The Beethoven Quandary

  Chapter Two

  David scooped up his phone quickly. He instantly recognized the voice on the line.

  "Jeremy? Jeremy West? I thought you were in England playing concerts.”

  "I was, but I'm back now. Just got back, and I've got something I've got to show you."

  David smiled. "Slow down...tell me about your trip."

  "What is there to tell?  I went, I played, I conquered."

  "Really? Did it go that well? That's great!"

  "Sure. It was fun. You should try it. No major orchestras of course, but we up and coming artists have to take what we can get. Say...when's the last time you had one of these gigs?

  "It's been a while. I'm a teacher now. You know…at the conservatory."

  "Sure, sure. But come on, now. We're supposed to be performers, you and I. Best pianists to graduate from Leonard for years. That's what everybody always said."

  "Good for them. I'm happy doing what I'm doing. Now what's this important thing you've got to tell me?"

  "Oh, yeah. Well this is crazy...crazy good. But it's something I’ve got to show you. I can't just explain it over the phone. So where are you?"

  "In my studio...at the conservatory. Room 278 in the practice annex."

  "Great! You're only five minutes from Mackinaw's Coffee Shop. You're not doing anything, are you?"

  "Well I'm..."

  "I'll see you there in fifteen minutes."

  David strummed his fingers on the table quietly. There were only a couple of other people in Mackinaw's. It used to be a lot more crowded when he and Jeremy were undergrads. But the city hadn't had a dozen or so Starbucks sprinkled around yet. Mackinaw’s had plenty of old-school atmosphere, but it was difficult for any ‘homey” coffee house to survive with so much glitzy competition. Of course it was an unusually cool day, even for late October, not the best day to be out for a stroll.

  David started to look down to check his phone. When he looked up, Jeremy stood before him, a coy smile on his face.

  "My God,” David said. “You shouldn't sneak up on people like that!"

  Jeremy nodded, his smile broadening. "I wasn't sneaking, David, but you don't always want to draw attention to yourself."

  "Are you kidding? You live to draw attention to yourself."

  "Now don't be snide, David. We were both superstars in college. It's not my fault that I was the charismatic one."

  “Oh, please..."

  "But first things first. There's something I've absolutely got to show you."

  "A picture of your new girlfriend, I presume? You told me about her last time I saw you."

  "You'll meet her later, David. This is more important. Look." Jeremy quickly placed a large brown portfolio on the table. "Open it."

  David paused. "Can you at least sit down? You're making me nervous."

  Jeremy quickly fell into the seat next to David. "Just open it up and look inside," he said quietly.

  David reached inside the portfolio and pulled out a couple of large sheets of yellowed paper. He held them up in front of him and squinted slightly.

  "Exactly what am I looking at?" he asked.

  "What do you think?"

  "Well...it's a music manuscript. Looks pretty old. A century at least. Looks like the first two pages of a symphonic score. The title labels it as ‘number nine.’ It doesn’t seem to be dated anywhere."

  "So what does that tell you?"

  "Nothing much. It's a symphonic score, probably from the early nineteen century by somebody who wrote nine symphonies. There's no name on it."

  Jeremy smiled slyly. "There is...in the lower right hand corner. It's faint, but it clearly says ‘Hofhammer.’"

  David glanced down to the bottom of the page. “You're right...Hofhammer. So it appears that you are the proud owner of the first two pages of the first movement of a symphonic score by a Herr Hofhammer who absolutely no one has ever heard of."

  Jeremy smiled more broadly and shook his head. "The reason that no one has ever heard of him is because he's not the composer, he's the copyist."

  "Okay, so he's the copyist. But I'm still not sure what makes this an important discovery. I take it that you ran into it on your recent trip."

  "That's right. In London. A little old used book shop....just like a hundred others that are all going out of business. This one was completely closing out its stock. It had a few old scores as well as well as some first editions of nineteenth-century books. Even a couple of music manuscripts. I found this one in a large tattered envelope at the bottom of a pile. The whole manuscript was well over a hundred pages."

  David nodded encouragingly. "Well, that's great. Quite a curiosity. Now, if you only knew who composed the thing."

