sources

(A)  Autograph; lost

B  Copyist's score (one or two LvB corrections), in the Czech Museum of Music, Prague

C  Copyist's score (no LvB corrections), Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (shelf mark Mus. ms. autogr. Beethoven Artaria 156); bars 15–31 are missing. C's text is almost identical to B’s; in the comments below, always so unless otherwise stated

(PX)  Manuscript parts, Stichvorlage for P; lost

P  First edition, published in parts by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1810

V  First edition of piano score, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1815

E  First edition score, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1828

Br  Full score, published by Breitkopf & Härtel as part of the Gesamtausgabe in 1864

Ub  Urtext edition, edited by Christian Rudolf Riedel and published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 2007. Ub takes B as Hauptquelle; a risky decision, for B is in many respects inadequate; Beethoven likely made revisions and corrections in PX. In general Ub takes too many editorial liberties, also replaces many authentic ƒ markings with ƒz (Beethoven never in his life wrote ƒz), at times (e.g. 177/9) seriously distorting the music. But Ub does at least retain the traditional rehearsal letters

Uh  Urtext edition, edited by Helga Lühning, published by Henle in 2017, also issued with Bärenreiter wrappers in 2019. Uh takes P as Hauptquelle, thereby giving it too much weight, for it has many obvious errors and is unlikely to have been checked by Beethoven (despite a surviving copy with his autograph dedication). In general Uh is too pure, retaining some of these errors. On the other hand Uh seems to have taken Ub as a default (as Vorlage, perhaps), following it in many cases where the source readings are so inconsistent that a decision could as easily go one way as another; this is worrying, because Ub is not authoritative, its judgement sometimes questionable. Thus wherever Uh alters the text in Ub, Uh is almost always better. Two minor drawbacks of Uh are that Pk is placed above Pos, and the rehearsal letters are removed

Where Ub = Uh, they are referred to as Ur. Of these Uh is marginally the better, but can only be recommended with the reservations in section 7 below.