The Young Beethoven Meret Lüthi, Sonoko Asabuki, Alexandre Foster, Leonardo Miucci

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3:
• 1 Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3: I. Allegro vivace 09:54
• 2 Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3: II. Adagio con espressione 06:15
• 3 Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Major, WoO 36 No. 3: III. Rondo. Allegro 03:39
• Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1:
• 4 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: I. Adagio assai 09:09
• 5 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: II. Allegro con spirito 08:01
• 6 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIa. Thema. Cantabile 01:11
• 7 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIb. Var. 1 01:13
• 8 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIc. Var. 2 01:07
• 9 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIId. Var. 3 02:17
• 10 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIe. Var. 4 01:18
• 11 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIf. Var. 5 01:04
• 12 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIg. Var. 6 01:03
• 13 Piano Quartet No. 1 in E-Flat Major, WoO 36 No.1: IIIh. Coda 01:20
• Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2:
• 14 Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2: I. Allegro moderato 10:46
• 15 Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2: II. Andante con moto 11:54
• 16 Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Major, WoO 36 No. 2: III. Rondo. Allegro 05:44
• Total Runtime 01:15:55

Info for The Young Beethoven

At the age of 13 Beethoven was already hailed as the new Mozart and many of his early works, especially in the chamber music genre, were influenced by Mozart’s model, like the Three Quartets for Piano and Strings WoO 36, composed in 1785 and published posthumously in November 1828. These three chamber works are directly modeled on three of the six violin sonatas that Mozart published in 1781: KV 296, 379 and 380. One of young Beethoven’s patrons was Johann Gottfried Mastiaux , whose children played violin, viola, cello and the piano. Although there is no concrete evidence for it, Beethoven’s association with the Mastiaux family could have inspired him to write for such an instrumental ensemble; it is unlikely that Beethoven was yet aware of the first example of this genre, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor, KV 478, which was finished only on 16 October 1785 in Vienna, thus not in time for Beethoven to have become acquainted with it in Bonn. Therefore, it is possible that WoO 36 – and not KV 478 – was in fact the first example of the piano quartet in chamber music literature. Despite these circumstances and the composer’s youth, the WoO 36 piano quartets represent an important artistic pinnacle in which the seeds of Beethoven’s genius that would proliferate during his maturity were already evident. This album features the first recording on historical instruments of the Piano Quartets WoO 36 (Bonn, 1785).

Meret Lüthi, violin
Sonoko Asabuki, viola
Alexandre Foster, cello
Leonardo Miucci, piano

Meret Lüthi
Charismatic Bernese violinist Meret Lüthi knows how to inspire fellow musicians and audiences both musically and verbally. Since 2008, her unmistakable identity as artistic director, dramaturg and concertmaster has shaped the internationally-renowned period instrument orchestra of Bern, Les Passions de l’Ame. She has led the orchestra in guest appearances at the Lucerne Festival, the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, the Schwetzinger Festspiele and the Musikfest Stuttgart, and has collaborated with artists such as Dorothee Oberlinger, Els Biesemans, Simone Kermes, Kristian Bezuidenhout and Nuria Rial.

Meret Lüthi received her training in her hometown with the violinists Monika Urbaniak-Lisik and Eva Zurbrügg, and achieved her teaching and concert diplomas with distinction. Her string quartet studies led her to Basel to Walter Levin, and she studied baroque violin with Anton Steck in Trossingen.

As a noted specialist in early music, Meret Lüthi is a regular guest at Radio SRF 2 Kultur and teaches baroque violin and historical performance practice at the Bern University of the Arts. In 2017 she was awarded the Music Prize of the Canton of Berne for her many years of outstanding musical achievements. Her artistic work is documented in recordings by Sony Music Switzerland and Ramée, which have twice been awarded the Diapason d’or.

Leonardo Miucci
Born in Milan in 1982, Leonardo Miucci graduated in piano from Matera Conservatory in 2001, where he was a pupil of Costantino Mastroprimiano, and went on to study chamber music at Perugia Conservatory, gaining a diploma in 2003 and a master's degree in 2006. In 2005 he began his studies in fortepiano, first with Robert Levin at the Salzburg Mozarteum, then with Bart van Oort at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, obtaining a bachelor's degree in 2009 and master's in 2011. Meanwhile, he also graduated in musicology at Tor Vergata University in Rome in 2005, specializing in 18th- and 19th-century instrumental performance practice. Since 2010 he has been a researcher at the Bern Hochschule der Künste, and in 2012 embarked on a PhD at Bern University on the subject of philological and performance practice aspects of Beethoven's piano sonatas. He has recently published a critical edition of Francesco Pollini’s fortepiano treatise of 1812, and is currently engaged in recording a cycle of Hummel's piano quartet arrangements of Mozart's piano concertos, in which he plays an original fortepiano.

Booklet for The Young Beethoven