Ludwig van Beethoven, Melodie zu "Ruf vom Berge" WoO 147, Autograph

For a friend

A very unusual autograph score: on a page from a notebook Beethoven wrote down the melody for the Lied "Ruf vom Berge" WoO 147. Although he only wrote in pencil and drew the staves by hand, it is quite clearly not a sketch. It has a proper heading and contains the complete text. Nor did Beethoven forget the clef, accidentals or metre. Two different stories have been handed down about this score. Both were told by the Giannatasio del Rio family, with whom Beethoven became friends in 1816. On 20 December 1816 Fanny Giannatasio del Rio made the following entry in her diary, "Another even more enjoyable evening in B...'s company. To Nanni's [Fanny's sister Anna] delight he wrote her a new little song, the manuscript of which she has kept as a relic." On the other hand, in a letter to the Beethoven biographer A. W. Thayer on 20 March 1881, Nanny's daughter Anna Pessiak-Schmerling wrote, "Once there was an outing to the "Himmel" (a picturesque vantage point outside of Vienna), which Beethoven also came on. Mother stood next to him at the most beautiful viewpoint. Beethoven pulled out his large wallet, tore out a page, drew five lines and wrote down the melody for the little Lied "If I were a little bird and also had two wings" etc. which was later published, gave it to my mother with the words, "Well, Miss Nanni, you write the bass part for it". My mother always kept the leaf as a prized memento. She gave it to me with the explanation that I am the most musical of the sisters and will therefore appreciate the gem the most." In actual fact, Beethoven gave the leaf to Anna Giannatasio del Rio, which she kept as a souvenir. The circumstances and reason for the gift are, however, more likely to correspond to those described by Fanny Giannatasio del Rio in her diary. (J.R.)