# Beethoven's Bookshelf?



## karsten (Feb 21, 2018)

Hello. I was just wondering if anyone knew of any books or sites about Beethoven that feature a list, or other indication, of all of the books that Beethoven is known to have owned and/or read.

Thank you. Any tips would be helpful.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Here's a good page on Beethoven's library.

https://www.beethoven.de/singlepage/59120


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

karsten said:


> Hello. I was just wondering if anyone knew of any books or sites about Beethoven that feature a list, or other indication, of all of the books that Beethoven is known to have owned and/or read.
> 
> Thank you. Any tips would be helpful.


This might be what you're looking for: https://www.beethoven.de/singlepage/59120

Excerpts:

When Beethoven died, he left behind a large book and sheet music collection. According to the reports of a contemporary expert, it consisted of "etched musical publications of good authors", "fine theoretical writings of renowned classics" as well as "a small aesthetic hand library". As part of Beethoven's belongings books and music supplies were subject to an inventory ordered by the court and were auctioned off in early November 1827 together with his other belongings. The bequest lists and auction protocols indicate what books entered the auction and what books were sold. Beethoven's former sheet music library is categorized into "written works of different composers", "etched music works", "music books and theory books". However, the 52 numbered short titles often represent large sets of unnamed documents that in turn contained more than 60 compositions of other composers. The list also includes lent belongings of other people returned to the respective owners. Upon being registered as his bequest Beethoven's library counted at least 50 publications and was captured in a list of 44 numbers. Among those are five works that were later unregistered. Because these books were prohibited in Austria, they were confiscated and not available for sale.

The books that certainly belonged to Beethoven's music library are piano compositions by Bach, Clementi, Cramer, Reicha, string quartets by Haydn and Mozart, symphonies by Haydn, operas by Cherubini, Dalayrac, Gluck, Méhul, Monsigny, Mozart, Paisiello, Salieri, Sarti, oratorios and masses by Haydn as well as Mozart's requiem. Only the works by Händel were complete. Shortly before he died, Beethoven received the 40-folio London Händel edition as a gift. Instruction books for singing, piano and organ by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Knecht and von Türk were also part of Beethoven's possession. The exquisite collection of music theory publications Beethoven owned featured works by Albrechtsberger, Kirnberger, Koch, Marpurg, Mattheson, Riepel and Vogler. Works on music history include publications by Burney, Forkel and Schubart. Apart from that some magazines on music and aesthetic remained. However, those only constitute a small share of Beethoven's magazine consumption.

The second large category of Beethoven's library are fine literature and non-fiction books, among them dramas, poems, prose, text books and complete editions of Cicero, Euripides, Goethe, Hölty, Homer, Klopstock, La Fontaine, Schiller, Seume, Shakespeare and Tiedge. Beethoven also read non-fiction and reference books on natural sciences, philosophy, history and literary studies as well as religious literature, among them books dating back to ancient times by Bode, Camphuysen, Gräffer, Guthrie and Gray, Kant, Kempen, Kotzebue, Plutarch, Sailer, Sturm and Webb. Beethoven did not bequeath any cooking books but he evidently owned some helpful guidebooks such as travel guides for Upper Austria, Baden and Paris, medical books by Hufeland and Lichtenthal as well as some French, Italian and Latin dictionaries and a French grammar book.
---
Impressive & illuminating library! He did not simply rely on his genius; he studied to learn and be inspired by others.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


> Impressive & illuminating library! He did not simply rely on his individual genius; he studied to learn and be inspired by others.


Even more remarkable for a bloke who never saw much formal education beyond the first few grades of primary school. But I think there was more of a tradition of self-education then than there is now. Nowadays education is seen as a sort of punishment.


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## Forss (May 12, 2017)

brianvds said:


> Even more remarkable for a bloke who never saw much formal education beyond the first few grades of primary school. But I think there was more of a tradition of self-education then than there is now. Nowadays education is seen as a sort of punishment.


Goethe says somewhere that one shouldn't praise, but rather _blame_, any talented person who hasn't studied the good masters of his or her craft - and Beethoven certainly agreed!

I recently read a biography of Blaise Pascal, written by his sister, in which she explained how their father instructed Pascal's education entirely on his own, with a strong emphasis on religion, language (Latin and Greek), and mathematics. They read the classics in the original, as it were, and not secondary literature expounding on that very literature (in a most uninspiring way).

This sort of singular, idiosyncratic education is perhaps, alas, not possible in _our_ age, and it's a pity!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

What would be useful is the inventory of his books which was made after he died, even though it's apparently sketchy it would be better than nothing. I've searched for it before online but I've failed to find anything. I'd like to know, for example, if he had any scores of renaissance masses.


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