Most important of the instrumental compositions of this period is the Quintet for Strings, Op. 4, which is frequently set down as an arrangement (or revised transcription) of the Octet, Op. 103. The Quintet, however, though it employs the same motivi as the Octet, is an entirely new work, made so by the radical changes of structure--changes of register to adapt the themes to the stringed instruments and changes in the themes themselves. The origin of the Quintet can be placed anywhere in the period from 1792 (when the Octet was probably begun) to the beginning of 1797, when the Quintet was advertised as “wholly new.” There is a clue in the Wegeler anecdote already related in connection with the String Trio, Op. 3, in the chapter of this work devoted to the works composed in Bonn. In 1795, Count Appony commissioned Beethoven to compose a quartet, the honorarium being fixed. Wegeler’s recollection was that Beethoven twice undertook the task; but the first effort resulted in the String Trio and the second in “a quintet (Op. 4).” There is not sufficient internal evidence to reject the story so far as it affects the Quintet (the Trio has already been subjected to study), and from its structure it might well be argued that the composition was undertaken as a quartet and expanded into a quintet in the hands of the composer. If Count Appony’s commission was given in 1795, the date of the completion of the Quintet may be set down as 1796. Artaria, who published the work, advertised it in the “Wiener Zeitung” of February 8th, 1797. The two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 5, belong to the year 1796, and are the fruits of the visit to Berlin. There is no reason to question Ries’s story that Beethoven composed them for Pierre Duport and played them with him. The dedication to Friedrich Wilhelm II and the character of the works lend credibility to Ries’s account of their origin. Beethoven played them with Bernhard Romberg in Vienna at the close of 1796 or beginning of 1797, and they were published soon afterward, being advertised by Artaria in the “Wiener Zeitung” of February 8th, 1797. The Twelve Variations on a theme from Handel’s “Judas Maccabæus,” were published by Artaria in 1797, dedicated to the Princess Lichnowsky, _née_ Countess Thun. There were no performances of Handel’s oratorios in Vienna at this time, but it is not improbable that the suggestion for the Variations came from Baron van Swieten.