By 1837, the symphonies of Beethoven had become quite popular in Paris. Beethoven had been dead for ten years, but surprisingly, much of his chamber music had yet to be performed publicly in Paris.

So Franz Liszt organized a series of chamber concerts at the Salle Erard to introduce Beethoven’s Piano Trios. Liszt would play the piano part, of course, joined by finest Parisian violinist and cellist available.

One of the programs fell on today’s date in 1837, and was to feature on the first half, one of Beethoven’s Trios, then, on the second half, a brand new Piano Trio by another German composer named Johann Peter Pixis, a contemporary composer whose works Liszt admired.

At the last minute, the performers decided to reverse the printed order of the program, performing the new Pixis Trio first. The audience (and critics), following the printed program, warmly applaud the Pixis, mistakenly thinking it was the Beethoven, and reacted coolly to the Beethoven, assuming it was by Pixis.

Among the many newspaper critics who attended the concert, only one noticed the switch and wrote his review accordingly—and that music critic’s name happened to be a famous composer, Hector Berlioz.