Since Diabelli never communicated the original manuscript, this publication had to be based at the time, in the absence of other sources, also that of GA. Only the discovery of the original manuscript in 1945 in a private collection in Providence in the United States and its publication in 1950 By Otto von Irmer (Henle Verlag,  München – Duisburg) have made it possible to establish with certainty the time, title and original draft of the composition; and consequently, also the extent of the revision and completion work done by Diabelli.

The peculiarities of the writing, the form of the refrains, the very handwriting of the notes, the historically indubitable age of other sketched compositions found on the last page of the manuscript lead to the conclusion that the Rondo belongs entirely to a period between 1795 and 1798, without any subsequent additions or modifications. Its real title is: “All’ingherese, quasi capriccio“; The note relating to the anger for the lost money is in another handwriting. The manuscript has some gaps, which the publisher Diabelli or whoever for it (Czerny perhaps, or someone else) thought it necessary to complete on their own initiative.

In Irmer’s 1950 publication, these additions, as well as the interpretation given to some unclear points in the original script, were highlighted by a smaller typeface, so that it is possible to identify them at first glance and possibly discuss them. To fill in the bass bars that remained empty here and there, the reviser relied on the analogy that the passages to be completed presented with others similar and accomplished, or conforming to common rules of harmonious conduct; one may wonder if Beethoven would have regulated himself in the same way or if he would have avoided too uniform procedures.

(We can also imagine that, if he had decided to give his work a definitive arrangement for printing, he would probably have retouched it, as was his custom, in who knows how many other points.) On the other hand, it is regrettable that bars 25-32 of the first couplet have been omitted, to the detriment of formal balance. But with all this, it does not seem to us that the Diabelli editorial staff can be said to be too unfaithful or arbitrary. Some scholars of the end of the century such as Bulow, Thayer-Riemann and Bekker, attribute the work, at least in part, to the last period of Beethoven’s artistic creation; others closer to the master’s time, such as Czerny, De Lenz and Marx, had already considered it as an early work.

The title Alla ingherese stands, according to Hertzmann, for Rondo all’ongarese, one of the favorite forms of composition at the end of the 1700s, which Haydn also used more than once, for example, in the Finales of the Piano Concerto (1784) and the Trio in G major (1795). The “almost caprice” addition would have been determined by the freedom of development that can be seen after the fourth exposition of the refrain, starting from bar 157 and ending at the end: that is, for a whole kind of second part (much longer than the first). It has been said that the phrase referring to anger for a lost penny (inspiring Schumann, as is well known, for a witty critical page), is of a different handwriting. It must be considered probably based on some word of the master exactly reported or interpreted or connected with some anecdotal circumstance.

Composed in Vienna in 1794/95. The first edition appeared posthumously in 1828 by Diabelli & Co. in Vienna. The dating of this piece can be deduced both from the information contained in the transcription of op. 129 and from the surviving drafts among those for the first concerto for piano and orchestra Opus 15 and an unfinished symphony in C major.

There is also a copy, from the same period, by Beethoven, of Joseph Haydn’s piano trio G major Hob XV: 25, in gypsy style. (See on our Research Center IX) Transcriptions from Joseph Haydn)

A first complete draft of Op. 15 was probably completed at the end of 1794 or the beginning of 1795, for one of the concerts of 29 March and 18 December of the following year; Beethoven also sketched the unfinished symphony from 1794 to 1796 (see Unvollendete 2 Sketch of a Symphony Movement (Formerly Biamonti 73) These circumstances delimit the date of composition of the work around 1794/95. Hertzmann (Op. 129 pp. 184-188), in his fundamental essay on the autograph writing of op. 129, he noted further structural and stylistic parallels to the movement of Haydn’s trio.

The master of Rohrau composed the trio in April 1795 at the latest, the same year that the first edition appeared in London (Haydn GA / Piano Trios p. 356). Beethoven would therefore have been able to view the work only after Haydn’s return from London, in August 1795.

On the contrary, Jos van der Zanden, considers the date of the first performance of the Piano Concerto op.15 to be March 29, 1795, and concludes that the trio cannot be the source of inspiration for Beethoven’s work. For the Dutch musicologist and composer, the Rondo a Capriccio was conceived before March 1795, probably in 1794 (Zanden / Ingharese page 119).

Carl Anton Spina, managing partner of the music publishing house Anton Diabelli & Co. from 1824, bought several autographs at the auction of the “Beethoven succession” on November 5, 1827, in Vienna, including the Rondo.