© Copyright 2005/2026 of the Centro Ricerche Musicali Beethoveniane (C.R.M.B.) www.lvbeethoven.it – Managers, co-authors, reviewers and curators: Luigi Domenico Bellofatto, Antonietta Cappelli, Graziano Denini, Armando Orlandi and Fiorella Romenzi. Texts, documents, research, scores, mp3, MIDI files and documents are the exclusive property of the Centro Ricerche Musicali Beethoveniane (C.R.M.B.) and their respective authors; therefore, none of these resources may be used or disclosed without the prior written authorization of the owners. The complete list of researchers, performers and collaborators of the Centro Ricerche Musicali is visible on the relevant page. Anyone wishing to contact us for consultation, to obtain a copy of the site’s resources or to collaborate with the Centro Ricerche Musicali Beethoveniane (C.R.M.B.), can make a request using the appropriate contact form. Web publishing: Aruba. Site optimized for mobile devices, tablets and PCs with a resolution of 1920 × 1440 or higher. To provide a better service to users, the site only uses technical cookies, which do not track the visitor or send personal data to third parties. These cookies do not require a prior consent banner: we mention them here anyway.
Beethoven Music Research Center – Works, Sources & Digital Scholarship
About Us – Beethoven Music Research Center
About Us
The Beethoven Music Research Center (Centro Ricerche Musicali Beethoveniane) is a collaborative platform dedicated to the rediscovery, study, and performance of all (mainly the lesser-known) works by Ludwig van Beethoven. Our team includes scholars, musicians, editors, and enthusiasts who share the passion for unveiling the hidden facts of the Master from Bonn.
Below are the profiles of our main contributors:
Luigi Bellofatto
Antonietta Cappelli
Graziano Denini
Armando Orlandi
Co-author of the C.R.M.B., she has transformed the site from an amateur to a professional Beethoven Music Research Center with her expertise, taking care of every literary and legal aspect.
Fiorella Romenzi
Carlo Bianchi
Pierre-Jean Chenevez March 20, 1929 / January 4, 2025
James F. Green
Sandro Lugani
Georges Piriou (September 13, 1958 - June 12, 2025)
Gerd Prengel
Michel Rouch
Roberto Diem Tigani
Thanks also to…
I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all the friends I have met along this journey.
To Dominique Prévot, a dear friend and selfless Beethoven enthusiast, who generously shared his passion with me. Without him, this site would never have come into existence. It was he who encouraged me to embark on an adventure that, at first, I did not even embrace. For this, for his exquisite kindness, his savoir faire, his moving generosity, and for countless other gestures I cannot enumerate—for all of which I lack the words—a single phrase must suffice: thank you for everything, Dominique!
To Michael Ladenburger, Director of the Beethoven-Haus Museum in Bonn, who honored me by allowing me to repair Beethoven’s clock and welcomed me into his home as a brotherly friend.
To Hideaki Shichida, Japanese composer devoted to studies on the Tenth Symphony; André Napier, Daniele Scarpetti, Avishai Kallai, Luigi Della Croce, Bernard Fournier, Jean-Louis Barrionuevo, Enzo Melillo—who dedicated to me in his book words far too kind that I do not deserve—Warren Pepperdine, the late Giorgio Taboga, Roberto Tazzieri, Albina Marcone, the Bridge Trio, Michele Trenti, Marco Pescetto, who shared with me and Luigi Bellofatto a splendid adventure in Bonn, the sadly disbanded Quartetto Arconauti, Vincenzo Tedesco, and the young musicians of the Anton Eberl String Quartet.
A special thanks to J. S. Allen, who meticulously searched for errors and omissions on every page and to Luca Ravizza, who helps us translate the site.
Our Mission – Beethoven Music Research Center (C.R.M.B.)
Our Purpose
Why does the Beethoven Music Research Center (C.R.M.B.) exist?
Founded in 2002, renovated in late 2016, and constantly updated, the site has a simple ambitious aim: to make Ludwig van Beethoven’s entire musical output accessible to all visitors—enthusiasts, students, or scholars.
