The Cavatina on its first performance, on March 21, 1826, was received with indifference, and the finale, which was an exceedingly long and difficult fugue, fared even worse.  Self-sufficient as Beethoven was on all matters connected with the working out of his musical thoughts, he coincided for once with his friends and the publisher on the matter of the fugue.  He wrote a new finale for the quartet, and published the fugue separately as opus 133.  Joseph Boehm, the noted violinist, then in his twenty-eighth year, rehearsed this fugue under Beethoven’s direction, and often played the violin part subsequently.

The great C sharp minor Quartet opus 131, is the next one to claim our attention.  Beethoven characterized it as a piece of work worthy of him.  This colossal work was one which Wagner continually held up for the commendation of mankind.  It occupies among quartets a position analogous to that of the Ninth Symphony in its own class.  The summer of 1826 in which it was composed, was a period fraught with momentous occurrences to the master, chief of which was the attempted suicide of his nephew.  The circumstances which led up to this catastrophe can be briefly narrated.  Beethoven had been disappointed in any and every plan formed for the future of the young man.  He at first looked for great things from him; by gradual stages his expectations were so modified that at last he began to fear that he would never be able to provide for his own maintenance.

The musical education of the young man had first engaged the master’s attention, in the hope that some of the family talent might have been transmitted to him.  When it became plain that nothing could be achieved by him in a musical career, he was entered at the university of Vienna with a view of making a scholar of him.  Here he was unable to keep up with his studies, owing to inattention.  He failed to pass his examination and left the school in consequence.  Literature being closed to him, he entered the Polytechnic school, intending to fit himself for business life, but failed here also.  That Karl’s conduct caused the master much anxiety appears in his letters to him.  In some of them he entreats him to do better, in others he upbraids him.  Both lines of reasoning seem to have been equally obnoxious to this careless, indifferent young man, who objected to being taken to task for his misdeeds, and hated “rows” and “scenes” with his uncle.  When he failed the second time he was at his wits’ end in dread of his uncle’s reproaches.  Many a stormy scene had occurred between them during the two preceding years.  So violent had these become, that the master was on one occasion requested to find another apartment on account of the complaints that came from other occupants of the house.  It may very well be that Beethoven expected too much from this carelessly reared youth, whose mother lost no opportunity of embittering him against the master.  The young man probably never seriously contemplated