Note 53 — Chapter X

The Trio in E-flat was not published until 1797. It is therefore obvious that the music which Abbé Dobbeler carried with him to England must have been a manuscript copy. Dr. Deiters, accepting without attempt at contradiction Thayer’s proof of its origin at a period not later than 1792, nevertheless puts forth the conjecture that the work may have been revised and reconstructed at a later date in Vienna, as was the case with other compositions. It is not to be supposed, he urges, that Beethoven, enjoying the celebrity that he did in 1797, would have published then with an opus number a production of his youth without first subjecting it to a thorough revision. Moreover, his earlier chamber compositions were in three movements, the minuet having been added for the first time in the Octet. It was scarcely conceivable that he should have simultaneously conceived a work in six movements unless he had had a Mozart model in his mind. But why not? We have seen from the story of the music admired at the court of Vienna from which the Elector came that the serenade form was in favor there. The Sonata for Pianoforte and Violoncello which Artaria announced in May, 1807, is an arrangement of this Trio, but it was not made by Beethoven.