it is one of the shortest and most compact of all the beethoven quartets, and shares a tonality (f) with the first and last quartets beethoven published (op. 18, no. 1, and op. 135). in character and key, as well as in the presence of a final frenetic section in the parallel major, it is related to another composition of beethoven's middle period — the overture to his incidental music for goethe's drama "egmont", which he was composing in the same year he was working on this quartet.