WoO 197 Da ist das Werk, Canon
The musical examples on this page are by Graziano Denini.
Canon (C major) based on an original text NGAXII / 2 AGA-SBG V / 52 (2nd edition: 53; Hess 271) (for five voices). Written before 5 September 1826 in Vienna. Published in facsimile by O.E. Albrecht (Adventures and Discoveries of a Manuscript Hunter in Musical Quarterly, October 1945, pp. 492–530). The first edition was published posthumously in 1949 by Hug & Co. in Zurich.
Text: “Da ist das Werk. Sorg und das Geld, eins, zwei, drei, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwölf Danken”.
Beethoven sent the canon to Karl Holz (see WoO 3, dedication) as an attachment to a letter (BGA 2193), along with the autograph score of the piano four-hand transcription of the Große Fuge op. 133, op. 134. Holz was to deliver this transcription to the publisher Mathias Artaria and claim the agreed payment. According to the expense book, Artaria paid the requested sum of 12 ducats on 5 September 1826 (Nottebohm / Beethoveniana II, p. 365).
The account of its origin given by Thayer and Deiters (TDR V, p. 408), based on Holz’s report published by Lenz (Lenz / catalogue part 4, p. 219), is not entirely free of errors; for example, Holz confused op. 134 with the new final movement composed for the quartet op. 130.
The manuscript (see photograph) is located in the U.S.A., in the George Peabody Library within the College of Music in Baltimore, specifically in the Arthur Friedheim Library. U.S.A., US-BApi, ML 96 B 415.
Dating: early September 1826. Dimensions: one leaf; one page of musical text. Paper: 23 x 30.5 cm, 9 staves. Provenance: Karl Holz, Vienna? – Harold Randolph. Facsimiles: Peabody / online; Albrecht, Discoveries, p. 496. Description: BBB, p. 9. A copy in Karl Holz’s hand exists in A-Wst (MH 9635c: ü gen: BBB, p. 389; Frimmel / Jahrbuch Bd. 1, p. 106). First edition: 1949, Zurich, Hug & Co., in Ocht Singkanons von Ludwig van Beethoven, Willy Hess, no. 8; also Hess in the fifth supplement to the GA, 1962. Hess 271 – KH (WoO) 197. L. IV, p. 219.
Bibliography: Klein / Kanons, pp. 45f.; SBG V, 2nd edition, p. 98.
On the website www.unheardbeethoven.org, we find the following notes: “In September 1826, Beethoven completed his arrangement of the Große Fuge for piano four hands, op. 134, and the task of delivering the work to the publisher was entrusted to Karl Holz. Beethoven wrote the canon, entrusting it to Holz to take to the publisher Artaria: ‘Da ist das Werk. Sorg und das Geld, eins, zwei, drei, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwölf [three times] Dukaten, Dukaten, Dukaten, Dukaten, Dukaten.‘
Twelve ducats would correspond to approximately €1,500 in today’s currency.
James Green writes: ‘Written in early September 1826, as a playful exhortation to Carl Holz to request from the publisher Artaria the payment of 12 ducats for the settlement of the rights for op. 134 (the piano transcription of Quartet op. 133).’
The claim in the De Lenz catalogue, which instead asserts that the origin of this fugue was the new finale of Quartet op. 130 (composed only in November 1826), is incorrect. It is a canon for five voices in unison. The entries every two measures are marked by Beethoven himself with the double f sign 
in the third and fourth measures, we find sforzandos on the word “sorgt”. It is noteworthy that the first triplet in measure 8 is identical to that in measure 6; perhaps Beethoven, in his haste to write the instructions for Holz, did not notice the error. According to unheardbeethoven.org, the first movement of measure 8 should have been: C–G–E [why not G–E–C?]. But of course, it is the counting of the ducats that matters!
Ludwig Misch, in his chapter on Canons, raises the question of whether the natural B in measure 2 should actually be a B-flat. It is unclear whether in the autograph he sees something that actually resembles a flat, or whether he wants to see it as such for theoretical reasons: this B natural clashes with the C in measure 6, and lowering it to B-flat would diminish much of the dissonance’s clarity.
The effect created by the sforzandos on the word “sorgt,” which resonate in every beat from measure 3 onwards, together with the triplets counting the ducats and the quick short–long–short rhythm implied by the word “Dukaten,” is very striking. In my view, the ending is missing, so I added one measure, continuing with the fourth voice, which concludes precisely on the word “sorgt” in sforzando.
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