A 178-year-old signed manuscript by Ludwig van Beethoven sold for (pounds) 1,181,600 at auction in London yesterday.

An unnamed telephone bidder bought the composer's scherzo from the String Quartet Opus 127 at a packed Sotheby's sale. The score had a reserve price of (pounds) 1m.

The auctioneers said yesterday's auction meant Beethoven had provided the two best selling items in the book and manuscript world this year.

In May, Sotheby's sold a manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the Choral, for a world record (pounds) 2.13m.

Original manuscripts by famous composers have historically sold for high prices at auction.

Dr Stephen Roe, head of Sotheby's manuscripts department, said he was ''delighted'' by yesterday's sale and said the price more than met his expectations.

The scherzo is part of a quartet Beethoven composed at the request of Prince Gallitzin of Russia in 1824-5. The 31-page manuscript includes alterations and additions.

Prince Gallitzin, who played cello, commissioned Beet-hoven to write three quartets in 1822, but the composer was inspired to produce five.

The E flat quartet was the first of the group, composed in 1824-25. It was also the only one which Gallitzin paid for - Beethoven never got the payment for the other two which had been commissioned.

Since Beethoven's death, the scherzo has had various owners, including Pauline Viardot, the French mezzo-soprano and composer, and Rudolf Nydahl, a Swedish collector and music enthusiast who acquired the manuscript privately in 1925.

Yesterday's sale was on behalf of the Nydahl collection at the Foundation for the Furthering of Music Culture in Stockholm. When it ann-ounced the sale in October, the foundation said: ''The reason for the sale is to secure the future care and availability of the rest of the collection.''

The score was sold as part of a wider auction of collectors' items from the world of classical music, which included manuscripts and signed letters by composers such as Joseph Haydn, Sir Edward Elgar, and Richard Wagner.

The record-setter in yesterday's auction was a volume of music for lute and soprano printed in the early 16th century by Ottaviano Petrucci, which sold to a private bidder for (pounds) 119,840. That was a record for a piece of printed music, Sotheby's said. Petrucci, described as the Gutenberg of printed music, was granted a monopoly on music printing in Venice in 1498.

Mr Roe said: ''Petrucci was the first publisher of printed music and his editions are as rare as hen's teeth.'' The auction house said another example had not been offered for bidding since 1949.

The two-part volume, printed in 1509 and 1511, was once owned by Robert Bolling (1738-1775), a member of House of Burgesses in the Virginia colony in the US. Bolling's elder brother was married to Mary Jefferson, the sister of Thomas, the US president.

A signed letter by George Handel, the 18th-century composer, to Charles Jennens, who wrote the libretto for Messiah and other works, was sold for (pounds) 89,600.

In the letter, Handel thanks Jennens for another oratorio libretto, thought to be Saul.