Biamonti 486 – Unused sketches for the Choral Fantasy Opus 80, with the words—ultimately not used—“Hort ihr wohl!” (“Do you hear well!”), and the annotation “Hier erst die Singstimmen” (“Here the voices enter for the first time”). But the idea was later abandoned. (Dagmar Weise, p. 97)

In fact, Biamonti lists his number 486 as the FANTASY in C minor … Op. 80, and proceeds with a lengthy analysis of the entire piece—we have, of course, reported the full dissertation on the dedicated page for the Fantasy Opus 80 —but during Biamonti’s discussion, we encountered this sketch, which we have extracted here and focused on.

Biamonti writes: “At first, Beethoven had considered introducing the vocal section with a few words that would serve as a link between the instrumental and the poetic-vocal part (analogous to what he later did, in a much broader form, in the Ninth Symphony with the bass recitative: ‘O Freunde, nicht diese Töne’ [O friends, not these sounds], etc.). Some sketches show, beneath the fifths used as calls, instead of the initial words of the text, the phrase ‘Hort ihr wohl!’ (‘Do you hear well!’), with the annotation: ‘Hier erst die Singstimmen’ (‘Here the voices enter for the first time’). But the idea was later abandoned.”

The vocal sketch reported by Biamonti is found in Grasnick 3, folio 19r, stave 2. Dagmar Weise, who analyzed the entire Grasnick 3 Sketchbook, identifies the sketch as “zu GA T. 383 ff.” and notes: “dritte bis fünfte untere Note flüchtig, eine Stufe tiefer lesbar.” [“from the third to the fifth lower note, fleeting, readable one step lower.”] Dr. Weise also identifies this sketch as part of the material for the Choral Fantasy Op. 80, specifically for its fifth section, Allegretto, ma non troppo (quasi andante con moto).

Other sketches with the same text are found on folio 28 verso, stave 9 (where we find Beethoven’s original inscription already cited above: “hier erst die Singstimmen”), and on folio 29 verso, staves 5–6 (indicated as “zur Ueberleitung in den 5. Satz, GA T. 362–371.”). We thus see Beethoven’s intention—later definitively abandoned, as Biamonti also writes—reiterated across several sheets, even distant from one another, to introduce this textual bridge before the final choral section.

Antonietta Cappelli remarks: “Beethoven was right to abandon the idea. He begins with four ascending notes for the vocal line and places a homorhythmic voice beneath it, a fifth and a third below; he continues with false polyphony (second stave), leaps an octave, and finally, in the last stave, he plays around with the melismatic ‘i’…”