Interlude: Arranged Sonatas

Summary

BEYOND OUR PRIMARY FOCUS on the five cello sonatas, two other ‘sonatas’ entered Beethoven's catalogue, but indirectly, as arrangements for cello and piano of two chamber works: the Sonata in F major for horn and piano Op. 17 (1800) and the String Trio in E-flat major Op. 3 (1795). Both appeared in print as cello sonatas during the composer's lifetime, in 1801 and 1807 respectively, but are often relegated in the literature to the status of the composer's step-children, and neglected. Though Beethoven's direct involvement with the transcriptions is unclear, and in the case of Op. 3 was perhaps undertaken without his consent, the publications no doubt reflected the composer's new-found celebrity, which significantly increased after the turn to the new century.

Alternate versions of Beethoven's music frequently appeared during his lifetime, most of them not from his own hand. Making popular works available to a wider audience or group of performers mutually benefited the composer and his publishers - a Beethoven symphony transcribed for piano or, in the case of the Second Symphony, for piano trio, could be comfortably enjoyed within intimate drawing rooms, where the composer's music reached domestic audiences, and the sale of such transcriptions could enhance publishers’ profits. We should also remember, however, that much of the recast Beethoven crept into print against his wishes, and that even successful arrangements could mask whether Beethoven or someone else actually undertook the task.

Typically, the busy work of rescoring compositions for alternate settings did not interest Beethoven, even if he regarded the endeavor as necessary, to satisfy either his publishers or his public, or both. Clearly, however, Beethoven did not object to artfully executed arrangements, especially if he was able to oversee the work personally. Ferdinand Ries, among those entrusted with such tasks, wrote that ‘many … pieces were arranged by me, revised by Beethoven, and then sold as Beethoven by his brother Caspar’. And in a letter to the Leipzig publisher Hoffmeister & Kühnel concerning Franz Kleinheinz's arrangements of Beethoven's Serenades Opp. 8 and 25, the composer summed up his attitude about the entire enterprise: ‘The arrangements were not done by me, but I have gone through them and in some passages made drastic corrections. So do not dare to state in writing that I have done the arranging …