The Textual Problems of Beethoven's Violin Concerto

THE TEXTUAL PROBLEMS OF BEETHOVEN'S

VIOLIN CONCERTO

By ALAN TYSON

In an article that appeared in Music & Letters in April 1962 Ireviewed a number of corrupt passages in Beethoven's Violin Con-certo, and attempted to explain in each case how the error hadoriginated. Further work on the text of Op. 61 has revealed severalmore faulty passages and, more important, has led to a clearer view ofthe- extremely complex textual tradition of the work. This seems to meto merit a general discussion, partly because of the concerto's intrinsicimportance, and partly because it obliges us to face some fundamentalquestions about the possibilities open to an editor and the limitsimposed on him.

1

Four sources are at present available for establishing the text ofOp. 61 — that is to say, of the violin concerto, and also of thearrangement of it as a piano concerto, which needs to be considered atthe same time:1

1. The autograph score, now in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.(A)

2. A full score in the hand of a copyist, now in the BritishMuseum (Add. 47851). (M)

'On these sources see especially Paul Mies, Die Quellen des op. 61 von Ludung vanBeethoven, in Berichl uber den siebenten internationalen musikwissenscha/Uichen KongressKoln 1958, Kauel, 1959, p. 193; my own article, The Text of Beethoven's Op. 61 in Music &Letters, XLIII (1962), 104; Fritz Kaiser, Die avthentische Fassungen des D-dur-Konzertes op.61 von Ludung van Beethoven, in Bericht uber den internationalen musikunssenschaftlichenKongress Kassel 1962, Kassel, 1963, p. 196; Eduard Melkus, Zur Interpretation des Violinkon-zertes Opus 61 von L. v. Beethoven, in Osterreichische Musikzeitschrift, XIX (1964), 159. Ihad unfortunately not seen Mies's congress report when I discussed some of the sources in1962.

482

The Textual Problems of Beethoven's Violin Concerto 483

3. The first edition (parts only), published by the Bureau des Artset d'Industrie, Vienna, in August 1808. (B)

4. An edition (parts only) published by Clementi & Co., London,in 1810. (C)

A description of these four sources and of their relationships mustnow be given.

1. The autograph (A) represents the first full-scale writing-downof the work; and — as is so often found in Beethoven autographs — itexhibits at the same time the final stages of composition. There is littlereason to doubt the statement of Carl Czerny (Pianoforte-Schule, PartIV, Op. 500, p. 117) that the concerto was written very rapidly andwas performed scarcely two days after it had been completed; theautograph bears witness, particularly in the last movement, to rapidcomposition. From a textual point of view the orchestral parts and thetwo solo parts of A need to be discussed separately.

(a) The orchestral parts can be seen to have undergone a greatmany changes in A; in some places, indeed, legibility has been partlysacrificed — with some consequences to the integrity of the text. Butwhat has remained after these changes is (with very minor quali-fication) the definitive form of the parts. By the definitive form Imean the form in which the text has come down to us: in effect, theversion of the first edition. The question of how far that version isauthentic and corresponds in every way with Beethoven's wishes isdiscussed below.

(b) The solo violin is treated very differently in A. This part iswritten on a staff near the bottom of the score; under it are the twostaves for the cellos (left blank wherever they are playing "col bassi")and for the basses. Under these are three extra staves which are notassigned to any instrument. On one of these three blank staves —usually the middle one — and very occasionally on more than one,Beethoven has in a great many passages written alternative versionsfor the soloist. Thus in a large number of measures (in the first move-ment, in over a third of the measures played by the soloist, and in thelast movement, in over a quarter) there are two co-existing versions ofthe solo part, and very occasionally there are three. What significanceis to be attached to the preservation of these alternatives in A is farfrom clear, and requires discussion presently. Here it is only necessaryto add that although the definitive version of the solo violin part isusually to be found either in the main solo staff or on a staff lowerdown, this is not always the case: thus it follows that the solo part was

484 The Musical Quarterly

given its final form in another place and (we cannot doubt) at a laterdate from that at which the alternatives were written in A.

(c) The solo piano part is not written out in A. But at many placesin the first two movements there are jottings on the lowest staff of thescore that can be seen to be suggestions for the piano version; suchsuggestions are naturally for the most part (though not exclusively)ideas for the left hand of the piano — since the solo violin part itselfcontains the substance of the right hand. Other jottings on the loweststaff in the last movement, and in a few places in the first movement aswell, are of a different kind: they are a rough aide-memoire forwriting out the work in score.

The Violin Concerto was first performed by Franz Clement at aconcert on December 23, 1806; and the autograph bears a dedicationto Clement and the date "1806." It seems reasonable to connect theautograph as a whole, and the general state of the text that it contains,with the first performance — even though it is indisputable that theautograph has undergone certain changes and additions sinceDecember 1806.

