3。 Stages of Knowledge of Sources

Auction of November 1827:   51 items

Nottebohm publications, c. 1860-1880: c.  36 items, including pocket sketchbooks

Braunstein 1927:   40 skb

Schmidt 1969: 394 items, including both sketchbooks and single leaves and bundles

Lockwood 1970 list: c. 58 skb

JTW 1985:   33 desk sketchbooks; 37 pocket sketchbooks (from c. 1811-27) plus numerous score-sketches for last quartets

JTW is the most important and successful catalogue of the sketchbooks, and is a landmark in Beethoven scholarship. It uses new techniques of reconstructing their contents based on study of paper-types and other physical evidence. It is a storehouse of information on the desk and pocket sketchbooks. It does not deal with the musical contents of the sketchbooks except in broad terms, and  does not attempt to catalogue the large number of single leaves and bundles known to exist.

It does offer valuable discussions of particular problems; e.g., Part IV (score-sketches for the last quartets); Part V (the earliest sketches from Bonn and the first Vienna years; the sketches for the Op. 59 Quartets; the Fifth Piano Concerto; for works of 1811; and for the “Hammerklavier”Sonata, Op. 106).

For a synoptic list of the desk sketchbooks and pocket sketchbooks in chronological order see JTW, pp. 72-3 and 331-4.

For brief descriptions of the sources for individual works see the new thematic catalogue edited by Dorfmueller, Gertsch, and Ronge [full title at the end of Section 1 above].