Wednesday, October 19, 2005

BBC NEWS | Missing Beethoven score for sale

Technically, the BBC headline should read "No-longer-missing Beethoven score for sale."

A recently rediscovered Beethovan score of Grosse Fuge (officially last seen at an auction in Berlin in 1890) is expected to fetch up to £1.5m when it goes on sale at Sotheby's on the first of December in London.

The score, which contains multiple deletions and corrections, was found by librarian Heather Carbo at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Ms Carbo was conducting an inventory of the seminary's archives when she came across the manuscript in a basement cabinet.

Manuscripts by Mozart were discovered at the seminary in 1990.

President Dr Wallace Charles Smith said: "At the time, we called it 'the Mozart miracle'. It seems appropriate that this time we are thankful for the 'Beethoven blessing'."

Full BBC article

Update: Palmer Theological Seminary, formerly Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has a news release with more details.

1 comment:

Kathryn Judson said...

Thanks for the tip. (And it's nice to see someone's touting classical music in Philadelphia.)