Ludwig van Beethoven, Skizzenblätter zur Violoncellosonate op. 69 sowie Entwürfe zu "Sehnsucht" WoO 134, Autograph

Four versions, one sketch

The three leaves of this manuscript mainly contain sketches for Beethoven's Sonata for Violoncello and Piano op. 69. However, on leaf 2v Beethoven made another draft, for the second version of the Lied "Sehnsucht" WoO 134 with a text from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. The composer had made four different versions of this Lied. The autograph score of the Lied which contains all four versions is also held at the Beethoven-Haus, HCB Mh 33. Beethoven noted the following on its title page, "Ich hatte nicht Zeit genug, um ein Gutes hervorzubringen, daher Mehrere Versuche" ("I did not have enough time to write one good one, thus several attempts"). This is a reason why there are four versions, not just the one version which had been commissioned. A similar remark can also be found on this sketch leaf. On leaf 2v underneath the sketch for "Sehnsucht" Beethoven wrote, "Es mangelte an Zeit, um dieses Lied nur einmal zu kürzen" ("There was not enough time to shorten this Lied just once"). The lack of time mentioned in both manuscripts probably has to do with the composition of the cello sonata, for which there are also sketches on this leaf; at the same time Beethoven was also working on the Fifth Symphony. The draft for WoO 134 only has 11 bars, so it is difficult to believe that it could have been shortened even further. Helga Lühning, editor of the Lieder for the New Complete Edition, therefore believes that Beethoven had had several ideas for setting the Lied to music, which he had wanted to bring together in a single more extensive Lied at the time of making the sketch. Yet he had abandoned this idea due to his workload and instead written four different versions of the Lied. (J.R.)