‘Beethoven you’ve done well’ said Christian Gottlob Neefe (Beethoven’s early composition teacher) in Bonn in 1785, referring to his three early piano quartets. Neefe must surely have had some idea of what lay ahead during the next forty years or so for his fourteen-year-old student composer.

However, he persuaded his pupil not to publish these fascinating early quartets which remained unheard during Beethoven’s lifetime. Written between 1784-85, these are Beethoven’s first and most important quartets and some of the earliest known works for this combination of instruments. Beethoven did use some of the themes in his op. 2 piano sonatas years later.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, now Germany, in 1770. His paternal family was of Flemish stock, his grandfather having immigrated to Bonn where he became Court Singer to the Elector. Beethoven’s father also became Court Singer, but was known to be a difficult, coarse and drunken man, hopeful of exploiting his second child, Ludwig’s, musical talents. Beethoven’s early music education came from his father and several mediocre teachers. In 1779 he became a pupil of Neefe and he assisted as court organist in 1784. It was in this year that he began composition on the three piano quartets of WoO 36. In 1786 he visited Vienna and may have extemporized for Mozart . On return to Bonn he found an understanding patron in Count Waldstein. For four years he was a violist in the court theater orchestra in addition to other duties. In 1792 Haydn, visiting Bonn, saw some of Beethoven’s early compositions and invited him to study with him in Vienna. There he was patronized by the aristocracy and lived for two years (1794-6) in the home of Prince Lichnowsky. His fame was entirely that of a virtuoso improviser at the keyboard.

Lessons from Haydn proved unsatisfactory and Beethoven went for theory to Schenk and later to Albrechtsberger and Salieri. The three movements of the quartet follow in an unusual progression, beginning first with an Adagio Assai, followed by the faster and spirited Allegro con spirito. The last movement presents a theme with six variations followed by a return to the theme at the end, rounding out the movement and the quartet.