The interpretation of this draft, and its subsequent solution is yet another musical detective story.

As in the case of Hess 300 (also on this site) there is no indication of clefs nor of key signature. The single melodic line is written on a system of two staves, which is maintained all 20 bars. The interpretation of the first stave having a treble clef, and the second a bass clef, results in a melody which runs the scale smoothly downwards and upwards again.

Unlike in the case of Hess 300, here the draft gives us no clue as to what the key signature might be. However, given the fact that our melody starts and ends on an "E", and since it's desirable to end on a note belonging to the tonic triad, there are three possibilities: C, A and E major. Since it's impossible to decide this question on the basis of the melody alone, we have to leave it unresolved for the moment.

The draft has a remarkable feature the last ten bars: it consists of five occurrences of a bar with notes, followed by a rest of a whole bar! Such "breathing pauses" we see often in Beethoven's canons. This tells us two important things: 1) yes, this is a canon indeed, 2) it indicates the second voice should follow the first at a distance of one bar, since the other voice is supposed to echo the first voice during these "breathing pauses".

And indeed, a canon at one bar distance is possible: the second voice has to be a fifth below the first. And now the really interesting thing: this two part canon, which Beethoven had very clearly in mind while writing down this draft, tells us that the key has to be A major. During the last ten bars, when the two voices no longer overlap each other, but merely alternate, the readings of the key signature of C and E major don't sound convincing, while the reading of A major is satisfactory. This view is reinforced by the fact that on the same page as Hess 301, we find the sketch Hess 256, which is explicitly in the key of A major. (Hess 256 can also be found on this site).

Having discovered the clefs, the key signature, and a 2-in-1 solution for the canon, can we lay down and have a rest? No, sorry, we can't! The last ten bars of the draft, which served us so well in finding the 2-in-1 canon as well as the key signature, also clearly indicates there have to be more than just the 2 voices. An obvious way to fill out these last ten bars is by adding a third voice, which follows the first at a distance of half-a-bar, and which is a second higher, and a fourth voice, at half-a-bar distance of the second voice, also a second higher. But can this solution be applied to the first ten bars of the canon?

Well, yes and no: this solution does work partially, but creates a cluster of dissonances in bars 4-6. None of these dissonances are problematic in themselves, but them coming so close together does make the counterpoint sound messy. This problem however can easily be overcome by making a few small adjustments to Beethoven's text: changing some quarter notes to two eighth notes. Beethoven himself didn't hesitate making the same changes to previously finished melodies when writing down a new arrangement (cf. Hess 94). Hess 301, "Waehner es ist kein Wahn" is deep music in the truest sense of the word: the extraordinary simplicity, even banality, of the single line gives rise to the stunning complexity of the 4-part canon, and one has to realize that this complexity is only possible because of the initial simplicity.

The words, by Beethoven himself, are a chain of puns, which unfortunately can't be translated:

Waehner, Waehner, Waehner,
Es ist kein Wahn
wenn man sich weidet
an einem Weid, Weid,
Weidmann, Weidmaennchen,
Weidmaennchen, Weidmaennchen,
Eselchen!

Interpretation of the draft and working out of the canon by Willem. 

The text is a garbled line from Goethe's Faust. It should read: "Uns ist ganz kannibalish wohl, Als wie fuenfhundert Saeuen" The devil Mephistopheles has taken Faust with him to a drinking-bout in Auerbach's cellar to show him the pleasures of life. After singing a song about a king with a beloved flea (which Beethoven also set as op. 75 nr. 3), Mephistopheles drills holes in the edge of a table; from each hole pours the wine of the drinker's choice. Thereupon, the tipplers start to sing half drunkenly the aforementioned verses, translated by Bayard Taylor as "As't were five hundred hogs, we feel/ So cannibalic jolly!" Faust is not impressed with the level of the entertainment and wants to leave.

The sketch is found amongst the work on the Grosse Fuge, op. 133, showing that Beethoven's mind could turn to trifles even in the midst of that intellectually titanic work. Nottebohm tentatively suggests (in his Zweite Beethoveniana, p.11) the sketch may be a two-in-one canon in unison. Misch (Beethoven studies, p.115) rejects this. He finds that solution too primitive, and that it's therefore better not to regard it as a canon at all. Misch might have changed his opinion if he had noticed the sketch could also be worked out as a four part canon, as was discovered by Willem. The second voice enters after half a bar, a fifth lower, the third voice after 2 bars in unison, and the last voice after two and a half bar, again a fifth lower.

This canon is found among the sketches for the Adagio from the Ninth Symphony. While Kinsky-Halm and the rest of the Beethoven literature (Nottebohm, Unger and Hess) refer to this as a two-part canon, it can be worked out as no less than an 8-part(!) canon.

This 8 bar canon draft can be found amidst the sketches for Wellingtonís Victory, opus 91 (1813). Given the text of the canon ('The enemy has been beaten') it seems plausible that at one stage Beethoven was thinking of giving the Battle Symphony a choral ending. If so, then this would constitute a link between the Choral Fantasy, op.80, and the Ninth Symphony.

For a change, Beethoven's handwriting is reasonably clear, but clef and key signature are missing. Therefore it was of great help that Hess and Unger had already identified the piece as being in D major.

A canon on the melody of the draft itself appears to be impossible, so the question becomes: is this really a canon like Hess and Unger claim? The answer is yes, because above the sketch Beethoven has scribbled a few words, of which the third seems to read 'canon'. Therefore we can agree with Unger's assesment that Hess 305 is the first section of a round.

This piece can be found in the Wielhorsky sketchbook.

Here Beethoven is experimenting with the augmented triad, and this is yet another example of Beethoven sometimes being more adventurous in his sketches than in his finished works. Of course the augmented triad already occurs in the finale of the first act of Mozart's Don Giovanni (at the words 'Trema o scellerato!'), so the chord itself was not new to Beethoven. Interesting is the way Beethoven handles the chord here: it is given great independence by being maintained 4 bars the first time, and even 6 bars the second time. This creates not just ambivalence as to whether the key is D major or B minor (D major is established only at the last moment) it also anticipates Debussy's soundworld.

The draft for this playful little fugue can be found amongst the sketches for the oratorio "Christ on the Mountain of Olives" in the Wielhorsky sketchbook, and dates therefore from 1800-1801.

How fortunate that Beethoven's counterpoint teacher, Albrechtsberger, never saw this fugue: no doubt it would have shortened his life considerably. Not only is the fugue subject answered in the subdominant rather than dominant (which Albrechtsberger seems to have more or less allowed) but there are also quite a few concealed fifths and octaves in Beethoven's counterpoint. Immediately after the exposition Beethoven writes down the ending of the fugue. The middle section (essentially a three part stretto over the fugue subject) is provided by Willem.

All those who understand that music theory gives guidelines to help a composer in his difficult task rather than being a set of rules which have to be obeyed at all cost, will shrug their shoulders over the shortcomings of this fugue, and just delight in what was clearly on Beethoven's mind: writing a fugue over an as unlikely fugue subject as one can imagine, and having sheer fun in doing so.