Beethoven - op.109, 110, and 111

[ramseytheii]

In Andras Schiff lectures on Beethoven sonatas, he mentions casually that although the last three were written together, they have different opus numbers. In practice Beethoven had grouped sonatas together under one opus that were written at the same time. Schiff offers no explanation; does anyone have any ideas why Beethoven chose individual numbers for these sonatas?

Walter Ramsey

[gprengel]

I can only assume that each one of these masterworks for Beethoven were so genuine and significant that he didn't want to publish them as a group but as single compositions - like the last quartetts were not published as a group.
Maybe he also did it for financial reasons ...

[Peter]

The last major works Beethoven published as a set (not counting Bagatelles etc) were the 2 cello sonatas Op.102 in 1817. I think he came to regard the practice as out dated.