Beethoven scherzo goes for $2 million

An original manuscript of a movement from one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s last compositions sold Friday for $2.03 million.

The manuscript from the scherzo movement of his Opus 127 string quartet was purchased by a private buyer who bid by telephone and asked not to be identified, Sotheby’s auction house in London said.

Beethoven composed the quartet in the last three years of his life, after he had finished the epic Ninth Symphony. Sotheby’s said single pages written by Beethoven appear fairly often at auction but that no manuscript of this size had been offered for more than a decade.

In May, Sotheby’s auctioned Beethoven’s final manuscript of the Ninth Symphony for $3.47 million.