2. The score (M), written by a copyist,2 is complete except for thefirst page (four measures). Besides the orchestral parts, M containsboth solo parts in their definitive form. The orchestral parts arecopied from the autograph: directly so, in fact — i.e. the copyist hadA before him while copying out M.3 For the two solo parts, however,he obviously had to turn elsewhere — since, as we have seen, the solopiano part is not written out in A, and the solo violin part appearsthere in more than one version. Of the manner in which these soloparts were given their final form we know nothing. And. unfortunate-ly the manuscript sources from which the copyist transcribed the twosolo parts have not survived: unfortunately, since it is likely that he

"Possibly Schlemmer. An illustrated account of Beethoven's chief copyists is overdue. Ascore of the Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 58, apparently in the same hand, which must have beencopied at about the same time, is now at the Gesellschaft der MusildYeunde, Vienna. For adescription of it and of Beethoven's autograph entries in it cf. G. Nottebohm, Zweite Beethove-niana, Leipzig, 1887, p. 74, and Paul Badura-Skoda, Eine wichtige Quelle zu Beethouens 4.Klavierkonzert, in dsterrdcfasche Musilkzdtsc)irifi, XTH (1958) 418 (with illustration). Op. 58was published in Vienna at the same time as Op. 61.

This assertion is based on a whole number of impressions. Particularly convincing are thoseinstances in which a particular feature of A has been misread by the copyist. For example, in I:167 Beethoven put the letter "h" ( - BIO over the first violin's b'( which — being written a trifletoo low — might be mistaken for an a". The copyist mistakenly read and transcribed this "h" as"tr" ( - trill).


made errors in transcribing the solo parts, just as we can see that hedid in copying the orchestral parts.

In M there are a number of additions and corrections in Beetho-ven's hand, in pencil or in red crayon. (Most of the pencil marks havebeen inked over, perhaps by the copyist.) There are also two otherkinds of marking in red crayon: bold check-marks at the beginning ofeach staff (except, significantly, the solo violin's staff, and also thatof the trumpets)4 on every page, and, occasionally, a squiggle acrossthe staff of a single part, usually with a number beside it. Theposition of the squiggles corresponds to the page-endings of the firstedition (B), and they are evidence that the score was the Stichvorlageof B. The check-marks were probably made by Beethoven in lookingthrough the proofs. Moreover, it can be demonstrated ratherelegantly that Beethoven's pencilled corrections were inserted beforethe score was sent to the engraver, and that his entries in red crayonwere made after the parts had been engraved but before they wereissued, i.e. at the proof stage. For if the parts of B are examinedclosely in those places where changes in red crayon have been madein the score, it will be found that the plates have been altered toincorporate the change (indicated by irregularity in the engraving, or,in the case of the addition of expression marks etc., by the use of adifferent engraving punch, clef, or lettering style). The pencilledchanges, on the other hand, have not necessitated changes on theplates, and were therefore entered in M before it was used for theengraving of the parts.5

M remained in Beethoven's possession for several years and wasgiven by him as a present to Charles Neate (1784-1877) when the latterleft Vienna for London in 1816 (see Beethoven's letter to Neate ofearly February 1816 in Anderson, Letters of Beethoven, No. 606a).In 1911 it was included in the sale of Neate's effects at Sotheby's,being bought by Bertram Dobell for seven shillings. In 1914 E. H. W.Meyerstein purchased it from James Tregaskis for thirty-seven shill-ings and sixpence; he bequeathed it to the British Museum in 1953.

3. The parts (only) of the first edition (B) of the concerto in bothits forms were issued by the Bureau des Arts et d'Industrie in Vienna

4Cf. the illustration facing p. I l l , Music & Letters, XLIII (1962).

'Some examples of plate-changes or additions necessitated by Beethoven's red crayon:viola, I: 376; violin 1 and viola, I: 152 ("p" made with a different punch); viola, I: 440 ("arco");flute, III: 29 (additional notes); bassoon 2, III: 74 (clef in a different style).


in August 1808 (for details, see Kinsky/Halm, Das Werk Beethovens,1955, pp. 147-49). These, as has been said, are copied from M. Butthere is one unimportant exception, the trumpet parts, and one veryimportant one, the solo violin part. This part indeed closely resembleswhat is written in the solo violin staff in M, but it is not directly copiedfrom it. Not only are there no check-marks at the beginning of eachstaff of the solo violin in M, but the squiggles do not entirely corres-pond to B's page-endings.6 It seems plausible that the squiggles corres-pond to the page-endings in a manuscript copy of the part, now lost;and that this lost copy was the Vorlage both of B's solo violin part, andalso of the solo violin staff in M. In the same way there must havebeen a lost manuscript copy of the piano solo part which served as theVorlage for the piano staff in M; but in the case of the piano part Mthen served directly as the Vorlage for the first edition of the part(whereas it is clear that the first edition of the violin solo is not copiedfrom M).

