Septet in E‑Flat Major

Beethoven composed his Septet in E flat major for a mixed chamber ensemble of strings and wind instruments between 1799 and 1800. Following its first performance at the Imperial National Court Theatre in Vienna in April 1800, the Septet became one of the composer’s most popular works. Its immense popularity soon irritated Beethoven, who was adamant that his other compositions merited far more attention. Yet despite the composer’s reservations, there’s little doubt that the Septet is a brilliant work, with its accessible writing and six-movement structure obviously paying homage to less serious 18th-century genres such as the divertimento and the serenade. Like Mozart, Beethoven manages to elevate this lighter style of composition into high art. A particular attraction in the Septet is the rich sequence of wonderfully memorable melodies covering a wide variety of moods, ranging from youthful energy in the outer movements to rumbustious humour in the “Scherzo”, grace and elegance in the “Tempo di Menuetto,” and operatic expressivity in the “Adagio cantabile.” Furthermore, thanks to his imaginative scoring, Beethoven ensures that practically all the instruments in his ensemble get a chance to shine, thereby setting a precedent for later mixed instrumental chamber ensemble works such as Schubert’s marvellous .