BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, November 19, 1824 (very approximately)

Beethoven presumably goes to Archduke Rudolph today as promised, and gives a composition lesson. To Beethoven’s consternation, the Archduke, who has been without Beethoven’s lessons for many months, wants to take advantage of his presence and have lessons every single day. Moreover, he wants these lessons to be two hours long each. Beethoven has little choice but to agree; he cannot afford to disappoint his most faithful patron. But as we shall see, Beethoven also will find excuses not to give these long lessons, possibly as soon as tomorrow.

Sometime about now, Beethoven begins using desk sketchbook Autograph 11/2. This sketchbook of 30 leaves is held by the Berlin Staatsbibliothek. This, together with Autograph 11/1 from 1816, with which it is today bound, was dubiously claimed by former unpaid assistant Anton Schindler as having been promised to him before Beethoven’s death. It thus does not appear in the sale of Beethoven’s effects for his estate.

This sketchbook was handmade by Beethoven from leftover paper, comprised of seven different paper types. It was held together by seven stitches. As Douglas Johnson notes, with such sketchbooks, there is always a possibility that some of the material already had sketches from Beethoven on them when it was stitched together, so chronology is far from certain. An example of this situation here is that there are 1823 sketches for the first movement of the Ninth Symphony on page 1r. Also, since the gatherings of paper are irregular, it is difficult to tell when pages have been removed.

The sketchbook is mostly devoted to the last three movements of the String Quartet op.127, on folios 2-17, 21-22 and 27-28. Since there is no sketch work here for the first movement, Beethoven probably begins using this desk sketchbook sometime after he started using the pocket sketchbook Grasnick 4, which begins with sketches for the first movement, and later covers much the same ground as this desk sketchbook. Leaving time for Beethoven’s lengthy and fairly debilitating illness in late October and early November, it seems likely that this sketchbook starts being used in the second half of November.

Op.127 is not the only work found in this desk sketchbook. On folios 18-21 are sketches for Opferlied, op.121b; the proposed B-A-C-H Overture, Unv 4; and Bundeslied, op.122. The last 8 folios also include sketches for the Quartet op.132 in A minor and the Grosse Fuge, which will initially be part of op.130 but then separated off as op.133. The B-A-C-H Overture had been percolating for quite a while, with sketches for it also found in Artaria 201, Grasnick 4, and Autograph 9/1, covering a period from 1822 through 1825. Although the Opferlied and Bundeslied had been finished and even offered for sale for some time, there seem to have been changes for these vocal works considered while preparing the engraver’s copies for publication, which were delivered in February, 1825. The existence of related sketches for Opferlied and the B-A-C-H Overture in the pocket sketchbook Grasnick 4, used contemporaneously with this desk sketchbook, confirm that there was in fact work continuing to be done on these songs in very late 1824.

There are a few other tidbits of interest in this sketchbook. On 9v there is (as seen here) a very brief sketch of a couple measures in 2/4 time, for a work labeled by Beethoven as being piano four hands. This may well be an initial idea for the sonata in F major for four hands that Anton Diabelli had requested from Beethoven, and which Beethoven agreed to compose for a price of 80 ducats, though it never amounted to anything. Unfortunately, most of the sketches in this book identified later by Schindler as belonging to this sonata are actually for the second movement of op.127. This fragment is the only one that can even tentatively be tied to the promised sonata for Diabelli.

Writing a Mass for the Emperor was also still very much on Beethoven’s mind, for there are sketches for a Dona nobis pacem on pages 17v and 29r. There are also some brief sketches for an unidentified work in the rather unusual time signature of 5/4. On folios 4v and 5r there are sketches for a movement “La gaiete” that was intended for op.127, but then abandoned.

Folios 12 and 13 are bound in upside down; folio 13 (front and back) had previously been partially used by Ludwig and Nephew Karl for the boy’s lessons in figured bass and harmony. These are exercises copied from Daniel Gottlob Türk’s Kurze Anweisung zum Generalbaßspielen [Short Instructions for Playing Figured Bass.]

Schindler made gifts of some pages from this sketchbook, usually with a dedication that shows their provenance. Some other leaves held elsewhere have been identified as belonging to this desk sketchbook at one time. All of these pages contain sketches for the finale of op.127. Among these are Mh 99 (SBH 677) held by the Beethovenhaus, seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/en/media/view/5332963675865088/scan/0

This sketchbook will continue to be used until about January of 1825.