The Beethoven Quartet Society was a music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

al society established in 1845 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 dedicated to the String quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

s of Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

.

The society was established by Thomas Massa Alsager (1779–1846). It was based at 76 Harley Street

Harley Street

Harley Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.- Overview :...

, London. Concerts were given under the title "Honour to Beethoven", and included works by other composers. One of its express aims was to study the late quartets from score

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

. After Alsager's death in 1846 French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 cellist Scipion Rousselot directed the society. Violist Henry Hill undertook writing the programme notes.

The society were the first to present a performance of the complete cycle of the Beethoven string quartets, running from April 21, 1845 and June 16, 1845, with Camillo Sivori

Camillo Sivori

Ernesto Camillo Sivori, was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in Genoa, he was the only pupil of Paganini. He also studied with Restano, Giacomo Costa and Dellepiane....

, Prosper Sainton

Prosper Sainton

Prosper Philippe Catherine Sainton was a French violinist.He was the son of a merchant at Toulouse, where he was born...

, Henry Hill and Scipion Rousselot.

Other musicians, who played at the society's concerts, include Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim

Joseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...

, Henryk Wieniawski

Henryk Wieniawski

Henryk Wieniawski was a Polish violinist and composer.-Biography:Henryk Wieniawski was born in Lublin, Congress Poland, Russian Empire. His father, Tobiasz Pietruszka, had converted to Catholicism. His talent for playing the violin was recognized early, and in 1843 he entered the Paris...

 (both as violinist and violist), Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst was a Moravian-Jewish violinist, violist and composer. Ernst was widely seen as the outstanding violinist of his time and one of Paganini's greatest successors....

, Alfredo Piatti, Louis Ries, and Ludwig Strauss.

One particular line-up was noted with Joachim and Ernst playing the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, Wienawski the viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

, and Piatti the cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

.

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

attended at least one of the society's concerts at the "New Beethoven Room" (at the building at 27 Queen Anne Street, where he lived) and this made enough of an impression to mention it in his book Evenings with the Orchestra.

External links

• The Great Transformation of Musical Taste contains the cover of programme notes of a concert of the society