There is only one other work which calls for attention as having largely occupied Beethoven’s mind this year. It is the Quartet for Strings in E-flat, Op. 127. When Beethoven in January, 1823, accepted the invitation of Prince Galitzin to write three quartets for him, he had for some time been contemplating a return to the field which he had cultivated so successfully but had permitted to lie fallow after the completion of the quartet in F minor, Op. 95, in October, 1810. He had held out a promise for speedy delivery of a quartet to Peters on June 5, 1822, but Peters declined the work in his next letter. Galitzin sent the stipulated fee of 50 ducats promptly to his bankers in Vienna, but subsequently yielded to Beethoven’s request and permitted the money to be applied to his subscription for the Mass. On March 10, 1824, Beethoven offered “a new quartet” to Schott and Sons for 50 ducats and the publishers promptly notified their acceptance of the offer to him. Neate was informed by a letter dated March 19 that the Quartet was finished; but, as usual, the word was used in a Pickwickian sense. The correspondence with Schott and Sons sings the same tune with respect to the Quartet that it does regarding Mass and Symphony. On May 20 Beethoven cannot positively promise it; on July 3 he is sure that the publishers will receive it in six weeks; on September 17 the time of delivery is postponed to the middle of October; in November to the beginning of December; and on December 17 he says there is still something to be written on it. All the works which Schott and Sons have bought are to be delivered at one time, yet when they receive the Mass and Symphony on January 16, 1825, the Quartet is withheld but promised in another week, and, after a month has passed, in still another week. The Quartet is performed for the first time by Schuppanzigh on March 6, 1825. At last Beethoven writes to Schott and Sons on May 7, 1825: “You will have received the Quartet by this time--it is the one promised to you.” In March, 1826, its publication is announced in the “Cäcilia.” The autograph of the first movement is dated “1824” and no doubt the bulk of the work upon it was done in the latter part of the year, though it must have existed at least in a fragmentary form in Beethoven’s head when he wrote to Neate in March that it was finished.