Punches, Proofs, and Printings: The Seven States of Artaria's First Edition of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Op. 2

In 1991, the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies acquired a previously unknown exemplar of the first edition of Ludwig van Beethoven's three Sonatas for Piano op. 2. This copy (A ¹) is one of three in existence that represent proof states of the edition first issued by Artaria in March 1796. Beethoven marked another copy, now located at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (A ³), with corrections in his own hand. ¹ Because Beethoven's autograph is lost and only a few sketches for the work survive, these precursors of Artaria's edition are the earliest extant sources for all three sonatas. Yet few music bibliographers know of their existence. Georg Kinsky and Hans Halm excluded the proof state from their thematic catalog of Beethoven's works. The title page of all three copies misspells the word "dediées" as "dedies" (fig. 1a), and this missing "é" quickly distinguishes the proofs from the first issue (fig 1b), described by Kinsky and Halm as "Originalausgabe a." ² Kurt Dorfmüller's update of Kinsky's and Halm's catalog adds only a footnote on Beethoven's corrected proof in Berlin. ³ Although Beethoven's letters document his frequent requests for proofs, few corrected proofs for Beethoven's [Begin Page 291] early works have survived. ⁴ The case of opus 2 is unusual, not only for the rare glimpse it offers of Beethoven's earliest editing practices, but also because the proofs exist in more than one copy.

The initial purpose of this study was to establish the seminal position of these three copies in the sonatas' bibliographic history. Comparison of the music text in the three copies, however, revealed engraving errors in A¹ that were corrected in the plates before printing of A² and A³ . The Beethoven Center's copy thus represents the earliest extant state of the first edition and is a previously unrecorded source. Discovery of two variants of Artaria's proof ignited a search for other textual differences in seemingly identical copies of Artaria's first issue of 1796. The search extended to the Titelauflagen, issues that were printed a few years later from the same plates but with a replacement title page (fig 1). ⁵ Within these copies were found numerous traces of plate corrections which pre-date the printing of A¹ . Together, these errors and proofs unveil at least three series of plate revisions before Artaria printed the copies to be sold to the public. Multiple later printings show that demand for Artaria's edition persisted for some years. The later issues manifest gradual assault on the plates, some of which were destroyed and newly engraved. Physical differences in the copies--particularly in paper stocks and watermarks--also suggest that the edition was reissued several times to meet resellers' needs. Thus far we have discovered seven variant states of Artaria's edition. Together, they recount a story of music publishing and trade at the turn of the nineteenth century.

The functions of these variant states and the roles of composer, engraver, proofreader, and publisher in the evolving edition are the focus here. For its part, in its publication announcement in the Wiener Zeitung, Artaria extolled an extraordinary diligence for beauty and correctness with the edition. ⁶ But despite the best efforts of both publisher and composer, the ultimate result was a faulty edition.

Chronology: From Composition to Publication

Thematic ideas for Beethoven's opus 2 originated during his youth in Bonn when, in 1785, he composed his three Piano Quartets in E, D, and C major, WoO 36. For the first movement of op. 2, no. 3, Beethoven reworked material from the first and second themes of the first movement of WoO 36, no. 3. A more outright borrowing occurs in the...