Original manuscript of first movement

Georg Abraham Schneider was born in Darmstadt (19 April 1770) and was a horn virtuoso as well as an oboist and conductor. As a composer he was considered to be proficient and competent, writing a considerable number of works (well over 300 survive). After a period in the Darmstadt Court Orchestra he moved to Rheinsberg and thence to Berlin in 1803 where he was employed as a horn player in the Royal Court Orchestra. Schneider remained in Berlin for he rest of his life, dying there in 1839. During his time in Berlin became Royal Musical Director and Kapellmeister of the Royal Prussian Orchestra as well as a tutor at the Royal Academy of Berlin.

His prolific output includes many wind works, including ones for horn as well as flute, oboe and mixed ensemble concerti. He wrote eighteen quartets for bassoon and strings. The original manuscripts are held by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv and are presented in three sets: Mus.ms.autogr.G.A.Schneider 72 M, 73M and 74M. When they were written is unclear but the first volume was written before 1808 when the Andr edition of Vol. 1 No. 1 was published. The three volumes are

The term “volumes” is a convenience for this set of editions. There is no reason to suppose that they had that classification originally.

One point of interest here is that the composer started a quartet intended to be No. 2 (also in G) but abandoned it after 7 bars. Whether he considered the thematic material was insufficiently interesting or it was for some other reason is unknown. See the examples above for this discarded material.