Lera Auerbach composed String Quartet No. 9 “Danksagung / Thanksgiving” in 2020 and dedicated it to Ludwig van Beethoven in honour of the 250th anniversary of his birth. The German title Danksagung means “thanksgiving” or “expression of thanks.”

The work takes as its point of departure the third movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132: the “Sacred song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode.” Beethoven’s movement gives thanks for recovery from illness; Auerbach’s quartet enters into dialogue with that historical act of gratitude from the perspective of the twenty-first century.

Auerbach retains Beethoven’s A–B–A1–B1–A2 structure. The contemplative A sections are marked Adagio molto, while the Andante B sections carry a more dance-like energy, associated with regained strength. A short prelude and postlude, containing no original Beethoven material, frame the continuous work.

Within the central sequence, one instrument at a time carries its original line from Beethoven’s Op. 132, while Auerbach freely composes the other three voices around it. The first violin carries Beethoven’s line in A and A1; the cello in B; the viola in B1; and the second violin in A2. The prelude and postlude contain no Beethoven material. No inherited line is singled out in performance: all four parts are treated as organic, equal elements of the new quartet.

Recognition of the borrowed material is not required. The musical argument is intended to stand on its own: Beethoven’s structure and individual voice parts are faithfully recontextualized within Auerbach’s original composition, with its own interpretive and technical variables.

Beethoven, heard anew. A work of gratitude, recovery and transformation across two centuries.

The world premiere took place on 21 June 2020 in the Mendelssohn-Saal of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, performed by the Artemis Quartett.

The quartet was co-commissioned by Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, Wigmore Hall, Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, Carnegie Hall and Tonhalle-Gesellschaft Zürich.