[Pharmboy]

"A look at the manuscript, made available by the auction house, shows a composer working with abandon and fixated on getting it exactly right. Groups of measures are vigorously canceled out with crosshatches. There are smudges where Beethoven appears to have wiped away ink while it was still wet. Sections have "aus," or "out," scribbled over them.

In some parts, Beethoven pays little heed to spacing out the notes in a measure, extending the five-line staves with wobbly lines in his own hand. High notes soar above the staff. The handwriting grows agitated to match the music. His clefs are ill formed. In one place, he pastes an entire half-page over a botched section with red sealing wax."

[HiTech RedNeck]

I guess the pencil and eraser hadn't been invented them

[HiTech RedNeck]

I guess the pencil and eraser hadn't been invented then

[Doctor Stochastic]

Dover Publications used to have (maybe still) Mies book on Beethoven's sketches.

It's hard to tell how much composers sketched. Beethoven left his notebooks. Brahms destroyed everything he didn't want public. Mozart left sketches as he got older (Requiem, for example.)