Foreword
A bibliographical note
This catalogue lists all of Beethoven’s completed works, published or unpublished, together with fragments, notes and musical ideas found in letters, album leaves, sketchbooks and conversation notebooks known to date — excluding, of course, material that is clearly identifiable as preparatory work for the pieces mentioned. It also includes compositions of doubtful authenticity and plans for stage works, cantatas, oratorios, and similar projects.
Each entry provides essential information: dates, editions and references to other catalogues, along with details useful for placing the work within the historical and aesthetic context of Beethoven’s output. You will find expositions, commentary, comparisons, cross-references to other works, and notes on interpretations or critical approaches of varying prominence.
Given the author’s renown, we have chosen to make an exceptional reference to Arnold Schering’s interpretations. In publications from the first half of the twentieth century Schering argued that many of Beethoven’s compositions were inspired or shaped by episodes from certain poetic or dramatic works, classical or modern. These readings often seem arbitrary or overly personal: they rest tenuously on a few phrases attributed to Beethoven or on not always reliable indications from acquaintances such as Schindler and Czerny, and they attempt to identify in the music minute correspondences with gestures, phrases, words, or specific dramatic or descriptive moments. It is possible that reading and reflecting on the works Schering mentions — or others — provided fertile ground for Beethoven’s imagination; nevertheless, reducing music in its developed reality to a conjectural origin in another art, and explaining its formation and course by the logic of that art, always appears to us limiting and contrary to a free and deeper understanding of music itself.
For sketches and fragments we relied on the classic studies by Nottebohm, Nohl, De Roda and Shedlock, and on complete editions of Beethoven’s notebooks edited by Mikulicz and Schmitz; more recently we used work by Prof. Joseph Schmidt-Görg and Dr. Dagmar Weise of the Beethovenhaus and Dr. Nathaniel Fishman of the Glinka Museum in Moscow. The calligraphic preparation of the musical examples for the clichés is the work of Maestro Lorenzo Tolu of Rome.
We are especially grateful to Prof. Willy Hess of Winterthur for the information and interest he showed in our work. We also remember with gratitude Max Unger, Donald W. MacArdle and Hans Halm, who passed away in recent years, and the dear Ludwig Misch, who died suddenly on 22 April 1967.
Our affectionate and grateful thoughts go to Avv. Fortunato Postiglione, CEO of I.L.T.E. in Turin, an ardent promoter of this project who died prematurely before its completion.
The work was neither short nor easy, and we do not claim to be free from shortcomings. We trust, however, in the kind reception of enthusiasts and scholars.
Rome, summer 1968
Giovanni Biamonti
A) Works cited on the website pages
with abbreviations.
A. = Anderson Emily, le lettere di Beethoven, Torino, Ilte, 1968.
B. = Bruers Antonio, Beethoven – catalogo storico-critico di tutte le opere, Roma, Bardi, 1951.
B.J. = Beethoven Jahrbuch (Mies – Schmidt Görg), Bonn, Beethovenhaus: I (1953-1954), II (1955-1956), III (1957-1958), IV (1959-1960), V (1961-1964, published in 1966).
Boett. = Boettcher Hans, Beethoven als Liederkomponist, Augsburg, Benno Filsere Verlag, 1928.
Der. = De Roda Cecilio, Un quaderno di autografi di Beethoven del 1825, Torino, Bocca, 1907.
D. W. F. = Weise Dagmar, Beethoven. Ein Skizzenbuch zu Chorfantasie op. 80 und zu anderen Werke, Bonn, Beethovenhaus, 1957.
D. W. P. = id. id., Beethoven. Ein Skizzenbuch zu Pastoral Symphonie op. 68 und zu den Trios op. 70 nn. 1 u. 2, Bonn, Beethovenhaus, 1961.
Fish. = Fishman Nathaniel, Beethoven’s Sketchbook of 1802-1803 (Wielhorsky Manuscript), complete publication, in facsimile and print, with commentaries, Russian edition, Moscow, 1962. (See also Beethoveniana in Soviet Russia, by Boris Schwarz in The Musical Quarterly, January 1961.)
G.A. = Ludwig van Beethovens, Werke, vollständige kritish durchgesehene überall berechtigte Ausgabe (Gesamtausgabe), Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, serie 1-24, 1864-1867; serie 25 (Supplemen.), 1888.
