BEETHOVEN'S "JENA" SYMPHONY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 517, 20 May 1949, Page 5

BEETHOVEN'S "JENA" SYMPHONY

Sir,-I was very interested when the programmes for Friday, April 8, listed from 1YA at 7.30 p.m. recordings of a "Symphony in C-Jena’" by Beethoven, for I had never heard of such a work. But although the hearing of a new symphony by Beethoven ig an amazing event, neither The Listener nor the announcer introducing the work, gave any discussion of it. Researches among available books on Beethoven, of which only those by Thayer and Becker briefly mentioned the work, told of a manuscript of a symphony discovered at Jena in 1909, and signed "Louis Beethoven," and presumably a very early work by that master. The performance revealed g fine fulllength symphony-but absolutely in the style of Haydn. If Beethoven’s name was not attached to it, it would certainly be regarded as Haydn’s, I wonder if you could give myself and other interested listeners some information in your columns about this work and its revival, what critics think of it, and what reasons there are for believing it is not by Haydn.

J. R.

ROBERTSHAW

(Mt. Albert),

(All that most reference books have to say about the Jena Symphony is simply that it is attributed to Beethoven; authenticity disputed. Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians says that in 1909 Professor Fritz Stein, musical director of the University of Jena, announced that in a collection of music at the Academie Concerts founded in 1780, he had discovered the complete parts of a symphony in four movements in C "par Louis Beethoven."’ These words were in the handwriting of the copyist on the second violin part; on the ’cello-part is written "Symphonie von Beethoven."-Ed,)

More letters from listeners will be tound on page 24

LETTERS FROM LISTENERS

(continued from page 5)