BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, June 15, 1824

Yesterday we looked at the loose sketch materials in which Beethoven was working this summer and fall, Artaria 206 and A 51. Today we will return to the pocket sketchbook Artaria 205, Bundle 4. As was observed earlier this year, these pages (now bound together) seem to originally have been a stack of pages that were not bound when Beethoven used them, which raises the question of whether it is a sketchbook at all. The pages used earlier include work on the Ninth Symphony, the Bundeslied op.122, the six piano bagatelles op.126, and the canon Te solo adoro for Carlo Soliva, WoO 186, which we can date with certainty to June 1 or 2 of 1824.

The balance of the pages, numbering around 33 (not counting any missing pages), are devoted to the string quartet op.127. It is here we find more work on the first movement of that quartet, the second and fourth movements, as well as ideas for alternative movements. There are also sketches of a “Quartet for Peters” in C major that appear on two pages, but nothing more appears to have been done with this proposed quartet. So this pocket sketchbook likely continues being used at this time, while Beethoven was on his long walks in the countryside.