Origin and Publication: Composed between February and April 1796 in Prague. The first edition appeared posthumously in 1880 in Alfred Hipkins’ article Mandoline in George Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Beethoven wrote all his compositions for mandolin and harpsichord (piano) for the Bohemian Countess Josephine von Clary-Aldringen (later wife of Count Christian Christoph Clam-Gallas), for whom he may also have composed Op. 65 (see Op. 65, Dedication). In total, four individual movements have survived (WoO 43a and b, WoO 44a and b), but it is presumed that at least one other piece had been completed, and that this piece was in the music collection of Count Clam-Gallas at least until 1912 (see also Raab/NGA V/4 p. 160).
Arthur Chitz worked in the Count’s archive between 1905 and 1912, and in a letter dated 23 June 1912, he wrote that, in addition to the two autograph manuscripts he had rediscovered (WoO 43b and 44b), the copies contained “three other movements, although considerably shorter” (cited in Buchner/Mandoline p. 40f). It is unclear whether the missing movement might correspond to one of the surviving sketches (in C minor and D major), written for mandolin, or to another contemporaneous piece, but there is no reason not to assume that it was intended for this instrumentation. (See Johnson/Fischhof vol. 1 p. 420f, Transferences vol. 2 pp. 190 and 193).
According to Douglas Johnson, all these sketches were written in Prague and are partially annotated on the same paper used for Op. 65 and WoO 42, also composed in Prague (Miscellanea Kafka, pages 105–106 and Miscellanea Fischhof, page 43; Johnson/Fischhof vol. 1 p. 421, Johnson/Tour1796 p. 27ff). Apart from the fact that WoO 44b was conceived before WoO 43a, it is not possible to establish a chronology for the origin of the individual pieces (Johnson/Fischhof vol. 1 p. 419). Attempts to relate the individual movements to each other or to a larger work have so far remained purely speculative (e.g. the attribution of WoO 44a to WoO 43a by Joseph Kerman/Kafka vol. 2 p. 282).
WoO 43a is the only one of the four mandolin pieces not explicitly dedicated to Countess Josephine von Clary-Aldringen. However, Johnson’s paper analysis establishes a direct link with the other three mandolin compositions and thus also with the Countess (Johnson/Tour1796 pp. 24–40). The hypothesis of Hugo Riemann and Theodor von Frimmel (and therefore also that of Kinsky-Halm) that this sonatina was composed for the violinist and mandolinist Wenzel Krumpholz in Vienna (TDR II p. 58, Frimmel/Handbuch vol. 1 p. 387) can be considered refuted. The first performance is unknown.