History behind the group Mh 47
The copy HCB Mh 47i, the last of the nine Fidelio copies in the call number group HCB Mh 47, is the only one which does not contain any corrections in Beethoven's hand. It is of the duet "O Namenlose Freude" ("O joy beyond expressing") in the "Fidelio" version from 1814. The first twelve leaves were probably done by Beethoven's copyist Wenzel Rampl. On the inside of the cover leaf the previous owner Ferdinand Bischoff, Hofrat in Graz, wrote down the provenance of the manuscript (now in Mh 47): "Diese Partitur hat mein Freund, der Violinvirtuos und Componist Minkus, Ludwig nebst der Ouverture und noch sieben anderen Nummern der Oper Fidelio, welche letzteren viele eigenhändigen Correcturen Beethovens enthalten, von dessen Kopisten (Rampel) gekauft, und mit Ausnahme der Ouverture mir überlassen." (My friend the violin virtuoso and composer Minkus, Ludwig purchased this score as well as the overture and seven other numbers from the opera Fidelio, the last of which contain many corrections in Beethoven's own hand, from his copyist (Rampel) and with the exception of the overture left them to me.) Ferdinand Bischoff owned quite a few autograph scores by Beethoven and at the beginning of the twentieth century also published scholarly articles on Beethoven. (J.R.)
