Example 1 (opposite) Opening of WoO 1, a manuscript cadenza to the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, composed probably between c.1834 and c.1842-3, discovered in the Doblinger Musikverlag archives, Vienna, and recently acquired by the Vienna Library (Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, Musiksammlung, MHc-18620). Likely by Vieuxtemps, as suggested by considerable congruence with his cadenza WoO 2. Rests in the fourth stave suggest other instruments accompany the violin.
Any long-established European music publishing house has a dingy basement where boxes of old prints and manuscripts have accumulated over the decades or centuries, and every manager of any of these companies hopes one day to make the front pages of the international newspapers with a headline announcing that an unknown masterpiece by a prominent composer has surfaced in a forgotten box of music.