BEETHOVEN 20 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, November 21, 1823

Nephew Karl is at Uncle Ludwig’s apartment this morning, probably after having delivered the subscription score of the Missa Solemnis to the embassy of the King of Saxony. He found some sheep’s wool stockings while he was out and about. The woman offered them for 1 fl. 36 kr., but he started to leave and she came down to 1 fl. 24. He bought 3 pair. Uncle Ludwig adds up the total, then makes a shopping list of beer and music paper. Karl plans to be reading the Life of Kepler by Professor Joseph Johann Littrow, director of the observatory at the University of Vienna, in the Wiener Zeitschrift, with a small glass of punch in the coffee house. [Translator Theodore Albrecht notes that it was in an article by Littrow that Ludwig found his favorite quotation from Kant, “The Moral Law in us and the starry Heaven above us.”] Beethoven also makes a note to visit the soprano Caroline Unger. [She will sing in the first performances of the Ninth Symphony, so he may have questions about her range for the Finale.]

That afternoon is a surprise: fired unpaid assistant Anton Schindler shows up at Beethoven’s door. [Karl had seen him at a concert on the 15th and thought he was trying to get back into Ludwig’s good graces, after having been dispatched in early August, 1823.] As usual, Schindler is full of gossip. Joseph Weigl, director of the Court Opera laments that Beethoven never comes to visit him, and so he does not come to visit Beethoven either.

[Schindler is attempting to get a position as a concertmaster with the Court Opera; he is currently concertmaster at the Theatre in the Josephstadt.] They will need to see what Louis Antoine Duport, currently the administrator at the Opera will do. Singers Joseph Gottdank and Anton Forti were there and can affirm that Schindler worked at the Josephstadt and is in a position to lead the orchestra at the Kärntnertor Theater, where the Court Opera performs. He thinks it will only take a few days; Duport may contact Beethoven if he can go ahead.

Duport wants to write about the proposed opera Melusine [which Beethoven is supposed to be writing on Grillparzer’s libretto.] He asked Schindler whether Beethoven had already begun on the opera, but he was unable to answer, “therefore, he will surely inquire at the Source itself.”

Schindler asks what Beethoven intends to do with the Missa Solemnis. [Schindler had spent the first half of the year sending out subscription solicitations for Beethoven to the crowned heads of Europe; only ten subscribers at 50 ducats each were found, which was profitable but still a bit disappointing.] Beethoven has not decided on a publisher yet. Schindler asks whether it will be performed in public. “I can assure you, upon my honor, that everyone is anxiously awaiting it, and that you won’t have any difficulties with it.” Beethoven thinks otherwise, and that his work is so unappreciated in Vienna that performers will need to be dragged to it unwillingly. Schindler says that’s nonsense. “Do you really believe that skilled people will have to be pressured to do it? Everyone will very gladly work together to do what needs to be done.”

Beethoven is thinking that once the Ninth Symphony is finished, he will have an Akademie benefit concert for himself. Schindler thinks that is a splendid idea; “That way, you’ll be placed in a position that you can work comfortably the whole winter through, without having to worry about anything more.” [Beethoven seems to have told Schindler, or given him the impression, that the symphony was closer to completion than it really is.] Someone could make a rough estimate of the costs for such a concert; perhaps Ferdinand Piringer, who was on the board of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and had taken over conductor duties for the Concerts spirituels, could do it. But Beethoven should make his mind up soon; “everything can be arranged very quickly without your being very inconvenienced.”

Schindler volunteers to be concertmaster for the Akademie, but Beethoven tells him in no uncertain terms that Ignaz Schuppanzigh will serve that role. Schindler says he never sees Schuppanzigh, but no one would dispute his right to the position. The Musik-Verein currently doesn’t have a concertmaster at all, but the orchestra members would certainly be happy to participate.

They talk for a bit about the dismal disaster of Weber’s opera Euryanthe. Schindler believes Weber forgot to include variety in it and that was the cause of its failure.

Beethoven complains about the oratorio Der Sieg des Kreuzes that he agreed to compose for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde seven years earlier. Joseph Bernard finally delivered the libretto and Beethoven finds it completely unsuitable. [Part of the reason may be the virulent anti-Semitism in the text, which is hardly consonant with the “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” (all men will become brothers) sentiment of the Ninth Symphony that was occupying his time.] Schindler thinks he should just hand the libretto back to the Musik-Verein and give up on it. It will be the source of a thousand annoyances otherwise. He repeats, “Give the finished libretto back to the Verein, and Amen.” Beethoven suggests that perhaps the Akademie could be a joint production of the Musik-Verein and the Kärntnertor Theater, and the proceeds could be used in part to repay the 400 florins he was given to write the oratorio.