4. The London edition (C) of the violin concerto, published byClementi & Co., has survived in a, single set of parts, in the RoyalCollege of Music, London; and of the piano version too only one copysurvives, divided between the Royal College of Music (solo part) andthe British Museum (orchestral parts).7

By his own account it was Muzio Clementi himself who persuadedBeethoven to arrange the concerto for the piano. In a contract signedon April 20, 1807, Clementi agreed to publish Op. 61 in its twoversions and four other works (Opp. 58, 59, 60, 62); the text of thiscontract and of the entertaining letter that Clementi wrote two dayslater to Collard, his colleague in London, will be found in Thayer'sLife (ed. Forbes, 1964, I, 417-19). The letter describes Op. 61 as "aconcerto for the violin which is beautiful, and which at my request hewill adapt for the Pianoforte with and without additional keys," andadds: "Remember that the violin concerto he will adapt himself andsend it as soon as he can." Collard was to send money to Beethoven(via bankers in London and Vienna) as the works were received inLondon: £200 for all six works, or £100 for three. Manuscripts of three

sIn M the squiggles occur after the following measures in the solo violin staff (measure-numbers of first edition page-endings in brackets): I: 71 (71); 125 (128); 167 (178); 208 (208);268 (268); 319 (319); 363 (365); 415 (414); 462 (452); 510 (510); 535 (535); II: 42 (42); 91 (91);III: 70 (70); 126 (117); 176 (171); 247 (237); 299 (299); 360 (360).

7Cf. Alan Tyson, The Authentic English Editions of Beethoven, London, 1963, pp. 55-58.


of the works — from the contract it seems that those were the ViolinConcerto; Op. 60, the Fourth Symphony, and Op. 62, the CoriolanOverture — were apparently sent to London about April 22; accord-ing to the letter "today sets off a courier for London through Russia,and he will bring over to you two or three of the mentioned articles."The other three works — the piano arrangement of the violin con-certo, the Op. 59 quartets and Op. 58, the Fourth Piano Concerto —were evidently not ready for dispatch, and on May 11, 1807 Beetho-ven had to write to Count Franz Brunsvik for the return of the partsof the Op. 59 quartets so that they could be copied for Clementi(Anderson, letter No. 143; cf. also No. 142). Whether they were sentto London at a later date is uncertain.

What is all too clear is that for the works that he had sentBeethoven received no payment before the end of 1809 (at theearliest), in spite of several appeals by Clementi, still on the Conti-nent, to his London partner: "A most shabby figure you have mademe out in this affair! — and that with one of the first composers ofthis day! You certainly might have found means in the course of twoyears and a half to have satisfied his demands! . . . Don't lose amoment, then, pray, and send me word what you have received fromhim, that I may settle with him." Finally, in the late summer of 1810— i.e. nearly two years after the first editions of Op. 61 had appearedin Vienna — dementi's editions of the Violin Concerto and of itspiano arrangement were published in London.8

The above complicated narrative of dementi's relations withBeethoven in the years 1807 to 1810 is necessary if the differingtextual status of the various portions of his edition of Op. 61 is to bemade intelligible. The orchestral parts of C are textually quite inde-pendent of B; and they were evidently based on a manuscript set ofparts copied directly from A (and presumably sent to England aboutApril 22, 1807).9 Apart from errors in transcribing there are at least

'Op. 58, Op. 60, and Op. 62 were not published in London after all. Clementi did publishthe Op. 59 quartets, probably in 1809: but this edition is simply a Nachdruck of the Vienneseedition, and may well have been stimulated by the activity of another London firm (Astor) incopying the Viennese one (Tyson, he. cit., pp. 53-54).

*The evidence for such direct transcription is once again (cf. footnote 3) the nature ofcertain copying errors. Thus the four notes in III: 323 that lie between the viola part and theflute part immediately below it in the autograph are in fact leger-line low D's in the viola part;but they also appear in C aj A'j in the flute part, instead of the measure's rest that is correct. —A single part of thij manuscript set of parts teems to have been preserved by accident. One side

4 8 8 The Musical Quarterly

two important ways in which C's orchestral parts differ from those ofB. First, C's parts do not benefit from the corrections or alterationsthat Beethoven marked in pencil or crayon into M, on which B isbased. Secondly, any changes that Beethoven made in A after it wascopied for Clementi but before it was copied to make M will not befound in C's parts, though they will of course be in B. But even if theywere no more than a testimony of the state of the autograph in April1807 C's parts would be of interest; in fact their value, it will becomeclear, is greater than that.

