The spontaneous-sounding piece in B flat major WoO60 was sketched alongside Beethoven’s work on the Hammerklavier Sonata Op 106. Interestingly enough, Beethoven’s preliminary ideas for the Sonata’s finale include a fugue subject in the same ‘dotted’ rhythm as that of the little piano piece. It was first published in December 1824 in the Berlin
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, where it was described as ‘having been written by invitation on the afternoon of 14 August 1818 by Beethoven’. A second edition appeared the following year in the London
Harmonicon, under the title of ‘Impromptu composed at the Dinner Table’; and some years after the composer’s death the Berlin publisher Heinrich Schlesinger issued it under the spurious title of
Dernière pensée musicale de Louis van Beethoven.
from notes by Misha Donat © 2012
