Beethoven, Ludwig van.

An extraordinary working manuscript, containing new material for one of Beethoven’s most revolutionary and forward-looking works, an important new source completely unknown to twentieth-century and earlier Beethoven scholars, lost since it appeared in an auction catalogue in 1890,



Laid out in score, written in brown and black ink, sometimes over pencil, later annotations in pencil and red crayon, some added as proof corrections, on ten-stave paper, the staves frequently extended into the margins by the composer, extensively revised and altered by the composer, written on various paper-types, with tile "Overtura", thousands of deletions, corrections, revisions, deep erasures (through scratching out) and smudged alterations, several pages pasted over the original or affixed with sealing-wax, fingering added in one place, paginated in another hand, four gatherings numbered by the composer (1-4), the flyleaf annotated by previous owners, including by the publisher Tobias Haslinger: “Beethovens Handschrift Herrn Grafen von Alberti zur freundlichen Erinnerung an Tobias Haslinger”, and by Count Alberti: “à Madlle. Brisson Alberti Milano 27/2/[18]57”, with printed ex libris of Luigi Arrigoni, Milan



80 pages plus one opened paste-down (1 page), oblong folio, c.24.5 x 30.5cms, [Vienna, summer 1826]; early nineteenth-century (c.1830s) orange papered-boards, with overlaid green, brown, blue and gold floral design on treated paper or fabric and label (“Beethoven Grande Tugue [sic] á quatre mains Oeuvre 134 Manuscrit original”),  a little browning and staining, a few tiny holes at Beethoven's heavier erasures, otherwise in good condition, spine a little rubbed; bound with a first edition of the work: Grande Fugue tantôt libre, tantôt recherché pour 2 Violons, Alte & Violoncelle Oeuvre 133 De Louis Van Beethoven dediée avec la plus profonde veneration à Son Altesse Imperiale &c Royale Eminentissime Monseigneur le cardinal Rodlphe Archiduc d’Autriche, Prince de Hongrie et de Bohême, Prince-Archevêque d’Ollmütz &c.&c. Grande Croix de l’Ordre hongrois de Saint Etienne &c.&c. et arrangée pour le Pianoforte à quatre mains par L’Auteur Même Oeuvre 134: Vienna, Matthias Artaria, Kohlmarkt 258, [1827], 31 pages, oblong folio, 24.5 x 32cms, engraved throughout, plate number 878



 

1) Franz Gräffer (auction, 28 January 1839), to Tobias Haslinger, Vienna; 2) Graf von Alberti; 3) Mme. Brisson, Milan (1857); 3) Luigi Arrigoni, Milan (bookplate); 4) Hotel Drouot, Paris, 5/7 May 1890; 5) Liepmannssohn, Berlin, 13 October 1890 (Lot 163); 6) William Howard Doane, Cincinnati; 7) Marguerite Treat Doane; 8) Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia (1950). 

This is an astounding and important discovery: one which raises many new questions about one of Beethoven’s most striking and forward-looking works, the Grosse Fuge. The extent of Beethoven’s working and reworking on the manuscript suggests that the composer accorded it great significance and leads to the suggestion that he may have given the four-hand version equal standing with the better-known quartet version.

It is a major source for one of Beethoven’s greatest compositions and contains new material.

It has been unavailable for study during the great era of Beethoven studies.

It is the longest and most substantial autograph of Beethoven to appear on the market, possibly since it was last offered for sale in 1890.

It is the only manuscript of the Grosse Fuge ever likely to appear on the market.

It is the only piano version of a major work made by Beethoven and is one of his few compositions for piano duet.