STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Ludwig van Beethoven's signed manuscript of the Scherzo of his Op. 127 string quartet will be auctioned in London in December, the Swedish museum that owns it said.
The Stockholm-based Stiftelsen Musikkulturens Fraemjande — or the Foundation for the Advancement of Music Culture — said the manuscript will be auctioned Dec. 5 by Sotheby's in London. The museum said it has a reserve price of $1.6 million.
In London, Sotheby's offered no details.
The museum acquired the score, which was handwritten by Beethoven and is part of the museum's Nydahl Collection, from a Paris-based dealer in 1925.
"The reason for the sale is to secure the future care and availability of the rest of the (museum's) collection," the museum said in a statement.
The foundation's other manuscripts include works by Frederic Chopin and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, among others, as well as work by Swedish composers.
The Nydahl Collection was founded by Rudolf Nydahl in 1920, who studied at the Paris Conservatory before returning home to Sweden to run his father's wine shop.
Besides its archives, the museum also has a collection of 550 antique instruments, including 75 harpsichords, clavichords, pianos and organs dating from the 16th century to the 1940s.
In May, the final manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which was annotated by the composer, sold for $3.47 million to an anonymous buyer.
A collection of Mozart symphonies sold for a record $4 million at a 1987 auction.
In 2002, a single sheet of Beethoven's early draft of the opening of the Ninth sold for $2 million, eight times more than the estimated price. That sheet was written in the composer's hand; the manuscript that was sold in May by Sotheby's was made by a copyist and had revisions and raging comments by Beethoven.
On the Net: www.nydahlcoll.se/