WoO 60 – Piano Piece in B-flat major (Klavierstück), 14 August 1818.
First published as an appendix to the 8 December 1824 issue of the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung; later in the Harmonikon, III, 1825, p. 142, under the title “Impromptu Composed at the Dinner Table”; and finally by Schlesinger, Berlin, 1840, as “Dernière pensée musicale de Beethoven”. GA no. 301 (series 25/38) – Bruers 172 – KH (WoO) 60 – L. IV, p. 364/r – Nottebohm p. 152 – Thayer 212 – Biamonti 690. Sketch in Nottebohm II, p. 137.

A small, whimsical page of 39 bars, thought to have been written for the album of the Polish pianist Marie Szymanowska, but more likely composed as a standalone Bagatelle, only later coming into her possession.

Also called “Impromptu Composed at the Dinner Table” (name based on the London 1825 edition). According to the first edition, it was written on 14 August 1818, though it may have been composed a few months earlier. The first edition appeared in December 1824 as a musical supplement to the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. The first edition states: “Auf Aufforderung geschrieben Nachmittags am 14ten August 1818 von Beethoven” (“Written at request, in the afternoon of 14 August 1818, by Beethoven”). The publisher also announced that “jene Komposition habe Beethoven für eine ihm fremde Dame auf deren dringendes Bitten geschrieben” (“Beethoven had written this composition for a lady unknown to him at her urgent request”) (BamZ I, 1824, 8 December 1824, p. 423).

Adolf Bernhard Marx speculated that the lady was the Polish pianist Maria Szymanowska (1789–1831), whose album contains the piece (sources 1.2; Marx / Beethoven 1863, vol. 1, p. 74). This attribution was later questioned by Kinsky / Halm (KH, p. 506). The supposed presence of Maria Szymanowska in Vienna in August 1818 is not confirmed.

She was a collector of autographs and expanded her collection through purchases, as evidenced by the Bach and Handel pieces in her album, noted also in the facsimile edition of the album (see source 1.2). Some pieces in her album were gifts from friends, likely including Beethoven’s autograph (see Maria Szymanowska’s Musical Album, Renata Suchowiejko, Kraków 1999, p. 47).

Moreover, sketches made perhaps a few months earlier (Gertsch / Op. 106, pp. 69f) and the existence of a copy in the Haslinger-Rudolphin collection suggest that the piano piece was not composed spontaneously, as the first edition implies. It is more likely that the piece came into the possession of the pianist—admired also by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—at a later date. In the 1840 individual edition by Schlesinger, the piece was published under the misleading title “Dernière pensée musicale de Louis van Beethoven”.

Autographs / Sketches: A-Wgm, A 44, fol. 7r. Date of composition: Summer 1818. Partial transcription: Nottebohm / Beethoveniana II, p. 137.