BARRY COOPER

The early copy of Beethoven’s Allegretto in B minor for string quartet

On 29 November 2016 a manuscript copied from Beethoven’s autograph score of a little-

known Allegretto in B minor for string quartet (WoO 210), composed in 1817, was offered

for auction at Sotheby’s, London, with an estimate of £150,000-£200,000. Sotheby’s

described the copy as a Beethoven autograph manuscript, and indeed the handwriting is

extremely similar to Beethoven’s.1 It is clear, however, that the copy was not written by

Beethoven but by some copyist, as I pointed out before the auction. There is abundant

evidence to prove this, and this may be why nobody bought the manuscript. The owner of the

original autograph, from which this manuscript was clearly copied, was Richard Ford, an

Englishman who had visited Beethoven and been presented with the new composition, as he

noted in an inscription on the autograph, dated 28 November 1817.2 Comparison of the copy

with the original provides some clues about the handwriting, but other evidence is self-

standing.

Handwriting features, unlike paper types and ink colour, are easily visible in a

photocopy, and the manuscript contains several anomalies that can readily be seen to be

inconsistent with Beethoven’s handwriting. One is the natural signs. Beethoven always 1 A clear reproduction of the entire piece can be seen online in the relevant Sotheby’s

catalogue at: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/music-continental-

books-manuscripts-l16406/lot.4.html (accessed 2 March 2017).

2 For an account of the original autograph, which turned up in Cornwall in 1999, see Barry Cooper:

‘The Newly Discovered Quartet Movement by Beethoven’, in The Beethoven Journal, vol.15 no.1

(Summer 2000), pp.19–24. See also the facsimile edition and transcription with introduction by

Stephen Roe, in Ludwig van Beethoven: Allegretto in h-Moll = Allegretto in B minor (Cologny and

Munich, 2001).

formed his naturals in an unusual way. Most copyists then, as now, created the sign by

drawing two interlocking shapes resembling L and 7. Beethoven, however, always drew his

with a down–right–down zigzag, followed by a short line drawn from the middle of the first

downstroke. In neat copies this short line would go to the right then vertically down to form

the central box; when in a hurry, however, he tended just to draw this line diagonally down to

the right, meeting up or nearly meeting up with the second corner of the zigzag. This can be

seen, for example, in numerous specimens accessible online at the digital archive of the

Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, and he retained this formation throughout his life.3 I have examined

hundreds if not thousands of his naturals, from his earliest to his latest period. All follow this

pattern, though sometimes this can be hard to make out. The result is that the central box of

the symbol is sometimes open on the right, but never on the left. The three naturals in the

Allegretto copy (stave 7 bar 1 note 4, 7/5/1, and 16/1/3) are formed quite differently: an L

shape is placed above a 7 shape, and the cross-beam of the L slopes upward, not downward

(though in two cases it has a short downward hook at the right-hand end). The left side of the

central box is therefore invariably left open. Since this formation has never been found in any

genuine Beethoven autograph, it is clear already that this manuscript was not written by him.

3 See, for example, a plentiful supply of them on page 6 (= Image 8) of the autograph score of the

piano sonata Op. 101, written just a year before the Allegretto:

http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?

id=15248&template=dokseite_digitales_archiv_en&_eid=1510&_ug=Pieces%20for%20two

%20hands&_werkid=102&_dokid=wm145&_opus=op.

%20101&_mid=Works&suchparameter=&_sucheinstieg=&_seite=1-8 (accessed 2 March 2017). A

typical natural sign can be seen on stave 2, bar 1; others can be found on stave 7 (last bar), stave 10

(last bar) and stave 13 (bars 2 and 4).

A similar anomaly occurs with the four double bars at the end of the Allegretto. From

1802 onwards Beethoven always drew double bars as a vertical zigzag, somewhat resembling

a badly written letter m; occasionally there were fewer strokes, more like letter n (before

1802 he used a completely different sign that incorporated a reverse S).4 The four double bars

in the copy of the Allegretto, however, all have an extended downward hook to the right. I

have made a comprehensive study of Beethoven’s double bars, in order to write two articles

about them (these are the only two articles that have ever been published anywhere on this

subject).5 During my examination of several hundred double-bar signs I never saw a single

one in Beethoven’s hand – let alone four – that remotely resembled those in the Allegretto

copy. It is therefore impossible to believe, even without the evidence of the naturals, that

Beethoven wrote them himself. In Beethoven’s original autograph score of the Allegretto the

four double bars all take their normal m-shape.

The 8va signs on staves 10 and 11 also have an uncharacteristic termination after the

letters ‘va’ – a long hook upwards or downwards. If Beethoven wanted an 8va sign to apply

for several bars he wrote a wavy line after it, followed by ‘loco’ where the normal octave is

resumed. Where, as here, he was indicating that an instrument should play an octave below or

above another one, he simply wrote ‘in 8va’ with no long hook after the letter a.6 The design

here has no counterpart in any Beethoven manuscript I have examined, although wavy lines,

where present, might sometimes give the impression of a superficial similarity to the hooked

terminations found in the Allegretto copy.

