Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 16

In 1792, Beethoven moved to Vienna to establish himself as a composer and virtuoso pianist. According to contemporary accounts, he apparently lacked both social graces and a pleasing countenance. As his biographer Thayer describes, he was

… small, thin, dark-complexioned, pockmarked, dark-eyed … His front teeth, owing to the singular flatness of the roof of his mouth, protruded, and, of course, thrust out his lips; the nose was rather broad and decidedly flattened, while the forehead was remarkably full and round—in the words of Court Secretary Mähler, who twice painted his portrait, a “bullet.”

Beethoven came highly recommended, however—the Elector-Archbishop Maximilian Franz of Cologne, uncle of the current emperor, had sponsored him, and he also had the endorsement of lifelong friend and patron Count Waldstein. From late 1792 to late 1793, he studied with the most famous composer in Europe, Franz Joseph Haydn. (The busy Haydn, sandwiching Beethoven between trips to London, was less than conscientious about his lessons.) He started to develop a reputation, first connected to Mozart and Haydn, and then one all his own. In 1797, he composed the Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 16, a work influenced by Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452, written 13 years earlier. The pair share the same key and instrumentation (piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn), and Beethoven even uses the same forms within the same three-movement plan. When Beethoven published the work in 1810, he included a reduced version for piano quartet (piano, violin, viola, and cello), taking full advantage of the difference between wind and string instruments. A chamber piano concerto is a result, the sparkling, virtuosic piano part remaining constant between the two versions.