The Catalogues of Beethoven compositions are all of the different ways in which the musical compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

 have been organized by researchers into his music.

The problem

When Beethoven died (as with many other composers), he left a great many compositions behind. In Beethoven's case, a sizable majority of his works were published. However, some works were not published, and some works were unfinished, either because he had laid them aside, or died before he could finish them. The catalogues described here are attempts to organize and identify with precision all of these works in ways that are useful to musicologists, musicians, and the listening public.

Most of Beethoven's best known works were published in his lifetime, and bear opus numbers, with which they may be reliably identified. The short piano piece "Für Elise

Für Elise

Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" , is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It is usually classified as a bagatelle, but it is also sometimes referred to as an Albumblatt.- History :The score was not published until 1867, 40 years after...

" is a notable exception: it is usually designated WoO

WoO

WoO is an acronym/abbreviation, derived from the German musical catalog phrase . WoO is a catalogue prepared in 1955 by Hans Halm and Georg Kinsky, listing all of the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven that were not originally published with an opus number, or survived only as fragments.The...

 (Werke ohne Opuszahl – literally, "works without opus number") 59.

Opus number

The traditional 19th-century method of identifying a composer's works was for publishers to assign some sort of consecutive Opus number

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 to the works as they were published. This method is not entirely satisfactory to anyone. Musicians and the listening public have no reliable way to distinguish different works with similar characteristics. Musicologists cannot reliably identify unpublished works, nor do they have a reliable indication from the opus number of the actual composition date(s). For example, the Octet, written from 1792–1793 is Opus 103, while Opus 102 and Opus 104 were written in 1815 and 1817 respectively. Some opus numbers comprise multiple pieces; 172 works are divided among 138 opus numbers.

All of Beethoven's compositions up to and including Opus 135 were published in Beethoven's lifetime; later numbers were published posthumously, and are generally denoted by "Op. posth."

Kinsky catalogue

In 1955, Georg Kinsky and Hans Halm published a catalogue of Beethoven's works, in which they assigned numbers to 205 "Werke ohne Opuszahl" (meaning "works without opus number" in German) to some of Beethoven's unpublished works. These numbers given these works are generally preceded by "WoO

WoO

WoO is an acronym/abbreviation, derived from the German musical catalog phrase . WoO is a catalogue prepared in 1955 by Hans Halm and Georg Kinsky, listing all of the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven that were not originally published with an opus number, or survived only as fragments.The...

".

The Kinsky-Halm catalogue also lists 18 works in an appendix as being either doubtfully attributed, or simply spurious. Some of those listed as doubtful have since been shown to be authored by Beethoven. These numbers are generally preceded by "AnH", short for German Anhang, meaning appendix.

Hess catalogue

The Swiss composer and musicologist Willy Hess

Willy Hess (composer)

Willy Hess was a Swiss musicologist, composer, and famous Beethoven scholar. He achieved fame after compiling and publishing a catalogue of works of Beethoven that were not listed in the "complete" edition. He orchertrated the Piano Concerto No...

 also researched and published a catalogue in the 1950s, in which he included pieces not included in the 19th century complete edition

Beethoven Gesamtausgabe

The Beethoven Gesamtausgabe is the first collected edition of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven. Its full title is Ludwig van Beethovens Werke: vollständige kritisch durchgesehene überall berechtige Ausgabe...

 published by Breitkopf and Härtel. Hess included many more fragmentary works than did Kinsky, and his catalog runs to 335 entries in the "Hauptkatalog" (main catalogue), and 66 "doubtful and falsely-attributed" works in an appendix. Many pieces have both WoO and H numbers.

Biamonti catalogue

Beethoven's compositions are also organized through the Biamonti Catalogue

Biamonti Catalogue

The Biamonti Catalogue is a catalogue of Ludwig van Beethoven's compositions published in 1968 by the ILTE of Turin. The original name of the work is Catalogo cronologico e tematico di tutte le opere di Beethoven, comprese quelle inedite e gli abbozzi non utilizzati...

, compiled by Giovanni Biamonti and published in 1968. This work is an attempt to chronologically order all of Beethoven's creative output, in a manner similar to the catalogue of Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

's works by Otto Erich Deutsch

Otto Erich Deutsch

Otto Erich Deutsch was an Austrian musicologist. He is known for compiling the first comprehensive catalogue of the works of Franz Schubert, first published in 1951 in English, new edition in 1978 in German...

. It combines the pieces with opus numbers, all of the works from the Kinsky and Hess catalogues, and previously uncatalogued fragments, into a single list comprising 849 entries.

Catalogues

The following references identify the major catalogues of Beethoven's works.

• Nottebohm, Gustav
  Gustav Nottebohm
  Martin Gustav Nottebohm was a pianist, teacher, musical editor and composer who spent most of his career in Vienna. He is particularly celebrated for his studies of Beethoven....
  
  . Thematisches Verzeichnis der im Druck erschienenen Werke von Ludwig van Beethoven. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1925. . Reprinted Wiesbaden: M. Sändig, 1969 .
  —Historically important thematic catalogue, by a pioneering 19th Century Beethoven scholar.
  —Full title in English: Thematic Catalogue of the Published Works of Ludwig van Beethoven.
• Kinsky, G. and H. Halm. Das Werk Beethovens: thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen vollendeten Kompositionen. München: G. Henle, 1955.
  —The standard thematic and bibliographical catalogue of Beethoven's works.
  —Full title in English: Beethoven's Works: thematic and bibliographic catalogue of all his completed compositions by Georg Kinsky, completed and edited after the author's death by Hans Helm.
• Hess, Willy
  Willy Hess (composer)
  Willy Hess was a Swiss musicologist, composer, and famous Beethoven scholar. He achieved fame after compiling and publishing a catalogue of works of Beethoven that were not listed in the "complete" edition. He orchertrated the Piano Concerto No...
  
  . Verzeichnis der nicht in der Gesamtausgabe veröffentlichen Werke Ludwig van Beethovens. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1957.
  —Hess' original study and catalogue; still more widely available in libraries than Green's edition.
  —Full title in English: Catalogue of works not found in the Collected Works of Ludwig van Beethoven.
• Green, James (ed. and trans). The new Hess catalog of Beethoven’s works. West Newbury, Vermont: Vance Brook, 2003. ISBN 0-964-05703-4.
  —An English translation of Willy Hess
  Willy Hess (composer)
  Willy Hess was a Swiss musicologist, composer, and famous Beethoven scholar. He achieved fame after compiling and publishing a catalogue of works of Beethoven that were not listed in the "complete" edition. He orchertrated the Piano Concerto No...
  
  's important 1957 catalogue and study, updated to reflect more recent scholarship.
• Biamonti, Giovanni. Catologo cronologo e tematico delle opere di Beethoven. Torino: ILTE, 1968.
  —Encompasses works with and without opus numbers, as well as sketches and fragments, in 849 chronologically arranged entries.
  —Full title in English: Chronological and Thematic Catalogue of the works of Beethoven.

Other sources

• Johnson, Douglas and Scott G. Burnham. "Beethoven, Ludwig Van (Works)", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Subscription access). Accessed 2007-04-19.
  —Includes categorized works list with bibliographical and other information.
• Solomon, Maynard
  Maynard Solomon
  Maynard Solomon has carried out a multiple career: he was a co-founder of Vanguard Records as well as a music producer, and later became a writer on music.-Career in the recording industry:...
  
  . Beethoven (1st edition). New York: Schirmer, 1977. ISBN 0-02-872460-7. pp. 372, 386-391.
  —Popular biographical study; includes bibliographical notes and (incomplete) works lists.