Beethoven was reluctant to comment on his own music. His friends often took serious pains trying to direct the conversation towards this or that opus, but even when successful, they usually received a new riddle instead of the coveted “key” (for example, he advised Schindler to read Shakespeare’s “Tempest”, which allegedly clarified the contents of Sonata No.17 and “Appassionata”). We don’t know any Beethoven’s direct remarks regarding the music of Sonatas op.2. However, once, in conversation with the flute virtuoso Louis Drouet, he referred to his early compositions in the following words: “They were printed differently from what I had written. When I looked at my manuscripts a couple of years after having finished them, I wondered whether I was crazy to cram into one piece the material enough for twenty. I burned the manuscripts so that no one could see them”. It is not known which compositions Beethoven referred to, but it is worth noting that the autographs of Sonatas op.2 do not survive. It is unlikely the composer meant them, though: scholars agree that the sonatas were finished in 1794–95, and in spring of 1796 the Wiener Zeitung announced their publication at Artaria. The author, apparently, could not keep the autograph for several years and then review it before the first publication. But the quoted phrase rouses a not-quite-typical question about this music: how much was put into this music?