Ludwig van Beethoven, Skizzenblatt zum Streichquartett op. 131, Autograph

Scattered leaves

This single leaf from a pocket sketchbook is a good example of how manuscripts were handed down; how in the nineteenth century autograph scores were given away or sold without any attention being paid to their original structure or the state of the autograph.

The leaf was originally part of a pocket sketchbook. Beethoven used paper in an upright format with 12 lines, folded it twice, bound it along one of the folds and cut open the edges on the other. This way he made smaller books which fitted in his coat pocket. Thus he always had music paper with him when he was out so as to be able to write down any musical ideas which occurred to him. In the book which this leaf belonged to he wrote down ideas for his late string quartets, in this case sketches for the fourth movement of the Quartet op. 131.

Following Beethoven's death the pocket sketchbook fell into the possession of Anton Schindler, Beethoven's secretary of many years. Schindler owned many of Beethoven's autograph scores, including music and other documents (conversation books, letters, etc.) However, Schindler had not acquired all of these autograph scores at the auction of Beethoven's estate. Schindler always claimed he had been left them by Beethoven in recognition of his services. But this should not be taken too literally. He had probably just taken many of them in the confusion that immediately followed the composer's death. Now back to our pocket sketchbook.

Schindler took the pocket sketchbook in its entirety. Half a year after Beethoven's death, in September 1827, he had already removed 16 leaves and given them to the pianist Ignaz Moscheles. But Moscheles did not keep his bundle intact either, but used it as a reservoir. When the Beethoven memorial was being erected in Bonn in 1845, Moscheles also removed a leaf - "our" leaf - from his bundle and gave it to Ernst Julius Hähnel, the sculptor who had designed the statue. Moscheles wrote a dedication on the front page, "Beethovens Handschrift. An H. Professor Hähnel zur Erinnerung an die Einweihung des Monuments in Bonn, welches in mir die höchste Bewunderung über die vollkommene Auffassung des unsterblichen Meisters erregte. August 1845. I. Moscheles" (Beethoven's manuscript. To H. Professor Hähnel in memory of the unveiling of the monument in Bonn, which awoke the greatest admiration in me for the perfect manner in which it had captured the immortal master. August 1845. I. Moscheles).

In 1846 Schindler sold the rest of the sketchbook to the königliche Bibliothek in Berlin, today the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

For collectors in the nineteenth century autograph scores were by no means as valuable as they are today (nowadays one of Beethoven's autograph scores would be a completely unaffordable present, even if it were only a sketch like the one we have here). People did not have the same respect for the inviolable nature of a document. Single leaves which had been removed from books were given away without a second thought. Many of Beethoven's sketchbooks were scattered around the world in this manner and can now only be reconstructed with a great deal of effort and not a little nitpicking. (J.R.)