I've started reading a book by Vikram Seth called *An Equal Music*.
It may be familiar to some here but I had never heard of it and bought
it because its summary in Daedalus' remainder catalog interested me.

In the book, the point of view character, a violinist w/ the Maggiore
Quartet, is surprised to learn from a pupil that Beethoven had set his
own Trio, Opus 1, No. 3 in c minor into a string quintet, also in c
minor, opus 104.  Reading from her *Guide de la Musique de Chambre*, the
pupil translates that, 1817, he re-arranged that trio as a string quintet
after some amateur had done so first.  Beethoven, after expressing "a
humoristical appreciation that the amateur's horrible arrangement was a
quintet in three voices,...made it properly into five voices, and converted
it from a big miserability to a presentable aspect." It turns out that
this little-known work (almost all music store clerks do a double take
when he mentions it) actually exists and in the first 55 pages of the
book he has been able to order a score and even managed to secure a
Supraphon LP recording by the Suk quartet after a fruitless search for
a CD. At this point, I've interrupted my reading and turned to The New
Grove, there to discover that Opus 104 is indeed an arrangement of the
Piano Trio, "composed"in 1817, and that the "arr. [was] corrected by
Beethoven, but largely the work of someone else."

Was there ever such an LP?  Is there currently a CD available?  Are The
New Grove's remarks (it's the 1980 edition) still believed to be correct?
I've only heard the Opus 29.

Walter Meyer