Where can I find a thematic index to the works of Beethoven? In many hymn books there is a tune which is supposed to be from one of his works, but I do not recognize it and would like to find out if it is from his output or not.
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There are quite of few thematic catalogues of Beethoven's works available online (e.g. here: henle.com/us/detail/index.html?Title=Ludwig+van+Beethoven_2207), but if you don't know which Beethoven work you're looking for, you could end up searching for a long time. Have you tried putting the melody into musipedia.org ? Could you post the melody as part of your question? This would really help, as somebody might recognise it...– Bob BroadleyJul 2, 2015 at 19:01
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You must be talking about his "Ode to Joy" from his Symphony No. 9. Or something else?– user546Jul 6, 2015 at 22:19
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Wikipedia is generally pretty good at providing lists like this, assuming all you want is a list. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…– LinJul 10, 2015 at 17:12
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On the other hand, what are the titles of some of the hymns which use this melody from Beethoven ? As @user546 says, melody is likely to be "Ode to Joy", but some searching reveals that other melodies from Beethoven have also been adapted as hymn tunes.– AngstApr 10, 2016 at 13:27
1 Answer
- There is an online index of some of his best-known themes: Beethoven — Thematic Index.
- There is a complete index published by Henle: Beethoven: Thematic-Bibliographical Catalogue of Works. (This is a revised edition of the catalog cited below by Kinsky and Halm.)
- "The standard thematic and bibliographical catalogue of Beethoven's works" (Wikipedia): Kinsky, G. and H. Halm. Das Werk Beethovens: thematisch-bibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner sämtlichen vollendeten Kompositionen. München: G. Henle, 1955. OCLC 334667. (Also published by Henle, but not the same as the one linked above.)
Both editions of Kinsky and Halm are widely available, particularly in university libraries.