To achieve this goal, we work on several levels:
Drawing upon a contemporary system of cataloguing, made possible by the publication of the Ludwig van Beethoven: Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis, edited by Kurt Dorfmüller, Norbert Gertsch, and Julia Ronge in collaboration with Gertraut Haberkamp and the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn (Henle Verlag, 2014; ISBN 978-3-87328-153-0), this revised and substantially expanded edition of the 1951 Kinsky/Halm catalogue represents a significant advancement in Beethoven scholarship. It duly incorporates and critically engages with earlier foundational sources, ranging from Gustav Nottebohm and Alexander Wheelock Thayer to Wilhelm von Lenz and Antonio Bruers
We intend to leave no catalogue of the Master from Bonn unexamined: Opus numbers, WoO (Works without Opus number), WoO Anhang, Hess, Hess Anhang, the newly introduced UNV, Biamonti, as well as works without official numbering, fragments, sketches, spurious and doubtful compositions, and the entire parallel corpus of works that emerged after Beethoven’s death
Through the newly established section Research Becomes Art—curated by the Beethoven Music Research Center (www.lvbeethoven.org)—we are honored to collaborate with distinguished pianists such as Antonietta Cappelli, Francesco Gussago, Sebastiano Mazzoleni, Diego Moccia, and Emanuele Stracchi. Together, we aim to explore not only the most hidden folds of Beethoven’s compositional output, but also those works that orbit around his artistic legacy. This initiative seeks to bridge rigorous scholarly inquiry with interpretative artistry, offering fresh perspectives on both canonical and peripheral repertoire.
By providing a detailed description of Beethoven’s works, beginning with the Biamonti Catalogue – Catalogo cronologico e tematico delle opere di Beethoven: comprese quelle inedite e gli abbozzi non utilizzati (Chronological and Thematic Catalogue of Beethoven’s Works: Including Unpublished Works and Unused Sketches) by Giovanni Biamonti (I.L.T.E., Turin, 1968), we draw upon a resource that, for over fifty years, has served as a benchmark for scholars devoted to Beethoven’s oeuvre.
Its scholarly depth, completeness, and refined prose have established its cultural authority to such an extent that only the aforementioned Dorfmüller-Gertsch-Ronge catalogue may now be considered its equal. Regrettably, this volume— in a place of honor in any serious Beethovenian library—is today difficult to find. We have therefore taken the Biamonti catalogue as our foundation, increasing it with new discoveries and corrections sorted up over recent years.
Fortunately, Beethoven research has made significant strides in recent decades, particularly in terms of source accuracy and availability. Wherever possible, we will include photographs of original sketches, manuscripts, and first editions. We have also embraced the genre-based classification of works, following the updated divisions recommended by the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.
Through the publication of dedicated scholarly articles addressing these topics and the events connected to the site—ranging from the world premiere of the Trio Anhang 3, the six Quartets Anhang 2, and the Fantasy Biamonti 213, to the restoration of Beethoven’s pendulum clock, which I had the honor of executing in 2011—this section of the site continues to grow.
It offers visitors the opportunity to rediscover lesser-known or unjustly neglected aspects of the Beethovenian universe. Within this space, contributors are also welcome to share their own research, not necessarily focused on Beethoven’s compositional output, but formally related to his life and artistic career.
For the first time on the web, one may read and listen to the rare Blumenlese and Neue Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber (1782/1785–1787), as well as the Ludwig van Beethoven’s Studien im Generalbasse, Contrapuncte und in der Compositions-Lehre by Ignaz von Seyfried, complete with over 400 musical examples, all available for listening.
Of particular interest are also the articles by French musicologist Michel Rouch, a collaborator of the C.R.M.B., and the two-part study Beethoven and the Art of Horology – The Watches of Beethoven, published in Bonner Beethoven-Studien, Volumes 9 and 11 (2011 & 2014), authored by Luigi Bellofatto (Bovisio Masciago) and Armando Orlandi (San Biagio di Valpolcevera – Genoa): Beethoven and the Art of Horology. The Watches of Beethoven, Tobias Haslinger and Alexander W. Thayer, Part 1: The Watches Belonging to Beethoven and Part 2: Addenda & Corrigenda.
The website also offers an extensive Bibliography —arguably the most comprehensive available online—comprising over 420 volumes, representing nearly the entirety of Italian-language publications on Beethoven and continously udapted. This list is includes by a section of books and scores available online, from the private collections of the site’s collaborators, and made freely downloadable for the first time.
In addition, through a monumental effort, we have digitized the historic yet enduringly relevant Gesamtausgabe, the complete edition of Beethoven’s works published between 1862 and 1888, including its supplements, now accessible in PDF format. The site also features the Beethoven Breviary, curated by the late Dr. Prof. Carlo Alberto Pagni—a precious anthology of anecdotes, quotations, and letters that illuminate the human and artistic dimensions of Beethoven.
Armando Orlandi
Beethoven’s Works – Catalogues, Sketches, and Historical Sources
Complete Cataloging of the Works of Ludwig van Beethoven:
A Historical Perspective
Georg Kinsky Willy Hess
We consider it useful to present and summarize the main catalogs that allow us to classify the works of Ludwig van Beethoven. For a detailed overview — enriched with valuable illustrations — of the Bibliography dedicated to these and other historical catalogs, we refer you to the article by Luigi Domenico Bellofatto.
The idea of producing a complete edition of Beethoven’s works originated with the composer himself, who cared deeply about having his work published accurately and without errors. Even in the final years of his life, the Master of Bonn was devoted to the project of publishing an authorized complete edition of his works. As a result, there exists a large collection of copies created with Beethoven’s support, known as the “Rudolf Collection,” which is now preserved in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.
1862
The Gesamtausgabe
The first complete reference edition, Ludwig van Beethovens Werke: vollständige kritisch durchgesehene überall berechtigte Ausgabe (Works of Ludwig van Beethoven: complete, critically revised, fully authorized edition), was published by Breitkopf & Härtel between 1862 and 1865, with a supplement added in 1888. Despite its enormous historical impact, the Gesamtausgabe soon revealed its limitations in terms of inaccuracies and omissions, so much so that a revision was already being called for by 1911. A comprehensive article on the Gesamtausgabe was written by Luigi Domenico Bellofatto.
1951
The Kinsky-Halm catalog
There are 138 works by Beethoven withopus numbers, but the pieces that he himself or contemporary publishers deemed unworthy of inclusion in the general catalogue are even more numerous: 228 have been recorded. These latter works are identified by aWoO number (Werke ohne Opuszahl, works without opus number), an acronym found in the so-called Kinsky-Halm catalogue, published by G. Henle Verlag in 1951 under the title Das Werk Beethovens/Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen vollendeten Kompositionen (Beethoven’s Works/Thematic-Bibliographic Catalogue of His Completed Compositions). Initially compiled by musicologist Georg Kinsky (1882–1951), the catalogue was revised and completed in 1955 by his colleague Hans Halm (1898–1965).
1957
The HessIl catalog
The Swiss scholar Willy Hess (1906–1997) published his catalogue Verzeichnis der nicht in der Gesamtausgabe veröffentlichten Werke Ludwig van Beethovens. Zusammengestellt für die Ergänzung der Beethoven-Gesamtausgabe (List of Ludwig van Beethoven’s works not published in the complete edition. Compiled to supplement the Beethoven Gesamtausgabe) with Breitkopf & Härtel. Many of the 335 pieces listed in the Hess catalogue—including variants, fragments, and sketches—correspond to entries in the Kinsky-Halm catalogue (WoO). From 1959 to 1971, Hess continued to expand his catalogue with several supplements, which include a list of 66 Hess Anhang (appendices) concerning doubtful and falsely attributed works. This insightful article in French by Miriam Allemand helps to shed light on Willy Hess’s work and personality.
