Chris Bonds wrote:

>I received a rare book catalog today offering a bound 1st edition of
>Beethoven's 5th Symphony.  Asking price $8800.  Seems a bit high.  Anyone
>out there collect stuff like that? Wasn't it the first edition that misread
>the repeats in the scherzo, which supposedly was to have been of the
>double-trio type?

It wasn't misread, but Beethoven changed his mind after the printing was
done.  I used to have a score that had the first and second endings, with
somebody's red pencil xxx-ing out the repeat.

Beethoven was generally so form-conscious that this seems to be a rare
decision of his to, in this one case, concentrate on drama over form.

Bill S