Digital edition of a Beethoven sketchbook
The «Beethoven's Workshop» research project is making one of the composer's sketchbooks available in a digital edition.
How Ludwig van Beethoven worked can be traced today in more than 7500 surviving pages of sketches. A large proportion of these have been handed down in 70 surviving sketchbooks, which have been the subject of scholarly research since the 19th century. The «Beethoven's Workshop» project has now produced the first digital edition of one of these sketchbooks: the so-called «Notirungsbuch K».
Beethoven used the book in spring 1823 to sketch parts of the Ninth Symphony and the Diabelli Variations. Early sketches for the later «Ode to Joy» can also be found in it. After Beethoven's death, the sketchbook was divided into several parts. The seven surviving individual parts are now in the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and the National Library in Paris.
The new digital edition brings these holdings together again virtually and makes it possible to experience the sketchbook in its original form for the first time. In contrast to printed editions, the digital format opens up new possibilities for presentation and communication. At the heart of the edition is the specially developed fluid transcription. It makes the editorial cognitive process visible by allowing users to use a slider to move from a digital facsimile of a sketch to a musical text that is readable and comprehensible by today's standards.
