The String Quartets
1st Quartet, Opus 18, No. 1, in F.
Dedicated to Prince Lobkovitz.
Allegro con brio—Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato—Scherzo—Allegro.
Composed in 1800 at the age of 30, this first set of quartets belongs to the same period as the great C minor Symphony, No. 5. The music of No. 1 is Mozartian in type, very charming, and the scoring is light and graceful. The Adagio is very beautiful, and one can feel in it the future Beethoven. Indeed we almost arrive at maturity in the episode in D flat in the Finale, where Beethoven uses the melody which he again took up in his ballet “The Men of Prometheus” and in his Third Symphony.