Important Beethoven manuscript comes to Bonn
The Beethoven-Haus in Bonn acquires the only original manuscript of the 4th movement of Beethoven's String Quartet opus 130.
The manuscript had probably been in the hands of the Petschek family in Aussig (Czech Republic) since the 1920s. As Jews, the Petscheks were persecuted by the Nazis and left their home in 1938. Their furniture, valuables and art collection were confiscated by the Nazi authorities. When the German authorities began to dispose of the art collection in 1942, the head of the music collection of the Moravian Museum in Brno, who was called in as an expert, managed to secure the manuscript for the museum.
After the war, the Petschek family searched for the manuscript - initially without success. When it was finally found, the communist government of what was then Czechoslovakia refused to hand over the autograph. In 2022, it was restituted to the Petschek descendants, who agreed to sell the manuscript to the Beethoven-Haus at the end of 2024 and make it permanently accessible to the public and researchers once again.
The purchase was made possible by a concerted campaign of public and private supporters. In addition to the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the NRW-Stiftung, the Kunststiftung NRW, the Berthold Leibinger-Stiftung as well as committed private donors and the Beethoven-Haus Foundation were involved.
