, Beethoven, with surprising meekness, allowed himself to he persuaded to replace it with a movement of more normal dimensions, which he wrote between September and November 1826; the “Grosse Fuge" was published separately, as Op. 133, by Artaria in May 1827. Although Op. 127, 130, and 132 are linked by their common dedication to Prince Galitsin, there is a closer musical bond between Op. 130, 131, and 132, since they share a “motto” of four notes; the top four notes of the harmonic minor scale, in which the intervals are a semitone, an augmented second, and a semitone - though these notes are used in various groupings. Op. 131 in C sharp minor was begun late in 1825 and completed within the iirst six months of 1826; it does not appear to have been performed in public during Beethoven’s lifetime, and was published by Schott in June 1827, with a dedication to Baron Joseph von Stutterheim, who had secured for Beethoven’s nephew Karl a place in his regiment after the latter's attempted suicide in January 1827. (The Quartet in F, Op. 135, the last that Beethoven wrote, dates from the summer of 1826 and was performed for the first time at a memorial concert organised by Josef Lincke on March 23, 1828 - almost exactly a year after Beethoven’s death - in the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna; it was published by Schlesinger in September 1827, with a dedication to Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer.) Op. 131 in C sharp minor, which Beethoven considered to be his finest quartet, has the largest munber of movements (seven), and they were not only carefully numbered by the composer himself but also designed to follow consecutively, with either no break or as little break as possible in between. The first movement is an enormous fugue of the greatest sublimity, based on a form of the “motto” (here the notes G sharp, B sharp, C sharp, A natural). The second, an Allegro molto vivace in D, could be described as being in compressed sonata form, but there is only one theme and no development; it is followed by a very short (11-bar) Allegro moderato in F sharp minor and in the style of a recitative, serving as an introduction to the marvellous Andante in A, which is the heart of the quartet. It consists of a theme with six variations and a coda. The theme, which is disposed antiphonally between the two violins, is in two eight-bar phrases, each played through twice; the second time they are varied instead of repeated note for note. As well as preserving the basic key, the six variations follow exactly this “double variation” pattern, except the fifth, which has straight repeats. A cadenza-like bridge passage provides a link between the sixth variation and the coda, which begins with a resumption of the theme (in C major!) and incorporates a number of changes both of tempo and mood, before ending virtually in mid-air. The fifth movement is a brilliant, dramatic scherzo in E, the sixth a short introductory Adagio quasi un poco andante in G sharp minor (liturgical rather than operatic in mood, by comparison with the third movement), leading into a pounding sonata-form finale, whose powerful coda reaches its cadence in C sharp major, with a final tierce de Picardie. The fifth and last movement of Op. 132 in A minor was originally planned as an instrumental finale for the Ninth Symphony, but the quartet stems more immediately from Beethoven’s serious illness during the winter of 1824-25, and the slow movement (placed third) refers directly to his recovery the following summer. This huge Molto adagio is entitled (in French) “A song of thanksgiving, in the Lydian mode, offered to the Divinity by a convalescent." It is in the form ABABA, “A” being based on a chorale melody influenced by Beethoven’s study of liturgical music, and of Palestrina in particular, while working on the Missa solemnis (1818-23); “B” is faster (Andante, D major) and headed “Feeling new strength." It is flanked by an elaborate Allegro (preceded by a short slow introduction that makes use of another form of the “motto” - G sharp, F, A, E, with an upward leap of a sixth between the two middle notes), and a sort of slow scherzo in A major, substituted for the Alla tedesca which Beethoven turned into the fourth movement of Op. 130. A brief Alla marcia, also in A, leads, via a recitative-like passage, into the impassioned final rondo, in whose coda the tempo changes to Presto and the key to A major. Robin Golding

Illustration: Caspar David Scheuren (1810-1887) "Landschaft im Charakter des Ahrtales", um 1845 (Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn)