Beethoven, Ludwig van.

containing a passage from the second movement ["Allegro molto"], in the Trio section in D flat major, notated in pencil for piano on two systems per page, the staves extended into the margins, with deletions, cues and alterations, comprising about twenty-three bars of music in all, without dynamics or tempo markings



2 pages, (c. 9.5 x 31cms), on a 4-stave strip cut from a larger leaf, with a marking in ink, no date, [Vienna, probably around late 1821], cut along the top edge, some dust and minor staining

William Drabkin, 'The Songs and the Sketches for the Allegro Molto from Beethoven's Op.110', in Beethoven Forum, 14/1 (2007), 14-73 (specifically pp.52-69)
L. v Beethoven, Klaviersonate As-Dur opus 110, [facsimile of the autograph manuscript], edited by Karl Michael Komma (1967)

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Unpublished: This is an unknown and unrecorded manuscript for Beethoven's penultimate piano sonata, one of his greatest works for keyboard.

Although only a fragment from a larger leaf, the contents make this manuscript a spectacular one: it contains a draft of the jagged line of descending quavers, "surely the most striking feature of the Trio in its final form" (Drabkin, p.68), together with the syncopated leaps and hand-crossing in the bass that accompany them.  The rhythm at the beginning of the descending quavers differs from the final version and the known sketches for this passage.

The first side of the leaf includes an early draft of bars 66 to 72, with extra bars later pruned during Beethoven's compositional process. The music on the reverse side of the leaf is from the same part of the movement, but harder to align with the final version.  It appears to relate to bars 62ff and may be an earlier version of the same music as on the recto. 

Beethoven initially composed this sonata both in a sketchbook in his study and in a pocket-sized book that he carried around with him in Vienna.  However, the desk sketchbook (Mus. ms. autogr. Beethoven Artaria 197 in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin -- Preussischer Kulturbesitz) contains only one sketch for this second movement; most of the work was done in a "Pocket Sketchbook for Late 1821" (now reconstructed from the separate leaves of Paris, BN, Ms 51, Ms 80 & Ms 99). The Paris book contains several early drafts for the D flat Trio in triplets (an implied 6/8 time), but only the last of these sketches contains this distinctive descending quaver figuration (Drabkin, p.66): it is far less dramatic and spectacular than the present version, pitched much lower and featuring neither the syncopated bass line nor the hand-crossing.  The only sketch in the Berlin sketchbook (Drabkin, p. 53; Komma, p.12), contains the off-beat left-hand part and the contrasts of pitch, but is fragmentary and incomplete. This passage continued to give Beethoven trouble in his final manuscript of the sonata: there are two sheets pasted down and further sketches at this point in the complete autograph.

It is unlikely that the present leaf belonged to either sketchbook; it has no stitching holes or obvious similarity of paper.  As the hitherto known sources leave obvious gaps in our knowledge of the composition process for the Trio, Professor Drabkin suggests that Beethoven used other pocket leaves, or a small gathering, "in which the hand-crossing and registral play were worked out".  With its dramatic leaps and hand-crossing, the present sketchleaf would seem to belong to this missing part of the creative process.