LONDON, May 17: The earliest draft of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a single-page manuscript, was sold for a record 1.3 million pounds (1.9 million dollars, 2 million euros) at auction in London on Friday.

The manuscript was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder during a sale at Sotheby’s in central London, a spokesman there said.

He said the price, which includes the buyer’s premium, was a record for any Beethoven manuscript. It had been expected to fetch 150,000-200,000 pounds.

The manuscript was sold by an unnamed charitable foundation which provides funds for music education across the world.

Beethoven’s Ninth, first performed in 1824 and sometimes referred to as the Choral Symphony, is one of the most important works in classical music.

The manuscript bears an inscription by Gustav Nottebohm, the 19th-century scholar of the German composer, who described the page as “the very first sketch for the Ninth Symphony”.

Beethoven, who died in 1827, is believed to have written the draft in about 1818 and completed the work in 1823.

It was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society in London and first performed in Vienna.

The composer, who was by then deaf and fighting illness, conducted at the premiere and is said to have not noticed the audience’s thunderous applause at the end of the performance.—AFP