All notes are taken from the book/catalogue of the Heyer Museum (Musikhistorischen Museum von Wilhelm Heyer, Catalogue, Cologne 1916, Part IV, Musik-Autographen, No. 215, pp. 164–167). The collection is now dispersed; many parts are in private hands. The copy consulted is preserved at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. We thank Luigi Bellofatto for his research. The pencil annotations, which often correct Georg Kinsky’s editorial choices, are by Max Unger, a noted Beethoven scholar, particularly of the composer’s manuscripts held at the former Library of the Paris Conservatoire.
Page 164: No. 215. Sketch Sheets. Untitled.
The sketches, all written in ink and probably dating from 1807 or early 1808 (see below), primarily contain drafts for the piano fantasy (Opus 77, editor’s note) and are to be understood as a framework or preparation for a public improvisation (see p. 167). The musical text is interspersed with various kinds of commentary, which Beethoven wrote as soliloquies while composing. Two paired double sheets, five in total, each consisting of two sheets with eight lines, in horizontal format, approx. 22.5 × 31.5 cm, with eight pages of musical text, some of which are only partially filled.
Page 1, lines 1–4: Two apparently related piano sketches, each four bars long.
No. 1 (C minor, see example Biamonti 445 A).
See the thematically related C minor theme on page 5 of the manuscript, page 166 of this catalogue.
No. 2: A harmonically interesting modulation from A-flat major to G major.
Page 2, lines 1–3: A note written in large red pencil letters:
“Violoncello in regard / to the leaps etc. / Harmony”
This memo likely refers to the Cello Sonata in A major, Op. 69, whose composition was completed in the first half of 1808 (Thayer, vol. III, p. 113).
Page 3, lines 1–2: A four-bar closing formula (cadence) in G minor (3/8 time), annotated for piano.
Lines 3–4: “Fugue / C-sharp minor,” the beginning of six bars of a fugue for string quartet or a piano theme in the bass, with a response (G-sharp minor) in the third voice.
Page 165:
The central portion of these sketches is used in a slightly altered version of the second of the four different settings in which Beethoven set Goethe’s poem Sehnsucht (WoO 145). The sketch apparently shows the initial form in which Beethoven conceived the Lied’s melody. The final manuscript is held at the Berlin Library. Alongside these appear sketches for the Symphony in C minor, which Nottebohm discusses in his Zweite Beethoveniana (p. 528ff).
The four melodies of the Mignon song were ready for publication by early March 1808 (Thayer, vol. III, p. 115); the first composition appeared in April as a supplement to the third issue of the journal Prometheus, edited by J. L. Stoll. The others were published together with the first under the title Die Sehnsucht von Göthe mit vier Melodien nebst Clavierbegleitung, and later in September 1810 by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir zu Wien und Pesth (Nottebohm, thematic catalogue p. 181; Thayer, vol. III, p. 251).
Between the first and second drafts of Sehnsucht, the following four-line note was hastily written by Beethoven on this manuscript page:
“for Sessi now written for the concert / needs nothing more than a symphony – / this one continues for Weinmüller / and Vogel a duet written”
This note perhaps refers to one of the ‘Akademien für die öffentlichen Wohltätigkeitsanstalten im Theater an der Wien’, in which Beethoven participated several times during 1807/08—for example, conducting on 15 November 1807 his Fourth Symphony, the Coriolan Overture, and a piano concerto (Thayer, vol. III, p. 78). It was at these concerts that the Symphonies in C minor and the Pastoral, the Piano Concerto in G major, and the Choral Fantasy were first performed.
Sessi refers to the excellent soprano Maria Theresia Sessi, who died on 12 March 1812. She took part in the concert held at the Vienna Court Opera Theatre, where Carl Czerny performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in E-flat major for the first time in Vienna.
The singers Weinmüller and Vogl were among the most distinguished members of the Imperial Court Opera.
Carl Friedrich Clemens Weinmüller (born 1764 in Dillingen, died 1828 in Döbling near Vienna) was a bass and member of the court orchestra from 1798.
Johann Michael Vogl (born 1768 in Steyr, died 1840 in Vienna), a close friend and follower of Franz Schubert, was a baritone in the court orchestra from 1794 to 1822 (Thayer, vol. III, p. 409ff).
Page 166:
Page 5. At the top of this page (lines 1–2) is the following note:
“One truly improvises only when one pays no attention / to what one is playing, so — one would / also improvise best and most truly in public — / by surrendering freely to whatever / pleases one.”
To illustrate this, so to speak, follow (lines 3–6) two piano sketches:
- C minor, 4/4, “all° / non molto” (6 bars): Biamonti 445 B.
Then the beginning of a theme in E major (two bars with “da capo”): Biamonti 445 C.
Page 6. Various other piano passage sketches (E-flat major), reminiscent of the passages at the end of the first movement of the Piano Concerto in E-flat major, written in 1809.
At the bottom of the page:
“Lied varied / at the end / Fugue and / ended with pianissimo / in this manner every fantasy sketched / and subsequently performed in the theatre.”
Page 7. At the top of the page:
“On other occasions, have the theme given / written, and immediately varied.”
Below (lines 2–5) is a three-bar piano passage in E-flat major (cf. page 6 of the manuscript), with the note “(in concert always in two)”.
This is followed by the note:
“read through all the opera books and sometimes apply suitable texts / to a song to be varied, such as ‘farewell’ or similar from parting / when one is leaving somewhere. Since probably nothing / is to be hoped for, arrange it so that during Lent you give one or two / subscription concerts at Jan’s — and then / in God’s name onward. Tomorrow written to Dietrichstein regarding…”
Page 167:
Beethoven’s monologue regarding the concerts “at Jan’s” refers to the Hoftraiteurs, the Jahn brothers, who owned a ballroom and concert hall in the Himmelpfortgasse and sought to persuade Beethoven to organize concerts there.
Page 8. The final page of the manuscript also contains (lines 1, 2, 4–7) sketches for a piano fantasy in E-flat major; before bar 4 is written “deep / simple bass” (in bars 1 and 6 for the right hand: cadential scales “pp: dolce”), the notes for the left hand are: Biamonti 445 D.
The following pages will be treated separately under Biamonti 476 – Unused Sketch for the Final Movement of Opus 73, early 1809.