C's solo parts, on the other hand, are a disappointment; unlikethe orchestral parts they seem to be derived textually from the solopart of B. The solo piano, for instance, follows B in the faulty reading"sempre fortissimo" in I: 301. Since that error, as I have pointed outelsewhere (Music & Letters, XLIII, 108), arose from a misreading ofthe word "espressivo" in M, its recurrence in C's piano part indicatessufficiently clearly that that part is derived (directly or indirectly)from B. C's solo violin part also seems to go back to a copy of B'spart — but it has in addition singularities of its own. In certain placesC has assimilated the violin part to the piano part, possibly in thebelief that the piano part represented the true version and that thedivergent violin notes in these passages were unintentional dis-crepancies. It is obvious that, even if there were other ways in whichC's solo part was of especial value — and I can find none — , a textthat has been tampered with in this way must be used with greatcaution.

Familiarity with these four sources puts us in a stronger positionthan that of previous editors; and in two ways. In certain passages wecan for the first time produce a correct text; while in several others,where the passage is unsatisfactory in the form that Beethoven left itin, we can at least understand the way in which the confusion or errororiginated, and decide whether it is better to emend it or to leave it asirremediable.iThe best-edited text of Op. 61 that has hitherto appearedis undoubtedly the one published in Breitkopf & Hartel's Gesamt-ausgabe (July 1863). The GA had no critical report; although noeditor is named, it is virtually certain that Ferdinand David was

of it contains mm. 475-535, first movement, of the first oboe; the other side, evidently blank,waj later used by Clementi to sketch a movement for one of his duettini (piano, four hands),and has thua survived among the Clementi manuscripts that are today in the Library ofCongress.


responsible for Op. 61. From the published text it can be seen that thegeneral problem posed by the differences between the autograph andthe first edition were clearly understood. The GA was evidently basedon a comparison of A and B alone. A large number of the errors foundin B were corrected; and had it not been for the publication of thiswell-edited score, and of the widely distributed set of orchestral partsthat Breitkopf & Hart el subsequently based on it, it may be evendoubted whether such important passages as the cello's theme in thecoda of the first movement (I: 525 ff.) would ever be heard in theconcert hall today. All modern scores of Op. 61 that are not textuallyderived (usually without acknowledgment) from the GA — i.e. from acomparison of A and B — appear to be based on B alone, althoughobvious slips may have been removed. For this reason they oftenperpetuate errors in B that were corrected by the GA. For instance, allthe miniature scores that I have consulted omit the cello's theme in thecoda of the first movement, and till recently most of them omitted ameasure after III: 216.10 But these are only the most obvious of a greatmany errors or dubious passages that survive to the present day.

Let us look at some of these faulty passages in the orchestral parts,and see how far our sources can throw light on their origin.

Some of the small and teasing inconsistencies in the work areundoubtedly a consequence of the haste with which the autograph waswritten. In general these flaws in A were carefully copied by C and byM, and passed into the first edition and into the scores and orchestralparts of today (only a few were eliminated by Beethoven when correct-ing M). Further scrutiny of our sources will not therefore resolvethem, and if we are looking for consistency we must make Beethoven'smind up for him:

Passage 7: All parts, I: 29, 31, 35 (and parallel passages I: 225,227, 231; I: 498, 500, 504).

The problem of whether the first note in any of these measures is aquarter note or an eighth note cannot be resolved by consulting A, forthat is quite inconsistent not only from measure to measure, but in the

'"Recent reissues of the Eulenburg miniature score have tacitly restored this measure. SeeMusic & Letters, XLIII, 112, n. 14 (and for the cello passage, see p. 110, n. 12).


different parts within the same measure. M, B, and C simply follow A,and an editor must act on his own account.

Origin of difficulty: inconsistencies in A due to haste.Proposed solution: read quarter notes throughout.Problems of inconsistencies that are due merely to haste tend to

merge into more general, and more interesting, problems of the non-parallelism of "parallel" passages. We have to steer between the twinpedantries of producing exact recapitulations (probably by some Pro-crustean treatment) on the one hand, and of preserving the mostmeaningless vagaries of our sources on the other. In Passage 1, forinstance, the first violin in A has an eighth note in I: 500 and a quarternote in 1:31; but it is plain that Beethoven conceived of the twopassages as identical since in I: 499-507 he copied out only the firstviolin and wrote across the rest of the score: "come sopra." Inconsidering non-parallelisms there are worse tests than to apply thehypothetical question: "If Beethoven's attention had been drawn tothe inconsistency, would he have done anything about it?"

Any light that the sources can throw on the cause of non-paral-lelisms — apart merely from "haste" — is valuable. It is, forinstance, noticeable that omissions are particularly prone to occur atthe beginning of a new page in A. The following illustration showsthis, and also Beethoven's attempt to restore the omission:

Passage 2. Horns, III: 68-73 and parallel passage III: 243-48.Once again the problem arises in A, which reads:

Ex.'l

NtK pag*

243 244 245 246 247 248

(The slight inconsistency in the ties is ignored here.) A is followedby C, and also by M. But Beethoven then corrected M by adding in redcrayon (i.e. at the proof stage) a quarter note in 73 (the tie from 72 wasalready in M). That the horns should play something in 73 was reallyindicated by the parallel of m. 248 and by the forward-looking tie


from m. 72; and the fact that m. 73 was the first measure of a newpage in A probably caused the note's omission. Beethoven evidentlysaw the gap while correcting the proofs; but he plugged it with aquarter note instead of with an eighth note — a discrepancy that iswithout point.

