Biamonti 484 – Unused Sketch for the Finale of the String Quartet in E-flat Major, Opus 74, Summer–Autumn 1809. Reported as follows by Nottebohm (Zweite Beethoveniana, page 94), among other sketches for the quartet. (The sketchbook cited by both Biamonti and Nottebohm is Landsberg 5.)

It is located in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, in the Landsberg 5 Sketchbook, on page 91, stave 1. It is the beginning of a theme, sketched in only four bars, in 2/4 time and in the key of E-flat major. It is labeled as “Variationen” and marked with the tempo indication “Moder:” (likely short for Moderato).

Nottebohm cites this thematic beginning for a set of variations in Chapter XII of his Zweite Beethoveniana (p. 94), informing us that it was likely an initial idea for the theme of the final movement of the String Quartet Op. 74, but that it was immediately abandoned.

In his transcription, however, we see that in the final measure, instead of the D on the downbeat of the second beat, Nottebohm indicates a sixteenth rest, leaving the half-phrase—already concluded in his view—without resolution to the dominant. Yet Beethoven seems to have intended to write a more extended melody.