The most important Beethoven manuscript now in the Soviet Union — both in respect to length and number of compositions represented — is the sketchbook which lies in the manuscript section of the M. I. Glinka Museum [in Moscow] under the catalog heading 155 No.1. This is the book with which the present publication is concerned.

There are 174 pages (23 x 32 [centimeters]) in the book, each of which is lined in a sixteen-staff system. Beethoven's handwriting fills 168 of the pages (1-97, 102-105, 107-158 and 160-174). Six pages are blank.

The book is in comparatively good condition. All the pages are intact, and the ink has not faded. The single defect is that the upper part of one of the pages is torn off. This fact was known to Ludwig Nohl, who examined the sketchbook in the 1870's.1

An unknown person has numbered the odd pages in an accurate and fair hand, and has written the figure 19 on the remaining part of the defective page (the pagination was thus done after the page had been torn). On the cover and on the lower lines of the last page (174) another handwriting — but still not Beethoven's — has written the number 64, the meaning of which will become clear a little later.

In the quality and color of the paper, and also in the staff system, all the pages are identical. This characteristic, which would appear to be wholly an outward one, establishes an important difference between this document and others — which are analogous, but which contain pages of varied form and color — bound post factum, after the composer's work on the pieces in them had been completed. Separate pages and small notebooks were bound in this way according to their contents, and for this reason the chronological order of the various sketches in them was not always maintained. The sketchbook here published, however, is complete as an entity and was bound before Beethoven wrote his first sketches in it.

From this it by no means follows that the chronology of the sketchwork corresponds exactly to the order of the pages. It is quite clear that, once having planned the beginning of some work (or section of a work), Beethoven would leave the next lines (or pages) empty and start the composition of something new further on in the book. Then, when he returned to continue what he had begun earlier, the number of lines which he had foreseen he would need was sometimes not enough for him, and in these cases there arose the peculiar "strip-farming" which coupled together sketches unrelated to one another.

And so, since the book's pages are in the same order today as they were when the composer wrote on them, it has not been impossible for the researcher to restore approximately the chronology of the sketches, by means of some change or another in the statement of a musical idea, and sometimes by means of a technical detail (the color of the ink, the change of a pen, the arrangement of the sketohes on the lines, the bold or the restrained quality of the writing, and so on). In the transcribing of the complete book the element of chance was removed from this reconstruction by the fact that the pages comprise an entity.

The contents of the sketchbook consist of sketches for the following compositions:

1. Sonata in E-Flat Major for Piano, Op. 31, No.3
     a. First movement
     b. Second movement
     c. Fourth movement
   
2. Variations in F major for Piano, Op. 34 (·Six Variations")
3. Variations in E-Flat Major for Plano, Op. 35 ("Fifteen Variations and Fugue")
4. Bagatelle in D Major, Op. 119, No. 3
5. Bagatelle in E-Flat Major, Op. 3, No. 1
6. Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55 ("Eroica")
     a. First movement
     b. Second movement
     c. Third movement
7. Trio for Soprano, Tenor and Bass with Orchestra, "Tremate, empi, tremate," Op. 116 (text by Bettoni)
8. Duet for Soprano and Tenor with Orchestra, Nei giorni tuoi relici," without opus (to a text from the final scene of the first act of Metastasio's Olympiada)
9. Oratorio Christus am Ölberg, Op. 85 (text by Huber)
     a. No.1. Recitative and Aria for Tenor
     b. No.2. Recitative and Aria for Soprano
     c. No.3. Recitative and Duet
     d. No.4. Recitative and Chorus
     e. No.5. Recitative and Chorus
     f. No.6. Recitative, Trio and Chorus
     g. Introduction
10. Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano, Op. 47 ("Kreutzer")   a. First movement   b. Second movement
11. Fragments of unknown works in piano version
      a. in G Major and C Major, of folk-dance character
      b. in E-Flat Major, in the character of a fast march
      c. in C Minor
      d. Two Fugues in C Major
      e. Rondo pour tous les instruments in F Major
      f. a series of other fragmentary sketches
12. Unknown vocal works
      a. Adagio and canon in A Minor
      b. Canon in G Major
13. Fragments of etudes, virtuoso piano formulas, cadences and exercises