Origin of difficulty: careless omission of note in A at beginning ofnew page, restored by Beethoven at proof stage, but inaccurately.

Proposed solution: read eighth note in III: 73.The following instance is very similar, but the cause is perhaps not

quite so certain or the remedy quite so obvious:Passage 3. Wind, I: 191 and parallel passage I: 465.In A, and also in M, I: 191 is the first measure of a new page. It

would not be difficult to add a chord for oboe, clarinet, and bassoonshere to correspond with that for oboes and clarinets in I: 465. Probablythey were simply forgotten in I: 191. Yet I: 465 is not entirely beyondsuspicion in A : the oboe parts were first written on the flute's staff,and the clarinets' parts in 465 were at some stage garbled in A(probably after they had been copied for C). In any case the windscoring is different in the two passages.

Origin of difficulty: Uncertain: probably omission of chord in A atbeginning of new page (I: 191), but also confusion in I: 463-65.

Proposed solution: Accept traditional (first edition) text. The pas-sages will not however be parallel.

It might be asked at this point why Beethoven did not do more toeliminate such defects in looking through M either before or after itwent to the engraver. The fact is that he was not a good corrector ofproofs; and he seems to have been much more on his guard againstwrong notes than against wrongly omitted ones. For some details, e. g.accidentals, he appears to have had a very sharp eye; yet he quitefailed to see that M had omitted (by haplography) m. 217 of the finale— an error that naturally disfigured the first edition. (C is correcthere.) It is not surprising, therefore, that he failed to perceive theomission of certain notes, which an editor should supply, near thebeginning of the development section of the first movement:

Passage 4. Strings, I: 304-14. This passage has been much cor-rected and rewritten in A, and — partly because of the extent of thecrossings-out — there are several directives to instruments to followanother part, always a potential source of confusion. The autographcan be represented roughly as follows:


Ex.2

VI. 1J

Vcl

a,

-HIM'

_JJ—_.

•i—

r

Ntxfr

—*—

rvvv

i = —

'D i! n ir ^304 305 306 307 308 309

Nn> paft

310

j» M ' ' J'' Ji'9—r

m

P ' P

311V V

312 313 314 315

Thb is reproduced with more or less literal correctness, with onlyslight variations, by M and B, and by C; and something like it is foundin all modern editions. The abbreviations of the autograph may beexpanded as follows:


Ex.3

VI. 1

II

C. y , , J

Cb J ' T J ' T J ' 1304 305 306 307 308 309

r

j n j n j)7 JITV V V V

JH1 ̂

310 311 312 313 314 315

It is impossible to accept that this represents Beethoven's inten-tions. The entry of the second violin in 307, rather than two measuresearlier; the independent cello part in 308, when otherwise that instru-ment plays col basso from 172 to 361; the silence of the viola in 312-14:all these are very strange.

Scrutiny of A makes clear what happened. Beethoven wrote"unis" in the second violin in 307, the first measure of a page, butneglected to turn back and mark the two preceding measures in the


same way; he deleted an unwanted figure in the cello in 307 and 309,directing attention to the bass staff, but neglected to cross out thesingle quarter note in 308 — which accordingly survived as an inde-pendent cello part in this one measure; and, by writing a quarter notein the viola in 311 and in the second violin in 313 (in order to lower theoctave of the doubling in each case), he technically cancelled theinstructions to the second violin to play in unison with the first violin,and to the viola to play with the cello.

Origin of difficulty: extensive changes in A, leading to: omissionof second violin in 305-06, failure to delete redundant cello part in308, and inadvertent cancellation of instructions to second violin in314 and to viola in 312-14.

Proposed solution: 1. Second violin to play unis. with first violin in305-06. 2. Delete cello's quarter note in 308: cello to play colbasso. 3. Second violin to play unis. with first violin in 314, and violato play col basso in 312-14 (there is a possible doubt about the pitchof the D in 313-14).

Many other examples could be given of errors, flaws, or incon-sistencies in the text that arise from rewriting and extensive correc-tions in A: e.g. first violin, II: 22-24 and bass, II: 25-27: quarter notesor eighth notes? Sometimes the changes are radical enough to leavesome genuine doubt as to what the composer intended:

Passage 5: Flute, III: 88. A much-changed passage in A(especially in the first violin, flute, and bassoons): originally the fluteprobably doubled the first violin at the octave. At any rate the flutehad g's in 86-91, those in 87, 88, and 89 being tied. In restoring thepassage in A, Beethoven deleted the g"s in 86, 87, 89, 90, and 91, buthe left the g" in 88, together with the ties to 87 and 89. M's copyistassumed the g* was to remain, and copied it into M (he even includedthe now meaningless tie to 89, a rest); and accordingly the isolated g*passed into the flute part of B and into all modern scores and parts.On the other hand the copyist of the set of parts on which C is basedevidently assumed the note was to be deleted, probably correctly; inC the flute is accordingly silent from 85 to 113.

