Johann Joseph Fux, Gradus ad Parnassum, Auszug, Autograph Beethovens

Study copies

In 1810 Beethoven began teaching his patron Archduke Rudolph in composition. The lessons were probably agreed on in 1809 already as in the summer of this year - the Archduke was on exile in Hungary because of the war - Beethoven started collecting excerpts on counterpoint and fugue theory from the contemporary key musical theories. He stored some of these excerpts in special booklets, created elaborated tables and summarised the information on counterpoint with commented note examples. Some of the booklets even have page numbers.

The present sheet contains excerpts taken from a standard textbook of that period: "Gradus ad Parnassum" by Johann Joseph Fux. The original textbook was published in Vienna in 1725 in Italian. A German translation by Lorenz Mizler was published in Leipzig in 1742. It is a fact that Beethoven owned the German edition. The Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna owns a booklet in which Beethoven collected excerpts from this edition. It contains Beethoven's copies on the strict counterpoint and has 71 pages all numbered by the composer. Our sheet clearly shows page numbers 72 and 73. The examples Beethoven noted deal with the fourth and fifth category of the four-voice strict movement.

(J.R.)