Symphony no. 4 in B-flat major, op. 60

The Fourth was written quickly in 1806, largely during a stay at the Silesian estate of Count Franz von Oppersdorff, who kept his own orchestra and had just paid Beethoven for the right to a new symphony. Oppersdorff received the dedication. Beethoven set aside the C minor symphony he had already begun — the future Fifth — to write this one instead. It opens with a long, harmonically unmoored introduction in the minor before the Allegro breaks in, and the bassoon writing in the finale has been a professional test piece ever since. The premiere was private, in March 1807.