Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 10 in E♭ major is a hypothetical work, assembled in 1988 by Barry Cooper from Beethoven's fragmentary sketches for the first movement. All the sketches assembled were clearly intended for the same symphony, which would have followed the Ninth, since they appear together in several small groups, and there is consensus that Beethoven did intend to compose another symphony. Cooper's score was first performed at a concert given in 1988 by the Royal Philharmonic Society, London, to whom Beethoven himself had offered the new symphony in 1827. The score is published by Universal Edition, Vienna, and appeared in a new edition in 2013.^[1] In 2019, artificial intelligence was used to reconstruct the third and fourth movements of the symphony, which premiered on 9 October 2021, titled Beethoven X: The AI Project.^[2]

Background

After completing the Ninth Symphony in 1824, Beethoven devoted his energies largely to composing his late string quartets, although there are contemporary references to some work on a symphony (e.g. in his letter of 18 March 1827); allegedly he played a movement of this piece on the piano for his friend Karl Holz, whose description of what he heard matches the sketches identified by Cooper. Cooper claimed that he found over 250 measures of sketches for the first movement, which he wove together to form the first movement, keeping as close as he could to Beethoven's compositional method and sketching processes. Cooper's reconstruction of the first movement consists of an Andante in E♭ major enclosing a central Allegro in C minor. Cooper claimed to have also found sketches for a Scherzo which he used as a third movement and other later movements, but he deemed them not extensive or developed enough to be assembled into a performing version.^{[citation needed]}

There are a few references to this work in Beethoven's correspondence.^{[note 1]}

Earlier, in 1814 to 1815, Beethoven also began sketches for his 6th piano concerto in D major.^{[note 2]}

Recordings

Two recordings of Cooper's reconstruction of the first movement of the symphony were released in 1988, one conducted by Wyn Morris^[3] and the other by Walter Weller. The Wyn Morris recording was also released in 1988 on a disc that included the music and a spoken lecture, "The Story of Beethoven's Tenth Symphony", by Barry Cooper.^[4]

Unrelated depictions

An imaginary story of the discovery of Beethoven's 10th symphony was depicted by Sue Latham in her novel The Haunted House Symphony. A similar concept by Richard Kluger in his novel Beethoven's Tenth, published in 2018, identifies many of the concerns and problems that might follow from the discovery of a lost symphony. Thomas Hauser's 1984 suspense novel The Beethoven Conspiracy depicts the 10th symphony being secretly reassembled and performed.

Beethoven's 10th symphony plays a large plot role in Beethoven's Last Night, an album by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

NPR ran a story on the discovery of Beethoven's 10th Symphony on April Fools' Day 2012.^[5]

On the Wagon Train episode "The Dr. Denker Story", Dr. Denker, played by Theodore Bikel, leads a children's "orchestra" in what he refers to as "Beethoven's 10th Symphony".

Beethoven's Tenth is a play by Peter Ustinov.^[6] It was first staged on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre in April 1984 under the direction of Robert Chetwyn.

Brahms First Symphony Reference

Johannes Brahms's First Symphony is sometimes referred to as "Beethoven's Tenth Symphony", after a remark by Hans von Bülow.^[7][8] Both the Brahms work and Cooper's realization of Beethoven's sketches feature C-minor ⁶
₈ Allegros.