Biamonti 489 – Quintet in Homage to Bach (Sketch), 1809

Included in the group of sheets described by Nottebohm (Zweite Beethoveniana II, pages 268–269). Landsberg Notebook No. 5 (see footnote), page 75. Reported as follows.

New observations by the Beethoven Music Research Center (2024): This sketch is located in Landsberg 5, page 75, staves 2 to 6. It actually consists of three sketches in D major, intended for the preparation of a fugue (or fugato)—a project that was later abandoned—in homage to the genius of J. S. Bach, whose compositional techniques Beethoven had assimilated from a young age by studying the fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

• In the first sketch, we see the fugue theme.
• In the second, the counter-subject (“Contratheme” as Beethoven writes).
• In the third, a study of modulating stretti, possibly intended as a divertimento in F-sharp minor.

Notably, in the third sketch, the modulation begins with the first entry in F-sharp minor, while the second and third entries are in C-sharp minor (the relative minor of the dominant’s dominant of D major). Nottebohm writes in his Zweite Beethoveniana (p. 268): “Ansätze zu einem figurierten Stück mit einer Überschrift, ‘Denkmal Johan [sic] Sebastian Bachs Quintett’ ‘nach und nach geschwindere 32tel contratheme’ aus der hervorzugehen scheint, dass Beethoven die Absicht hatte, ein Quintett zur Huldigung Bach’s zu schreiben.” (“Initial attempts at a figured piece with the title ‘Monument to the Quintet of Johan [sic] Sebastian Bach’ – ‘Counter-theme gradually faster in 32nd notes’, from which it appears that Beethoven intended to write a quintet in homage to Bach.”)