Hess Anhang 65 is a cantata for four voices, three clarinets, three horns, and three trombones. It is not an original composition by Beethoven, but rather a transcription and orchestration by an anonymous German hand of a choral refrain originally arranged by Ignaz Seyfried. Seyfried’s version itself was derived from the first and third of Beethoven’s Equali for Four Trombones, WoO 30, composed in 1812.

The cantata was first documented by Hermann Albert in the Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, volume 13, issue 7 (1912), pages 218–212. A copy was discovered among the papers of Johann Maximilian Kick, a musician and music dealer from Biberach born in 1749, and his son Jakob Friedrich Kick, a conductor and organist also from Biberach.

Albert published the full cantata in the appendix of the aforementioned journal issue, sparking scholarly speculation regarding its origins. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Edward J. Dent of Cambridge observed that the work was a transcription of a transcription—an orchestrated adaptation of Seyfried’s choral setting, itself based on Beethoven’s trombone equali.

Albert revisited the topic later that same year in issue 9 of the journal (pages 311–312), but since then, the work has largely faded into obscurity, receiving little scholarly attention until recent reevaluations.

This layered transmission history—Beethoven’s original instrumental work, Seyfried’s choral adaptation, and the anonymous orchestration—raises intriguing questions about authorship, stylistic transformation, and the reception of Beethoven’s sacred music in the early 20th century