Exhibitions
Current Exhibition
Beethoven Piano Sonatas in the Marketplace: Supply and Demand Over Two Centuries
November 10, 2025 – February 10, 2026
Exhibition Hall, 5th Floor of the Martin Luther King Jr Library
Curated by Patricia Stroh
Exhibit Hall Hours:
Monday: 10:00am-6:00pm
Tuesday: 9:45am-6:00pm
Weds: 11:00am- 6:00pm
Thurs: 9:45am-6:00pm
Friday: 11:00 am-6:00pm
Sat: 1:00pm- 6:00pm
Sunday: Closed
Please note the exhibit hall hours are not the same as the Beethoven Center's hours.
Beethoven composed his piano sonatas over a span of nearly forty years. He completed the three “Kurfürsten” sonatas, WoO 47, in 1783, when he was only twelve years old, and the last sonata, Opus 111, in 1822. As a group, the sonatas represent the remarkable evolution of his approach to composition, and individually they have inspired countless concert pianists, teachers, students, and listeners. Since Beethoven’s lifetime to the present day, no fewer than 235 collected editions of these sonatas have been published, prepared by more than 160 different editors. Why so many? This exhibit, which features a select set of these editions, highlights competing efforts of publishers to meet the demand from pianists and teachers, and editors who sought to provide new perspectives on these iconic works. The exhibit is based on the forthcoming book, Beethoven GPS: A Bibliographic Guide to Collected Editions of the Piano Sonatas by Patricia Stroh (A-R Editions, 2026)
With assistance from Peter Adams, Ethan Ling, Roslyn Lydick, and Jeffrey Nguyen
Funded by the American Beethoven Society
Past Exhibitions at the Beethoven Center
Beethoven's Chamber Music Exhibit
January 21 - April 15, 2023
An exhibit celebrating Beethoven's chamber music featuring items from the collection of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies.
Funded by the SJSU College of Humanities and the Arts
Special thanks to the American Beethoven Society and Galen Lemmon
Online Exhibitions
Maelzel's Panharmonicon
This project brings to life one of the most celebrated creations of the German inventor
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel (1772–1838): the Panharmonicon. This virtual reconstruction
of the Panharmonicon was created from surviving images and descriptions of the instrument.
Beethoven’s Vienna
An exploration of the city as Beethoven knew it, featuring art prints and other rare materials from the Beethoven Center’s collection.
Prodigy to Progeny: Beethoven as Pupil, Teacher, and Paradigm
An exploration of Beethoven’s path as a music student, teacher, and his legacy, following the paths of selected teachers and their students.
Schulz’s Beethoven, Schroeder’s Muse
An exploration of Beethoven’s music and image in Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” cartoon and his Beethoven-loving character Schroeder.