The book is not dated by the author, but the period of time in which the work went on may be established by comparisons with other documents. An especially significant comparison is provided the book of sketches acquired in the auction after Beethoven's death by Karl Stein, and which afterwards belonged to the pianist Joseph Kessler. Since 1899 it has been kept in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. This book, known to Beethoven scholars as the Kessler sketchbook, was described by Gustav Nottebohm, who established that Beethoven had been occupied with it between autumn of 1801 and spring of 1802.2 It opens with sketches for a "Sacrificial Song" to words of F. Matthisson, and then follow further sketches related to:

three Contradances (from the twelve)
the Bagatelle, Op. 33, No. 6
the finale of the Second Symphony
the Trio, Op. 116
the first two movements of the Sonata in A Major, Op. 30, No.1
the finale (Presto) of the Sonata in A Major, Op. 47 ("Kreutzer")
the Sonata in C Minor, Op. 30, No.2
the Bagatelle, Op. 119, No. 5
the Sonata in D Minor, Op. 31, No.2
the Sonata in G Major, Op. 30, No. 3
the finale (Allegretto con variazioni) of the Sonata in A Major, Op. 10, No. 1
the Variations, Op. 35
the Variations, Op. 34
the Sonata in G Major, Op. 31, No.1

From the list cited it is evident that the Second Symphony and the Kreutzer Sonata are represented in the Kessler sketchbook by their last movements only. This might lead one to think that Beethoven was occupied earlier with the composition of their preceding movements, i. e., before autumn of 1801. And in fact, many sketches for the early movements of the Second Symphony are found in the sketchbook for 1800-1801 (the so-called Landsberg sketchbook).3 But there is not a single note in it related to the first movements of Op. 41.

Why is the Kreutzer Sonata represented in the Kessler sketchbook only by the Presto finale? Why was the Presto written at the same time as the first movements of the Sonata Op. 30, No. 1? The explanation is simple. When he was composing the Presto, Beethoven intended it for the concluding movement of the Sonata Op. 30, No. 1 in A Major. Then, finding it unsuitable for that Sonata, he wrote a new finale for that work — the Allegretto con variazioni. The Presto remained in reserve and took its place a year later in the new Sonata in A Major, the one dedicated to Kreutzer (Op. 47).

Since the sketches for the first two movements of Op. 47 appear in the sketchbook here published,4 we may conclude that this sketchbook follows chronologically the Kessler sketchbook. Such a conclusion is fully supported when the sketches for the two sets of variations are compared with each other. In the Kessler sketchbook the Variations Op. 34 and 35 appear only in the last pages; moreover, of Op. 34 only the opening two bars of the theme and the first four bars of the sixth variation are sketched, and of Op. 35 only the inchoate version of the final Andante. But in the Beethoven sketchbook now in the Glinka Museum the same sets of variations, together with the Sonata Op. 31, No.3, occupy the first forty-three pages and virtually reach the form which they assumed in publication. The work of Beethoven's in question thus appears to be a direct continuation of that accomplished in the early spring of 1802.

Now it is necessary to look at two intermediate dates:

On October 18, 1802, Beethoven informed the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel that he had finished the work on the two sets of variations.5 Thus by autumn of 1802 the first forty-three pages of the book were already filled.

On November 23, 1802, Beethoven's brother Karl wrote the publisher Johann Andre in Offenbach-am-Main: "Ludwig is not occupied with trifles at present, but is writing only operas and oratorios."6 From this it may be concluded that at the beginning of winter the oratorio Op. 85 was not yet finished (the sketches for the oratorio begin to appear on page 90 of the sketchbook).

But on April 5, 1803 the oratorio was presented in a concert in the Theater-an-der-Wien. There must have been some time in between to allow for the final polishing of the work, the writing of the score, the copying and the learning of the solo parts, and the conducting of choral and orchestral rehearsals. Looking over the sketches up to the last page, one is easily convinced that they are still far from being ready to be put into score. The last page could not have been written later than several days before the performance.

