NEWS

Authenticating Beethoven document was its own opus

Karen Croke
kcroke1@lohud.com

On the surface, Mel Comberiati and Brendan Ryan make an unlikely pair of sleuths: a passionate professor of music and his former student, a composer of classical music.

What they share is a deep love and respect for the work of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Brendan Ryan of Butterscotch Auction Gallery and Professor Carmelo Comberiati of Mahattanville College authenticated a music sheet of Beetthoven's King Stephen, Op. 117.

Comberiati, who teaches at Manhattanville College in Purchase, was a Fulbright scholar who studied the great composer in Vienna, while Ryan, who graduated from Manhattanville in 2008, became an art and antiques appraiser, composing music in his free time.

"Beethoven is an idol for any composer," Ryan says.

He credits a class he took with Comberiati for igniting his interest.

In a confluence of events as wondrous as the cycle of Beethoven's nine symphonies, these classical "nerds" found themselves working together to solve a once-in-a-lifetime puzzle, one which brought them close to their shared idol.

In the late summer, Ryan, an appraiser for Butterscotch Auctioneers and Appraisers in Pound Ridge, discovered what appeared to be a rare Beethoven sketch leaf, framed and hanging on a wall in a Greenwich, Connecticut, home.

"I recognized the handwriting right away; it was definitely Beethoven," he says. "When I saw it, it was a test of my willpower to keep my cool."

The sketch leaf had been in the owner's family for  more than 100 years, and she knew the double-sided page covered in notes and nearly illegible scribbles might be valuable.

"But no one had any idea what it was," Ryan says.

To find out, he called on his old professor.

They were both sure it was Beethoven — the fact that someone had jotted "Beethoven" in a different hand on the margin notwithstanding. ("It wouldn't be the first time someone had written 'Beethoven' on something that turned out to be totally worthless," Ryan says). The  mystery was determining exactly what piece of music was inscribed on the centuries-old paper and how valuable it might be.

"We were hoping it was the  Ninth Symphony,"  says Ryan, sitting in a plastic chair in Comberiati's classroom, an overhead projector glowing with a super-enlarged copy of the music. Similar, complete sketchbooks of Beethoven's works have sold for millions at auction.

Professor Carmelo Comberiati of Mahattanville College helped authenticate a rare sketch leaf from Beethoven's King Stephan, Op. 117.

"But it wasn't."

The pair researched the work for three weeks, comparing it to other known pages taken from Beethoven sketchbooks, searching for clues online, and enlisting experts Comberiati knew from his work as a Fulbright  scholar.

"I have held Beethoven documents in my hands," he says.

What they had, they discovered, was a rare Beethoven work in-progress — literally the first draft for what would become Beethoven's opus 117, "King  Stephan" , commissioned by Emperor Francis I of Hungary for the inauguration of a new theater.  It was first performed on Feb. 9, 1812.

"Beethoven was at a spa for 10 days rest when he got the commission, so he was in a bit of a rush," Camberiati explains. "So it's kind of a mess. We could see how he wrote the lines out, then dismisses the idea. He's working out the music; He writes a line, crosses it out. It's in pencil then written over in ink. The main idea for us that was so exciting is that he got from this to the final copy for the manuscript. This is a stage that set it all off."

"It's a graphic representation of the music," Ryan adds. "It's the moment you get to see inside the composer's mind."

For two major fans, holding a piece of Beethoven's work in their own hands must have been nirvana.

Combierati not only teaches multiple classes on Beethoven, Chopin and Hayden, but writes book-length projects; The latest is on the music in 16th century Prague. This was different, he says. This was personal.

Pointing at the screen, he is obviously passionate:

"You can see the intensity of the artist," he says. "It's the heat of the moment."

He hums a bit of the composition, punctuating the sounds with his hands:  "'bah, ba-ba-ba-ba'... you can see Beethoven working this all out in his mind."

Ryan is more understated, a music major who segued into the appraisal field after college. He has a history with history, too: His mother is the executive director of the Bedford Historical Society. Comberiati is also from Bedford and has known Ryan since he was in high school.

And while Ryan admits the process of authentication was "intense," the pair worked well together.

"This doesn't happen often, but things just start fitting together," Ryan says. "I'll say this, it was like scouring for a word in the dictionary without knowing the first letter."

A German collector bought the piece for $120,000 at auction in November; not millions but a tidy sum for the Greenwich homeowner, who prefers to remain anonymous. But what of the two detectives?

More than anything, they say, was knowing they had authenticated something special.

"A Beethoven sketch leaf of this magnitude is a very rare find,” says Comberiati. “Most are no longer in private hands.”

"It was a big job," adds Ryan. "A mammoth task was to figure out the piece of music; in terms of value that has tremendous impact. It also has tremendous value to Beethoven scholars."

But for him personally?

"With music, you only ever hear the final product," he says, playing a few quick seconds of the music from the sketch leaf on a piano in the classroom.

"No one can really understand or have the concept of what goes into creating an orchestral piece," he says. "To see firsthand, almost to be inside the composer's mind, the proof in your hand is profound."

Do you have a masterpiece hanging around your house?

Brendan Ryan says when it comes to valuable objects, there are two categories of people: those who assume their family heirlooms must be valuable, and those who never suspect that great-grandma's ugly painting, relegated to a dark hallway, is actually a masterpiece.

The former is more prevalent.

His advice: If you think you have something of value, contact an expert. "It doesn't cost anything to have an appraiser take a look," he says. "We do it for free. We take a look and make recommendations."

Ryan points to one of his previous finds as proof: He authenticated a painting long held by a Westchester family as one by Dutch golden age artist Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). It sold for $2,040,000 in 2012.

In 2011, a Cortlandt homeowner got the shock of his life when two paintings hanging for years in the basement of his childhood rec room turned out to be lost Hudson River School painter Jasper Cropsey masterpieces. The two fetched $840,000 at auction.