Bagatelles, Op. 126 (Beethoven)

[citation needed] The set comprises six short works, as follows: In prefatory remarks to his edition of the works, Otto von Irmer notes that Beethoven intended the six bagatelles be played in order as a single work, at least insofar as this can be inferred from a marginal annotation Beethoven made in the manuscript: "Ciclus von Kleinigkeiten" (cycle of little pieces).

[3] Lewis Lockwood suggests another reason to regard the work as a unity rather than a collection: starting with the second Bagatelle, the keys of the pieces fall in a regular succession of descending major thirds, a pattern Lockwood also notices in Beethoven's Symphony No.

[4] Maurice J. E. Brown, writing in the Grove Dictionary, says of the Bagatelles that they "are thoroughly typical of their composer and show affinities with the greater instrumental works written at the same time."

1 shares the terse, elliptical expression of the first movement of the Piano Sonata, Op.

3 shares the style of elaborate, high-register elaboration of a slow melody in triple time, seen in the slow movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata; and the final Bagatelle opens with a chaotic passage reminiscent of the opening of the finale of the Ninth Symphony.