Lost Beethoven manuscript sold for 1.9 million dollars

A unique manuscript by Ludwig van Beethoven that was lost for more than a century was sold at auction on Thursday for 1.13 million pounds to an anonymous buyer. The final price was at the low end of the pre-sale estimates of up to 1.5 million pounds.

"It is not a record, but it is an excellent price," said a spokeswoman for &to=http://english.pravda.ru/culture/2002/12/04/40370.html' target=_blank>Sotheby's, noting that the record price for a Beethoven manuscript, of 2.13 million pounds, was set by the composer's Ninth Symphony in May 2003.

Discovered in July at the bottom of a dusty filing cabinet at a religious school in Philadelphia, the manuscript sold on Thursday is a work in progress for the Grosse Fuge in B flat major -- one of Beethoven's most revolutionary works.