Posthumous dedication
Beethoven's last String Quartet op. 135 was composed in 1826. The composer did not live to see the original printed edition. It was published in September 1827 and Beethoven had already died in March of that year. A few weeks after his death on 12 April 1827, Anton Schindler (Beethoven's secretary in his last years) wrote to the publisher Schlesinger in Berlin, who was responsible for the publication of the string quartet, "My deceased friend Beethoven requested me a few days before his death to write to you and ask you the following. Namely, to find out what opus number the last quartet which you received from him has, and whether Beethoven had already given you a dedication for this quartet. Regarding the opus number, he thought it had to be 130 or 131; as for the dedication which he could not remember having sent to you, he asked it to be dedicated to his friend Johann Wolfmeyer." Johann Wolfmayer was a wealthy Viennese textile merchant, music lover, (secret) patron and friend of Beethoven's. Wolfmayer obviously greatly admired Beethoven's music, as in a conversation book from August 1826, the violinist Karl Holz wrote an entry for Beethoven, "Wolfmayer is so happy, that he defended you 25 years ago and now people are realizing this." Beethoven had already considered dedicating the String Quartet op. 131 to Wolfmayer, but in the end settled on Baron von Stutterheim, to whom he felt obliged. Wolfmayer was compensated for this with the posthumous dedication for op. 135, which was probably due to Karl Holz' initiative. Did the critically ill composer really arrange for this dedication himself, as Schindler writes? (J.R.)