Origin of difficulty: extensive changes in A, leading to doubtabout what had been deleted.

Proposed solution: delete the flute's g" in III: 88.Even if a reading in A is clear, and has been correctly copied by

M and B, and by C, doubt sometimes remains whether it is really


what Beethoven intended. Yet our capacity to restore a passage maybe limited:

Passage 6. Second bassoon, I: 279 etc. What originally stood in Ain measures 274-81 on the bassoons' staff was something like this:

Ex.4, p. Stwpagt

. ft ft . I I J J h i II * -^ II J11 i ' - ' i — r II" ^ = f = s

274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281

Beethoven subsequently crossed out the second bassoon in 274, 275,and 278, and wrote in 274 and 278: "f fagotti I 2do col B." He did nothowever cross out the second-bassoon note in 279, or the tie tying itto 278, or the notes in 280 and 281 (which are at the beginning of anew page in A). Accordingly in M and B, and in C, the second-bassoon part in 274-81 runs as follows:

Ex.5

lfii s f ( i W r ^ i ^ r n f r ^ u i ^\~ i » * r * r H Y ^ I274 275 276 277 278 . 279 280 281

But Beethoven probably intended 278 etc. to run:

Ex.6

I ' I etc etc278 279 280 281 282 283

The pitch of the second bassoon in 280-81 in A prevents us fromchanging 279 alone; and we may be unwilling to write a new second-bassoon part in 279-88.

Origin of difficulty: A insufficiently revised by Beethoven.Proposed solution: accept traditional (first edition) text.

A should be looked at carefully in any passage in which C differsfrom B; often the reason for the discrepancy is seen at once. In I: 75the flute's first note in C is a'", and in M and B it is HT". Two of thefour leger lines in A have run together, but Beethoven has spotted thisand has written the letter "a" under the note. In I: 122 the oboes in M


and B have (i) in Ex. 7; in C they have (ii). Inspection of A confirmsthat (ii) was intended; in copying out M, the copyist's eye must haveslipped to the clarinets' staff (iii) immediately below (an error thatmight not have arisen, or have survived, if it had not fortuitouslyresulted in euphony):

Ex.7

r p "i ''g r 9a) do (in)

In some passages there is evidence that A has been altered after itwas copied for C but before M was copied out from it; in others thereis evidence that notes were added or deleted after M had been copied.An instance of the former is the indication "uno violino" in the firstand second violin parts of C in II: 87; this was later deleted in A sothat there is no trace of it in M. An instance of the latter is the horns'notes in I: 78. They are in A today (in the first measure of a newpage), but C has a rest in this measure, and in M they were added byBeethoven in pencil, so the copyist evidently did not find them in A.Another probable instance:

Passage 7: Viola, III: 41-43 and parallel passage 214-16. Here are

our sources:

Ex.8

tPr ^ r ' rr^ r • ir

41 42 43 44 45The small notes were mdded to M in pencil.

The discrepancy has to be explained. It seems plausible that thebracketed notes were not in A when it was copied for C, or even laterwhen it was copied for M. But C remedied the omission by assuming,sensibly enough, that the viola was to continue to double the cello, asin the previous four measures; M's copyist on the other hand left theviola staff blank in 41 and 42 and Beethoven added the notes to M in


pencil. Subsequently Beethoven repaired the gap in A, but the noteshe added were at the lower octave. (Measure 41 is the first of a pagein A, which may explain their original omission.)

Origin of difficulty: notes omitted in A, subsequently restored byBeethoven in two versions.

Proposed solution: there are really no grounds for preferring thepresent reading of A, which the GA follows, to the traditional text,which Beethoven wrote into M.

Before leaving the orchestral parts, it is worth noting a peculiarityin M that has had an influence on some details in the text. If M iscompared with A, from which it was copied, we see that often thecopyist — or copyists? for I am not sure that only one hand is involvedin this — has added to all the parts in a given measure a dynamic signor an expression mark found in A in only one (or in only a few). Sincethe score was to be used for engraving the separate parts, this had anobvious utility. Yet my impression is that this was done much tooindiscriminately (and without Beethoven's express instructions), sothat it often resulted in a mild banality or in the obscuring of anuance.11 Some examples:

I: 35-38, etc. In A, only the quarter notes are marked "sf"; in M," s f is added to the parts with sixteenth notes as well.

II: 11, 20. In A the clarinet is marked "dolce" in 11, and thebassoon in 20: no doubt to indicate that it has the solo. In M, "dolce"is added to the accompanying parts as well: i.e. to horns, first andsecond violins in 11, and to viola and cello in 20.

