Sonata for piano and violin (F major) op. 24

Spring' Sonata: flowers, butterflies, gentle sunlight. Many associations come to mind when we hear the nickname of this sonata. Beethoven composed it in 1800 at the same time as the Piano Sonata op. 22 and the Violin Sonata op. 23. We no longer know where its nickname came from. The word 'spring' probably best describes its friendly, mild, affirmative mood. Beethoven first published the sonata with the Sonata op. 23 as 'oeuvre 23', as the title page of the original edition shows. It was only later (a few months after publication) that the two sonatas were separated and assigned different opus numbers. (J.R.)