WoO 14 – 12 Contredanses for two violins and bass (with optional wind instruments), 1800–1801, published in parts in Vienna by Mollo in 1802; full score in the GA, Vol. 17/a (series 2/9) – B. 141 – KH. (WoO)14 – L. IV, p. 342/12 – N. pp. 137–138 – T. 93.

In the original manuscript, preserved at the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, the sequential order differs from that of the printed edition: Nos. 10, 9, 7, 2, 5, 1, 3, 4, and 6 are autograph; Nos. 8, 4 (the latter repeated a second time), and 12 are in copy. No. 11 is missing. Sketches of the second, ninth, and tenth dances are found in the Landsberg sketchbook. The dates given above refer to the overall period during which the individual contredanses were presumably composed, whether earlier or later, before being assembled into the collection presented to the publisher. However, this does not rule out the possibility that the first aketches of some may date from an earlier period, as Nottebohm suggests in his catalogue.

The seventh and eleventh dances had already appeared, in a more elaborate form, in the finale of the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. The seventh was later also used as the basis for the Variations in E-flat major, Op. 35 for piano, and for the finale of the Eroica Symphony.

The wind instrumentation for each dance is as follows:
1st: 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns.
2nd: flute, 2 clarinets, bassoon, and 2 horns.
3rd: flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns.
4th: flute, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns.
5th: 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns.
6th: flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns.
7th: 2 clarinets and 2 horns.
8th: 2 oboes, 2 horns, and tambourine.
9th: 2 oboes and 2 horns.
10th: 2 oboes and 2 horns.
11th: flute, bassoon, and 2 horns.
12th: 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns.

The theme of the first section of the seventh dance bears a resemblance, as noted by Paribeni, to that of the Piano Sonata in G minor, Op. 7 No. 3 by Muzio Clementi, published in 1782 (in the course of which the theme also appears in E-flat major and in an expanded ff form – precisely as it does in the finale of the Eroica Symphony).

On the first page of the manuscript – corresponding to the tenth contredanse in the printed edition – there is an inscription reading: “N. 10 Contredanse de L. v. Beethoven pour Monsieur de Friederich nomé (sic) Liederlich.” Nottebohm suggests that this refers to Johann Baptist Friederich, assistant to Dr Johann Adam Schmidt, the renowned physician and professor at the University of Vienna who treated Beethoven for his deafness in the early 1800s. Beethoven, recognising Friederich as a competent amateur musician, would later dedicate to him the trio arrangement of the Septet.