4 The double bars on the page of Op. 101 cited above are typical.

5 Barry Cooper: ‘Beethoven and the Double Bar’, in Music & Letters, vol.88 no.3 (August 2007),

pp.458–83; ‘Structural Implications of the Double Bars in Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations’, in

Arietta, vol.8 (2014), pp.12–20.

6 Again the autograph of Op. 101 cited above provides useful specimens: image 26 contains ‘in 8va’

with the usual short curve at the end; image 28 shows this followed by a wavy line.

The position of the notes in Beethoven’s autographs is sometimes slightly

approximate, requiring copyists to judge whether the notehead is on a line or a space. This

problem is much more acute in his sketches, which he did not intend to be copied, and here

one occasionally finds a notehead clearly misplaced – D instead of E, for example. This

hardly ever occurs in his autographs, since he knew that someone would need to copy them.

A notable exception occurs in bar 20 of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, where he wrote a bottom D#

(not available on pianos at the time), instead of E#, because he miscounted the leger lines; but

such errors are rare. Normally the intended pitch is clear enough in autograph scores if one

looks carefully, and Beethoven’s professional copyists hardly ever copied a wrong pitch. In

the Allegretto copy, however, several notes are not merely approximate but clearly misplaced

by one degree of the scale, creating faulty harmony. Thus the penultimate bar, which reads as

Ex. 1 in the true autograph, appears as Ex. 2 in the copy, with four wrong notes: the second

one in violin 2, the second and third in the viola and the third in the cello. All four notes are

slightly approximate in the autograph and have simply been miscopied. Had Beethoven

himself written out the Allegretto a second time, different notes would have been slightly

misplaced, but probably not a single one clearly out by a whole degree, and certainly not four

in one bar.

Although the copyist was insufficiently careful over these details, failing to check the

harmony, he was too careful over certain others. Beethoven accidentally omitted one sharp in

the viola’s key signature in the true autograph. This was a mistake he hardly ever made, and

he would not have made it twice in the same place. Yet the copyist dutifully copied the

defective key signature, aiming to preserve every feature of the original in a way that

Beethoven never would have done when writing out a second copy. It was uncharacteristic of

him anyway to write out the same piece twice unless the first version had become almost

illegible or he wanted to make revisions – which is not the case here.

The copyist also took pains to reproduce the general layout of Beethoven’s original

notation, in a way that Beethoven never did. There are several cases where he wrote out two

autographs, such as the finale of his sonata Op. 110, and they are quite different in general

appearance and spacing, even though each individual symbol is formed in the same way. In

the copy of the Allegretto, however, the number of bars on each system is identical to that in

the autograph score, and the varying shapes of the two treble clefs in the autograph – with a

blob at the end of the upper one – have been almost exactly reproduced, as have the shapes

and positions of the figures in the time signature, each of which closely matches the

corresponding one in the original. Beethoven would never take such care to reproduce

insignificant details like these when writing out a second copy.

Another element that the copyist attempted to preserve was the precise location of

Beethoven’s slurs and barlines. Hence the copyist drew these slowly and carefully, resulting

in a slight wobble. This wobble is particularly conspicuous in the first barline and in the slurs

at the start of staves 5 and 7, and can easily be seen even by someone with no musical

expertise. Such a wobble cannot occur if the symbols are drawn quickly, as was Beethoven’s

habit, and so one never finds such extensive wobbles in his autographs. It is also noteworthy

that the most extensive wobbles tend to appear near the beginning of the copy, where the

copyist was being ultra-cautious, whereas the wrong notes occur mainly towards the end,

where he abandoned his caution and apparently copied more swiftly.

Another tell-tale sign that the manuscript was not written by Beethoven is the

elegantly curved beams to many of the quavers and semiquavers. Beethoven’s beams are

usually more or less straight – curved beams are much less frequent in his autographs than

they are here. Where they are curved it is most often because of the shape of the melodic line

attached to the beams. What one does not find is a series of beams with an elegant upward

curve at the right-hand end, such as appear here on stave 1 in bars 2, 3 and 6, for example. It

is not so much the presence of curves as their frequency and shape that are entirely

uncharacteristic of Beethoven’s autographs.

Who was the copyist? Either Richard Ford, the owner of the genuine autograph, made

the copy himself or he must have asked someone else to do so. The paper type appears to be

similar to some of Beethoven’s, though not identical, according to Sotheby’s auction

catalogue. The copy bears an inscription, ‘Composed & written by Beethoven himself /

November 29th 1817 at Vienna.’ Curiously, this is one day later than the date on Beethoven’s

autograph. This could reflect the date when the copy was made, or it could be a copying

error, since Ford’s ‘28’ is easily misread.The inscription, according to Sotheby’s, is in the

hand of Ford’s travelling companion John Abbiss, and so the copy was evidently made while

they were still on their travels. Thus Ford presumably presented Abbiss with the copy,

whether or not he made it, and Abbiss annotated it. (Another possibility is that Ford lent the

original to Abbiss, who had it copied before returning it.) The handwriting and ink in the

inscription are sufficiently different from those in the notation to suggest that Abbiss

probably did not make the copy himself. Further research will be needed to find a copyist

whose naturals, double bars and 8va signs match those in the manuscript.

