Arrangements for string instruments were highly popular in the first part of the nineteenth century, but they had served a purpose and market different to that for the piano transcriptions that now took centre stage. The former were played by men, the latter by women; the focus during string quartet parties was on developing the performer, the latter on displaying the performer to best advantage. Piano performances, whether solo or in ensemble combinations, tended to be demonstrations to the audience of feeling, taste, and a moderate level of technical accomplishment—suitable attributes for a woman. Public performance and publication now took over the main role in canon formation, while chamber music’s meaning and function was redefined and split off from the dazzling Salonmusik and the still performance-based but decorous Hausmusik. The public quartet concerts of the 1820s and ’30s (especially those of Schuppanzigh’s quartet), along with reviewers’ endorsements of silent listening, and Beethoven’s increasingly difficult conceptions, changed the status of that genre.

The proliferation of unauthorised arrangements was of concern to composers and publishers alike c.1800. The chapter considers this phenomenon, which was central to the creation and reception of arrangements. Publishing practices in Vienna are compared to other centers, taking account of the lines of national and international dissemination that Beethoven’s publishers employed. The absence of copyright law at this time is considered: only after Beethoven’s life time does one find the transference of ownership from publisher to composer, which severely reduced the liberties arrangers could take with their source materials, as well as the ability to disseminate any kind of copies legally. A case study is made of Karl (Carl, Charles) Zulehner (ca. 1770–1841), composer, publisher, copyist, and arranger. He was notorious for publishing several masses wrongly attributed to Mozart and for unauthorized publications of Beethoven’s music. These underhand dealings need not blind us to his talents as an arranger. Besides his string quartet arrangement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Op. 21 (Simrock, 1828), which serves as a case study in this chapter.

This chapter further explores the ontological status of Beethoven’s symphonies in the early-mid nineteenth century, with particular attention to commentators’ ideas about arrangements of these symphonies, which both supported and undermined the development of the concept of musical works. Reading further in journals and newspapers of this time, one develops a fresh understanding of how symphonies were—and were not—understood as musical works in the early nineteenth century. The arrangers considered here are Ries and especially Hummel, two contemporaries of Beethoven who made numerous well-received arrangements of Beethoven’s music. Their musical arrangements, and others of the time, contributed to the development of the concept of the musical work concept around 1800 by promoting a certain kind of engaged ‘Romantic listening’. Such listening celebrated the creativity and genius of the composer and the unity of the work; by establishing the fixity and untouchability of the composer’s text, so that arrangements were considered ‘derivatives’; and by encouraging the perseverance of works, providing an aide-mémoire for listeners wishing to recall concert performances.

The boom in arrangements in the early nineteenth century was partly a function of the enthusiasm of the publishers themselves, who recognised their sales potential, especially that of small-scale arrangements of large-scale works by increasingly well-known composers. But while publishers capitalised on the popularity of arrangements, they also helped fuel that popularity by making otherwise relatively inaccessible works readily available in comparably cheap editions, in this way helping with canon formation. This chapter studies four important publishers of early nineteenth-century arrangements, from Bonn (Simrock), Leipzig (Breitkopf and Härtel), and London (Lavenu and Monzani and Hill), considering the types of arrangements that they made or commissioned, how the arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies they published fit into the market, and how they functioned in canon formation. Studying these publishers’ catalogues reveals the popularity of arrangements for varied chamber ensembles, alongside the highly popular piano transcriptions. Indeed, arrangements for chamber ensembles make up a substantial portion of published chamber music at this point.

The chapter considers an agreement between Beethoven and his publisher Steiner as a crucial moment in the history of musical publication. In 1816, Beethoven and Steiner had decided to issue Wellington’s Victory and the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies in arrangements for various combinations of chamber group simultaneously, and concurrent with the original orchestral edition in parts and score. Important here, and moving well outside publication ‘business as usual’, was the issuing of complete scores. These demonstrate the evolving conception of the musical work: silent score study would gradually replace the hands-on reception and construction of the musical work of the arrangements for chamber ensemble. It is also significant that this new publishing strategy began with Wellington’s Victory, which was thus treated as a significant work for study and performance, although it has tended to be marginalised as mere ‘occasional music’ after Beethoven’s time. In total there were eight different editions released at once for Wellington’s Victory (and the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies). This strategy shows comprehensiveness, musically and socially. But it was also a matter of economic sense.

This chapter provides an overview of the social context in which arrangements of Beethoven’s symphonies for various chamber arrangements became extremely popular, representative of arrangement culture more generally. Beethoven described his era as ‘a fruitful age of arrangements’: this chapter considers why. The main arrangers of the era are discussed in overview, including Beethoven, with attention to the reasons why they cultivated musical arrangement. For Beethoven and others, there were aesthetic and artistic grounds. Beethoven made several arrangements of his own works for chamber ensemble, which probably had mostly to do his own development of thinking about chamber music, rather than with marketability or flexibility of performance options