Beethoven's friends lead to the right date
Here you can see a pocket sketchbook from the winter of 1819/1820, in which Beethoven mainly sketched ideas for the Missa solemnis op. 123, in particular for the Credo. Pocket sketchbooks were smaller than other ones, as Beethoven carried them in his pocket when he went out so as to be able to immediately jot down musical ideas (for this reason jottings in pocket sketchbooks are almost entirely made in pencil and not in ink). A little below the middle of the first page (image 1) the composer wrote "noch von 1819 vom Credo" ("still from 1819 for the Credo"). Beethoven carefully kept all his sketches up to his death. Did he make this note at a later date so that he could order the book correctly? Is the note reliable or was Beethoven mistaken? The date can only be partially confirmed by the genesis of the Mass and its sketch material, as some sketches were made later.
Aside from sketches for the Missa solemnis the sketchbook contains other entries, connected with people around Beethoven in 1819/1820. These entries are particularly helpful as far as dating is concerned: on pages 28 and 29 (image 15) there is a canon with the text "liebe mich werther Weißenbach" ("love me honoured Weißenbach"). Dr. Alois Weißenbach was a professor in Salzburg. In October 1819 Beethoven had decided to send his nephew to him in Salzburg to be educated. On 15 November 1819 Weißenbach wrote Beethoven a letter concerning this matter. The canon was probably not written before he received the letter, that is not before the end of November 1819.
A further entry on page 32 (image 17) concerns another person connected with Beethoven: "Sanct petrus ist ein Fels" ("Saint Peter is a rock"). The person in question is Karl Peters, a tutor in the household of Prince Lobkowitz. Peters often appears in Beethoven's conversation books in that winter, for example at the beginning of January 1820, when he writes: "It is a shame about your canon which has perhaps already faded / It would have immortalized me". How wrong this conjecture was ...
On the opposite page 33 (image 17) there is another canon, "Wähner Es ist kein Wahn" ("Wähner, it is no delusion") on the writer Friedrich Wähner - he also appears in the conversation books several times in the same winter period.
Finally another person in Beethoven's life appears between the sketches for the Mass: On the penultimate page (image 22) the note "geh' Baurer" (a pun on Gebauer's name) and underneath this "Geh' Bauer", which refers to Franz Xaver Gebauer, choir master and organizer of the concert series "Concerts spirituels". He also appears in a conversation book around 10 April 1820. So not all of the material is from "1819" as Beethoven wrote on the first page, some of it is actually from the spring of 1820. (J.R.)
