1785 was the year that Friedrich Schiller wrote a 36-line poem “An die Freude” (Ode to Joy). Some four decades later, that poem would become the basis of Beethoven’s most famous vocal music.
Alle Menschen werden Brüder
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
In 1785, the 14-year-old Beethoven wrote three compositions for piano, violin, viola, and cello, an ensemble now called a piano quartet.
These were Beethoven’s first pieces of chamber music, and in their length and sophistication herald the emergence of the composer to come.
#Beethoven250 Day 10
Piano Quartet in E♭ Major (WoO 36, No. 1), 1785
The 1st of Beethoven’s three piano quartets begins unexpectedly with a glorious Adagio, followed without pause by an energetic Allegro, and finishing with a theme & variations.
The structure of Beethoven’s 1st piano quartet is based on Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 27 (K. 379), written just four years previously. Both even have a gentle end to a dainty cantabile theme & variations.
This is young Beethoven hoisting himself onto master Mozart’s shoulders.