BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, October 21, 1823 (very approximately)

Sometime during the autumn of 1823, Parisian publisher Maurice Schlesinger prints a pirated edition of the Eleven Bagatelles, op.119, copied from the authorized Clementi edition published and copyrighted in London in June. Schlesinger assigns opus number 112 to the set of “Nouvelles Bagatelles ou Collection de Morceaux, Faciles et Agréables pour Le Piano,” unaware that Beethoven has already given that opus number to his Meeres Stille und glückliche Fahrt. Clementi’s edition did not include an opus number. All subsequent editions printed in Beethoven’s lifetime appear to be copied from Schlesinger, since they all bear the bogus op.112 designation. Beethoven, still hoping to sell the Missa Solemnis to Schlesinger for at least 1000 florins, does not appear to have commented on this edition.

Grigory Sokolov plays the first of the Eleven Bagatelles, op.119, live in 2019: