Beethoven's mandolin music

[2] Beethoven cultivated a relationship with Wenzel Krumpholz, a Bohemian violinist and mandolin virtuoso who played the violin in the opera orchestra in Vienna.

[3] Joseph Braunstein said that Beethoven composed the second set of works (WoO 44, Numbers 1 and 2) in 1796, after he met Josephine in Prague.

"[3] According to Robert Cummings, Beethoven's four works using mandolin were all composed for the countess and were discovered in her husband's collection.

65, dedicated to countess Josephine and written about the same time as the mandolin sonatas, wasn't given an opus number until 1819.

However, Joseph Braunstein said of these pieces that, although "not great music ... they are valuable miniatures that fit well, biographically and stylistically, into the period of Beethoven's Opus 1, his first sonatas, the String Trio in E-flat, the song "Adelaide", and the Piano Concerto in B-flat.

Beethoven's Milanese mandolin, hung beside the piano in his home