Biamonti 723 – Wordless Canon (sketch), mid-March 1820.

It is found in a conversation book (ILTE Notebook, page 357), as reported by Schünemann. The same scholar notes that it could also be read in A major. It is easy to see how this fragment corresponds to the middle phrase of the Abendlied WoO 150: “Wenn die Sterne prächtig schimmern, tausend Sonnenstraßen flimmern” (When the stars shimmer splendidly, a thousand sun-paths flicker).

The fragment is located in Conversation Book No. 8, on folio 89-recto.

It is uncertain whether this fragment can be classified among Beethoven’s canons, but it could easily be sung (or played) as a two-voice canon. With some liberty, it could even be considered a mirror canon. Since Beethoven did not indicate any key, and given the similarity to the Lied WoO 150 Abendlied (also from March 1820), a version in A major has also been prepared. In his article on Beethoven’s canons, PseudoKanons und Rätselkanons von Beethoven, Misch does not mention this fragment.