There were several interesting, though domestic and unpublished, examples of Beethoven's wind chamber music among his papers when he died. The Trio in G major for flute, bassoon and cembalo, WoO 37 (1786), for example, was probably written for the Westerholt-Giesenberg family. Friedrich ‘played the bassoon and maintained a fair band among his servants, particularly players of wind instruments;’ one of his sons was a ‘master of the flute’ and his oldest daughter, Maria Anna Wilhelmine, one of the many passing loves of Beethoven's life in Bonn, was a ‘fiery’ pianist, able to play ‘with a rapidity and accuracy that were marvellous’. As in the Figaro Variations, material is shared equally, with brilliant virtuoso passages for all three instruments in turn, not least in the finale, a theme and variations – a most engaging party piece. The Duo in two movements for two flutes, WoO 26, is a more modest affair; before he finally left Bonn for Vienna in 1792, Beethoven composed it for Johann Degenhart, who had presented him with a farewell album containing the good wishes of his many friends there.

The history of the Wind Octet in E flat major, op. 103 (1792), is extraordinary. Soon after his arrival in Vienna Beethoven recomposed it as a string quintet (see Chapter 12), and included it among his ‘more important works’ as op. 4. He then seems to have forgotten the original Octet, which was published posthumously as op. 103. The principal chamber works for wind – the Quintet for Piano and Wind, op. 16, the Clarinet Trio, op. 11, the Septet, op. 20, and the Serenade for flute, violin and viola, op. 25 – are discussed in detail in Chapter 9.

After completing the Serenade in 1801, however, Beethoven gave up composing chamber music for wind altogether, offering some of his earlier compositions to publishers only when he was short of funds. As a result they appear with confusingly high opus numbers; the Wind Sextet, op. 71, for example, was probably composed in 1796, but published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1810. ‘It is one of my early works’, Beethoven explained apologetically. ‘What is more, it was composed in one night.