The composer’s handwritten score for the “Resurrection” Symphony comes from the estate of Gilbert Kaplan, the financial publisher who was obsessed with the work and taught himself to conduct it.
Tag: 11.29.16
Beethoven Manuscript Fails To Sell At Sotheby’s After On-Air Argument Over Its Authenticity
The handwritten score, of an Allegretto in B minor for String Quartet that has no opus number, was expected to fetch £200,000 at auction on Tuesday morning. But an argument the previous evening on BBC Radio 4 between Sotheby’s director of books and manuscripts and a Beethoven scholar at Manchester University threw a big old monkey wrench into the works.
And What’s At The Heart Of The Argument Over Whether Beethoven Penned This Manuscript? Natural Signs
Did Beethoven write his natural signs in this rather odd way? Yes, says Sotheby’s, which wants to sell the score; not in any of his other scores, so this one’s a copy, says a Beethoven scholar, who got into it with a Sotheby’s specialist on the radio and scared off all the buyers. Classic FM called in an expert of its own for a verdict.