Biamonti 382 – Beginning of a piece for four string instruments (page 59), c. 1803.
Mentioned by Nottebohm on page 55, without any musical notation.

This sketch is found on page 59 of the Landsberg 6 Sketchbook, also known as the Eroica Skizzenbuch. Nottebohm, in his volume Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven aus dem Jahre 1803, where he analyses the entire sketchbook, writes on page 55: “Zwischen den Arbeiten zur Symphonie finden sich, ausser den früher erwähnten Skizzen zu den Variationen über das englische Volkslied, der Reihe nach: […] (Seite 59) ein Ansatz zu einem unbekannten Stück für vier Streichinstrumente.”

Regarding the symbols found on page 59 of Landsberg 6, L. Lockwood and A. Gosman observe: “On this page, which contains his sketch of ideas for a string quartet in A major, Beethoven entered at the top right margin a series of pencilled symbols, some of which look like musical notes with stems, facing in both directions, and a series of short horizontal lines within vertical strokes that look like bar lines, as if he were representing the content of four measures but with short horizontal strokes within them rather than notes. Whether these figures have symbolic meaning, or could be Masonic or spring from other kinds of speculative thought, remains unknown.”

More interesting, to my mind, is the compositional technique Beethoven employs in this opening of the quartet: he does not begin by preparing a complete scheme of the piece, perhaps through a pianistic sketch to be later distributed to the four instruments, but rather proceeds by indicating the principal phrase already conceived and divided among the various instruments, leaving the other parts unwritten. It is nevertheless clear that the overall idea, at least of the first theme, if not the entire exposition of the first movement, had already been conceived. A similar method has also been found by me in the sketches for another movement for string quartet, specifically for la gaieté, Biamonti 796.