Equali, WoO 30: For 4 trombones

The Three Equals for four trombones, WoO 30 (German: Drei Equale für vier Posaunen), are three short equales (or equali) for trombones by Ludwig van Beethoven. They were commissioned in the autumn of 1812 by the Stadtkapellmeister of Linz, Franz Xaver Glöggl, for performance as tower music on All Souls' Day. They were first performed at the Old Cathedral, Linz on 2 November 1812. Two of the equals (nos. 1 & 3) were performed at Beethoven's funeral on 29 March 1827, both by a trombone quartet and also in vocal arrangements by Ignaz Seyfried. The arrangements of Nos. 1 and 3 by Seyfried are settings for men's voices of two verses from the 'Miserere'. These were sung at the funeral, alternating with the trombones. The remaining Equal, no. 2 (again arranged by Seyfried for male voice choir) was sung at the dedication of Beethoven's gravestone on the first anniversary of his death in March 1828. A clean manuscript copy, checked by Beethoven, was made of the original manuscript as part of a complete edition of his work ('Gesamtausgabe') by his Vienna publisher Tobias Haslinger. Although Seyfried's arrangements, published in 1827 and 1829, received public performances and were reprinted in 19th-century books about Beethoven, the original score for trombones wasn't published until 1888 as part of Breitkopf & Härtel's 'old' Beethoven Edition. All three equals were played at the state funerals of W. E. Gladstone and King Edward VII, where one writer remarked on their "tones of weird simplicity and exquisite pathos", and they have become part of the standard trombone repertory.