And so Beethoven worked on this sketchbook between April 1802 and March 1803. Since he spent half of the year, from spring to late autumn of 1802, in Heiligenstadt — a village near Vienna — we shall hereinafter refer to the sketchbook — in distinction to the others — as the "Heiligenstadt sketchbook".

How did the Heiligenstadt sketchbook come into the Moscow museum, and who were its previous owners? Neither on the book's cover or on any of its pages are there any names, stamps or seals that might serve as indications to the book's previous whereabouts. Marks are found, however, on the margins of various pages — annotations, which point to a clue.

One of these marks is the word "Eroica",· written on the margins of pages 12, 16, 22, 28, 34, 37, 44, and others connected with the Sonata Op. 31, No.3, with the bagatelles and the oratorio. Evidently the author of the annotations examined the entire sketchbook. But he annotated some works several times, and paid no attention to others. He has not at all named the Variations Opp. 34 and 35, the duet to Metastasio's text, or the Terzett. The sketches for the "Kreutzer" are also left alone, but the designation "Op. 47" is conferred upon a fragment unrelated to the Sonata. The Bagatelle in D is marked not by its generally known opus number, 119, but by the number of the previous set — 112.

These peculiarities are described also in the "Catalog of Beethoven's Compositions, compiled by Wilhelm von Lenz and published in Hamburg in 1860.7 Lenz talks about the "Skizzenbuch," where "by the sporadically legible words, since the sketches are illegible," rough drafts for the oratorio Op. 85 are recognized.8 Of the sketches for instrumental works, Lenz mentions in passing the initial section of Op. 3, No.1, Op. 112, No.2, Op. 31, No. 3, one passage from the Sonata Op. 47, and an allusion to the "Marcia funebre" of the Eroica and sketches for its finale.9

Both in the annotations on the sketchbook's margins and in the Catalog," the piano variations and the vocal works on Italian texts are allowed to pass by, the numerous sketches for the Kreutzer are ignored, and the irregular opus number for the Bagatelle is used. Involuntarily, the question arises: are not the author of the Catalog and the annotator one and the same? Just so: a comparison of the notations with an unpublished document reveals that they belong to the same hand, and this document is a letter of April 6th (no year indicated) written by Wilhelm von Lenz.10

Of course, the annotations appear to be earlier than the published Catalog. Lenz became acquainted with this sketchbook before 1860. And in the Catalog he indicates its location at that time: "the musical library of Count Wielhorsky in Petersburg."11

One of the outstanding Russian Beethoven scholars in the first half of the past century, Mixail Jur'evic Viel'gorskij (1787-1856) used to play in his youth, under his father's direction, the viola part in Beethoven's early quartets, and in his twentieth year, stopping in Vienna on a return trip to Russia from France — by way of Austria — he had the honor to meet Beethoven personally. "The Count, having just met Beethoven, writes A. N. Serov of Viel'gorskij, "did not shrink from him, but entered into a conversation on music... he had the incredible — for us — privilege to hear the improvisations of the greatest genius of symphonic music in the world.12

According to Schiller's account (cited by Thayer), Viel'gorskij was one of the very few who were present at the first performance of the Pastoral Symphony (Vienna, December 1808).13

Based on Viel'gorskij's personal acquaintance with Beethoven, N. F. Findejzen once suggested that the Beethoven manuscript could have been in the Viel'gorskij collection from the year 1808. "It is possible,· he writes, that from this period stems the acquisition of the musical manusoript found in the legacy of M. Viel'gorskij.14

Of course, the meetings with Beethoven, the conversations with him about art, and the hearing of his improvisations did not fail to impress Viel'gorskij. When he returned to Russia, he became an indefatigable propagandist for the creator of the Pastoral Symphony. For example, an important place in the history of Russian Beethoveniana is occupied by the cycle of concerts, known as the "Louisian" ooncerts (named for Vieltgorskij's wife, Luize), which took place in the winter of 1822-1823 in the village of Pateyevok in Kyrsk province. In this cycle many works of western European music were performed. Beethoven was represented by almost all his largest symphonic works written before 1820.15

However important the role his personal acquaintance with Beethoven played in his life and work, Viel'gorskij could not have received the Heiligenstadt sketchbook directly as a result of his visit to Vienna in 1808. Findejzen's opinion was put forth without regard to the contents of the manuscript. It is difficult to assume that in 1808 Beethoven would part with the drafts of compositions not only unpublished, but still unperformed: the oratorio Op. 85 (first published in 1811), the Terzett Op. 116 (first performed 1814, first published 1826), the Bagatelle Op. 119 (first published 1823), and the duet Nei giorni tuoi felici (neither performed nor published in Beethoven's lifetime). Naturally the Heiligenstadt sketchbook came into Russia only after Beethoven's death.

