Ludwig van Beethoven - WoO 210 Allegretto for string quartet (Pencarrow Quartet) in B minor

Creation and Publication: Composed November 28, 1817 in Vienna. The first edition was published posthumously in 2001 in full score and parts as an appendix to the facsimile of Verlag KG Saur in Munich. The autograph score bears the following inscription by the owner: „This quartette was composed for me in my presence by Ludwig v Beethoven at Vienna / Friday, 28— November 1817. Richard Ford.“The author, travel and art writer and critic Richard Ford (1796-1858), after graduating from Trinity College, Oxford, traveled between June 1817 and May 1818 in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. His stay in Vienna is proved in the late autumn of 1817 where he arrived on 12 October 1817 (note in the Wiener Zeitung of 15 October 1817). Together with the manuscript, Ford had received a signed portrait of Beethoven (copper engraving of Blasius Höfel by Louis Letronne; published 1814 by Artaria in Vienna; illustration as title page in Roe/Wo0210). Apart from self-referential sources, there is no evidence of a meeting between Beethoven and Ford. His name appears neither in letters nor in conversation notebooks. Ford was traveling with compatriots John Abbiss and David Constable. The bookseller Constable had many letters of recommendation, one of which may have paved the way for Beethoven. Ford left Vienna on November 29, 1817.

However, the date in the passport (Illustration Roe/Wo0210 p. 8) appears to have been corrected. Ford apparently wanted to leave on November 28, but he met Beethoven the same day. The Allegretto would therefore be a farewell composition, a tribute to Beethoven. The sketches for the WoO 210 quartet are not known. Beethoven drafted the autograph score of the Fugue for string quintet op.137 on the same day. This motif and the innumerable similarities between the Allegretto and the op. 137 lead Sieghard Brandenburg to say „fast als ein Abfallprodukt des Quintetts“ (Brandenburg/Wo0210 page 57).

First execution unknown. The official première on March 3, 2001 by the Hagen Quartet as part of the festival “Les Sommets musicaux de Gstaad” . The Allegretto had previously been performed on 7 October 1999 (Eroica String Quartet at Sotheby's auction house, London) and 23 November 1999 (Orion String Quartet in New York). Immediately after Gaspard Bodmer acquired the autograph score, a private performance was given at the Bodmer's on 1 April 2000 by the Carl Stamitz Concertante Quartet.