The Symphony in B-flat, Op. 60, was the great work of this summer season. Sketches prove that its successor, the fifth in C minor, had been commenced, and was laid aside to give place to this. Nothing more is known of the history of its composition except what is imparted by the author's inscription on the manuscript: "Sinfonia 4^{ ta} 1806. L. v. Bthvn."
In singular contrast to these grand works and contemporary with their completion, as if written for amusement and recreation after the fatigue of severer studies, are the thirty-two Variations for Pianoforte in C minor. They belong to this Autumn, and are among the compositions which their author would gladly have seen pass into oblivion. Jahn's notes contain an anecdote in point. "Beethoven once found Streicher's daughter practising these Variations. After he had listened for a while he asked her: "By whom is that?" "By you." "Such nonsense by me? O Beethoven, what an ass you were!""
Although the composer did not succeed in bringing his new Symphony and Concerto to public performance this year, an opportunity offered itself for him to give the general public as fine a taste of his quality as composer for the violin, as he had just given to the frequenters of Rasoumowsky's quartet parties in the Op. 59, namely, Op. 61, the work superscribed by its author: ~Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement, primo Violino e Direttore al Theatro a Vienne, dal L. v. Bthvn., 1806~;--or, as it stands on Franz Clement's concert programme of December 23 in the Theater-an-der-Wien: "2. A new Violin Concerto by Hrn. Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Hrn. Clement." It was preceded by an overture by Méhul, and followed by selections from Mozart, Cherubini and Handel, closing with a fantasia by the concert-giver. When Dr. Bertolini told Jahn that "Beethoven as a rule never finished commissioned works until the last minute," he named this Concerto as an instance in point; and another contemporary notes that Clement played the solo ~a vista~, without previous rehearsal. The list of publications this year is short:
~LI^{ me} Sonata pour le Pianoforte~, F major, advertised April 9 in the "Wiener Zeitung" by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir. There is no tradition that Beethoven ever explained why he called this his ~fifty-first~, or the F minor his ~fifty-fourth~ Sonata. The best that Czerny could suggest is that "perhaps he sketched that number in manuscript and then destroyed them or used them in another form." Others have made lists of all the works in sonata-form, including the symphonies; but none has been so probably right as to produce conviction.