Touching the history of the Serenade for Violin, Viola and Violoncello, Op. 8, little else is known beyond the fact that its publication was announced in the “Wiener Zeitung” on October 7th, 1797, by Artaria. Mr. Shedlock called attention in the “Musical Times” of 1892 (p. 525) to sketches which appeared along with others of the Pianoforte Concerto in B-flat, and the Trio, Op. 1, No. 2. That Beethoven valued the work highly is a fair deduction from the fact that he published it soon after its composition and authorized the publication of an arrangement for Pianoforte and Viola which he had revised. This arrangement received the opus number 42, though probably not from Beethoven. Hoffmeister in Leipzig, who published it in 1804, under the title “Notturno pour Fortepiano et Alto arrangé d’un Notturno pour Violon, Alto et Violoncello et revu par l’auteur--Œuvre 42,” advertised it in the “Intelligenzblatt der Zeitschrift für die elegante Welt” on December 17, 1803. It is this arrangement, no doubt, to which Beethoven referred in a letter to Hoffmeister, dated September 22nd, 1803, in which he said: “These transcriptions are not mine, though they were much improved by me in places. Therefore, I am not willing to have you state that I made them, for that would be a lie and I could find neither time nor patience for such work.” According to the view of Dr. Deiters, which was shared also by Nottebohm, the Serenade, Op. 25, also belongs here. It was probably composed before Op. 8. Beethoven entrusted its publication in the beginning of 1802 to Cappi, who had just begun business. Then, like Op. 8, it was published by Hoffmeister as Op. 41, in an arrangement for Pianoforte and Flute (or Violin), which, no doubt, was included in Beethoven’s protest against being set down as the transcriber. A GROUP OF PIANOFORTE SONATAS