BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, July 1, 1826 (approximately)

Beethoven begins using Pocket Sketchbook Artaria 205, Bundle 3 around this time. This homemade sketchbook was stitched together by Beethoven. It was used during the summer of 1826, as it contains the last work on the Finale for the quartet in C-sharp minor op.131, which is presently nearing completion, as well as work on the first three movements of the quartet in F major, op.135. This would parallel folios 46-53 of the Kullak sketchbook, according to Johnson, Tyson & Winter at 451. This sketchbook is today comprised of 18 leaves; at least two pages have been removed. Interestingly, the sketches for the Finale to the op.131 include a postlude in D-flat major, which he abandoned and later recycled for the slow movement of the F major quartet.

The next surviving pocket sketchbook dates from the fall of 1826. However, the collection of loose sketch leaves Artaria 216 contains 69 pages of sketches for the op.135 quartet. It therefore does not appear that any sketchbooks are lost; Beethoven instead seems to have not bothered to stitch together pages to form pocket sketchbooks in the late summer of 1826. Johnson, Tyson & Winter note that Beethoven used different paper types for his sketch work on op.131 and op.135, perhaps to be able to differentiate them at a glance, suggesting he was working on the beginning of op.135 at the same time as he was finishing up op.131.

About now, Nephew Karl surreptitiously stops seeing his tutor, though he continues to collect the tutor’s fee from his uncle and keeps it himself. Karl similarly did not pay the tutor for June, though he did use the tutor’s services in that month. [Conversation Book 119, at 22v-23r.]