MUSIC

Beethoven a Hit at Auction: A music manuscript by Ludwig van Beethoven and a letter from him to a woman friend broke world auction records Thursday for the composer, officials for Sotheby’s of London said. London dealer Otto Haas paid $892,000 for the 16-page first movement of the Sonata for Violoncello and Piano in A Major, a celebrated piece of chamber music. Beethoven wrote it in brown crayon and black ink between 1807 and 1808, saying it was composed “amid tears and sorrow.” The previous highest auction price for a Beethoven music manuscript was $168,000 paid in London in May, 1988, for his Ninth Symphony. An 1811 letter to Bettina Brentano, a poet and writer, went for $159,000 to an anonymous buyer; the previous highest price for a Beethoven letter was $67,600.