1968
The BiamontiIl catalog
The scholar Giovanni Biamonti published what remains, to this day, an unmatched model of Beethovenian cataloging: the Catalogo cronologico e tematico delle opere di Beethoven: comprese quelle inedite e gli abbozzi non utilizzati (Chronological and Thematic Catalogue of Beethoven’s Works: including unpublished pieces and unused sketches) (I.L.T.E. Turin, 1968). The complete edition came as a boxed set containing three volumes: the thematic catalogue, Le lettere di Beethoven (Beethoven’s Letters) edited by Emily Anderson, and I quaderni di conversazione di Beethoven (Beethoven’s Conversation Books) edited by Georg Schünemann.
Following in the footsteps of the earlier Kinsky-Halm and Hess catalogues, Biamonti presents the entirety of Beethoven’s works—published and unpublished—down to individual musical notes, as well as fragments and sketches of unfinished compositions found in letters and various documents. The only exclusions are sketches related to published works. Based on these criteria, the catalogue includes 849 works, arranged by date—from 1782 (WoO 63, Dressler Variations) to March 1827 (Biamonti 849, Beethoven’s final written measure). Each entry is accompanied by its creation date, editions, and cross-references to other catalogues.
2000＞
The 2000s
Nearly fifty years after the first edition, American musicologist James F. Green—whom we are honored to count among our collaborators—published an updated version of the Hess catalogue: The New Hess Catalog of Beethoven’s Works (ISBN 978-0964057036, Vance Brook Publishing, 2003), the Italian edition titled Il nuovo catalogo Hess delle opere di Beethoven (ISBN 978-8887203509, Zecchini Editore, 2006), edited by our late friend Roberto Diem Tigani.
The monumental thematic catalogue Ludwig van Beethoven: Thematisch-Bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis—edited by Kurt Dorfmüller, Norbert Gertsch, Julia Ronge in collaboration with Gertraut Haberkamp and the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn (ISBN 978-3873281530, Henle Verlag, 2014)—is a thoroughly revised and significantly expanded edition of the Kinsky-Halm catalogue, thus retaining the WoO classification of works. At the end of the catalogue, an appendix lists 18 doubtful, apocryphal, or otherwise unauthenticated compositions, also referred to as Anhang.
Hans Halm Giovanni Biamonti
Spurious and apocryphal works, paraphrases, transcriptions, reductions, orchestrations and variations on works by Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Studien im Generalbass, Contrapunkt und in der Compositions-lehre
Beethoven Works by Genre – Complete Thematic Index
Ludwig van Beethoven’s works divided by musical genre
Classification by musical category
This section contains works written (or drafted) by Ludwig van Beethoven, organized by musical genre. The works are listed in the new 2014 Beethoven catalogue: Opus, WoO, WoO Anhang, Hess, Hess Anhang, Biamonti, Unvollendeten Werke, and unnumbered.
The Biamonti section also includes sketches for finished compositions. Works without an instrumentation indication have been placed in the “Miscellaneous” section. Some compositions attributed to Beethoven but later recognized as apocryphal have also been included. We have not included all the sketches from the sketchbooks, but only those that have been studied and reconstructed in recent years. For individual sketches, please refer to the respective section.
Works written for two different instruments, or for instruments “ad libitum,” will be found in each relevant section. Obviously, the intrinsic nature of the catalog means it can always be revised and improved. Finally, the subdivision will strictly adhere to the guidelines set by the Beethoven Haus, namely the Thirteen Sections of the NBG (Neue Beethoven Ausgabe).
Any suggestions for further improvement of this section are welcome.
A Bibliographical Note – Sources for the Beethoven Catalogue
Foreword
A bibliographical note
This catalogue lists all of Beethoven’s completed works, published or unpublished, together with fragments, notes and musical ideas found in letters, album leaves, sketchbooks and conversation notebooks known to date — excluding, of course, material that is clearly identifiable as preparatory work for the pieces mentioned. It also includes compositions of doubtful authenticity and plans for stage works, cantatas, oratorios, and similar projects.
Each entry provides essential information: dates, editions and references to other catalogues, along with details useful for placing the work within the historical and aesthetic context of Beethoven’s output. You will find expositions, commentary, comparisons, cross-references to other works, and notes on interpretations or critical approaches of varying prominence.
