String Quartets, Op. 59, “Razumovsky”

• Beethoven composed this set of three string quartets in the summer of 1806, and they were published in Vienna in 1808. 
• Beethoven wrote these quartets in the same year that his “Eroica” Symphony was published, and Beethoven’s Oxford Music article observes a similar “heroic” mood in these quartets, and several other works of the period, including the “Waldstein” and “Appassionata” Sonatas. 
• Beethoven wrote these three quartets for Count Andrey Razumovsky (sometimes spelled Rasumovsky), the Russian ambassador to Vienna.  
  • Razumovsky asked Beethoven to include Russian folk tunes in each quartet. In the first and second, Beethoven did incorporate Russian folk tunes; in the third, Beethoven composed his own tune in a Russian idiom, which can be heard in the Andante.¹

Click the links and scroll to the bottom of the page for lists of movements. 

String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1 

String Quartet in e minor, Op. 59, No. 2 

String Quartet in C Major, Op. 59, No. 3 

1. Douglas Johnson et al, “Beethoven, Ludwig van,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed August 5, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040026.