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.

In the winter of 1837, Franz Liszt organized a series of chamber concerts at the Salle Erard to showcase Beethoven’s Trios for Piano, Violin, and Cello. Liszt would play the piano part, of course, joined by violinist Chrétien Urhan, and cellist Alexandre Batta, two of the finest performers of that day.

One of the programs fell on today’s date, and was to feature TWO big piano trios: on the first half, one of Beethoven’s Trios, then, on the second half, a brand new Piano Trio composed 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, followed by the Beethoven. The audience (and critics), following the printed program, warmly applaud the Pixis, mistakenly thinking it was the Beethoven work, 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 Hector Berlioz.