The earliest version of the "core melody"[5] that became known in 1973 was notated by Beethoven in 1808 in a sketchbook for the Pastorale. Some pages that were removed from the sketchbook today form the autograph Mus. ms. autograph. Beethoven Landsberg 10 of the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin. The melody that can be clearly identified as the core of the Piano Piece WoO 59,[2] can be found in lines 6 and 7 of page 149. It is a monophonic, sixteen-bar melody that differs from later versions especially in the upbeats of the middle section and in the final turns of bars 7 and 15 as well as by the absence of the two-bar organ point on E.[2] Beethoven took up this melody again in 1810, modified it and added further parts to it. This happened in Beethoven's manuscript BH 116[6] and presumably also in the autograph that came to Babette Bredl and that was copied by Ludwig Nohl and published for the first time in 1867.[7][8]

In BH 116, three work phases can be identified: A first transcription in 1810, corrections to it from 1810 and an arrangement from 1822. The arrangement from 1822 had the goal of bringing the piano piece into a version suitable for publication. It was to form the conclusion of a cycle of bagatelles as No. 12. However, this plan was not carried out.[9] In 1822, Beethoven entitled the piano piece "molto grazioso". He shifted the accompanying figures of the A section in the left hand by a sixteenth to the right and thereby relieved the beginning of the bar. In addition, he moved some of the accompanying figures to a lower register and thus expanded the sound.[10] In part B, Beethoven returned to a melodically and rhythmically more complicated version that had been discarded in 1810. He did not leave the presumed overall structure of the piano piece completely untouched and added four previously unused measures as a transition to part B. On the other hand, he deleted four introductory measures notated in 1822 that fit the A part.[11] In the instruction for the recapitulation of the last recurring part A, he wrote "una corda," which may refer to this part itself or only to the newly designed, three-bar, probably chordally conceived, but only unanimously notated ending.[12] Beethoven did not produce a complete version as a result of the 1822 editing.[13][14]