Beethoven's String Quartet no. 7 was published in 1808. It is the first of three quartets commissioned by prince Andrey Razumovsky, then Russian ambassador to Vienna. The first of his middle period quartets, it departs in style from his earlier Op. 18, the most apparent difference being that this one is over forty minutes long. Furthermore, it demands a greatly expanded technical repertoire. By 1806, while Beethoven was known in many elite circles; his universal popularity as a composer had not been established. Scholars posit that the greater demands on technical ability served not only to widen the ever-increasing gap, as it were, between amateurs and professionals but also to propel Beethoven into the public eye as a composer of "serious music." On the last leaf of the sketches for the Adagio Beethoven wrote ''A weeping willow or acacia tree on my brother's grave". Both of his brothers were alive then, so these words are interpreted as having a masonic significance, for the acacia is widely considered the symbolic plant of Freemasonry ∴
