Commissioned by Nicolas Galitzin over a year earlier, the work was not ready when it was scheduled to premiere.

A cellist himself, Galitzin strove to play Beethoven's music, waiting impatiently for him to compose at whatever price he saw fit.

[1] Galitzin's commission brought Beethoven back to composing in the string quartet genre after a 10-year absence, and suspended his financial woes.

Beethoven replied to Galitzin on January 25, 1823, requesting 50 ducats for three quartets: Opp.

Rhythms of two-bar groups fall in a 5+3 pattern in eighth notes.

Each of its bars stresses a rising step until ultimately C is reached in the first violin with an elaborate trill leading to the Allegro.

[4] Episodic explosions or virtuosic passages occur toward the middle of the development.

[4] The immense second movement, marked Adagio, ma no troppo e molto cantabile, is in the subdominant key of A♭ major.

Beethoven based this tonal progression on the finale of the Ninth Symphony, where the orchestral double fugue episode in B♭ is followed by the "grand" variation for full orchestra and choir in D major, followed by the "Seid umschlungen" episode in G major, which moves into the choral double fugue in the tonic D major.

[6] The scherzo's trio is a Presto of a kind Beethoven did not use very often, though it is similar in sound and phrasing to some of his bagatelles from the contemporary Op.

127's premiere was scheduled for a concert on January 23, 1825, but the quartet was still unfinished at this time.

After the premiere, Schuppanzigh wrote to Beethoven saying he didn't want to present it until it was perfect.