Bagatelles, Opus 126 (Beethoven)

Beethoven's last work for his own instrument, the piano, is a set of six bagatelles. They do not make the virtuosic demands of most of the other piano work of Beethoven's late period, standing instead as a minor work for the amateur. They are not, however, without musical interest: the third, particularly, is a more substantial work than many of Beethoven's sonata movements (one critic has said that the harmonically still second section gives one the impression that Beethoven is trying to exorcise the famous Ode to Joy theme); and the figurations in the slow fourth piece are reminiscent of the slow movement of the Hammerklavier sonata.