Beethoven originally wrote the work in six movements, lasting 42–50 minutes, as follows: (Nomenclature: "danza tedesca" means "German dance", "Cavatina" a short and simple song, and "Große Fuge" means "Great Fugue" or "Grand Fugue".)

Modern performances sometimes follow the composer's original intentions, leaving out the substitute finale and concluding with the fugue.

[3] British composer Robert Simpson argues that Beethoven's intentions are best served by playing the quartet as a seven-movement work, with the Große Fuge followed by the replacement finale.

[6] Some commentators also rank very high the freshness, grace and sensitivity[7] of the third movement (Andante con moto, ma non troppo.

The Cavatina also appears in "Love and War", an episode from the sixth season of M*A*S*H, in the background as Hawkeye has dinner with an aristocratic Korean woman.

In the early 20th century, it came into the possession of the Petscheks, a wealthy Czech Jewish family involved in banking and the mining industry.

According to the current museum curator Simona Šindelářová, the expert recognized Beethoven's handwriting, but in order to save the manuscript from being looted he lied to the Nazis and said it was not authentic.

Franz Petschek, who had run the family's mining businesses in Czechoslovakia, tried from his new home in the U.S. to get the manuscript back but got scant sympathy from the Communist government.