Thayer estimates that the number of
distinct ideas noted in them, which remained unused, is as large as
the number which he used; and he refers to this as a commentary on the
remark which Beethoven made toward the close of his life: "It seems to
me as if I were only just beginning to compose." And Nottebohm, who
has studied these sketch-books more thoroughly than any one else,
thinks that if Beethoven had elaborated all the symphonies which he
began in these books we should have at least fifty instead of nine.
The sketch-books show that Beethoven was in the habit of working at
several compositions at the same time; and the ideas for these are so
jumbled up in his books that he himself apparently needed a guide to
find them. At least, when ideas belonging together are widely
separated he used to connect them by writing the letters VI over the
first passage and DE over the second. He also used to write the word
"better" in French on some pages, or else the figures 100, 500, 1,000,
etc., probably, as Schindler thinks, to indicate the relative value of
certain ideas.
When his mind was in a creative mood, Beethoven was as completely
absorbed (or "absent-minded," as we generally say) as Mozart.
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