The information in the seoond volume of Nohl's Beethoven (Leipzig, 1867) is also based on an evident misunderstanding (though of a somewhat different nature). Referring to Nottebohm's accomplishment two years earlier — the publication of the Kessler sketchbook — and enumerating the compositions in it, Nohl added on his own: "As luck would have it, Nottebohm described not long ago a sketchbook now sold into Russia, from which it is evident what sort of ideas were then filling Beethoven's mind" (he is talking about Beethoven's stay in Heiligenstadt in the summer of 1802).16

Here three mistakes are combined at the same time: First of all, the works represented in the Kessler sketchbook described by Nottebohm were composed by Beethoven not at Heiligenstadt, but before his arrival there. Secondly, the Kessler sketchbook was not at all in Russia. Finally, Gustav Nottebohm not only did not describe the Heiligenstadt sketchbook, but, judging from his articles, did not even see the book. Nohl simply confused two earlier sketchbooks.17

Afterwards, visiting Petersburg, Nohl himself discovered this contusion and in subsequent editions of his three-volume work, he withdrew the sentence about the sale of the sketchbook. Moreover, he published an artiole in 1874 in which he pointed out that the Beethoven sketchbook in Russia resembles that described by Nottebohm only in external appearance. In the article, incidentally, it is stated that "the book belongs to the oldest daughter of Count Wielhorsky, the wife of Senator Wenewitinow (that is, A. M. Viel'gorskij-Venevitinova) and that "in the Wielhorsky library it is catalogued under the number 64."18

Nohl's important correction, made in a special scientific article, did not reach, however, that circle of readers who knew only the Beethoven book described in the 1867 edition. And in the 1890's this first edition was translated into Russian, and a copy fell into the hands of the next owner of the Heiligenstadt sketchbook — the grandson of M. J. Viel'gorskij and the son of A. M. Venevitinova — the arohaeologist and composer M. A. Venevitinov (at this time, the Heiligenstadt sketchbook was already in Moscow, where Venevitinov held the post of Director of the Publicnyj and Rumjancevskij Museum).

Having read in Nohl's work the information that the book sold into Russia was described by Nottebohm, and unaware that Nohl himself had already retracted that statement, Venevitinov turned to S. I. Tanejev (the eminent Russian musicologist) with a request to borrow, "if only for a few hours," Nottebohm's volume which Nohl cited.19

When he received the book from Tanejev, Venevitinov, who was a good musician, easily discovered Nohl's mistake. On the next day he again wrote Tanejev: "Isn't there another source from which I might find out about the sketchbook which I have?"20

By the letters of Venevitinov, still another version of Viel'gorskij's acquisition of the Beethoven manuscript is proved false — the version, rather widely circulated, whose author appears to have been the fairly well-known O. A. Smirnova-Rosset. In her house, as she related it, there was once supposed to have been a meeting of Alexander Pushkin and Mixail Viel'gorskij with a certain Madame Hirt. Learning that Madame Hirt was a pupil of Beethoven's, Pushkin and Viel'gorsklj bombarded her with inquiries about his deafness, his melancholy, his peculiar ideas, and about the blind girl for whom he composed the Moonlight Sonata." O. A. Smirnova asserted that at the time of this conversation "Madame Hirt promised Viel'gorskij the Beethoven manuscript."21

Such a meeting may have taken place, and it is possible that Madame Hirt actually did promise Viel'gorskij some kind of Beethoven manuscript. But could it have been the Heiligenstadt sketchbook, could it have come into Viel'gorskij's possession while Alexander Pushkin was alive? [Pushkin died in 1837. — Ed.]