I: 50. In A, the trumpets are marked "pp"; the horns are " p " andthe timpani are "sempre p." In M, "pp" is extended to horns andtimpani — surely quite wrongly.

I: 346. In A, the trumpets are slurred and staccato. In M the slurand staccato are extended to the timpani (this being the only measurein the work in which the timpani have any phrasing).

The importance of these often superfluous and occasionally harm-ful additions to M is that they naturally passed into B and almostalways into our modern scores. (For obvious reasons they are not to be

11 Occasionally the copyist seems to have been aware of his excess of zeal. In I: 301, where thesolo violin is marked "espressivo" in A, something has been added in M to the first and secondviolins and the basses, and has then been scraped out: probably the quite inappropriate"espressivo "


found in C.) It seems clear that many of them should be judiciouslyremoved by an editor. But it is delicate work, like removing thedisfiguring varnish or overpainting on an old master: one must becareful not to damage the original paintwork.

The impression may have been given that the orchestral parts ofthe concerto are riddled with corruptions. They have some gravefaults. But in the passages where we feel that something is amiss, wecan at least turn to our four sources; we can then study what has gonewrong, and decide, on the lines illustrated in the previous section,whether or not the passage can be corrected. And it will, I think, beclear that the chief value of the sources is in exposing the psy-chopathology of error: inconsistencies from mere haste, careless cor-recting, obscurity resulting from excessive revision or deletion, copy-ing from the wrong staff, omissions at the start of a new page, and soforth. Where we cannot understand what has gone wrong, or cannotaccount for a discrepancy, our confidence in reshaping the passage ismuch reduced.

This is the unfortunate position that we are in with regard to thetwo solo parts. We cannot trace the pedigree of any error. We have toaccept the piano part in the form that we first meet in M. If we do notlike it — if for instance we are sceptical that Beethoven could everhave written the following (I: 519-23) —Ex.9

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we may choose to emend it (i.e. to rewrite it), or we may decide thatBeethoven's contribution to the piano part was minimal (a plausibleview—in spite of the cadenzas, which are in his handwritingrecently well argued by Fritz Kaiser, loc cit.); but we have nothingthat bears on its history.12 The most that we can do with any

1!Writer» from Nottebohm on have commented on the fact that in the measures wherethere is more than one version of the solo violin part, the piano adaptation lends to adopt theversion on the main solo staff (i e. Beethoven's first idea); and they have explained this


confidence to improve the text is to remove errors that arose when Bwas engraved from M (e.g. the error, already referred to, by which"espressivo" in M in I: 301 became "sempre fortissimo" in B).

Needless to say, it is in regard to the solo violin part that ourimpotence is most distressing. In the vast majority of points B agreeswith M; but since neither was copied from the other, nor from A, andsince C is here of no independent value (and is ignored in thefollowing discussion), we cannot account for the discrepancies be-tween them. Some examples from the first movement:

I: 158, triplet eighth notes. The tenth note is d* in M, b' in B. Aalso has b ' (in the version of the two sketched in this measure thatwas adopted); and although the recapitulation of the whole passage isvery different, the parallel of I: 432 suggests that M is right and thatd" should be played. B's reading is unexplained.

I: 341. Are the last three eighth notes triplets? Since none of thesources marks them with a " 3 , " it depends on the preceding rest,which is a quarter rest in M, an eighth rest in B. In A there are twoversions: four sixteenth notes on the main staff, and three eighthnotes written on the penultimate staff as an alternative (which was infact adopted): in both, the notes are preceded by a quarter-note rest.Thus M agrees with A; we cannot tell if B's version is a change onBeethoven's part — to make 341 agree with 333 and 335 rather thanwith 343 — or merely.a slip.

I: 526. In M the last note is c?"; in B it is e". In A the tripletversion on the penultimate staff, adopted by the violin, has e"; but therather different sixteenth-note version on the main staff, retained inthe piano part, has c#". Certainly c#* gives somewhat better counter-point between solo violin and cello here: if only we knew from whereM got it!

Occasionally we may feel that both M and B are wrong. It seemsplausible, for example, that the soloist in I: 83 should play an octavehigher than in the traditional version — which would put 83 in thesame relation to 84 as 81 now is to 82.13 We find moreover that in thepiano version the right hand, otherwise identical with the solo violinin 81-88, plays 83 at the higher octave. But in the solo violin partboth M and B have the lower octave. The two versions of the violinpart in A are worth reproducing (83, by the way, is the first measureof a page):

.variously (Music & Letters, XLIII, 109). Perhaps the simplest explanation u that when theadapter went to work the other versionj were not yet in the autograph.

This was first suggested to me by Dr. Roger Fiske.


New page

85 etc.

Clearly confusion about the pitch of a measure might come out of this:but we lack the crucial intermediate document that would prove thatthe notes had in fact been transcribed at the wrong octave in 83.

