Antiques appraiser Brendan Ryan stumbled upon the remarkable find during a routine valuation.

“It was just sort of hanging in a hallway. I saw it immediately when I walked in and thought to myself, “Oh my God, that’s Beethoven.”” This is the remarkable moment when professional antiques appraiser Brendan Ryan identified a lost sheet of manuscript once used to by the 19th century German composer, in a house in Greenwich, Connecticut. Even more astonishingly, the find was a complete surprise, as Ryan had been called to the house in order to valuate furniture and paintings for auction.

Ryan recognised Beethoven’s distinctive handwriting from other similar leaves he had seen, and his hunch was later confirmed by Dr Carmelo Comberiati, a professor of music at Manhattanville College. “Beethoven would write out his ideas. With many other composers, we just have the final product – they threw the rest out. Beethoven didn’t throw anything away,” Comberiati told Greenwich Times.

Once the authenticity of the document was confirmed, Ryan and Dr Comberiati began a musical detective hunt to find which of Beethoven’s works the sketch was related to. After...