Given the author’s renown, we have chosen to make an exceptional reference to Arnold Schering’s interpretations. In publications from the first half of the twentieth century Schering argued that many of Beethoven’s compositions were inspired or shaped by episodes from certain poetic or dramatic works, classical or modern. These readings often seem arbitrary or overly personal: they rest tenuously on a few phrases attributed to Beethoven or on not always reliable indications from acquaintances such as Schindler and Czerny, and they attempt to identify in the music minute correspondences with gestures, phrases, words, or specific dramatic or descriptive moments. It is possible that reading and reflecting on the works Schering mentions — or others — provided fertile ground for Beethoven’s imagination; nevertheless, reducing music in its developed reality to a conjectural origin in another art, and explaining its formation and course by the logic of that art, always appears to us limiting and contrary to a free and deeper understanding of music itself.
For sketches and fragments we relied on the classic studies by Nottebohm, Nohl, De Roda and Shedlock, and on complete editions of Beethoven’s notebooks edited by Mikulicz and Schmitz; more recently we used work by Prof. Joseph Schmidt-Görg and Dr. Dagmar Weise of the Beethovenhaus and Dr. Nathaniel Fishman of the Glinka Museum in Moscow. The calligraphic preparation of the musical examples for the clichés is the work of Maestro Lorenzo Tolu of Rome.
We are especially grateful to Prof. Willy Hess of Winterthur for the information and interest he showed in our work. We also remember with gratitude Max Unger, Donald W. MacArdle and Hans Halm, who passed away in recent years, and the dear Ludwig Misch, who died suddenly on 22 April 1967.
Our affectionate and grateful thoughts go to Avv. Fortunato Postiglione, CEO of I.L.T.E. in Turin, an ardent promoter of this project who died prematurely before its completion.
The work was neither short nor easy, and we do not claim to be free from shortcomings. We trust, however, in the kind reception of enthusiasts and scholars.
Rome, summer 1968
Giovanni Biamonti
A) Works cited on the website pages
with abbreviations.
A. = Anderson Emily, le lettere di Beethoven, Torino, Ilte, 1968.
B. = Bruers Antonio, Beethoven – catalogo storico-critico di tutte le opere, Roma, Bardi, 1951.
B.J. = Beethoven Jahrbuch (Mies – Schmidt Görg), Bonn, Beethovenhaus: I (1953-1954), II (1955-1956), III (1957-1958), IV (1959-1960), V (1961-1964, published in 1966).
Boett. = Boettcher Hans, Beethoven als Liederkomponist, Augsburg, Benno Filsere Verlag, 1928.
Der. = De Roda Cecilio, Un quaderno di autografi di Beethoven del 1825, Torino, Bocca, 1907.
D. W. F. = Weise Dagmar, Beethoven. Ein Skizzenbuch zu Chorfantasie op. 80 und zu anderen Werke, Bonn, Beethovenhaus, 1957.
D. W. P. = id. id., Beethoven. Ein Skizzenbuch zu Pastoral Symphonie op. 68 und zu den Trios op. 70 nn. 1 u. 2, Bonn, Beethovenhaus, 1961.
Fish. = Fishman Nathaniel, Beethoven’s Sketchbook of 1802-1803 (Wielhorsky Manuscript), complete publication, in facsimile and print, with commentaries, Russian edition, Moscow, 1962. (See also Beethoveniana in Soviet Russia, by Boris Schwarz in The Musical Quarterly, January 1961.)
G.A. = Ludwig van Beethovens, Werke, vollständige kritish durchgesehene überall berechtigte Ausgabe (Gesamtausgabe), Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, serie 1-24, 1864-1867; serie 25 (Supplemen.), 1888.
H. = Hess Willy, Verzeichniss der nicht in der Gesamtausgabe veröffentlichten Werke Ludwig van Beethovens, Wiesbaden, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1957.
K.H. = Kinsky Georg e Halm Hans, Das Werk Beethovens, bibliographisches Verzeichniss, München-Duisburg, G. Henle Verlag, 1955.
