Beethoven's 9th £2.1m at Sotheby's - Free Of Charge Here

I was shocked at the beautiful autograph score through the picture.

(I am not impressed with the price.
Anyhow music must live in heart.)

On NPR this afternoon, they played a recording of a performance of the ninth and the "Ode to Joy," as recorded in Berlin in about 1989 or 1990 (was at work, and didn't catch all of the intro). That "Ode to Joy" passage is almost always performed with the ninth, but this time, rather than beginning the Schiller portion with the word "Freude," they sang "Freiheit" (sure, Walter, go ahead an' correct my German, but i'll bet you know what i mean). It was very moving . . .

Hey, somethings wrong in Timbucktoo. I thought I saw Bethoven's Ninth Symphony at the British Library two months ago? c.i.

There are going to be quite a few manuscript copies of the score, c.i., printing scores was not common in the 1820's, and the usual method for providing the dozens of scores need for the orchestra to perform a work was to get a group of copyists together, and begin passing around a master copy . . . likely, in 1825 (i think), there were more than a hundred hand-written copies . . . the point of this is that it is in old Louie Beethoven's own autograph . . . they're calling it the "working copy" . . . it would have been the copy from which a "fair copy" was made, and then passed on to the copyist group to produce scores for the orchestra . . .

Those pics, my link shows, are the original autographs, from 1822-1824, taken into the "Register Memory of the World" by the UNESCO.
(Two pages are in the Beethoven house in Bonn [from the 2nd set], thre in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris [from the Final set].)

Copies? Something like limited editions of art work, I guess. c.i.

Beethoven's ninth
The manuscript was sold to a private buyer for $3.4 million. This means that very few other people (if any) will be able to see it, read the notations, amendations, alterations which Beethoven himself made.

Question: Why did the buyer want this manuscript? For love of the music and the direct connection with one of the world's greatest composers? For the satisfaction of having something no one else has? For the gamble that it can be sold again for even more?

If for love of the music, etc, then one would hope the ms could be given, or at least lent, to a music school, where others could see it and feel the emotions it would engender.

(One has to wonder, also, whether the buyer has the knowledge and ability to keep the ms in good physical condition - humidity control, a/c, careful lighting, and so on.)

The other two reasons are legitimate, but certainly not very appetizing!

Tomkitten, All good points, but realistically speaking, the buyer doesn't have to explain why he paid so much for this sheet music. Unfortunately, as the owner, he can do anything he pleases - which includes burning it. Your suggestion that he share it with a music school is very idealistic, but it's also a possibility. Who knows? He may even donate it to a museum at the Smithsonian. c.i.

Hopefully, a private buyer who would spend $3.4 million on a manuscript would also have someone to advise him on how to protect his investment.