The work's opening movement is the first of Beethoven's sonata first movements that does not repeat the exposition.[1] The development section contains a theme not found in the exposition (this happens in earlier compositions such as the fourth violin sonata also).[2] The work takes approximately 26 minutes to perform.
The second movement was originally sketched out in G major before taking its current form.[3]
According to Anton Schindler (Beethoven's notoriously unreliable associate and biographer), Beethoven came to regret the third movement. Schindler wrote, "He definitely wished to delete the Scherzo allegro... because of its incompatibility with the character of the work as a whole."[4]
The autograph to the sonata turned up in a collection built up by H. C. Bodmer in Zurich, discovered in the mid-20th century.[5]
References
^Basil Lam, 'Beethoven String Quartets' (1979 edition, BBC publications; p. 47)
^Churgin, Bathia (Summer 1998). "Beethoven and the New Development-Theme in Sonata-Form Movements". The Journal of Musicology. 16 (3). St Joseph, Michigan: Imperial Printing Company: 327–9. doi:10.1525/jm.1998.16.3.03a00030. JSTOR763994. As the author notes, the practice of including new material in the central section of a ternary-form (sonata) movement is not a Beethoven innovation- there are examples in and preceding Mozart's music.
