Last manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony goes up for sale

LONDON -- Beethoven's final manuscript of the Ninth Symphony, marked with the composer's revisions and insults to the copyist who produced it, could fetch up to $4.6 million at a sale in London next month.

"This is one of the greatest works ever written by man, and it isn't likely there will be another complete Beethoven manuscript up for sale ever again; the rest are lost or in libraries," Stephen Roe, Sotheby's head of manuscripts, said Tuesday.

The owner, described only as a "private foundation," is planning to set up a charitable fund for musicians with the money, Roe said.

The estimate for the May 22 sale may be conservative. A single sheet of Beethoven's early draft of the opening of the Ninth Symphony sold last year for $2 million, eight times more than the estimated price.

That sheet was written in the composer's hand, but the Ninth Symphony manuscript was made by a copyist. However, almost every one of the 575 pages has notes and revisions scrawled by Beethoven, Roe said in a telephone interview.

The notes and revisions range from minor adjustments to the tempo and rhythm of the symphony to entirely new sections pasted over previous work. These hidden pieces of music have never been published.

Beethoven was most vitriolic in the final choral passage section of the symphony, extolling freedom and the brotherhood of man. At one point he scribbled to the copyist, "du verfluchter Kerl!" ("you damned fool!")

The Ninth Symphony was first performed in Vienna in 1824 -- Beethoven had been deaf for at least eight years. It was met with wild acclaim, but failed to solve the composer's financial problems. Beethoven died three years later at the age of 57.

The record for a music manuscript is $4 million paid for a collection of Mozart symphonies sold at Sotheby's in 1987, Roe said.

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