Background
After completing the Ninth Symphony, he devoted his energies largely to composing string quartets, although there are contemporary references to some work on a symphony (e.g. in a Beethoven letter of 18 March 1827); allegedly he played a movement of this piece for his friend Karl Holz, whose description of what he heard matches the material assembled by Cooper. Cooper claimed that he found over fifty separate fragments, which he wove together to form the symphonic movement. Cooper assembled material for a first movement consisting of an Andante in E-flat major enclosing a central Allegro in C minor. Cooper claims to have also found sketches for a Scherzo which are not developed enough to assemble into a performing version.
There are numerous references to this work in Beethoven's correspondence (originally, he had planned the Ninth Symphony to be entirely instrumental, the Ode to Joy to be a separate cantata, and the Tenth Symphony to conclude with a different vocal work).
Earlier, in 1814–15, Beethoven also began sketches for a 6th piano concerto in D major, Hess 15. (Unlike the fragmentary symphony, the first movement of this concerto was partly written out in full score and a reconstruction by Nicholas Cook has been performed and recorded.)
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 10 (Beethoven/Cooper)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)