Beethoven String Quartet in F major, Op.135 (1826) - for orchestra

[gprengel]

... and here my new orchestra version of Beethoven's last quartett op. 135, mov. 2 - 4. What a wonderful quartett - written between July and October 1826, in the time of the devastating impression of his nephew's suicide attempt, and yet overbursting with humor in the Scherzo and vitality in the Finale.
In the wonderful Lento scetches he wrote "süßer Ruhegesang oder Friedensgesang" ("sweet singing of silence or peace") - my question: does this remind you of a later certain great symphony Adagio?

Some people said that here Beethoven would come back to his early influences of Haydn and Mozart - I think that is absolute nonsense...

I orchestrated movement 2 - 4, the 1st Allegro does not seem to fit for an orchestration.

http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth-op135-2-orch.mp3
http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth-op135-Lento-orch.mp3
http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth-op135-4-orch.mp3

[matesic]

Too many thoughts to put down here! I do think your ideas and sounds are mostly very successful; many small tempo adjustments like the Piu Lento of the slow movement would of course be appropriately observed by a conductor.  And unfortunately I agree about the first movement; Beethoven certainly hadn't forgotten how a string quartet sounds and some of the late quartet movements are impossible to imagine in any other instrumentation. I think your Op135 scherzo would probably make the best effect if performed in isolation.

A few months ago I went through all the late Beethoven quartets and multitracked them for my edification only, not for public exposure, especially the Grosse Fuge (tr. Great Fudge...)!

[gprengel]

A few months ago I went through all the late Beethoven quartets and multitracked them for my edification only, not for public exposure, especially the Grosse Fuge (tr. Great Fudge...)!
What do you mean by "I multitracked them"? You played and recorded them them with real instruments?

[matesic]

Precisely - I used to do rather a lot of that mostly with "unsung" material but can't find the energy these days! I don't play the cello so it's actually a viola digitally dropped in pitch
https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Steve%27s_Bedroom_Band

[Mark Thomas]

Matesic's has been a huge and terrifically worthwhile contribution to widening our appreciation of unsung chamber music and I'm tremendously grateful to him for the hours of enjoyment I've had getting to know so many worthwhile quartets and string trios.

[Alan Howe]

Heartily seconded!

[gprengel]

Dear matesic, this is very impressive what you have accomplished here!! Would you please take a look at http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,7051.msg74855.html#msg74855 , where I wrote a string quartett based on Beethovens very last sketches for a string Quintett before he died? What do you think of that? Would that be playable by you?
Gerd

[matesic]

Sorry Gerd, I'd better be blunt and say I'm not really into this game at present and have recently had to decline the invitation of another distinguished contributor to this forum! My time is pretty well occupied with a cache of recently discovered manuscripts by an unsung British composer, Percy Hilder Miles.

Having taken a look at your two score files, they very much have the appearance of "work in progress", with far few expression and articulation marks than a finished composition might have, slurs distributed very unevenly and apparently almost at random. The part writing also isn't at all idiomatic, such that many of the notes would be awkward, some such as the semiquaver double-stops in bars 93-96 of the second violin, movement 1 actually impossible. Treble clef for the cello (bars 29-32) is unheard of in Beethoven, and pretty rare for any composer! Since you clearly aren't a string player yourself I suggest you might learn a great deal from a study of Haydn's quartets.

[gprengel]

yes, you are right,  these score files are not uptodate, but I have some technical problems to create a new  proper print version. But I thought these old score files would still give you an idea of the work even not every detail regarding articalation is finished. Did you even listen to the work?

[matesic]

I was hoping you wouldn't ask. I'm afraid I just find it rather weird.