Composed in 1800, this work was published two years later under the title ''Grande Sonate'' in order to demonstrate the resumption of an earlier, four-movement sonata model. Beethoven proudly announced to his publisher: ''This sonata is a winner'' - which implied not only both the high technical demands through brilliant, virtuoso passages, but also the sonata's particular musical characteristics. In 1807 a critic judged that the work combined ''in a very original manner brilliance and power, solemnity and poignancy, cheerfulness, pleasantness, and an unsettling and great loftiness''.