1. Allegro
2. Polacca [Polonaise]
3. Largo
4. Theme and Variations: Allegretto

The authorship of this substantial flute sonata remains a mystery. But even if the identity of the composer remains uncertain, its association with Beethoven is genuine enough: a manuscript copy was found among the composer’s papers after his death. This found its way into the manuscript collection of the publisher Artaria and in their catalogue it appears as a ‘Sonata for piano and flute in B flat. Score. Autograph? Unpublished, probably from Beethoven’s early years.’ By 1970, when the Berlin State Library published a catalogue of its Beethoven holdings, the manuscript was described as a ‘fair copy’ and the attribution to Beethoven as ‘doubtful’. Even so, the title page has a note in pencil ‘Sonata fecit di Bethoe’ (i.e. Beethoven). If it is by Beethoven, then it is certainly an early piece, from his time in Bonn, before he moved to Vienna in 1792. The Beethoven scholar Willy Hess argued that Beethoven would not have kept a copy of the work in his library unless he had some sort of personal connection with it. This is a very fair assumption it gets us no closer to establishing the identity of the composer. It may have been by another pupil of Beethoven’s teacher Christian Gottlob Neefe, or by one of Beethoven’s colleagues from the court orchestra in which he played the viola. A further complication is that it might be a transcription of an as-yet-unidentified sonata for violin and piano, something suggested by the unidiomatic flute writing at the very start.  

Whatever the facts about its attribution, the Flute Sonata is a work of considerable charm, with some attractive ideas. In place of a minuet, the second movement is a Polonaise, the slow movement a song-like Largo and the finale a set of variations.