Missing Beethoven score found at US religious school

[emad]

An 80-page handwritten manuscript by Beethoven which was missing for 115 years has been put up for auction.

The score of Grosse Fuge, which has the composer's changes, was found by a librarian at a US religious school.

It is expected to fetch up to £1.5m when it goes on sale at Sotheby's auction house in London on 1 December.

Sotheby's says the score, which was last seen at an auction in Berlin in 1890, is "the most important Beethoven manuscript to appear in recent memory".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4337858.stm

[Wickerman]

1. that is one "lucky" seminary!

Manuscripts by Mozart were discovered at the seminary in 1990.

[Missy M]

3. I wonder how such important manuscripts managed to get lost at....

this seminary.

[Wickerman]

5. They might have been gifted someone's papers

If he was an industrialist who wasn't incredibly important his stuff may have sat for decades as a succession of librarians sifted through the stuff. Sometimes a person's papers can add up to several hundred cubic yards. The minutiae of cataloging and cross referencing is awe-inducing and I guess it makes sense something like this could get "mis-placed".

[LizMoonstar]

8. exactly.

i used to be an archivist for my college's library, and we'd find all sorts of stuff tucked away in the previously uncatalogued collections.

[BiggJawn]

2. Never mind the auction, is it going to be PERFORMED????

Cool. Cool, COOL, KEWL!!!

"And coming up next on WQXR, Something NEW from Luddy Van Bee..."

I'm assuming that this is really a "found" piece, and not just a piece that the "original" was missing?

I like Beethoven, but I don't haver any Great Fugue in my stuff...

[trackfan]

4. It's not a lost piece. Just the orignal manuscript was lost. n/t

[tonkatoy57]

6. The Grosse Fugue

is for string quartet and is well known.

I think this is just the original manuscript that had gone missing.

[BiggJawn]

9. Oh. Never mind then....

Could be because I don't think I have any Quartets?

Yes, could be....

OK, I'll just go trade all them-thar long-hair records for some Toby Keeth, now..... ;-)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

7. I wonder if it made it's way over here with someone who was involved

with Operation Paperclip.