Publications

The Collection spans more than two hundred years of Beethoven publications from the late 1700s to the present day. The 4,500 items include volumes on Beethoven’s life and works, numerous essays, scores, facsimile editions, magazines, periodicals, newspapers, and other material from all over the world. Given the vastness of the collection, we only highlight a few examples that are significant in terms of both their content and aesthetics. We start with a number of historic first editions written by acquaintances of the composer. We then continue with a selection of editions that not only feature important historical content but also demonstrate the extraordinary heights of book art in the Romantic, Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles of the 19th and early 20th centuries.  

After the Second World War, there was a drastic move away from originality and quality and an era of large-scale distribution began with print runs in the thousands focused almost entirely on content.

Today, the physical “book” has been downsized (along with bookshops) and so, consequently, has the pleasure of seeing and touching a cover with its artistic qualities, gold and embossed decorations and lettering, gilt edges, fine paper…

For these reasons and because of our love of books in general, we set ourselves the goal of preserving at least one original first edition copy in our library, in good condition and with the original publisher’s presentation. Our focus has been on historic, valuable, autographed, numbered and luxury editions.