In 2024, SJSU’s Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies acquired two important Beethoven manuscripts connected with the composer’s late string quartets. These sources tell a compelling story about the life of the now profoundly deaf composer as he worked on some of his most challenging and hauntingly beautiful music. The first manuscript is a page from his so-called conversation books, which he used to communicate when he could no longer hear. This page includes a musical sketch of the Cavatina movement from the String Quartet in B-flat Major, op. 130, which Beethoven apparently composed “in the tears of melancholy.” The second is the copyist’s score of his String Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 127, which documents part of the process of revising and refining the music before publication.  

This event will present these sources to the public for the first time. In a lecture-performance at 2:00pm, Beethoven expert Dr. Erica Buurman will explain the composer’s working methods and what we can learn from these newly available manuscripts. The Juniper String Trio with guest violinist Jennifer Choi will illustrate the musical process in these documents before giving a full performance of Beethoven’s Cavatina and the Quartet op. 127. Additionally, cellist Christopher Costanza (of the former St. Lawrence Quartet) will give a masterclass to SJSU music students on Beethoven’s chamber works. The manuscripts will be on display in the Hammer Theater’s lobby from 1:30pm for everyone to view.

Sponsored by the College of Humanities and the Arts Artistic Excellence Programming Grants