WoO 166 “Kurz ist der Schmerz”, canon for Spohr, 3 March 1815, published in the GA, number 256/3/B (series 23, pp. 180-182) Bruers 207 KH (WoO) 166 – Nottebohm p. 162/4 – Thayer 195.

The original manuscript is unknown. Sketches are preserved in the notebook referred to by Biamonti 576, communicated by Nottebohm. It was written for the album of the noted composer and violinist Louis Spohr, who mentions it in his memoirs. The text comes from Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans: “Kurz ist der Schmerz und ewig ist die Freude”.

It is included in Nohl, Briefe Beethovens (1865), nos. 118–120.

Biamonti listed it in his catalogue as number 594, writing: “Canon for Spohr, 3 March 1815, published in the GA. The original is unknown. Sketches are found in the notebook no. 576, communicated by Nottebohm (Zweite Beethoveniana, pp. 312 and 315). It was written for the album of the noted composer and violinist Louis Spohr, who mentions it in his memoirs. The text comes from Schiller’s Die Jungfrau von Orleans: ‘Kurz ist der Schmerz und ewig ist die Freude’.” The sketch is held in Krakow at the Biblioteka Jagiellońska, in the Mendelssohn 6 Sketchbook, page 140, lines 13–16. Hess transcribed it for his Gesamtausgabe (no. 256/3/b – series 23, pp. 180-182); since Hess’s version and ours differ in two places, both are presented. Personally, the measure 26 note is not preferred because it creates an awkward, though momentary, clash of seconds (F–G–A with G resolving to F). The second difference may be acceptable, but it creates a dominant seventh chord with a doubled seventh; here, the C solution is preferred to B♭.

Johnson-Tyson-Winter, in The Beethoven Sketchbooks, note: “On the last page of Mendelssohn 6 (page 140) there is a draft of the canon ‘Kurz ist der Schmerz’, WoO 166, along with sketches for a polonaise and a Lied (probably ‘Merkenstein’). The canon ends after the tenth measure with some slurs that evidently were to continue on another sheet. No sheet has yet been identified, either by content or physical criteria, as having belonged to Mendelssohn 6.” Regarding this, we identified the sketch at line 7, from the pickup in measure two, which matches the theme at measure six of the canon, and the text also corresponds; similarly, the fragment in the next line corresponds to measures 41–43. It is possible that these fragments were not intended for the Lied Merkenstein but were Beethoven experimenting with solutions for the polonaise drafted in lines 2–4, or that these study fragments, possibly for the aforementioned Lied, were later incorporated into the canon. Fragments at lines 7–12.

The original album leaf for Spohr is in the British Museum, Zweig Collection, London. Comments on the manuscript: autograph; ink on the recto of a single sheet; lines drawn freehand by Beethoven. Music on five single staves with text underneath. Dated “Wien am / 3ten März / 1815” at the foot, with dedication signed: “Mögten sie doch lieber Spohr / überall, wo sie wahre Kunst und / wahre Künstler finden, gerne / meiner gedenken / ihres / freundes / ludwig van Beethoven” (“May you, dear Spohr, wherever you find true art and true artists, gladly remember your friend Ludwig van Beethoven”). A measure missing in the third voice was added by Spohr. ‘Beethoven’ written in pencil on the back. Spohr describes in his autobiography how Beethoven drew the lines for the album leaf “without the help of a ruler” and how he provided the missing notes in the third voice himself.

WoO 163 is a separate three-part canon on the same text, composed in 1813. Ownership: K.E. Henrici, Berlin, auction CXXXII, 27 April 1928, lot 17 (Das Werk Beethovens); purchased by Zweig from Henrici outside the auction, May 1928 (registration sheet, not in Zweig’s hand, Add. MS 73167, f. 6); British Library, loan 77.18, 1981–1986.

Published: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Werke, XXIII/3 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, [1864-7]), pp. 180–182. Appendix to Spohr biography, Selbstbiographie, vol. K.E. Henrici, Berlin, auction cat. CXXXII (1928), frontispiece (see Das Werk Beethovens); Arthur Searle, The British Library Stefan Zweig Collection: Catalogue of the Music Manuscripts (London: The British Library, 1999), plate XII. Bibliography: Louis Spohr, Selbstbiographie (Kassel, 1860), vol. I, p. 213; English translation: Louis Spohr’s Autobiography (London, 1865), pp. 198–199; Georg Kinsky, Hans Halm, Das Werk Beethovens. Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner Kompositionen (Munich, 1955), p. 674; Oliver Matuschek, Ich kenne den Zauber der Schrift (Vienna: Inlibris, 2005), pp. 357–358.