Presumed Beethoven

In 1927, on the hundredth anniversary of Beethoven's death, the French musicologist Saint-Foix drew attention to an anonymous manuscript collection of six string quartets that once belonged to the publisher Domenico (III) Artaria and is now housed in the Berlin State Library. He suspected that these were Beethoven's earliest juvenile attempts in this genre, which he only truly established with Opus 18 at the beginning of his thirties. As a result, the collection was included in the Beethoven catalogue, albeit as a work of doubtful attribution, where it still awaits further investigation today. With the world premiere recording of the Six Quartets Anh. 2, the Alla Maniera Italiana Quartet brings this chamber music shrouded in mystery back to light - in a historically informed interpretation based on a careful study of the Berlin parts and an original contribution to the upcoming bicentenary of Beethoven's birth.