Beethoven wrote the second quartet, the String Quartet in A minor, Opus 132, in 1825, but work on it was interrupted by illness that lasted from the middle of April well into the following month, necessitating a strict diet and abstention from alcohol and coffee, diagnosed as the cause of his discomfort. To recuperate Beethoven moved to Baden, where his peace of mind was disturbed by anxiety over his brother Carl Caspar's son Karl, of whom he had, after litigation against the boy's widowed mother, become sole guardian.

By August, however, the new quartet was complete, to be rehearsed and given a first private performance in September, not, as Beethoven had hoped, at his rooms in Baden, but at the Vienna lodgings of the Paris publisher Moritz Schlesinger, who was anxious to secure the work for his company. The first public performance was given in Vienna on 6th November in a benefit concert for the cellist Joseph Linke. The quartet was sent, together with the third of the commissioned works, the String Quartet in B flat major, Opus 130, to Prince Galitzin, in Russia, but the Prince's pecuniary embarrassment prevented any payment, at least in Beethoven's lifetime.

The A minor Quartet starts with a solemn four-note cello motif, the genesis of much else, as the instruments enter in ascending order. This motif, divided between viola and cello, provides the bass of the first violin melody that follows and serves, after the warmer, lyrical second subject, to open the central development section of the movement, the viola entering in canon with the cello. It also marks the return of the material in the equivalent of a recapitulation.

The A major second movement scherzo is derived from two figures heard in the opening bars, while the trio section is characterized by the similitude of a bagpipe drone. The slow movement 'Song of Thanksgiving' is a set of double variations, the first theme, in the Lydian mode, marked Molto adagio and the D major second theme marked Andante, with the explanatory note Neue Kraft f�hlend ('Feeling new strength'). Variations of each follow, leading to a final variation of the first modal theme, now marked Mit innigster Empfindung ('With the sincerest feeling'). A brief A major March provides immediate contrast, linked by a passage of quasi-recitative to the final Allegro appassionato, with its sadly lilting principal theme, admixture of counterpoint and rapid conclusion.

Writer: Keith Anderson