  "I do know who composed it."

  "Really? Are you going to leave me in suspense?"

  "Beethoven composed it."

  "Beethoven? Which one? Not the Beethoven."

  Don't be a fool. There is only one Beethoven."

  "Very true, and all of his scores were accounted for a long time ago, or I spent more time sleeping in music history class than I thought. And besides, I'm looking at the notation. I'm no expert on Beethoven, but it doesn't look like any of the autograph manuscripts I've seen."

  "I told you. Hofhammer was the copyist. He wrote the notes you see on the page, but Beethoven wrote the music. Look at those comments in the margin and at the top of the page.” Jeremy stabbed the top of the page sharply with his finger.

  “Those are Beethoven's directions to the copyist, Hofhammer.” he continued. “He's explaining to Hofhammer what he's done wrong...the mistakes he's made in copying Beethoven's original manuscript for the publisher.”

  David shook his head slowly. "So you're saying that this is Beethoven’s composition—the first two pages of a composition by Beethoven—in a version made by Beethoven’s copyist?”

  Jeremy nodded eagerly. "It was not made by any of the Beethoven copyists we know about. But who's to say we know about all of them? Besides, these corrections, these remarks written in the margin...these are clearly by Beethoven. And if your German is up to it, you can see that Beethoven's comments make it clear that this work is definitely by him."

  "You're kidding. So which work is this? It says ‘number nine,’ but it can't be. Everybody knows what the ninth symphony looks like and this isn't it. This isn't even close to it. In fact this music looks very strange to me...irregular, even quirky. This doesn't look like any Beethoven composition I've ever seen."

  "I'm telling you that this is a new work—a composition by Beethoven that nobody knows about. A new symphony."

  "But I don't understand...it says number nine."

  "It's obviously not the ninth symphony we know. It's an earlier work. Obviously written right after the eighth symphony and that's why it’s numbered at nine. But for some reason Beethoven never went ahead with it. He never had it published...never had it performed."

  "But how could a major work just disappear into thin air? It's not mentioned in Beethoven’s letters or his journals as far as I know. Nobody seems to have known it existed."

  "But it does exist. And I've got it. I've got the whole manuscript in my apartment. I only brought the first two pages to show you."

  David looked up, his eyes blinking quickly. "But this is incredible! It's unbelievable! I mean...if this is true, history will have to be rewritten....the manuscript could be worth a fortune...it could be worth..."

  "At least five million. Probably more."

  "If this is true. If this document is real. That's a big if. You're not a Beethoven expert. You could be wrong about this. Those comments might not really be in Beethoven’s hand."

  Jeremy stared hard into David's eyes. "Look, I've done a lot of work on this and I'm absolutely sure I've got something amazing here. But I'm no fool. I'll have other people check this out. But in the meantime, I don't want everybody in the world to know about it. I trust you but I don't trust everybody."

  "How many people alr
eady know about this incredible thing?"

  "Three or four. I told a few friends before the significance of this thing sunk in on me. And Melissa, of course, my girlfriend, although I don't think she really understands the point of all this."

  Just then David's phone buzzed angrily. "Oh damn it!" David said, holding up his phone. "I've got this makeup lesson I forgot all about! I've got to get back to my studio."

  Oh crap!" said Jeremy, shaking his head.

  “Look...you've got to tell me more about this," David said, slipping the manuscript back into the portfolio and rising quickly to his feet. “And I've really got to meet Melissa. We have to get together—very soon." Halfway out the door, he yelled back at Jeremy, "Really! Call me as soon as you can," and closed the door behind him.

  "Damn!" muttered Jeremy, taking the portfolio and sticking it in to his knapsack.

  "Will you be ordering anything, sir?” asked a female voice from behind the counter.

  "No, I don't think...,” Jeremy began. “Well, hold on. Maybe I will." He rose and walked quickly over to the counter.

  Within seconds, a short man, dressed in a gray hoodie, walked swiftly by the table and hooked the knapsack with his arm.

  Waiting for his change, Jeremy glanced back toward his table. The knapsack was gone.