On June 18, 1794, eighteen months after he had arrived in Vienna, Beethoven wrote a letter to his friend in Bonn, Nikolaus Simrock. As well as playing the horn in the court orchestra, Simrock had for some years run a business selling a variety of goods, including carpets, books, stationery, and wine. Music came to be a central feature in his life, with Simrock offering his services as a copyist and as a seller of publications from elsewhere in Europe and of musical instruments. The previous year he had expanded his business to include the engraving of printed music, tentative beginnings of an accelerating process that was to make Simrock one of Europe's leading music publishers. Beethoven had heard from his brother Carl, that Simrock was planning to engrave the composer's Eight Variations on a Theme by Count Waldstein (WoO 67), and Beethoven was irritated that he had not been consulted, pointing out that it might have compromised any plans he had to offer the work to Artaria in Vienna. More constructively, Beethoven suggested to Simrock that he should think about having an agent in Vienna to sell his forthcoming publications: “If so, I would willingly undertake to recommend to you one whom I know to be a first-rate man.”

Two months later, on August 2, the subject matter emerged in a second letter to Simrock. Beethoven had agreed that Simrock could, after all, publish the variations: he had read the proofs, was very complimentary about the quality of the engraving, and promised some further compositions. In addition he wrote, “Regarding an agent [Commissionaire] I have looked around and have found a really excellent and capable man. His name is Traeg. All you have to do is to write to him, or to me, indicating the terms you would like. He requires a discount of a third from you.”

In many ways Johann Traeg was the obvious choice. He was the leading music dealer in Vienna, selling manuscript performing parts and printed music from dedicated premises in the Singerstrasse in the inner city.