Grosse Fuge

Heather Carbo, a librarian found a working manuscript score for a piano version of Beethoven's "Grosse Fuge," a monument of classical music when she was cleaning out an archival cabinet one hot afternoon in July. It was in the composer's own hand, according to Sotheby's auction house. The 80-page manuscript in mainly brown ink --a furious scattering of notes across the page, with many changes and cross-outs, some so deep that the paper is punctured-- dates from the final months of Beethoven's life. The score had effectively disappeared from view for 115 years, apparently never examined by scholars.

What's more, this manuscript is among Beethoven's last, from the period when he was stone deaf. It not only depicts his thought processes at their most introspective and his working methods at their most intense, but also gives a sense of his concern for his legacy.

Source: New York Times