“Opferlied,” by Mathisson, first form.
Scene and Aria for Soprano: “No—non turbarti.”
Three of the Contradances.
Bagatelle for Pianoforte, No. 6 of Op. 33.
Last movement of the Symphony in D major.
Five of the six “Ländrische Tänze.”
Terzetto, “Tremate, empj, tremate,” Op. 116.
First and second movements of the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in A major, Op. 30, No. 1.
Last movement of the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in A major, Op. 47.
Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2.
Bagatelle for Pianoforte, No. 5 of Op. 119 (112).
First movement of the Sonata for Pianoforte in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 (the first sketch only).
Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in G major, Op. 30, No. 3.
Last movement of the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in A major, Op. 30, No. 1 (the theme had been designed before).
Variations for Pianoforte in E-flat major, Op. 35 (preparatory work).
Variations for Pianoforte in F major, Op. 34 (only the first hints).
Sonata for Pianoforte in G major, Op. 31, No. 1 (not complete).”
To which may be added as occurring early in the book, the theme of the Larghetto of the Symphony in D (here for horns), out of which eventually grew the Trio in the Scherzo. A curious remark on one of the pages seems to be a memorandum for a piece of descriptive music: “Marital felicity, dark clouds upon the brow of the husband in which the fairer half unites but still seeks to dispel.”
The evident care taken by the composer at this period to make the opus numbers really correspond to the chronological order of his works, is a strong reason for concluding that the Violin Sonatas, Op. 30, were completed or nearly so before he removed to Heiligenstadt. Even in that case, what wonderful genius and capacity for labor does it show, that, before the close of the year, in spite of ill health and periods of the deepest despondency, and of all the interruptions caused by his ordinary vocations after his return to town, he had completed the first two Sonatas of Op. 31, the two extensive and novel sets of Variations, Op. 34 and Op. 35, and the noble Second Symphony!—all of them witnesses that he had really “entered upon a new path,” neither of them more so than the Symphony so amazingly superior to its predecessor in grandeur and originality. This was, in fact, the grand labor of this summer.
The Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 31
The three Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin are dedicated to Czar Alexander I of Russia, who is said to have given command that a valuable diamond ring be sent to the composer. Lenz could find no record of such an incident in the imperial archives. The sketches show that the movement which now concludes the “Kreutzer” Sonata (Op. 47) was originally designed for the first of the three, the one in A major; and that for the Adagio of the second, in C minor, Beethoven, assuming that he already associated the theme with the work, first contemplated using the key of G.
The three Sonatas for Pianoforte, Op. 31, are without dedication. W. Nagel connects them, or one of them, with the following extraordinary letter to Hoffmeister:
Vienna, April 8, 1802.
Are you all ridden by the devil gentlemen that you propose such a sonata to me?
At the time of the revolutionary fever—well—such a thing might have been very well; but now—when everything is trying to get back into the old rut, Buonaparte has signed the concordat with the Pope—such a sonata?
If it were a Missa pro sancta Maria a tre voci, or a Vesper, etc.—I would take my brush in hand at once—and write down a Credo in unum Deum in big pound notes—but good God, such a sonata—for these days of newly dawning Christianity—hoho!—leave me out of it, nothing will come of it.