In September of 1825, an Englishman by the name of Sir George Smart came to Vienna, hoping to meet Beethoven. Smart had conducted the British premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth, and wanted, as he put it in his journal, “to ascertain from Beethoven himself the exact tempos of the movements of his sinfonia.”

By luck, Smart arrived in time to attend the first reading of Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, which occurred on today’s date that year in a private room at the Viennese Tavern “Zum Wilden Mann.”

Smart recalled:  “… we took ourselves to the Wilden Mann ..as there was an assembly to hear Beethoven’s new manuscript quartet. It is most chromatic and there is a slow movement entitled ‘Praise for the recovery of an invalid.’ Beethoven intended it to allude to himself, I suppose, for he was very ill during the early part of this year. Beethoven directed the performers, and took off his coat, the room being warm and crowded. A staccato passage not being expressed to the satisfaction of his eye, for alas, he could not hear, he seized the violin and played the passage himself – a quarter of a tone too flat.”

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) — String Quartet in a, Op. 132 (Emerson Quartet) DG 447 075