Dated using well-known biographical facts
The last of three pocket sketchbooks in the Beethoven-Haus collection for the Missa solemnis op. 123 does not contain any entries which help to establish with any certainty when they were made, unlike both of the other pocket sketchbooks. This one contains sketches for both of the last movements of the Mass, the Benedictus with Hosanna and Agnus Dei. If after filling the second pocket sketchbook (BH 108) in the Beethoven-Haus collection Beethoven directly continued work in this sketchbook, it would point to the sketches having been made in the summer of 1820. This is possibly too early. Beethoven was working more intensively on the Piano Sonata op. 109 that summer, for which he received payment from the publisher Schlesinger in August. He only despatched the manuscript of the sonata in December 1820, although he had announced it in a letter in September. This would therefore imply that Beethoven probably only returned to his work on the Missa solemnis in September 1820, so the sketches it contains would not have been made before the autumn. (J.R.)
