A statuette of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven decorating a music-case is seen with a statue of Hungarian composer Ferenc Liszt in the background in a museum February 5, 2011.
Credit: Reuters/Laszlo BaloghBy Mike Collett-WhiteLONDON | Tue Sep 27, 2011 7:04pm EDT
LONDON (Reuters) - A movement from a Beethoven string quartet which was discarded by the composer and replaced by a new version has been reconstructed by a musical expert in Manchester, northern England.
The piece, originally composed by the German maestro in 1799, will be performed by Manchester University's resident string quartet on Thursday, when the academic involved, Professor Barry Cooper, will also give a seminar.
"We have something probably very close to what Beethoven wrote out, although not exactly the same," Cooper told Reuters.
The "lost" piece of music was part of the "String Quartet in G, Opus 18 Number 2", and Thursday's recital will "almost certainly" be the first time it has been performed since Beethoven's lifetime, said Cooper, the university's professor of music.
He reconstructed the movement based on surviving detailed "sketches" for every one of its 74 bars.
The existence of the sketches was established in 1977, but in the 1980s a receipt was found that showed the composer, then aged 28, had delivered the manuscripts for three new quartets in October 1799.
The works -- Op 18 Nos 1-3 -- were sold to a Prince Lobkowitz for 200 florins.
But the following year Beethoven revised Nos 1 and 2, including a completely new slow movement for No 2 in which little of the original material remained and the rhythm was completely different.
"During the period that Lobkowitz had the early version of Nos 1 and 2, it seems inconceivable that he would not have arranged for a performance of them, or more likely several performances, since that was the whole point of commissioning them," Cooper explained.
While the receipt for the works showed that Beethoven must have written out the music in full, that version has been lost, prompting Cooper to reconstruct it based on the sketches.
"In the early 1990s, I thought it could be possible to reconstruct the movement, but while it was possible, I had lots of other things to do," he said.
Asked how accurate he thought the reconstruction was, he replied: "All modern performances are approximations, and mine is a bit more approximate than those."
He added that the sketches were probably "very close" to the finished version, although he had to fill in "quite a few" of the lower parts.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