We think a negative answer is given by Venevitinov's letters to Tanejev. For Venevitinov personally knew his grandfather, Mixail Viel'gorskij, more intimately than anyone else, and he studied his archives and had a particular knowledge of all the family legends. If the sketchbook had come to Viel'gorskij in those years when such a meeting could have taken place, Venevltinov could hardly have attached importance to Nohl's remark about a "recent sale," and he would scarcely have begun to search for an account of the book in the works of his contemporary Nottebohm, who had never been in Russia.

Of course, it would be desirable if the number which the Heillgenstadt sketchbook received, not only in Viel'gorskij's library, but in the auction at Kohlmarkt as well, [This was the sale of Beethoven's belongings after his death. — Ed.] could be used to shed light on who bought the book at the auction, and who sold it or made a present of it to Viel'gorskij. For at the time of the auction in Vienna, Maurer was close to Viel'gorskij. So was Hunke. Both left Vienna taking with them Beethoven manuscripts. Could Gräffer have forgotten to take down their names when he declared sold the "Books of Notes" designated by Nos. 12, 19, 22, and 27? (The names of the buyers of these numbers remain unknown as well.)

Unfortunately there is no information-permitting an answer to that question, either in the printed materials or in the archives. It does not help to turn to the inheritance or the auction list, which was drawn up soon after Beethoven's death and which is now kept in the Beethovenhaus Museum in Bonn.

Thus it is necessary, in the matter in question, to confine oneself to the suggesting of only a period of time when Viel'gorskij could have received the Heiligenstadt sketchbook, and to refrain from the fixing of an exact date and circumstances of acquisition. Excluding consideration of the unfounded versions criticized above, one may arrive at a determination of the period on the basis of the following reasoning.

It is known that Lenz wrote two main works on Beethoven. The first, Beethoven and his Three Styles, was published in Petersburg in 1852, and the second — Beethoven — in Kassel and Hamburg in 1856-1860. In both works there is a "Catalog of Beethoven's Works, and in particular a paragraph devoted to Op. 85. In the first edition of the Catalog there is no mention of the sketchbook belonging to Viel'gorskij, but the second edition makes such a mention.

Lenz was a close acquaintance of Viel'gorskij; he called him his "spiritual father"22 and had already in the 1800's come to work in Viel'gorskij's library. If the Heiligenstadt sketchbook had come into that library earlier than the middle of the century, Lenz surely would have mentioned it in his work, timed for the twenty-fifth year after Beethoven's death.

Something else is still more crucial, a letter of Lenz's to Viel'gorskij on the 6th of April (no year indicated) devoted entirely to the symphonies of Beethoven. But in speaking of the Eroica, Lenz constructs no history of its composition in terms of the sketches. In the second edition of the Catalog, however, he attempts to fix the time of the Symphony's composition on the basis of the sketches in the book belonging to Viel'gorskij.23 This clearly shows that at the moment of writing the letter Lenz had still not seen the Heiligenstadt sketchbook, although he was in closest contact with Viel'gorskij in matters concerning Beethoven scholarship. The letter, judging from its contents, could not have been written earlier than the first appearance of the Catalog.

And so, the Heiligenstadt sketchbook came into the collection of Mixail Viel'gorskij between 1853 and 1856. It is possible that it came into the collection after the death of Viel'gorskij himself. But in any case — not later than 1859.

At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, a series of articles and notes devoted to a description of the Viel'gorskij-Venevitinov collections appeared in Russian journals. Very likely the most significant of these articles is that serialized in the April 1900 issues (nos. 15-17) of the Russkaja Muzykal'naja Gazeta. This article is entitled "80 and 60 Years Ago." The author was S. V. Smolenskij, a well-known musicologist and researcher in Russian music.

Smolenskij touches twice upon the Beethoven manuscript — in the beginning and at the end of the article — not once, however, naming Beethoven himself. "I permit myself," wrote Smolenskij, "to put aside information about one amazing manuscript until suoh time when more detailed study of this major document will make it possible to write an account worthy of it, and perhaps to have it appear in print." And further: ...there is a varied collection [at Venevitinov's] of portraits, manuscripts, and, among others, one genuine rarity, about which I remain silent for the time being."24

In concealing from the readers of the journal the contents of the "genuine rarity," Smolenskij gave them advance notice of the possibility of its appearance in print. On what did he base this information? The answer to that question is contained in letters of S. I. Tanejev and M. P. Beljaev which are kept in the museum of the Tchaikovsky House in Klina and in the Glinka Museum in Moscow.

