Beschreibung:

BEETHOVEN, Ludwig Van (1770-1827). Autograph sketch-leaf, containing draft ideas for several works including the Op. 29 String Quintet, and an unfinished C-minor piano fantasy, [Vienna, April-November 1801]. 2 pages, oblong 4to (220 x 302mm), 12 staves to the page, in brown ink on both sides of a single sheet with portion of a "three crescent moons" watermark at top edge. A FINE LEAF OF SKETCHES FOR THE C MAJOR STRING QUINTET, OP.29: FROM THE DISPERSED "SAUER SKETCHBOOK" A very full leaf, with notation on most of the staves of each page, totalling perhaps 100 bars. As is often the case with Beethoven's sketches, his disconnected, sometimes fragmentary and hurried notation, at times without clef, meter or key indicated, is difficult to decipher. The contents of the present leaf, and the contents of the sketchbook from which it originally derives, are discussed in full by D. Johnson, A. Tyson and R. Winter, The Beethoven Sketchbooks: History, Reconstruction, Inventory (Berkeley, Ca., 1985), pp. 113-123. Of the 22 surviving leaves from this early sketchbook (which may have contained 48 or even 96 leaves originally), 5 leaves contained sketches for the finale of the piano sonata Op. 27, no. 2 ('Moonlight'), 7 bore sketches for the piano sonata Op. 28 ('Pastoral') and 10 leaves, including the present, contain sketches for the exposition of the string Quintet Op. 29, one of Beethoven's most significant chamber works of this productive early period. The present is apparently the last extant leaf from the Sauer sketchbook still in private ownership (another was sold in 1981, Sotheby's, New York, 1 October 1980, lot 50, $43,000). Provenance : Ludwig Van Beethoven, whose possessions, including manuscripts, were dispersed after his death at auction in Vienna (5 November 1827, the sketchbook comprising lot 17, described as a 'Notirbuch') -- Ignaz Sauer (1759-1833), a Vienna dealer in art and music materials, purchased at the above sale, as part of a sketchbook now known as the Sauer Sketchbook. Sauer apparently dismantled the sketchbook or most of it, and proceeded to sell the individual leaves. Sometimes he provided a sort of cover attesting that they were in Beethoven's hand and how he had acquired them. Today, some 22 leaves are all that survive from the notebook, which Beethoven apparently used between April and November 1801. These extant leaves are inventoried and described in detail by Johnson, Tyson and Winter -- Dr. Robert Ammann, graphologist and collector (sale, Stargardt, Marburg, 19 November 1961, lot 961, plate XV) -- Dr. Myron Prinzmetal (sale, Christie's New York, 20 May 1988, lot 54).