But, as the slow movement of his Op. 26 Piano Sonata shows, thoughts of expressing a kind of Romantic heroism in his music were in his mind as early as 1800. The Sonata's immediate inspiration was ...

Op. 81a is the only one to have a concrete extra-musical inspiration: the flight from Vienna of his patron the Archduke Rudolph (along with the entire nobility and their entourages) in anticipation of ...