Gustav Nottebohm

Martin Gustav Nottebohm (12 November 1817 – 29 October 1882) was a German musicologist, teacher and composer who spent most of his career in Vienna. He is particularly celebrated for his studies of Beethoven. Life and career Martin Gustav Nottebohm was born in Lüdenscheid, Westphalia on 12 November 1817. There, he studied composition and counterpoint under the renowned theorist Simon Sechter. In 1862 he met Brahms, who became a lifelong friend; Brahms cared for Nottebohm in his last illness and took care of the arrangements for his funeral. Nottebohm was a pioneer researcher in what are now described as ‘Beethoven studies’. He sought out Beethoven relics and produced an important ’thematic catalogue’ of Beethoven’s works. His greatest contribution, however, is probably his series of essays and commentaries on several of the musical ‘sketchbooks’ in which Beethoven notated and elaborated his initial ideas. The last of Nottebohm’s publications on this subject appeared posthumously in 1887, edited by his former pupil Mandyczewski. Nottebohm died on 29 October 1882 in Graz. Writing of Nottebohm’s investigations into Beethoven’s sketches, the later Beethoven scholar Joseph Kerman evalua