Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F Major, Op. 59, No. 1

Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 7 in F major was published in 1808 as Opus 59, No. 1. This was the first of the three "Razumovsky Quartets," named after their commissioner, prince Andrey Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna.

This quartet is the first of Beethoven's middle period quartets and departs in style from his earlier Op. 18 quartets. The most apparent difference is that this quartet is over forty minutes long in a typical performance, whereas most of Beethoven's earlier quartets lasted twenty-five to thirty minutes. Furthermore, this quartet notoriously requires a greatly expanded technical repertoire.

On the last leaf of the sketches for the Adagio movement, Beethoven wrote, "A weeping willow or acacia tree on my brother's grave" (Einen Trauerwiden oder Akazien-Baum aufs Grab meines Bruders). Both of his brothers were alive when this work was written so these words are interpreted as having a masonic significance, for the acacia is widely considered the symbolic plant of Freemasonry.