WoO 29 – March in B-flat Major for Two Clarinets, Two Horns, and Two Bassoons (“Grenadier March”)
WoO 029 – March in B-flat Major for Two Clarinets, Two Horns, and Two Bassoons “Grenadiermarsch”.
Composition and Catalog Information: This work dates from summer 1807 and was first published posthumously in the Supplemente zur Gesamtausgabe in 1888. It appears as G.A. no. 292 (series 25/29), Bruers 278, Hess 87 a/b, and Kinsky–Halm (WoO) 29.
Official Title, Dedication, and Editions:
- Official title: WoO 29 Marsch (B-dur) für je zwei Klarinetten, Fagotte und Hörner
- Dedication: none
- Key editions and versions:
- Neue Gesamtausgabe (NGA) VI/1 and VII/8 (piano version)
- Alte Gesamtausgabe (AGA) 292 = series 25/29
- Sämtliche Beethoven-Werke (SBG) VII/9 (mechanical-flute transcription, Hess 107)
- SBG VIII/10 (piano version, Hess 87)
- Nickname: “Grenadiermarsch” (from an arrangement for mechanical flute)
Manuscript and Piano Reduction: The autograph manuscript of the full score and its piano reduction is preserved at the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. It consists of a single page likely written during Beethoven’s stay in Eisenstadt, possibly intended for the grenadier band of Prince Esterházy. The piano-score manuscript shows various alterations by Beethoven, leading Willy Hess to recognize two distinct versions—mainly differing in the final bars of the first section. Both versions were issued by Hess in the eighth fascicle of the Supplemente zur Gesamtausgabe (1964). For the standalone piano reduction, see Hess catalog number 87.
Origin and Publication
- Composition timeframe: late 1797 to early 1798.
- First edition: Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1888 (AGA).
- First piano version: Willy Hess, Swiss Music Educational Journal, 1931.
Douglas Johnson traces the work’s genesis in three stages:
- Detailed sketches in the “Fischhof” Miscellany
- Piano-score draft
- Complete six-wind-instrument score with corrections
Because the Fischhof sketches flank those for the Op. 9 Trios (printing agreed March 16, 1798), Johnson infers the march sketches predate March 1798. The piano draft and full-score transcriptions appear on the same sheet Beethoven used in the first half of 1798. Georg Kinsky and Ernst Fritz Schmid offered alternative dating based on a mechanical-flute transcription combining Beethoven’s march with Joseph Haydn’s E-flat Major March Hob. VIII:6—also scored for two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons. That cylinder bears the inscription: “Granadirs Marsch arrangirt von Herrn Ludwig v. Beethoven.”
Debate over the trio’s authorship has persisted: Gallus Oberholzer attributed the entire piece (March, Trio, and WoO 29) to Haydn, suggesting Beethoven merely copied it for Schwarzenberg’s mechanical flute. Egon Voss rejects this, citing Beethoven’s own sketches and scholarly consensus that the trio is not Haydn’s.
The march’s first performance is unknown. Its instrumentation has led to speculative ties to Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy von Galántha—Haydn’s longtime patron—but no reliable evidence confirms this connection.
Sketches and Sources
- Autograph sketches: D-B Mus. ms. autogr. Beethoven 28 (“Fischhof”), folio 41 recto. Dated late 1797 / early 1798; facsimile in SBB.
- Piano version (Hess 87) and wind score: RE-SiB Mus. Sm. autogr. Beethoven Grasnick 25, pp. 12–15. Dated late 1797 / early 1798.
- Additional manuscripts bound together with WoO 43 b and WoO 53.
Paper format: horizontal folio (23 × 33 cm), double-spaced. Provenance: acquired 1827 by Tobias Haslinger, passed to Carl Haslinger, then Friedrich August Grasnick (Berlin), acquired 1879 by SBB.
Major descriptions appear in Voss/NGA VI/1 (pp. 364–368) and Johnson/Fischhof Vol. 1 (pp. 204–211, 411–414).
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