When Beethoven visited the director of music at the cathedral in Linz, Franz Xaver Glöggl, in autumn 1812, the latter asked his guest to ''compose socalled Equali for 4 trombones for All Souls’ Day [2 November]''. Beethoven readily complied ╩ and it was to be his own funeral music. For in 1827 the Equali were sung in an arrangement for male choir as a ''dirge for Beethoven’s funeral procession''. The original instrumental version is today a core work in the trombonist’s repertoire. Our Urtext ed