[55] Dr. Deiters points out as characteristics of this Trio which indicate that it was not written by Beethoven at the age of 15, but long after the pianoforte quartets, the freedom in invention and development, the large dimensions of the free fantasia portion, its almost imperceptible return to the principal theme, and the introduction of a coda in the first movement. Motivi from this movement recur in later works, for instance, the Sonata in F minor, Op. 2, and the Pianoforte Concerto in C major. Beethoven seems to have used the designation “Scherzo” in it for the first time.
[56] The combination of instruments in this piece led Dr. Deiters to conjecture that it may have been composed for the family von Westerhold. Count von Westerhold played the bassoon, his son the flute, and his daughter the pianoforte.
[57] Dr. Deiters points out that Thayer, in transcribing the themes of this Trio, overlooked a Largo, which made the movements number four instead of three as given in the Chronological Catalogue. The existence of four movements added to the doubtful authenticity in the eyes of the German editor.
[58] This letter will appear later. The Variations are published in Series 12, No. 103, of the Complete Edition. In a catalogue of Breitkopf and Härtel of 1793, they are designated Op. 1; also in a catalogue in 1794 of Geyl and Hedler’s. It is plain from a passage in the letter to Eleonore von Breuning (“I never would have written it in this way,” etc.) that the Coda did not receive its definitive form until just before publication. Thayer was of the opinion when he wrote Vol. I of this work, that it had been appended in Vienna.
[59] It was published in 1805 by the Kunst- und Industriecomptoir of Vienna. Complete Works, Series 18, No. 195; cf. Nottebohm’s “Beethoven’s Studien,” p. 6.
[60] In the Fall of 1919, announcement was made by the newspapers that French investigators had discovered in the British Museum four thitherto unknown Beethoven autographs amongst manuscripts purchased by Julian Marshall. The editor of the second edition of Köchel’s “Thematic Catalogue of Mozart’s Works” had seen the manuscripts and included two of them as authentic Mozart compositions and two as probably such in the supplement to that work. They were a Trio in D, for pianoforte, violin and violoncello (two pages of the first Allegro missing, listed as K, No. 52a); three pieces for pianoforte, four hands, a Gavotte in F, an Allegro in B-flat, and a Marcia lugubre in C minor (six measures), No. 71a; a Rondo in B-flat, to which the editor assigned the year 1786, No. 511a; and a Menuet in C, for orchestra, the first of a set composed by Beethoven in 1795, which M. Chantavoine published in 1903 under the title “Douze Menuets inédits pour Orchestre. L. van Beethoven. Œuvres posthumes. Au Ménestrel.” Theodore Wyzewa and Georges de St. Foix made a study of the manuscripts and discussed them in “Le Guide Musical” of December, 1919, January and February, 1920. They were then set down as “pseudo-Mozarts.” M. Charles Malherbe declared that none of the compositions was in Mozart’s hand, and M. de St. Foix, after further consideration of the internal evidence, declared them all to be indubitably by Beethoven and gave his reasons in an essay published in “The Musical Quarterly” (New York and Boston, G. Schirmer) of April, 1920. He told the history of the manuscripts as follows: “They had been presented by the Emperor of Austria to the Sultan Abdul Aziz. The latter, who probably cared very little for these relics of the 18th century, presented them in turn to his musical director, Guatelli Pasha. An English collector, Julian Marshall, purchased them from the Pasha’s son, W. Guatelli Bey, and when, later on, the British Museum acquired the Marshall Collection these manuscripts went over into its possession.”
The Gavotte was played at a concert of the Beethoven Association in New York in January, 1920, by Madame Samaroff and Harold Bauer, being inserted as a movement in the Sonata in A major for four hands, Op. 6. Mr. Bauer also made an arrangement for two hands which has been published by G. Schirmer.
[61] The discoveries which have been made since Thayer wrote his first volume have very effectually disproved the old belief touching the sterility of the Bonn period. The inquiry which might still be pursued now is whether or not other compositions which have been attributed to a later period may not also have been composed, or at least projected and sketched, in Bonn. The point of view has changed, but what Thayer wrote over half a century ago is still so largely pertinent that it is here given in the body of the text with only such modifications as were necessary to bring it into harmony with the rest of the chapter.
[62] Thayer proceeds from this point to give the reasons for his belief that the Trios Op. 1 and 3 were written in Bonn. The origin of Op. 1 will be discussed hereafter; that of the latter has just been made clear by the story of Mrs. Bowater and Abbé Dobbeler.
[63] Beethoven’s first lodgings were in an attic-room which he soon exchanged for a room on the ground floor of a house No. 45 Alsterstrasse occupied by one Strauss, a printer. The house now on the site is No. 30. Another occupant of the house was Prince Lichnowsky, who soon after took him into his lodgings. He remained in this house until May, 1795.