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Beethoven's Portfolio of Bagatelles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
Beethoven published two sets of bagatelles during the 1820s – op. 119 (11 pieces) and op. 126 (six pieces) – but it is known that he considered publishing several other bagatelles as well at this time. Exactly which pieces these were, and why he did not publish them in the end, are matters which have never been thoroughly investigated; but an examination of these and related questions helps to throw new light on the two published sets as well as revealing interesting features about the unpublished bagatelles, none of which was printed until long after his death.
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- Copyright © 1987 Royal Musical Association
References
1 See Georg Kinsky (completed Hans Halm), Das Werk Beethovens (Munich, 1955), 344 The sketches are in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Artaria 195, pp 76-9, the autograph score is now split into three parts, in New York, Bonn and Paris (see Kinsky)Google Scholar
2 The initial letter was in response to a request from Peters for symphonies, quartets, trios, songs and piano solos ‘among which there might be small pieces’, see Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes (2nd edn, Princeton, 1967), 788. Beethoven’s two letters are published in The Letters of Beethoven, ed Emily Anderson (London, 1961), ii, 949 and 955 In connection with these letters Beethoven also drew up a price list of what he had available; see Alan Tyson, ‘A Beethoven Price List of 1822’, Beethoven Essays Studies in Honor of Elliot Forbes, ed Lewis Lockwood and Phyllis Benjamin (Cambridge, Mass, 1984), 53-65Google Scholar
3 See Ludwig van Beethoven, Sechs Bagatellen für Klavier Op 126 Faksimile der Handschriften und der Originalausgabe mit einem Kommentar, ed Sieghard Brandenburg (Bonn, 1984), ii, 51-2Google Scholar
4 Anderson, Letters, ii, 962-3Google Scholar
5 ibid, 976Google Scholar
6 Gustav Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, ed E Mandyczewski (Leipzig, 1887), 527Google Scholar
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8 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS 29Google Scholar
9 Bonn, Beethoven-Archiv, BMh 11/51Google Scholar
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11 For the exact makeup of the manuscript see Douglas Johnson, Beethoven’s Early Sketches in the ‘Fischhof Miscellany’ Berlin Autograph 28 (Ann Arbor, 1980), i, 135Google Scholar
12 Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, 527Google Scholar
13 Arnold Schmitz, Beethovens unbekannte Skizzen und Entwürfe, Veröffentlichungen des Beelhovenhauses in Bonn, 3 (Bonn, 1924)Google Scholar
14 See Erich Hertzmann, ‘The Newly Discovered Autograph of Beethoven’s Rondo a Capriccio, Op 129’, The Musical Quarterly, 32 (1946), 171-95Google Scholar
15 Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, aut 28 (‘Fischhof’), London, British Library, Add 29801, ff 39-162 (‘Kafka’)Google Scholar
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18 See ibid, 422-5Google Scholar
19 For date, see ibid, 141Google Scholar
20 See ibid, 422-5Google Scholar
21 See Barry Cooper, ‘Beethoven’s Revisions to Für Elise’, The Musical Times, 125 (1984), 561-3Google Scholar
22 Quoted in Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, 155Google Scholar
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25 It is significant that in some marches that Beethoven was selling to Peters at the same time he specifically mentioned having added trio sections, see Anderson, Letters, ii, 970Google Scholar
26 See Cooper, ‘Beethoven’s Revisions’Google Scholar
27 Schmitz, Beethovens unbekannte Skizzen and Beethovens Werke Vollständige, kritisch durchgesehene Gesamtausgabe, xxv (Leipzig, 1888), 368Google Scholar
28 It is Beethoven’s latest form of treble clef, used from the late 1790s onwards, see Johnson, Beethoven’s Early Sketches, 29-30, for a discussion of Beethoven’s treble clefsGoogle Scholar
29 An edition of the Rondo ‘No 11 ‘, along with the Db bagatelle ‘No 7’ and the revised version of Für Elise, is to be published by Basil Ramsey, Leigh-on-Sea, edited by the present writerGoogle Scholar
30 See Johnson, Beethoven’s Early Sketches, 422-5Google Scholar
31 The Gesamtausgabe (xxv, 353) gives the later version of Wo0 56, but with a few inaccuraciesGoogle Scholar
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33 Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, 206 Echoes of this view arc found, for example, in Edward Cone, ‘Beethoven’s Experiments in Composition The Late Bagatelles’, Beethoven Studies, 2 (1977), 84-105Google Scholar
34 Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, 146Google Scholar
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36 See Joseph Kerman, ‘An die ferne Geliebte’, Beethoven Studies, 1 (1974), 146Google Scholar
37 Kinskv Das Werk Beethovens 344Google Scholar
38 Anderson, Letters, 11, 979Google Scholar
39 Ibid iii 999Google Scholar
40 See ibid, 11, 880-1, for Beethoven’s explanation of this system of dual publicationGoogle Scholar
41 Ibid, ii, 1006Google Scholar
42 Alan Tyson, ‘The First Edition of Beethoven’s Op 119 Bagatelles’, The Musical Quarterly, 49 (1963), 331-8Google Scholar
43 The relevant part of the letter is quoted in Brandenburg, Sechs Bagatellen, ii, 47-8Google Scholar
44 Anton Schindler, Beethoven as I Knew Him, ed Donald MacArdle, trans Constance Jolly (London, 1966), 259Google Scholar
45 Tyson, ‘The First Edition’Google Scholar
46 Anderson, Letters. ii, 804-5Google Scholar
47 The immediate reason for writing another set of bagatelles was apparently that he was in debt to his brother Johann Op 119 nos 1-6 were to have been used as part payment for the debt, and so when the sale to Peters fell through, Beethoven seems to have felt obliged to give his brother a replacement set instead See Brandenburg, Sechs Bagatellen, ii, 48-50Google Scholar
48 Anderson, Letters, i, 455Google Scholar
49 Schindler, Beethoven as I Knew Him, 259Google Scholar
50 Cone, ‘Beethoven’s Experiments’, 85.Google Scholar
51 Anderson, Letters, iii, 1110Google Scholar
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56 Brandenburg, Sechs Bagatellen, ii, 65-6 For facsimiles of all three manuscripts, see ibid, i, 37-50Google Scholar
57 See Sieghard Brandenburg, ‘Die Beethoven-Autographen Johann Nepomuk Kafkas Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sammelns von Musikhandschriften’, Divertimento für Hermann J Abs, ed Martin Staehelin (Bonn. 1981), 89-133, see especially pp 108-11, which include a transcription of the relevant portion of the auction catalogueGoogle Scholar
58 The sketch is transcribed in Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, 523, though Nottebohm does not relate it to Wo0 52Google Scholar