Quintett für zwei Violinen, zwei Violen und Violoncello (C-Dur) op. 29

Listening samples

	1. Allegro (365 kB)
	2. Adagio molto espressivo (365 kB)
	3. Scherzo. Allegro (365 kB)
	4. Presto (365 kB)

Composition
April (?) 1801
dedicated to Moritz Johann Christian Graf von Fries

Beethoven composed his String Quintet op. 29 in the first half of 1801. The person to whom it is dedicated, Count Moritz von Fries, had probably commissioned it. In October 1801 Fries received a copy of the music and sole rights to the quintet for a limited period. Only after a six-month period had expired, was Beethoven allowed to sell the work to a publisher. So at the end of March 1802 his brother Kaspar Karl offered the quintet to the Leipzig publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, who accepted. Everything should now have been sorted out. But in actual fact there followed a long and bitter legal battle between Beethoven and the Viennese publisher Artaria concerning the ownership and publisher of op. 29. The problem arose due to a lack of legal details regarding the copyright.
Fries held the rights to the quintet for six months because he had commissioned it. However, Beethoven had already secured the right to sell his composition beforehand, once this half year had passed. While Count Fries held the sole rights, he had given a copy of the manuscript to the Viennese publisher Carlo Artaria and given him permission to engrave the work. Beethoven did not know about the deal between Fries and Artaria and sold it to Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. Shortly before both editions were published in autumn 1802 a difficult legal situation presented itself. Breitkopf & Härtel had paid and considered themselves to be the rightful publisher. Artaria had not paid, which is why Beethoven felt cheated (after all he had been done out of his payment for the composition). Artaria had still made an engraving, in a sense not unlawfully (nevertheless Artaria's was a pirate edition, even if the model itself was not "illegal".) His attention was drawn to Artaria's edition and at first Beethoven tried to prevent it. Artaria did not feel himself to be in the wrong and did not take back his edition. Finally Count Fries acted as a mediator and Artaria agreed to hold back his edition two weeks so that at first only the lawful edition by Breitkopf & Härtel was available in Vienna. For his part Beethoven also agreed to proofread Artaria's edition, thus becoming involved in the publication and giving it authenticity. Dispute settled? By no means!

On 22 January 1803 Artaria read Beethoven's explanation in the Wiener Zeitung, "To music lovers. / By informing the public that my long advertised original quintet in C major has been published by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig, at the same time I declare that I have no part in the edition of this quintet by Herrn Artaria and Mollo in Vienna, which appeared at the same time. I have particularly been forced to make this declaration because this edition contains a great many errors, is wrong and quite useless for the player, whereas Herren Breitkopf und Härtel, the lawful owners of this quintet, have done their utmost to deliver the work as well as possible. Ludwig van Beethoven." Following this Artaria issued a complaint to the royal police, to force Beethoven to take back his accusations. The composer was, of course, not prepared to do so. There was a court case. Beethoven lost and on 8 March 1805 received his sentence, to publicly take back his claim - which he, however, did not do. The conflict smouldered. Count Fries once again got involved and mediated between the two parties. Central to the settlement on 9 September 1805 was another quintet which Beethoven was to compose for Fries and which was then to be published by Artaria. Although the suggestion to compose a new quintet came from Beethoven, in the end Artaria was the loser: Beethoven never composed another string quintet for Fries and Artaria came away empty-handed. (J.R.)

First editions
	Originalausgabe, op. 29, Stimmen, Breitkopf und Härtel, 94
	Originalausgabe, op. 29, Stimmen, Breitkopf und Härtel, 94; Teilscan
	Originalausgabe, op. 29, Stimmen, Breitkopf und Härtel, 94; Teilscan
	Originalausgabe, op. 29, Stimmen, Breitkopf und Härtel, 94; Teilscan
	Erstausgabe, op. 29, Partitur, Schlesinger, 1498

Scores

Written documents
	Brief an Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 28. März 1802
	Brief an Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 22. April 1802
	Brief an Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 18. Oktober 1802
	Billet an Nikolaus Zmeskall, Wien, 13. November 1802
	Brief an Breitkopf und Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 13. November 1802
	Brief an Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 5. Dezember 1802
	Eigentumsbestätigung und Quittung für Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, 1803
	Brief an Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 22. Januar 1803
	Brief an Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, Wien, 12. Februar 1803
	Brief an Artaria & Comp., Wien, 1. Juni 1805

Pictures
	Graf Moritz von Fries (1777-1826) mit seiner Familie - Fotografie einer mit A.G. bezeichnete Reproduktion eines Gemäldes von François Gérard, um 1913

Literatur

	Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv
	Italien, Bologna: R. Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna
	Norwegen, Oslo: Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo
	Polen, Kraków: Biblioteka Jagiellonska
	USA, Stanford (Cal.): Stanford University, Department of Special Collections, Green Library
	Österreich, Wien: Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Archiv, Bibliothek und Sammlungen
	Österreich, Wien: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek

© Beethoven-Haus Bonn
E-Mail: bibliothek@beethoven-haus-bonn.de