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The two bars marked with * are redundant, and must be struck out; of course, also in all the other parts which have rests." A reference to the manuscript in the possession of the publishers revealed how the two superfluous bars had crept in. Beethoven had originally intended that the entire scherzo, with the trio, should be repeated, and then be concluded by the coda. He had marked in the manuscript the two superfluous bars with 1, and the two following ones with 2, and had written with a red pencil, "Si replica con trio allora 2," which the engraver had not exactly understood. As also the written parts for the instruments, which were used at the first performance of the C minor Symphony in Vienna, under Beethoven's direction, do not possess those two bars, there remains not the least doubt that they were never intended by the composer to be where they are now found to the delight of many enthusiastic admirers of Beethoven.
A misprint in Beethoven's 'Sinfonia Pastorale' (which Schumann points out in his 'Gesammelte Schriften,' Vol. IV.) is almost too evident to be left uncorrected, even by those who find it beautiful. In the second part of the first movement, where the theme recommences, with the accompaniment of triplets, the score has the following notations:—
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That here, by mistake, three rests for the first violins have been inserted by the engraver, instead of three simile-signs,
, is evident from the sudden interruption of the flow of the triplet accompaniment, as well as from the fact that immediately afterwards, in the inversion of the same passage, the violas have the same accompaniment without any interruption. Otto Jahn, in his 'Gesammelte Aufsätze über Musik,' notices a misprint in the score of Beethoven's last Quartet, Op. 135, which is very extraordinary. He says: "In the last movement the copyist has omitted two bars in the first violin part, so that during twelve bars it is two bars in advance of the other instruments. After the twelve bars, the corrector perceiving that two bars were wanting to restore the equilibrium, has inserted two there according to his own fancy." Jahn gives side by side the genuine reading and the interpolated one. The wonder is that the latter is playable at all,—or rather, that the musicians, in playing it, should not have discovered at once that there must be something radically wrong. However, as Jahn justly remarks, the respect for the eccentricities of Beethoven's last quartets was so great, that no one ventured to think there could be a mistake here which required rectifying.
A carefully-compiled manual, containing reliable corrections of the most important misprints occurring in our classical compositions, would be a boon to the musical student. There are many in Bach's fugues, and even in Beethoven's sonatas, which are not easily detected, but which are on this account all the more noteworthy.