Ludwig van Beethoven, Skizzenblatt zum Klavierkonzert Nr. 5 op. 73, Autograph

Founded suspicion

Apart from the musical text (sketches for the first movement of his last Piano Concerto in E-flat major op. 73) Beethoven did not write anything further on the sketch leaf, neither expression marks nor headings or anything else. The leaf was not always a single leaf. In the left margin two stitch holes can be clearly seen (more clearly on the reverse, here in the right margin). Such holes occur when a needle and thread are passed through a leaf so that it can be attached to other leaves to form a book. The leaf must therefore once have belonged to a sketchbook. Unlike other single leaves, which can be assigned to sketchbooks with absolute certainty, in this case it is not possible. There are, however, the usual suspects. In the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris there is a miscellany with sketches for the Fifth Piano Concerto (Ms 73). The paper of the miscellany is identical with that of this sketch leaf, and all the leaves also have two stitch holes. The leaves in Paris have a different staff ruling, but most of them have 14 lines like this leaf. Unfortunately there are no ink stains which have left impressions on opposite pages - they can often be used to prove where scattered leaves originally belonged. It cannot therefore be proved with any certainty that HCB Mh 77 belongs to the Paris miscellany Ms73. But it is certainly a possibility. (J.R.)