Why would someone copy Beethoven’s handwriting, rather than just the music?

Again we are in the realms of speculation. It could have been a deliberate deception, perhaps

by Ford himself. Alternatively, Ford may have wanted a copy as close as possible in every

way to the original document, in case this was lost on his travels, and arranged for the nearest

thing possible to a photocopy (apart from deleted notes, which are absent in the copy). In this

case, Abbiss may have meant by the word ‘written’ that the copy preserved the actual

appearance of Beethoven’s notation, not just the music. There was at that time a growing

interest in Beethoven’s handwriting. Only ten years later, Johann Aloys Schlosser produced

the first book-length biography of Beethoven,7 and included a lithographic reproduction of

his handwriting – which would have been quite expensive and inconvenient to produce.

About the same time, Beethoven’s sketches were sold at auction as specimens of his

idiosyncratic handwriting rather than for their musical content, which was considered largely

indecipherable. Thus not only are there overwhelming reasons for confirming that the copy

could not possibly have been written by Beethoven, but there are also perfectly plausible

reasons why someone else might have wanted to copy his handwriting – either as a memento

or as a deliberate forgery. Either way, however, it is a highly unusual document.

Sotheby’s unfortunately relied on the views of two unnamed ‘experts’ in asserting that

the copy was made by Beethoven himself. These two experts have since been identified by

journalists as Nicholas Marston and Otto Biba. Both are indeed experts in Beethoven-related

fields, and I have great respect for their previous work in this area. On this occasion,

however, it is clear that they were misled by the general appearance of the copy (which at

first sight looks genuine and is on the right sort of handmade paper), and they were clearly

not sufficiently familiar with every detail of Beethoven’s musical handwriting. They have

been unable to account for any of the numerous anomalies described above. Their only real

attempt to do so was Biba’s claim to the press that the double bars were ‘etc’ signs (written

four times!) that showed the piece was unfinished – which even Marston found

incomprehensible, since their position corresponds to the double bars in the true autograph,

and their formation does not resemble that of Beethoven’s ‘etc’ signs.

The views of these two scholars have been rejected not just by me but by many other

Beethoven scholars, notably Michael Ladenburger of the Beethoven-Haus, Bonn, who is

arguably the world’s leading authority on Beethoven forgeries. He gave a paper on

7 Johann Aloys Schlosser: Ludwig van Beethoven. Eine Biographie desselben… (Prague, 1828 [but

published in 1827]); translated by Reinhard G. Pauly as Ludwig van Beethoven: The First Biography,

ed. Barry Cooper (Portland, 1996).

Beethoven forgeries at a research conference in Vancouver in early November 2016, and

successfully persuaded the audience (which included several Beethoven scholars) that this

copy was not written by Beethoven – as was pointed out in a letter to The Times by Julia

Rosenthal.8 Contrary to some allegations in the media, there has been no collusion between

Ladenburger and me in relation to this manuscript: we have not communicated for over two

years and we reached our conclusions entirely independently.

It is remarkable, in view of the dissimilarities between the naturals, double bars, and

8va signs, together with other anomalies, if anyone still believes that this copy derives from

Beethoven himself, since the differences in handwriting are obvious even to non-musicians,

and the manuscript bears all the hallmarks of being the work of a skilled copyist; but

Sotheby’s did not alter their claims. It is therefore essential to set the record straight, even at

the risk of appearing to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. After the auction, Sotheby’s put

out a statement that it was ‘irresponsible’ of me to raise doubts about the manuscript.9 It

would surely have been irresponsible not to do so, in view of the conflict between

Beethoven’s handwriting and their claims for the manuscript. They added that the copy was

‘an authentic and important piece of musical history’. I would agree with this description; but

the copy was not made by Beethoven. It is, however, a unique document – the only known

specimen of a copy of his handwriting made during his lifetime – and as such it is actually far

more extraordinary than a Beethoven autograph.

8 Julia Rosenthal, ‘Beethoven bidding’, The Times (9 Dec. 2016), p.28.

9 https://uk.news.yahoo.com/academic-accused-beethoven-manuscript-fails-145925479.html

(accessed 6 Jan. 2017).

Ex. 1: penultimate bar of Beethoven’s Allegretto in B minor, autograph score

Ex. 2: penultimate bar of Beethoven’s Allegretto in B minor, copy offered for sale by Sotheby’s

Illustration 1: Beethoven, Allegretto in B minor, copied by an unknown hand in 1817

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/music-continental-books-manuscripts-l16406/lot.4.html

Illustration 2: examples of Beethoven’s naturals and double bars, compared with those in Sotheby’s manuscript