The inventor is unknown, but Beethoven seems to have been the first to make any considerable use of it.

He used the chord in such a way that, in spite of its current use to-day, in his works it appears like something new and strange.

This chord imposes its characteristics on the second _motif_ of the first part of the _Symphony in C minor_.

This is what gives such amazing charm to the long colloquy between the flute, the oboe and the clarinets, which always surprises and arouses the listener, in the _andante_ of the same symphony.

Fetis in his _Traite d'Harmonie_ inveighed against this delightful passage.