Sotheby’s hits out at ‘irresponsible’ academic who publicly questioned legitimacy of work credited to Beethoven’s hand, despite not inspecting it in person. But Professor Barry Cooper says he is backed by other scholars

Sotheby’s has criticised an academic who questioned the authenticity of a Beethoven manuscript for sale, claiming that the ensuing row over its legitimacy meant it failed to sell at auction.



The auction house became embroiled in a dispute over the validity of the single-page manuscript with Manchester University academic Professor Barry Cooper, who was adamant that the document was the work of a copyist, and not an original manuscript penned by the German composer.

The handwritten score was expected to fetch up to £200,000 at auction in London on 29 November, but failed to sell.

The manuscript, described as “Autograph manuscript of the ‘Allegretto’ in B minor for string quartet WoO 210, composed for an English visitor to Vienna in 1817” has the words “composed and written by Beethoven himself November 29 1817 at Vienna” inscribed on it by Rev John Abbiss, with whose descendants the manuscript remained until the present sale.

Prof Cooper, a musicologist and Beethoven scholar, clashed with Sotheby’s director of books and manuscripts Dr Simon Maguire on Radio 4’s Today programme [the discussion starts at 1hr 42min on iPlayer] over whether it was genuine.



Cooper disputed “several aspects which prove absolutely that it couldn’t possibly be Beethoven’s hand”, not least the manner in which the naturals – the musical markings that cancel out sharps or flats – were written, and several copying mistakes that he maintained would not have been made by Beethoven.



Maguire said two world-class specialists had examined the document to assess and verify it, and claimed Beethoven experts “think it is more a matter of Professor Cooper misreading the manuscript”.

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The auction house said the work’s validity was dismissed by Cooper without it being “inspected first-hand” and stood by its description “as an authentic and important piece of musical history”.



In the increasingly heated exchange on the Today programme, Maguire said the professor had “refused” to visit the auction house to look at the manuscript in person. Cooper said there was no need to make the journey to London because he was able to see “perfectly clearly from a copy” that it was not penned by the composer, and branded the situation “absurd”.

A Sotheby’s spokesman said: “We believe it was irresponsible for a third party to raise doubts about Beethoven’s Allegretto in B Minor manuscript when they had not inspected it first-hand or taken into account its provenance and the inscription by an English vicar confirming that it was composed and written by Beethoven.

“This unfortunately had a direct impact on the auction sale, but Sotheby’s stands by its description of the manuscript as an authentic and important piece of musical history and Sotheby’s view is shared by the majority of world-renowned Beethoven scholars who have inspected the manuscript personally.”

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Professor Cooper said to the Guardian: “I cannot see how it can be regarded as ‘irresponsible’ to point out, as a Beethoven expert who has been studying his manuscripts for over 40 years, that certain features in this manuscript do not match Beethoven’s handwriting anywhere else, and that the only plausible conclusion is that ... it is simply a careful copy of his autograph score.

“Although a personal inspection would enable me to study the paper type and the nature of the ink, handwriting features are perfectly evident in a good photocopy such as I have. Sotheby’s have not named a single Beethoven scholar who considers the writing to be Beethoven’s ... whereas I could name six Beethoven scholars who are convinced this is not his handwriting, and have not yet encountered a single one who disagrees. Dr Michael Ladenburger, head of the Beethoven House in Bonn, has disputed its authenticity, and Sotheby’s are well aware that another outstanding Beethoven scholar – Jonathan Del Mar – inspected the manuscript in person last week and confirmed that doing so made no difference at all. He was appalled that they were trying to sell it as genuine when it quite clearly was not.

“I am happy to agree with Sotheby’s that this manuscript is ‘an authentic and important piece of musical history’; but it was not written by Beethoven.”

In the same music and continental books and manuscripts sale, a record was broken for the sale of a music manuscript when Mahler’s complete Second Symphony (the “Resurrection”) sold for £4,546,250.

