program notes A TASTE OF BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Born 1770, Bonn Died 1827, Vienna Three Duets for Clarinet and Bassoon Duet No. 1 in C Major, WoO 27/1 Rondo In addition to his 138 works with opus numbers (172 if you count several works under one opus number, like the opus 18 String Quartets), Beethoven left behind about 700 shorter pieces – some early works, some on commission for friends, and many unfinished fragments. Among these Werke ohne Opus (WoO) are three duets of uncertain authenticity for clarinet and bassoon—possibly an early work from the Bonn period, composed between 179 and 1792 and published in Paris in 1810. One suspects that these duets might be spurious because of their publication date and location. Napoleon, in whom Beethoven had been deeply disappointed as he began to gobble up Europe, was supposed to have been dedicatee of the Third Symphony. The fact that the Duets were published in Paris while Napoleon was rampaging through Europe suggests that they may have been pirated or even composed by someone else seeking to benefit from the famous composer’s name. That practice was fairly common; Beethoven’s contemporary, composer and publisher, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, promoted the first copyright laws in Prussia. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Born 1770, Bonn Died 1827, Vienna Quintet for Oboe, 3 Horns and Bassoon, Hess 19 Allegro Beethoven never threw anything away; he carried his hoarded mess from residence to residence. Among his most important and carefully maintained possessions were his sketchbooks, repositories of musical ideas that he considered for future development, and unfinished works. These represent a wonderful source for tracing the composer’s creative process, and every scrap is gold. Beethoven started this Quintet in 1793, apparently intending it to be a wind sextet, but never filled out the
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