A doubt has been hinted above whether Beethoven’s studies under Albrechtsberger were continued beyond the beginning of the year 1795. If all these exercises in counterpoint, fugue and canon, and all those excerpts from Fux, C. P. E. Bach, Türk, Albrechtsberger, and Kirnberger, which Seyfried made the basis of his “Studien”--and mingled in a confusion inextricable by any one possessing less learning, patience, sagacity and perseverance than Nottebohm--had already belonged to the period of his pupilage, their quantity alone, taken in connection with the writer’s other occupations, would indeed preclude such a doubt; but knowing that perhaps the greater portion of those manuscripts belongs to a period many years later, and considering the great facility in writing which Beethoven had already acquired before coming to Vienna, there seems to be no indication of any course of study which might not easily be completed during the one year with Haydn (and Schenk) and one year with Albrechtsberger. Schönfeld, in the “Jahrbuch der Tonkunst für Wien und Prag,” supposes that Beethoven was still the pupil of the latter at the time when he wrote, which was in the spring of 1795. His words are: “An eloquent proof of his [Beethoven’s] real love of art is the circumstance that he has placed himself in the hands of our immortal Haydn, in order to be initiated into the sacred mysteries of composition. This great master has, in his absence, turned him over to our great Albrechtsberger.” There is nothing decisive in this; and yet it is all that appears to confirm the “two years” of Seyfried; while on the other hand Wegeler, who, during all the year 1795, was much with Beethoven, has nowhere in his “Notizen” any allusion whatever to his friend as being still a student under a master. Referring to the number of pages (160) of exercises and the three lessons a week, Nottebohm calculates the period of instruction to have been about fifteen months. Inasmuch as among the exercises in double counterpoint in the tenth there is found a sketch belonging to the second movement of the Trio, Op. 1, No. 2, which Trio was advertised as finished on May 9th, 1795, it follows that the study was at or near its end at that date. The conclusion of his instruction from Albrechtsberger may therefore be set down at between March and May, 1795. INSTRUCTION FROM SALIERI