It is unlikely, therefore, that textual criticism has much more tocontribute to the actual notes of the solo violin. The process wherebythe two (occasionally more) alternative versions were reduced to thedefinitive part, largely by the adoption of one or the other version butoccasionally by the incorporation of new material, has left nodocument behind. Something still perhaps remains to be done in suchmatters as slurring: the autograph shows that Beethoven often con-ceived of a passage of three or four measures as having one slur orphrase-mark, but in M and B this has frequently been broken up intoseveral short slurs, often only one measure long — or significantly,into slurs terminating at the end of a page in M or of a line in B. Thetraditional phrasing has struck many violinists as mechanical. Muchof it is not in A, but we must accept that we lack criteria for itsremoval or modification. I doubt if it is any more logical to strip I: 157


of its staccatos and slurs (which are not in A) than to deprive I: 154 ofits sixteenth notes (which are not in A).

A much more fundamental criticism of the definitive version ofthe solo violin part has recently been made by Fritz Kaiser (loc. cit.J:it amounts to the view that that version is not authentic. His 1962congress paper should be studied in full, but the portion that con-cerns this aspect may be summarized here:

1. The solo violin part exists in two autograph forms.2. The "revisions" or "variant readings" of the autograph, whenassembled, form a complete, self-contained second version (II).II differs from I chiefly in the figuration. There is only oneversion of the slow movement, though in two places the auto-graph has figuration variants.3. Within each version parallel passages are dealt with analog-ously; the second version is altered consistently, and the twoversions are thus logically distinct. This is important.4. The traditional (printed) version corresponds neither with Inor with II, but is assembled from parts of both versions, in someplaces changing from measure to measure; and passages andfigures are inserted that are not in the autograph at all.5. The printed version raises the suspicion that it is not byBeethoven at all, because in comparison with I and II its form isconfused, un-organic, not self-contained and consequently lesseffective. A thorough comparison shows that it is not authenticand cannot be regarded as valid. It is a sort of garbling of theoriginal text, which rules out Beethoven as its author. Its lack ofstylistic unity is of a degree of illogicality that is not to be foundin any of Beethoven's concertos, and in particular is withoutparallel in any solo part.

Kaiser's paper goes on to suggest the name of a possible candidate forthe preparation of the solo parts (Franz Alexander Possinger). Publi-cation of the "two hitherto amalgamated versions" of the violin part,edited by Kaiser, is promised by Breitkopf & Hartel in one of theirforthcoming Supplemente zur Gesamtausgabe.

The fourth of the above points can be accepted unreservedly; butthe others seem to me much more dubious.


First, as to the basic facts: although in general there are no morethan two versions, in a very few measures there are three (I: 173-74,III: 343); in many more, two remain where a third has been deleted(e.g. I: 164-65, 182-87, 438-39); and occasionally two remain after twohave been deleted (III: 305). There are also a great many measureswhere only one version remains after another — usually the onewritten on the main solo staff — has been deleted (e.g. I: 100, 128-31).This state of affairs seems to me best summarized not by saying thatthe solo part exists in two autograph versions, but by saying thatalthough Beethoven sketched alternative versions of the solo partthroughout the work — up to as many as four — he very rarelypermitted more than two to survive undeleted.

Secondly, the self-contained nature of the first and second versionsand the "consistent" or "logical" treatment of parallel passages areexaggerated. Take for example the second subject of the first move-ment, where the soloist plays triplet eighth notes in a decorativecounterpoint to the theme of the orchestral violins. In the solo line onthe main solo staff (presumably the "first version"), mm. 426-39correspond pretty closely, though by no means exactly, to 152-65;since the figuration has a harmonic and decorative, rather than amelodic, function, this is what we might expect. Lower down in thescore in most of these measures Beethoven writes alternatives (the"second version"); but this time 426-39 corresponds much less closelyto 152-65. Once again these alternatives are decorative; in both ver-sions, it is evident, melodic outline is less important than the tone-color that they lend to this impressive passage. That the definitiveversion should be assembled from measures of Kaiser's I and II is nottherefore quite the artistic crime that he implies; in fact, the suspicionarises that Beethoven allowed the alternatives to stand in the auto-graph precisely to enable such a synthesis to be made.

Thirdly and lastly: it is no doubt true that the Violin Concertoexhibits some stylistic features, including a certain triviality, evenredundancy, in the passagework, that is without parallel in the pianoconcertos. It suggests that much of the work was not wholly imaginedin terms of the violin, and may even have been among the reasons whythe concerto was at first coldly received. The point is that this issomething that goes much deeper than the alternative versions, andwould not be resolved, for instance, if either of Kaiser's versions weresubstituted for the traditional text. It remains as something thatcannot entirely be evaded by violinists and their audiences in comingto terms with this serene masterpiece.

The Textual Problems of Beethoven's Violin Concerto

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