103, is a work for two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns. When Beethoven abandoned it and wrote a new finale, the leftover finale was set aside, and later published as a mini work: the Rondino by Diabelli (of the famed Diabelli Variations). The Octet in E-flat major by Ludwig van Beethoven, Op. But this is not the end of the story: the other famous Beethoven wind work, the Rondino in E-flat Major, WoO 25, was originally its intended finale.

The Octet evolved further when Beethoven revised the work in 1795, after beginning his studies with Haydn, and was published the following year as String Quintet, Op. It acquired its curiously high opus number despite the date of its composition, 1793, when it was published posthumously and given its opus designation by the publishers in Vienna.

103, stands apart from nearly all his other works. Music for wind instruments does not feature prominently in Beethoven’s catalogue of mature works, but as a young and aspiring composer in Bonn, he wrote a variety of pieces for different (and sometimes unusual) instrumental combinations at the behest of his patron, the elector Maximilian Franz.

Beethoven rondino in e flat