L. = Lenz (De) Wilhelm, Kritischer Katalog sämmtlicher Werke Ludwig van Beethovens mit Analysen derselben (I: op. 1-20; II: op. 21-55; III: op. 56-100; IV: op. 101-138 und die Werke ohne Opuszahl), Hamburg, Hoffmann u. Campe, 1860.
M. = Misch Ludwig, Beethoven-Studien, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 1950.
M.A. = id. id. e Donald MacArdle, Beethoven- Studies, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1953,
M. A.L. = Misch Ludwig e MacArdlc Donald W., New Beethovens Letters, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1957.
Mik. = Mikulicz Karl L., Ein Notierungsbuch von Beethoven, Leipzig, Breitkopf e Härtel, 1927.
M. I. = Shedlock J. S., Beethoven’s Sketch Books, in The Musical Times, 1892-1894.
M.U. = Unger Max, Die Beethovenhandschriften der Pariser Konservatoriumsbibliothek, in N.B.J., VI, 1935.
M.U.S. = id. id., Eine Schweizer Beethovensammlung, Zürich, Verlag der Corona, 1939.
M.U.W. = Unger Max, Die Beethoven handschriften der Familie W. (Wittgenstein) in Wien, in N.B.J., VII, 1937.
N. = Nottebohm Gustav, Ludwig van Beethoven: Thematisches Verzeichnis, Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1932.
N., I. = id. id., Beethoveniana, Leipzig, Peters, 1872.
N., II. = id. id., Zweite Beethoveniana, Leipzig, Peters, 1887.
N., Sk., I = Nottebohm Gustav, Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven (1801-1802), Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1865 (P. Mies, 1924).
N., Sk., II = id. id., Ein Skizzenbuch von Beethoven, aus dem Jahre 1803, Leipzig, Breitkopf e Härtel, 1880 (reprinted by P. Mies, 1924).
N., St. = id. id., Beethovens Studien, Leipzig u. Winterthur, Rieder-Biedermann, 1873.
N.B.J. = Neues Beethoven Jahrbuch (Sandberger): I (1924), II (1925), III (1927), IV (1930): Augsburg, Benno Filser; V (1933), VI (1935). VII (1937), VIII (1938), IX (1939): Braunschweig, LitolfFs Verlag; X (1942): Augsburg, Reichel u. Sohn.
P. = Prod’homme Jacques Gabriel, La jeunesse de Beethoven (catalogo), Paris, Delagrave, 1927.
P. Quad., = id. id., Les cahiers de Beethoven (1819- 1827)(Summary compendium, compiled from various sources), Paris, Correa, 1946.
Quad. = Schünemann Georg, Quaderni di conversazione di Beethoven, Ilte, Torino, 1968.
Rolland, Ep. = Rolland Romain, Beethoven, les grandes epoques creatrices, Paris, Editions du Sablier: I, De l’ Eroica à l’ Appassionata (1928) – II, Goethe et Beethoven (1930) -III, La Messe solemnelle et les dernieres sonates (1937) – IV, La Neuvieme Symphonie (1943) – V, Finita comoedia (1945) – VI, Les aimées de Beethoven (1949).
Sch. = Schiedermair Ludwig, Der junge Beethoven. First edition: Leipzig,Quelle u. Meyer, 1925; second edition: Weimar, II. Bohlaus, Nachf., 1939; third edition: Bonn, F. Dümmler, 1949.
Schm. = Schmitz Arnold, Beethoven, unbekannte Skizzen und Entwürfe, Bonn, Beethoven-haus, 1924.
T. = Thayer Alexander Wheelock, Chronologisches Verzeichniss der Werke L.v. Beethovens, Berlin, Schneider, 1865.
Th. R. = Thayer Alexander Wheelock, Deiters Hermann, Riemann Hugo, Ludwig van Beethovens Leben, Leipzig, Breitkopf e Härtel: I, 1917; II, 1922; III, IV, V, 1923.
B) Other works cited
on the site pages