On February 28, 1900, M. A. Venevitinov invited S. I. Tanejev and S. V. Smolenskij to his home in order to acquaint them with the Beethoven manuscript. On that same day in Tanejev's diary appears the following entry determining the contents of the manuscript which he viewed: "A sketchbook of Beethoven's... Sketches for the Sonata in E-Flat, variations, many things with text (I think it is Christus am Oelberg). He [Venevitlnov] did not have anything against suggesting to Beljaev that it be published."25

Tanejev did not confine himself to a single visit, but returned to Venevitinov's on the 9th, 13th, and 23rd of March. He did not have a copy of the score of Beethoven's oratorio in his own library, and — before one of the visits to Venevitinov — dropped in on G. L. Katuar in order to obtain one. On March 19th Tanejev approached M. P. Beljaev by letter.

"In the last few days very unusual circumstances impel me to write you... In Moscow there has been found a personal notebook of his [Beethoven'sl sketches. It belongs to the Director of the Rumyancevskij Museum, Mixail Alekseyevič Venevitinov. The notebook came to him from his grandfather Mixail Jur'evič Viel'gorskij, and there can be no doubt as to its genuineness. In it are numerous sketches for the Sonata in E-Flat, Op. 31, for the Piano Variations and Fugue Op. 35, serving afterwards for the finale of the Eroica Symphony, and very many fragments with German text, in all probability related to the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives (in a few days I shall verify this). When I saw this jewel I first of all thought how wonderful it would be to publish it in facsimile, and I determined to persuade you to that end... If it were to fall to the lot of a Russian publisher to acquaint the musical world with a genuine Beethoven sketchbook, where one could see how he worked, in what order his thoughts replaced one another, and precisely the fact that he would deem it necessary to discard or change something else, then how splendid it would be!"26

Beljaev did not carry out the request, motivating his refusal on the ground that in the task of publishing he did not consider as a part of his work the printing of the music of foreign composers.27 Tanejev was deeply grieved. "I am greatly sorry," he wrote to Beljaev on April 6, 1900, "that you do not want to make an exceptlon even for this composer. Beethoven cannot at all be correctly regarded as a German composer. He belongs to the whole world, and in that number, to us — to Russians.28 But Beljaev continued to remain deaf to Tanejev's arguments. The book was not published.

Twelve days after Tanejev wrote the above letter, on April 18, 1900, M. A. Venevitinov became seriously ill. In the course of the following eighteen months he was paralyzed, and in September 1901 he died. At this time the Heiligenstadt sketchbook drops out of sight for a while from the musical world. Although Venevitinov's library and a part of the family archives were donated by the Ruajancevskij Museum by two of the heirs, there is no information in the museum's records of any Beethoven manuscript. In 1906 the editor of the Russkaja Muzykal'naja Gazeta, N. F. Findejzen, came forth with the statement in print that, of the Beethoven manuscript in the Vlel'gorskij legacy, to which "S. V. Smolenskij alluded... from that time on [that is, from 1900] nothing further is known."29 In fact, no documents about the sketchbook's location between 1902 and 1911 have been discovered.

The mysterious disappearance of the sketchbook became known abroad: in the 1920's and 1930's it was considered lost.30 Meanwhile, the book was in fact found again after the Great October Socialist Revolution. It remained in one of the Moscow state archives, and as far back as 1927 an employee of the archives, A. Semënlj, compiled (from Lenz's notes) a brief list of the Beethoven compositions represented in it. In 1939, upon the request of Professor A. B. Goldenweiser — at the time the Director of the Moscow Conservatory — the book was transferred to the Conservatory Library, and in 1943 to the State Central Museum of Musical Culture.31 At present the Heiligenstadt sketchbook forms a part of the musical treasury of the past, guarded by the people, and adorns the specially created Beethoven section in the Glinka Museum.