H. = Hess Willy, Verzeichniss der nicht in der Gesamtausgabe veröffentlichten Werke Ludwig van Beethovens, Wiesbaden, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1957.
K.H. = Kinsky Georg e Halm Hans, Das Werk Beethovens, bibliographisches Verzeichniss, München-Duisburg, G. Henle Verlag, 1955.
L. = Lenz (De) Wilhelm, Kritischer Katalog sämmtlicher Werke Ludwig van Beethovens mit Analysen derselben (I: op. 1-20; II: op. 21-55; III: op. 56-100; IV: op. 101-138 und die Werke ohne Opuszahl), Hamburg, Hoffmann u. Campe, 1860.
M. = Misch Ludwig, Beethoven-Studien, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 1950.
M.A. = id. id. e Donald MacArdle, Beethoven- Studies, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1953,
M. A.L. = Misch Ludwig e MacArdlc Donald W., New Beethovens Letters, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1957.
Mik. = Mikulicz Karl L., Ein Notierungsbuch von Beethoven, Leipzig, Breitkopf e Härtel, 1927.
M. I. = Shedlock J. S., Beethoven’s Sketch Books, in The Musical Times, 1892-1894.
M.U. = Unger Max, Die Beethovenhandschriften der Pariser Konservatoriumsbibliothek, in N.B.J., VI, 1935.
M.U.S. = id. id., Eine Schweizer Beethovensammlung, Zürich, Verlag der Corona, 1939.
M.U.W. = Unger Max, Die Beethoven handschriften der Familie W. (Wittgenstein) in Wien, in N.B.J., VII, 1937.
N. = Nottebohm Gustav, Ludwig van Beethoven: Thematisches Verzeichnis, Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1932.
N., I. = id. id., Beethoveniana, Leipzig, Peters, 1872.
N., II. = id. id., Zweite Beethoveniana, Leipzig, Peters, 1887.
N., Sk., I = Nottebohm Gustav, Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven (1801-1802), Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1865 (P. Mies, 1924).
N., Sk., II = id. id., Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven, aus dem Jahre 1803, Leipzig, Breitkopf e Härtel, 1880 (reprinted by P. Mies, 1924).
N., St. = id. id., Beethovens Studien, Leipzig u. Winterthur, Rieder-Biedermann, 1873.
N.B.J. = Neues Beethoven Jahrbuch (Sandberger): I (1924), II (1925), III (1927), IV (1930): Augsburg, Benno Filser; V (1933), VI (1935). VII (1937), VIII (1938), IX (1939): Braunschweig, LitolfFs Verlag; X (1942): Augsburg, Reichel u. Sohn.
P. = Prod’homme Jacques Gabriel, La jeunesse de Beethoven (catalogo), Paris, Delagrave, 1927.
P. Quad., = id. id., Les cahiers de Beethoven (1819- 1827)(Summary compendium, compiled from various sources), Paris, Correa, 1946.
Quad. = Schünemann Georg, Quaderni di conversazione di Beethoven, Ilte, Torino, 1968.
Rolland, Ep. = Rolland Romain, Beethoven, les grandes epoques creatrices, Paris, Editions du Sablier: I, De l’ Eroica à l’ Appassionata (1928) – II, Goethe et Beethoven (1930) -III, La Messe solemnelle et les dernieres sonates (1937) – IV, La Neuvieme Symphonie (1943) – V, Finita comoedia (1945) – VI, Les aimées de Beethoven (1949).
Sch. = Schiedermair Ludwig, Der junge Beethoven. First edition: Leipzig,Quelle u. Meyer, 1925; second edition: Weimar, II. Bohlaus, Nachf., 1939; third edition: Bonn, F. Dümmler, 1949.
Schm. = Schmitz Arnold, Beethoven, unbekannte Skizzen und Entwürfe, Bonn, Beethoven-haus, 1924.
T. = Thayer Alexander Wheelock, Chronologisches Verzeichniss der Werke L.v. Beethovens, Berlin, Schneider, 1865.
Th. R. = Thayer Alexander Wheelock, Deiters Hermann, Riemann Hugo, Ludwig van Beethovens Leben, Leipzig, Breitkopf e Härtel: I, 1917; II, 1922; III, IV, V, 1923.
B) Other works cited
on the site pages

