Sketch for the song “Resignation” for four voices, early 1817, appears alongside sketches for the final movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 101. It was first reported by Nottebohm in Beethoveniana II, p. 352. The manuscript is preserved at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, in Autograph 11-1, on folio 16 verso, the last folio of the notebook, and, according to Nottebohm, extends over the preceding five pages. As he writes in his Zweite Beethoveniana: “Following now (pages 10 to 16) are the sketches for the song ‘Resignation,’ whose gradual approximation and final alignment with the printed form show that the song, probably begun elsewhere, was completed in this sketchbook.”

The notebook itself contains drafts for the same text set for four voices in G major and is preceded by work on the final movement of the Sonata in A major, Op. 101, along with other pieces. These song sketches were likely composed no later than early 1817. Contrary to Nottebohm’s claim, I have not found any additional sketches that can be associated with those described here. Moreover, as Johnson, Tyson, and Winter note in The Beethoven Sketchbooks, no other fragment of this song is found in Autograph 11/1.