First Manuscript Of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Up For Auction
Well, at least it’s Sotheby’s and not ebay. In any case, it would be interesting to see this score or hear a performance of it, knowing how Ludwig van Beethoven liked to write and rewrite his scores over and over before publication, and continue to rewrite them after they were published.
A while back, it was “discovered” that LvB left behind sketches from an incomplete Tenth Symphony. A contemporary composer took it upon himself to put together a piece using these sketches that he felt would be what Beethoven would have penned. You can hear the scherzo here. You can compare the original sketches with the conjectured work at the composer’s website.
Unfortunately, I was hoping for something a little better for a symphony following Number 9. I’d have to imagine that if Beethoven ever finished it, it would be much more inspiring than the one composed here.
they should call it Symphony 9.1112 or something similar… like a bad Netscape version or something… um. Yes.
I’d be okay with that…
well, a) a sketch is very far from a finished product and b) I mistrust anyone who takes on an unfinished work and tries to complete it in a “realistic” fashion.
Whatever. It never works.
I think it would be impossible not only for someone to predict what would have been written from the sketches (especially considering Beethoven’s habit of changing things and never being satisfied), but it would also be impossible to even imagine one’s self in his position well enough to be able to see the music through his eyes to the point where anything the new composer writes would come close to matching the intensite of what Beethoven would have come up with.