A Beethoven quartet turns up in his own hand
NewsThe autograph manuscript of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s string quartet in B flat major, Opus 130, has been acquired by the Beethovenhaus in Bonn. It has been privately owned and inaccessible for decades.
As is often the case with lost musical manuscripts, there were Nazis involed.
UPDATE: The manuscript belonged to the Petschek family in Aussig (Cz.). The Petscheks, who were Jewish coal industrialists, emigrated in 1938. Their art collection was grabbed by the Nazis. In 1942, the head of the music collection of the Moravian Museum in Brno secured the manuscript for the museum. After the war, the Petscheks searched for the manuscript. When they located it, the Czechs refused to relinquish it. In 2022, the manuscript was restituted to the Petschek family, who agreed at the end of 2024 to sell it to the Beethoven-Haus and make it accessible to the public and researchers.
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-travel-music-europe-0e9635e4e460f45e7c3af267d8c896b4
“The family tried but failed to send the manuscript abroad by mail in March 1939 during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, drawing the attention of the Gestapo.
“According to Šindelářová, the Germans asked an expert from the Moravian Museum at the time to verify Beethoven had penned the document, and “he denied that in an effort to save it” from the occupiers.
“The lie could have cost him dearly, but it worked; the museum was allowed to keep the piece.”
The score on the photo on top of that AP News article is not Op. 130, but Missa solemnis. Note the carefully crafted caption beneath the photo: It avoids claiming it is the quartet, but prompts you to assume it is.
There are actually three photos at the top of the page, the last one showing the quartet. The first photo is interesting, as, in addition to the score of the opening of the Missa Solemnis (interesting in itself), it shows the last page of the tenor chorus part, which actually changes to the bass part for the last line.
How many more of these are out there? After seeing the movie (pretty good representation) about the stolen Klimpt paintings in Austria, and now several articles about stolen manuscripts, it’s entirely feasible to recognize that there are probably many more paintings and manuscripts in someone’s collection. These things belong to all of us. Knowing that some of J.S.Bach’s original manuscripts of the solo violin Sonatas and Partitas were being used to wrap butter, is it any great leap to suppose there might be undiscovered Chopin or Rachmaninov out there as well?? Or any of other composers and artists out there?
That is unlikely. Bach’s manuscript wrapping paper case was due to his works being only understood and respected by musical elites, because it was ‘too difficult’ for anybody else.
“These things belong to all of us”. Exactly how does that work?
Same mentality as the Czechs not wanting to release it to its original owners, even after the appropriate provenance was provided. Europeans seem to love to take hold of something and claim they’re making it “belong” better, no?
Members of the Petschek family helped co-found the Mozarteum Salzburg, and I believe the Juilliard school continues to bestow a Petschek award recital. The family money came from coal but it was a cultured and musical family and it seems outrageous that the Czechs refused to recognize their rightful ownership of this treasure for so long a time. There is no honor in being a receiver of stolen goods.