Manuscripts

Original Beethoven Manuscripts 

The Beethoven Center owns several original Beethoven manuscripts, including seven letters from Beethoven to his publishers, friends, and other associates. Most of these letters were acquired by Ira Brilliant and donated to the Beethoven Center; one is on loan from his son, Robert Brilliant.

Other manuscripts that contain Beethoven handwriting include a musical sketch leaf entirely in Beethoven's hand, a signed receipt, and a leaf from one of his household account books. Six pencil markings in Beethoven's hand also appear in an early edition of J.C.Bach’s Keyboard Sonates, Opus 17, that the Center acquired in 2004.

A few of the original manuscripts are on display during the Center's open hours. Other manuscripts of Beethoven's music are available at the Center in published facsimile editions, on microfilm, or in photocopies.

List of Manuscripts 

Facsimiles, Microfilms, Photocopies

The Center owns copies of published facsimiles of Beethoven autographs, including sketchbooks, autograph manuscripts, copyists’ manuscripts, letters, and other documents. 

Microfilms and photocopies of some of Beethoven's sketches and autographs owned by other libraries are available for study at the Center. The complete collection of Beethoven manuscripts located at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is available on microfiche.

Microfilms are not yet cataloged online. To inquire if the Center's owns a microfilm of a particular manuscript, please contact the Curator.

Copyist Manuscripts

The Center owns a small collection of manuscripts of Beethoven’s music prepared by copyists.

Ones that date from Beethoven's lifetime include:

  • IFBms9: A manuscript score for the Fifth Symphony, Opus 67, prepared between 1808-1822
  • ABSms4: Arrangement of the Pathetique Sonata for orchestra, Opus 13
  • ABSms5: A copyist's score of the String quartets, Opus 18, no. 1-6, and Opus 74, from 1816
  • ABSms6: Set of parts for the Second Symphony, Opus 36
  • ABSms7: Score for Ah perfido, Opus 65
  • ABSms8: A set of manuscripts parts for an English performance of The Mount of Olives, Opus 85, in 1814
  • ABSms9: A manuscript score of Fidelio from 1824
  • ABSms10: Score for the Mass in C, Opus 86
  • ABSms11: Arrangement of the Adagio, WoO 33, no. 1
  • ABSms12: Copy of the Eroica Variations, Opus 35, from 1807
  • ABSms13: Score for the Romance for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 40
  • ABSms14 Scene from Fidelio
  • ABSms17: Copyist score for the String Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 127 (1826)

Other Manuscripts

The Beethoven Center has a small collection of autograph letters and signatures of other composers, performers, and Beethoven scholars.

Updated September 2019