Note 23 — Chapter IV

As given by Nottebohm in his catalogue (p. 154) the title of the original publication of the Variations by Goetz of Mannheim ran as follows: “Variations pour le Clavecin sur une Marche de Mr. Dressler, composées et Dediées à son Excellence Madame la Comtesse de Wolfmetternich, née Baronne d’Assebourg, par un jeune amateur Louis van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans. 1780.” Inasmuch as Nottebohm’s Notes on Thayer’s “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” do not give the date 1780, it was probably appended by mistake. In the delle Sinfonie, etc., che si trovanno in manoscritto nella officina de Breitkopf in Lipsia, under the compositions of 1782, 1783 and 1784: Variations da Louis van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans, Mannheim, with the theme in notation. The Countess Wolff-Metternich, to whom the variations are dedicated, was the wife of Count Ignaz von Wolff-Metternich, “Konferenzmeister” and president of the High Court of Appeals, who died in Bonn, March 15, 1790. Ernst Christoph Dressler, composer of the theme varied by Beethoven, was an opera singer in Cassel.