Beethoven’s Sextet in E♭ for 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns probably dates from 1796 when he was in Prague. It was later published in 1810 as Opus 71 and is called the Wind Sextet to differentiate it from the Horn Sextet from 1795 and later published as Opus 81b. Got it?
“It is one of my early works,” Beethoven wrote his publisher in 1809 about the Wind Sextet. “What is more, it was composed in one night. All that one can really say about it is that it was written by a composer who has produced at any rate a few better works.”
#Beethoven250 Day 73
Sextet in E♭ for 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, and 2 horns (Opus 71), 1796?
The Wind Sextet — which was probably not written in one night — is performed by the Ensemble Coeur de Roseau at a concert hall in Sendai, Japan.
Mathematics underlie harmony, counterpoint, and musical structure, so it might be expected that skill in music would translate to skill in math. This was not true with Beethoven, however. His truncated elementary education left him with a lifelong inability to multiply or divide.