THE Leipzig Musical Gazette of a few weeks back, contains the annexed account of a publication which cannot but excite a strong interest in the whole musical world, and most likely will prove highly instructive. We are in daily expectation of a copy, and shall certainly lay portions of its contents before our readers. The title, as given in the German journal, is—Ludwig van Beethoven’s Studies in Thorough Bass, Counterpoint, and the Theory of Composition, collected from his Autograph MSS. and edited by the Chevalier Ignaz von Seyfried. Vienna. T. Haslinger. Price 2 th. 16 gr.

The anxiety, says the writer of the article, which prevailed among the numerous admirers of the great composer for the publication of this important work, is sufficiently apparent from the list of subscribers to it, the great number of whom enabled the publisher to adhere to the price originally fixed, although the book contained about ten sheets more than the first estimate allowed for it. The studies alone occupy 352 pages. We are then presented with a fac-simile of Beethoven’s writing, representing, in almost enigmatical characters, the first draft of the composition of his fine cantata Adelaide. After this are given prints of two medals in honour of him, the one struck at Vienna, the other at Paris. The appendix contains biographical notices, anecdotes, a transcript of the will, letters, an account of the obsequies, with the music, orations, poems, a drawing of his tombstone, and a systematic catalogue of all the original compositions of the great master. A very striking likeness of Beethoven precedes the whole. This slight sketch of the contents will at least have the effect of attracting to the work the attention of all those friends of the art who may, up to the present time, have remained in ignorance of its appearance. Who would not be anxious to observe for himself the manner in which our Beethoven formed his mind and cultivated his genius? It is not for us to say one word in recommendation of a work whose importance speaks for itself in the most forcible manner.

Much less occasion have we to criticise; for, in the present case, the question is not regarding the mode, but the substance, as it is presented to us, and the manner in which every one ought to avail himself of such a publication, and apply the conclusions which he may draw from it. We do not expect that, in our notice of the work, we can offer, except in a very few instances, any new views. However, it is to be supposed that a great number of those who would take an interest in the work are not yet in possession of it. For the benefit of such we here give the concise and appropriate preface of the editor, which adverts to most of what is necessary to be impressed on the mind in relation to the work itself:—

‘These studies of the great genius are to the whole musical world a valuable legacy, far too inestimable for any one to dare to risk the slightest alteration in them. I have, therefore, endeavoured with the utmost care to give every thing exact, and in the very order in which I found it. I have even, on most occasions, preserved the author’s own words and expressions. In those cases alone, however, where our persevering and indefatigable student had given numerous examples in illustration of one and the same rule, I considered myself at liberty to make an omission or abridgment, in order that the work might not be swelled out to an unnecessary bulk. [The information as to how many examples have been omitted, and in what part of the work, would have been acceptable to many.] What is here offered to the public cannot, by any means, serve as a systematic book of instruction, but is rather to be viewed as the course of study pursued by the great artist himself; and it affords incontrovertible proof, to those who have hitherto entertained doubts on the subject, that Beethoven dedicated the two last years of his musical education, with unwearying assiduity, to theoretical study, under the guidance of Albrechtsberger, his beloved mentor, and further, that he was master of the substance of all the rules, although in process of time his sublime genius cast off the slavish fetters; and his master-mind, soaring far beyond the standard of times past or present, disregarded so many which antiquity and invariable usage alone had hitherto entitled to religious observance as settled laws.’

It is certainly a very different thing when one man, who knows well what he is doing, advisedly, or with innate tact, occasionally transgresses a rule,—and when another, who has learned nothing, and is unwilling to learn anything, evinces his pretended originality in no other way than in the contempt of that of which he is actually ignorant. Were ignorance and presumption the only characteristics of genius, we should have no lack of it.

At the conclusion of the thorough-bass rules, page 74, is the following remark in a fac-simile of Beethoven’s hand-writing:—‘Dear friends, I took all these pains merely to be enabled to figure thorough-bass correctly, and hereafter to point out to others any faults they might commit: for myself, I hardly had occasion to learn this at any time; I had from my childhood so nice a feeling, that I observed all the established rules without knowing that what I did should be so or could well be otherwise.’

So important are these studies, and so attractive are the numerous but too few notices from his life, to which fact it is scarcely necessary for us to bear witness, that an adequate idea of its full value cannot be formed but from the work itself entire.