Beethoven manuscript sold for $1.72 million
Published December 2nd, 2005
A working manuscript of Ludwig von Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge” sold for $1.72 million to an anonymous buyer, Sotheby’s auctioneers said. Sotheby’s described the manuscript, discovered in a Pennsylvania seminary library, as “an astounding and important discovery” and possibly the most substantial manuscript of a Beethoven work to come up for sale in more than a century. The buyer, who bid by telephone, paid $1.95 million, including the buyers’ premium, Sotheby’s said. It declined to say where the buyer was based. The manuscript was last mentioned in an 1890 auction catalogue from Berlin. The buyer is not documented,
