Sketches for Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E, Opus 109, Second Movement

Dr. William Kinderman

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This is a generative website that explores the creative process of Ludwig van Beethoven during the composition of his Piano Sonata in E, Opus 109, movement II. Researched and compiled by Dr. William Kinderman, Krown Klein Chair of Performance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, this investigation is made possible by examining Beethoven’s sketchbooks and drafts in the Artaria 195 Sketchbook.

The Artaria 195 Sketchbook is held in the Music Department of the Staatsbibliothek preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. As originally used by Beethoven, it included leaves now held separately in Berlin, in Paris at the Bibliotheque Nationale, and in the private collection of Dr. Matthew Malerich, Bakersfield, California.

The following pages begin with a conceptual sketch, shown below, followed by what is thought to have been the order of sketches that led up to the final work, found in draft 10. At the bottom of each page are links to the next draft, as well as the other successive drafts.

Included with each draft are MIDI renderings of the sketchbooks shown. It may be necessary in some sketches to follow the “roadmap” provided in the commentary to place what you are hearing with what you are seeing in the music. Beethoven often jumped around on a page, or even from page to page, in developing ideas in his sketchbooks. As a result, otherwise logical succession is often not heeded.

Please feel free to jump around from sketch to sketch, and explore the genius behind the creation of this work.

Transcription of a Beethoven sketch.
Transcription of Beethoven’s conceptual sketch for the second movement of his Op. 109 piano sonata, from page 35 of the Artaria 195 Sketchbook.

All material is drawn from William Kinderman, Artaria 195: Beethoven’s Sketchbook for the Missa Solemnis and the Piano Sonata in E Major, Opus 109 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003). The responses to this three-volume publication have included a publication with recordings by the distinguished Swiss composer and pianist Jürg Wyttenbach, Skizzen zu Ludwig van Beethovens Klaviersonate op. 109 (Sketches for Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 109) (Saarbrücken: Pfau-Verlag, 2011). Wyttenbach completed several of the unused sketched variations for the finale of op. 109, as well as a preliminary version of the second movement, thereby shedding light on aspects of Beethoven’s creative process while using his sketches as a springboard to fresh artistic insights.