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exposition, preserving the general outline of the opening theme, but
transforming it into a (relatively characterless) moto perpetuo. Presum-
ably he abandoned this version because of its banality and lack of rhyth-
mic variety. In the continuity sketch for the development on page 7 he
returned to version (e). No sketches for the recapitulation survive,
though there are several concept sketches for the coda.
Editions
Although Beethoven contemplated a complete edition of his works,
nothing came to fruition before his death.38 But the Op. 27 and Op. 31
sonatas did appear in a number of editions during his lifetime. Simrock
issued Op. 27 shortly after the appearance of Cappi s rst edition in
1802. Subsequent German editions were published by Breitkopf and
Härtel (1809), André (1810), and Schott (n.d.). In Paris, Pleyel brought
out an edition of the C minor Sonata in 1823 and the E Sonata in the
following year, and the London rm of Monzani and Hill issued both
sonatas around 1823. In addition to the Nägeli and Simrock editions of
Op. 31 nos. 1 and 2, Cappi issued a set of them in Vienna in 1803. The
relationship between the three editions is not straightforward: in all
probability the list of  some 80 mistakes in the Nägeli edition, which
Beethoven sent to Simrock, was also acquired by Cappi, since many of
the most obvious errors in Nägeli are corrected in the same way in the
two subsequent editions.39 But it is not clear to what extent all the di er-
34
Composition and reception
ences between the editions are the result of Beethoven s proof-reading of
Nägeli s defective copy, or are due to the composer taking the opportu-
nity to re ne details before the preparation of the new editions, or
are indeed a matter of Simrock and Cappi introducing further mis-
readings into their texts. Both Simrock and (especially) Cappi copied
some of Nägeli s mistakes, and Cappi introduced many more errors. One
of Cappi s most serious misreadings was perpetuated in a large number
of later nineteenth-century editions: the substitution of a left-hand
chord f/A/D for Nägeli and Simrock s d/A/D at bar 226 in the rst
movement of the D minor Sonata. The early publishing history of the
third sonata is more complex still: four separate editions appeared in
1804, the earliest (registered at Stationer s Hall on 3 September) by the
London rm Clementi, Banger, Hyde, Collard and Davis.40 Nägeli s
edition probably appeared around the beginning of November, and
those by Simrock and Cappi at about the same time.41 Despite the
London edition s chronological precedence its problematic relationship
to the other early editions places a large question mark over its utility as a
primary source for the sonata.42 During Beethoven s lifetime all three
Op. 31 sonatas appeared in editions by Hummel (1805), Kühnel (1806),
André (1809), Schott (1821), and Böhme (1823).
The editors of these early editions (and for most of those that
appeared in the twenty years after Beethoven s death) are anonymous,
and the editing is minimal by modern scholarly standards. Since the
composer played no part in their preparation, their textual variants must
be viewed as a corruption of the more authentic earliest sources. Excep-
tionally, though, two editors who had close personal connections with
Beethoven were named in early nineteenth-century editions: Carl
Czerny (1791 1858) and Ignaz Moscheles (1794 1870). Czerny pre-
pared texts of the sonatas for Haslinger s projected Sämmtliche Werke
von Ludw. van Beethoven in 1828, and for Simrock s edition of the
sonatas that appeared between 1856 and 1868. Moscheles edited the
works for Cramer between around 1833 and 1839, and for Hallberger of
Stuttgart in 1858. Since both men knew Beethoven s playing well, and
Czerny had studied some of the sonatas with the composer, their
metronome marks are of particular interest. But, as Sandra Rosenblum
has shown, Czerny s concept of some movements changed quite radi-
cally between the late 1820s and the mid 1850s, with a general tendency
35
The  Moonlight and other Sonatas
towards slower tempi later in the century.43 And Moscheles s editing,
though described by one scholar as  by the standards of his time accu-
rate ,44 was nevertheless lax enough to include Nägeli s added bars in the
rst movement of Op. 31 no. 1 in the Hallberger edition.
New editions of Beethoven s sonatas saw their heyday between 1850
and 1880, when as many as forty-four complete editions were inaugu-
rated.45 Most were characterised by a pedagogical orientation and were
edited by performers, many of them pupils of Czerny or Liszt, who
added their own interpretative layer to texts which were already corrupt.
Consequently their importance lies in what they reveal about nine-
teenth-century performance practices rather than as sources for reliable
texts of the sonatas. In general, editorial accretions (which were rarely
marked as such in the texts) consisted of adding metronome marks, ped-
alling, and dynamics; modifying articulation (especially by extending
pre-existing slurs and adding more of them); and making changes to the
voicing, stemming, and  occasionally  register of pitches. Where
Beethoven had seemingly modi ed his ideas to contain them within the
scope of his ve-octave piano in the sonatas up to and including Op. 31,
editors frequently extended the treble and bass lines to take advantage of
modern  improvements , as for example, in the treble at bar 54 in the
second movement of Op. 31 no. 3, and the bass at bars 139 40 in the
second movement of Op. 27 no. 1. Some editors went further still, dou-
bling bass lines at the octave and thickening chords to produce richer
sonorities suitable for performance in large public spaces. The attitude
of many performer-editors was perhaps best summed up by one of its
last and most fastidious practitioners. In the preface to his edition of the
sonatas, Artur Schnabel wrote that  the legato slurs as well as the accents
and indications relative to touch were occasionally marked by the com-
poser with such obvious, such confusing carelessness and negligence 
particularly in the early works  that the editor felt himself not only
musically justi ed, but in duty bound to change them now and then
according to his best judgement, sense and taste: to abbreviate, to
lengthen, to supplement, to interpret .46 Three editions of this type are
of special interest because their editors were such distinguished per- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]