The discovery in a Pennsylvania seminary last October of the manuscript of Beethoven’s own piano duet transcription of his Grosse Fuge elicited some decidedly inarticulate responses from musical elite. Lewis Lockwood, a Harvard musicologist, memorably commented to The New York Times, “Wow! Oh my God! This is big. This is very big”. Lockwood’s momentary lack of erudition is forgivable, as the manuscript has been considered lost since its sale, 116 years ago, at a Berlin auction. To compound further the potential impact of its discovery stands the fact that the Grosse Fuge has been one of Beethoven’s most enduringly controversial compositions since its first performance in March 1826.
It originally formed the finale to the String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, op. 130. However, the movement’s technical demands and spiky sound were unpopular with both listeners and performers, contrasting especially with the quartet’s penultimate movement, the mellifluous and harmonious Cavatina. Twentieth-century opinion was generally in favour–Stravinsky called it “an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever”, though the composer and critic Daniel Gregory Mason (1873-1953) described it as “the most disappointing episode in the entire series of the Quartets.” Mathia Artaria, the publisher who had purchased the quartet for 80 ducats, paid Beethoven an extra 15 to compose a new finale, which, unusually for a man with little or no regard for public opinion of his work, he duly did. Artaria also asked a friend of Beethoven’s, Anton Halm, to produce a piano transcription of the unpopular work. Beethoven’s dislike of Halm’s efforts led to his own transcription, published posthumously as op. 134 in May 1827 along with the new finale for op. 130 and the original Grosse Fuge as the standalone op. 133.
Already notoriously difficult to perform in its string version, Beethoven made no concessions for his transcription, which is at times notably unpianistic (crossing hands, etc.). We now know that Beethoven must have played it himself, however, as there are fingerings marked on the manuscript. Another fascinating aspect is that the handwriting is typically Beethovenian: the paper is covered in hurriedly scribbled notes that leap around the staves, furious deletions and spilt ink. This leads to the conclusion noted in Sotheby’s catalogue, “The extent of Beethoven’s working and reworking on the manuscript suggests that the composer accorded it great significance and leads to the suggestion that he may have given the four-hand [piano duet] version equal standing with the better-known quartet version.”
The manuscript was sold at Sotheby’s for £1.12m last December to an unknown buyer. (Incidentally, Sotheby’s detailing of the manuscript’s condition is a masterpiece of upper-middle-class English detachment: “a little browning and staining, a few tiny holes at Beethoven’s heavier erasures, otherwise in good condition, spine a little rubbed”–so deadpan it could be from eBay.) Fortunately, this being the digital age, scholars will have access to scanned copies of the manuscript, so it will be lost no longer. It is too soon to say whether these will allow them to mirror the raptures of Prof. Lockwood; now that the commotion surrounding the initial announcements has died down, it is worth being a little more circumspect and noting that we have always had access to the printed ur-text. Nevertheless, as a direct connection to the life and work of one of the greatest and most powerfully enthralling artists ever to have lived, this new source is without parallel in living memory.