When is Beethoven not Beethoven?

It's a question that continually plagues classical music lovers. How much (or how little) of an incompleted work be finished by someone else and still be considered a valid composition by the primary composer?

As I've been pulling together pieces for our next podcast, its something I've thought about. Probably the most famous example is Derryk Cook's completion of Mahler's 10th Symphony, which some consider an acceptable addition to Mahler's catalog and others do not.

For our next program of the DCD Classical 'Cast, we'll be playing an excerpt from a Sonata quasi una fantasia by Beethoven. The work was sketched out around 1792, but left incomplete at the time of his death.

The melody was completely written out, and a good deal of the left hand filled in as well. Beethoven left notes that the final movement, the least complete of the three, recapped large sections of the opening movement. Noted Beethoven scholar and composer A. Willem Holsbergen completed the work, using his knowledge of Beethoven's style to basically "connect the dots."

While we can debate whether the finished work is as Beethoven would have done it, I think it's well worth hearing. I'm certainly no Beethoven expert, but I didn't hear anything that sounded out of place. And more importantly, I didn't hear anything that sounded like dry academic writing -- anyone should be able to enjoy this sonata on its own merits even without knowing the backstory.

I'll be recording the vocal track for the podcast within the next day or so, so you'll soon be able to judge for yourself.

- Ralph