single in Bonn I shall not stay long, of a surety. You also must be living in fear. How is good Ries? I shall write to him soon for he can have only an unfavorable opinion of me--but this damned writing! I cannot get over my antipathy towards it. Have you performed my piece yet? Write to me occasionally. Please send also a few copies of the first Variations. Your Beethoven. These “first Variations” obviously are those on the theme from “Rothkäppchen”; those referred to in the early part of the letter the ones on Count Waldstein’s theme. The “piece” whose performance he inquires about is the Octet, and the allusion to it justifies the belief that it was composed for the wind-instrument players of Bonn who found no opportunity to play it while Beethoven was still in his native city. The letter, like that written to Eleonore von Breuning, shows that Beethoven was still thinking of the possibility or probability of a return to Bonn. Its cheerful tone discloses a comfortable, satisfied frame of mind--the mood from which the first Trios proceeded. FIRST CONCERT APPEARANCES IN VIENNA We return to the chronological record of events. The first of these in the year 1795, was Beethoven’s first appearance in public as virtuoso and composer. The annual concerts in the Burgtheater established by Gassmann for the benefit of the widows of the Tonkünstlergesellschaft were announced for the evenings of March 29 and 30. The vocal work selected for performance was an oratorio in two parts, “Gioas, Re di Giuda,” by Antonio Cartellieri; the instrumental, a Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, composed and played by Ludwig van Beethoven. Cartellieri was a young man of twenty-three years (born in Danzig, September 27, 1772) who, a year or two since, had come from Berlin to study operatic composition with the then greatest living composer in that field, Salieri. As the direction of these Widow and Orphan concerts was almost exclusively in the hands of Salieri, one is almost tempted to think that he may on this occasion have indulged a pardonable vanity in bringing forward two of his pupils, if we did not know how strong an attraction the name of Beethoven must have been for the public which, as yet, had had no opportunity to learn his great powers except by report. The day of the performance drew near but the Concerto was not yet written out. “Not until the afternoon of the second day before the concert did he write the rondo, and then while suffering from a pretty severe colic which frequently afflicted him. I [Wegeler] relieved him with simple remedies so far as I could. In the anteroom sat four copyists to whom he handed sheet after sheet as soon as it was finished.... At the first rehearsal, which took place the next day in Beethoven’s room, the pianoforte was found to be half a tone lower than the wind-instruments. Without a moment’s delay Beethoven had the wind-instruments and the others tune to