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Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) studied briefly with Haydn in Vienna, a relationship neither found entirely satisfactory, and spent much of his career under aristocratic patronage; three noblemen, Archduke Rudolf, Prince Kinsky, and Prince Lobkowitz, granted him a joint annuity specifically to keep him in the city. His Violin Concerto received its premiere in 1806 under chaotic circumstances: the soloist Franz Clement sightread the work at the first performance and inserted a solo of his own between movements, playing it upside down on one string. His sequence of string quartets, from the six Op. 18 works through the late quartets of the 1820s, remains the most significant body of quartet writing in the repertoire.

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