Sketchbooks – Fischhof miscellany
Joseph Fischhof (Bučovice, April 4, 1804 – Vienna, June 28, 1857) was a Czech-Austrian pianist, composer, and professor at the Vienna Conservatory of Music, belonging to the Romantic school. Initially intending to become a physician, he later studied music and composition with Ignaz von Seyfried (we find Ignaz Xavier Ritter von Seyfried as Beethoven’s teacher and friend on , where the site presents his Treatise on Harmony and Composition from 1833). In 1833, Fischhof became a piano professor at the Vienna Conservatory.
He published several literary works on music and was a collector of Beethoven scores and manuscripts, which have proven extremely useful to biographers and scholars studying the Master’s creative process, such as Gustav Nottebohm.
He came into possession of a folder of Beethoven documents and sketches thanks to Jacob Hotchevar, which had previously been considered lost and later became known as the “Fischhof Manuscript,” presented here.
Among his students was George Lichtenstein. (Translation from Wikipedia)
Above: the canonical lithograph of Fischhof and an autograph letter in my possession from the Fischhof–Hellmsberger correspondence.
Below: two pages from the miscellanea, showing how manuscripts were amputated to create framed pieces to gift to Beethoven’s friends and followers. The dispersal of these pages (now subject to the most careful preservation) was a rather common practice throughout the 19th century.
Fischhof Miscellanea: Minuet for Orchestra in D Minor
Original sketch and piano version by Graziano Denini and free orchestration by Albert Willem Holsbergen
Fischhof Miscellanea: Minuet for Orchestra in D Minor
Original sketch and piano version by Graziano Denini, with free orchestration by Albert Willem Holsbergen
Minuet and Trio in D Minor. The sketch dates to around 1790–1792, during Beethoven’s final years in Bonn, or possibly shortly after his move to Vienna. The music paper corresponds to that used for the Lamentations of Jeremiah (see on our site).
The Minuet appears on the third page of autograph 28, the so-called “Fischhof Miscellanea,” a collection of sketches dating from before 1800, held by the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, as stated by Dr. Douglas Johnson in his thesis. (We include an image of the original sketch on this page.)
The piano sketch is fairly complete: the bass line is missing in some measures—not many—so Graziano Denini’s version is not so much a reconstruction as a reasonable completion.
The piece is presented here for piano, faithful to the manuscript, in the Graziano version, and in the rather free and fascinating orchestral reconstruction by Albert Willem Holsbergen.
Technical and Musical Details by Graziano Denini
Upon close analysis of the manuscript, now finally available, the sketch of the Minuet in D minor appears complete for both the right and left hands. My only addition is the harmonization of the E in the right hand of measure 7.
Dynamics and slurs are not indicated, so one must follow personal taste.
In measure 22 of the Minuet, before a conspicuous deletion (probably a repeat sign), we find two small notes (F–C) in the left hand leading to a repetition of the final phrase. This repetition is written only once, with a slur over the two measures, followed by a series of repeat dots that I interpreted as “play twice.” Beethoven probably intended to end the second repeat at measure 22 but, realizing the ending was weak, added the remaining 7 measures, which are decidedly more conclusive.
After such a well-harmonized Minuet follows a very sparse Trio with an 8-measure theme, repeated. Beethoven writes out all 16 bars of the theme in the first part of the Trio.
It consists of two measures of descending scales without harmony, followed by two measures of harmonized cadences. Personally, I did not find it appropriate to add harmonies to the descending scales, as this creates a “empty–full” effect that I find very interesting.
In measures 11–12, the cadence is not harmonized, but it is identical to that in measures 5–6. The first repeat ends with a double repetition of the final cadence in A minor.
The second repeat mirrors the structure of the first, except that the initial 8 measures are not repeated. I—this is my personal choice—considered this an oversight and, to make the structure of the two repeats more homogeneous, decided to repeat those 8 measures.
My final modification to the manuscript is in the fourth-to-last measure of the Trio: Beethoven does not indicate the sharp on the C in the right hand, although it appears in the repetition two measures later. I believe this is also an oversight, especially since the minor–major effect is not present in the first repeat and doesn’t sound quite right.
