Beethoven's musical style
The compositions that Beethoven wrote in his formative period can be generally characterized by the composer's efforts to master the predominant classical language of the period. His works from this period can be subdivided into two, based on the composer's residence. First, various juvenalia, written when the adolescent Beethoven was in residence in Bonn and heavily indebted to the works of contemporaries, especially Mozart and his teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe. These early efforts can be seen in a set of three piano sonatas and piano quartets (WoO 36) that Beethoven wrote before 1792. The Quartets, for instance, are each specifically modelled after three Violin sonatas Mozart published in 1781 – K 296, 379 and 380 – and Beethoven would later draw upon this familiarity in the composition of several of his own Violin Sonatas.
String Quartets Nos. 1–6, Op. 18 (Beethoven)
Ludwig van Beethoven's Op. 18, published in 1801 by T. Mollo et Comp in Vienna in two books of three quartets each, consisted of his first six string quartets. They were composed between 1798 and 1800 to fulfill a commission for Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz, who was the employer of Beethoven's friend, the violinist Karl Amenda. They are thought to demonstrate his total mastery of the classical string quartet as developed by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The order of publication (numbering within the opus) does not correspond to the order of composition. Beethoven composed these quartets in the sequence 3, 1, 2, 5, 4, 6. See: