132, by Ludwig van Beethoven, was written in 1825, given its public premiere on November 6 of that year by the Schuppanzigh Quartet and was dedicated to Count Nikolai Galitzin, as were Opp.

[3] Charles Rosen, on the other hand, considered this structure to be governed, as all of Beethoven's works, by the principle of sonata resolution, pointing to Haydn's 75th and 89th symphonies as precedents.

To begin this movement (Listen), Beethoven exposes the fourth in a three-note gesture (G♯–A–C♯) four times, with the violins and viola in unison and the cello an octave below.

Philip Radcliffe (1965, p. 114) says that the three-note gesture shares with the opening of the first movement “the unusual feature of beginning on the leading note of the scale.”[5] Daniel Chua (1995, p. 113) points out that this creates “rhythmic ambivalence”, especially when the two motives combine in bar 5: “In this way, as the two patterns interlock a gentle tension is induced by the differing rhythmic currents and admits the possibility of two contradictory metrical interpretations.”[6][7] The trio adds to parts of his Alemande WoO 81 (also in A major) an A pedal note (first on the first violin and then on the other instruments) that creates a sound atmosphere reminiscent of old or popular music played on bagpipes or hurdy-gurdies.

He thus headed the third movement with the words, "Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart" ("Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode").

Beethoven's sketches show that this theme was originally meant for an instrumental conclusion to the Ninth Symphony, but was abandoned for the now famous choral ending.

There is a sort of heavenly or at least more than human gaiety about some of his later things which one imagines might come to oneself as the fruit of reconciliation and relief after immense suffering; I should like to get something of that into verse before I die.