Unv. 9 – Hess 48 – Allegretto in E‑flat major for Piano, Violin, and Cello (Kafka Sketchbook, 1790–1792)

Published by Jack Werner in London (Elkin & Co., 1955) and by Willy Hess in the ninth fascicle of the Supplemente zur Gesamtausgabe (1965). The manuscript is part of the Kafka collection in the British Museum.

We have moved the trio from Hess 48 to Unv. 9, in accordance with the new catalogue of Beethoven’s works, while retaining under Biamonti 8 the fragment of the second movement of this trio.

Origin and Publication: Composed probably between 1790 and 1792 in Bonn. In 1955 Jack Werner published the fragment through Elkin & Co. in London.

The Allegretto, conceived as a minuet with a trio, survives on a single leaf within the miscellany of sketches known as the “Kafka Miscellany.” Beethoven wrote out the minuet section (122 bars) in its entirety, and 13 bars of a piano part for the trio section survive; the notation then breaks off at the end of the page (Biamonti 8).

Joseph Kerman considers the piece to be a movement from a larger work, either unfinished or no longer extant (Kerman/Kafka, vol. 1, p. XV).

The narrowing of the composition date to 1790–1792 is based on papyrological studies by Kerman and Douglas Johnson. Johnson notes, among other things, that sketches for the piano variations WoO 65 can be found on paper of the same type. Beethoven cited these variations in Bonn in 1790/91 (Kerman/Kafka, vol. 2, p. 291; Johnson/Fischhof, vol. 1).

Autograph Score

GB‑Lbl, Add. Mus. 29801 (“Kafka”), page 129.

• Extent: one leaf; two pages of musical text
• Paper: horizontal format, 23–24 × 39 cm, double‑spaced
• Provenance:
  • Arrived at Artaria in Vienna between 1860 and the early 1870s; probably acquired at the 1827 auction
  • Johann Nepomuk Kafka, Vienna
  • Acquired in 1875

Facsimile, description, and transcription: Kerman/Kafka.

First edition of the fragment (1955): Beethoven, Allegretto in E‑flat (hitherto unpublished) for piano, violin, and cello, ed. Jack Werner, London: Elkin & Co. Ltd; New York: Galaxy Music Corporation. Score for piano and two parts.

Bibliography:

• Johnson/Fischhof, vol. 1, p. 251
• Kerman/Kafka

Images: The following images reproduce the originals preserved at the British Library, Miscellanea Kafka, folio 129 recto and folio 129 verso.