Schindler slips right back into handling Beethoven’s domestic affairs for him almost effortlessly. Count Moritz Lichnowsky has an outstanding cook; if Beethoven wanted to he could give her a probationary period to try her out, but there is a shortage of cooks right now. She had worked for a Baron Wetzlar, a friend of Mozart. That turns the conversation to Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito as a grand classical work. The new administration of the Opera found that there were twelve operas completely missing from their archive, and Titus was one of them, as is Cherubini’s Lodoiska. A concerned Beethoven asks whether Fidelio is missing, but Schindler assures him it is still there. That’s a relief, because there are few copies of the as-yet-unpublished opera. Schindler thinks it nevertheless would be a good idea for Beethoven to have more copies made for security.

Schindler understands that Antonio Salieri’s position as Hofkapellmeister is not going to be filled. [Salieri, aged 73, had recently begun failing in health, and his mind is going as well. This month, Salieri was hospitalized after he unsuccessfully attempted suicide by cutting his own throat, raving that he had murdered Mozart. You may recall from these pages that in the spring of 1822, Rossini had joked to Salieri’s face about him having done just that. Later, Salieri would recant, saying “I can say in good faith that there is no truth to the absurd rumor that I poisoned Mozart.” But in any event, he is not removed from his position until June 1, 1824.]

After Schindler departs, Nephew Karl returns with wine from the Frauendorf area, which Uncle Ludwig had asked for, and which they often drink at the restaurant Zur goldenen Birne [At the Golden Pear in Landstrasse]. Uncle Ludwig thinks the 48 kr. price was too much, and Karl says one can have both honor and money. In the book he bought today, every time that gold is mentioned it is called “yellow filth.”

Karl is annoyed that people like Franz Ludwig Carbon [who had been Beethoven’s landlord in Mödling a few years ago, and recently asked for help finagling an apartment from the Archduke’s doctor] live a whole year as if they live on the other side of the world, until they need something, and then they show up on the door step.

Karl is unimpressed with the current help. “The maid is also an arch-sow; she goes to bed in the evening with her clothes on, just so she won’t have to put anything on in the morning.” But she can cook well, if she puts her mind to it.

Karl and Uncle Ludwig adjourn to a coffee house where Beethoven reads the newspapers from the last few days. He makes note of Styrian capons at a reasonable price and two vacant apartments that are available with or without furniture. [He seems to already be dissatisfied with his current quarters, which he moved into only about a month ago.]

Karl believes it would be more efficient to ring once for the maid and twice for the housekeeper; one wants the housekeeper less frequently.

One can have a rabbit with the fur still on it for 3 florins. Karl thinks it’s all the same whether you take it with the fur or have it skinned before your eyes. But a nice rabbit fur costs one florin by itself. Beethoven again thinks that is too expensive. No matter how frugal people may be, Karl responds, they will pay like crazy for it, much more so than last year.

Tomorrow Karl will have free time to see if he can find a wild duck. He needs to go at 7:30 a.m. and put in the order, and then can pick it up at 1 o’clock. Uncle Ludwig doesn’t want him to go to that trouble, but Karl says he was going to leave early anyway.

Talk returns to the domestics. The maid has given money at the archbishop’s residence, and the housekeeper took it to them. Apparently it was intended to be a loan. She doesn’t have a trunk or any place to keep money, so she is just as happy if someone takes it from her.

Karl observes that is now fashionable for the servants to dress like ladies. At Frau von Reinlein’s, whenever the daughter of the house got a new dress, the chambermaid had one exactly like it made for herself.

Conversation Book 46, 1r-12v.

In the fifth of six lunchtime concerts at the Musikverein, the Schuppanzigh Quartet today plays a quartet in D major by its own violist Franz Weiss (1778-1830), String Trio #2 in G major by Beethoven, op.9/1, and Mozart’s quartet concertante in F major, K.590.

Beethoven’s String Trio #2, op.9/1 is here performed by the Arnold String Trio in 2021:

Sauer & Leidesdorf advertise in today’s Wiener Zeitung at 1084 the publication of Carl Maria von Weber’s overtures in arrangements for piano four hands. Thus far published are the Overture in E-flat major op.17; the overture to Beherrscher der Geister op.27 (1811); the overture to Turandot, op.37 (1809), with eight Chinese melodies; Jubel-Overture op.59 (1818), and the Overture to Preciosa, op.77 [actually op.78, 1820]. Three more volumes are at press and are to be published shortly.