In the late Gustav Petter’s Collection of Autography (in Vienna) is a sketchbook of Beethoven’s--148 pages in extent--largely devoted to studies for two works, but containing themes and hints for many others, with an occasional characteristic note or name: random, not always strictly musical. Those who have had occasion to study this book--the present writer included--have heretofore assumed, that it belongs to the year 1812. The correctness of this assumption must be tested.[71] On the first page are two measures of music--merely a succession of chords--with this remark: “Such (passages) should produce another effect than the miserable enharmonic evasions which every school ~Miserabili~ can write, they ought to disclose the change to every hearer.” This, though not fixing the date, does at least suggest the time when its writer’s mind was unusually occupied with theoretical studies. On the same page is this: “Cotton in my ears at the pianoforte frees my hearing from the unpleasant buzzing (~das unangenehme rauschende~)”--which suggests a time when his organs of hearing were still very sensitive, and he had not yet abandoned his pianoforte playing. Suggestions so vague cannot be offered as argument; but if any weight be granted to them, it is in favor of the winter 1808-9. Something more than a mere suggestion is offered on page 18. Here Beethoven has written: “Overture Macbeth, the chorus of witches comes in at once.” Whether the succeeding sketches belong to this overture is a question for a musician. Now that first act of “Macbeth,” read by Röckel in 1808, together with the first act of the Oratorio, “Die Befreiung Jerusalems”--both written for Beethoven--lay before the composer in print early in the year 1809. Collin had inserted them in the “Hoftheater-Taschenbuch” of that year. The poet died in 1811, leaving both unfinished. To suppose that Beethoven, in 1812, gave thought to an incomplete text by a deceased poet, is absurd. His memorandum is evidently the record of an idea which occurred to his mind on perusing the fragment, and determines the date of the first part of the sketchbook to be the beginning of 1809. Passing to the middle of page 22, one comes upon this: [Illustration] With few interruptions, such as a theme for a “symphony without drums,” “good triplets of another sort,” the Allegretto and Finale of the Seventh Symphony are the subjects of the studies for more than forty pages. That modest gem--the theme of the Allegretto--is still the same throughout; but how astonishing the number and variety of forms for its setting, that were tested, before the majestic, the sublime simplicity was attained, which satisfied the exquisite taste of its creator!