BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, August 26, 1825

Beethoven writes a letter dated today from Baden to his friend music publisher Tobias Haslinger. “Best one! To——bi——as——.”

“Send Karl the overture parts, and then I’ll get them right away, and then back to you right away. Holz can be given something again, and he will bring it right back—because the Mariabrunner provide a more detailed report, because I’m not allowed to drink red wine by itself, but only white wine with water alongside it. — In any case, let the director [Ferdinand Piringer] hang out the window at 4 o’clock in the morning on a rope and bring him back, and you can then have enough Voslau wine. It’s all from foreign money, you give me hardly anything worth mentioning.”

Brandenburg Letter 2045; Anderson Letter 1418. The original is in the archives of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (A 84/30). Beethoven does not sign the note. Haslinger’s name, “To——bi——as——” is written around the entirety of the first page. The overture parts referenced were believed by Sieghard Brandenburg to be the proof sheets of the King Stephen Overture, op.117. However, Steiner did not get around to publishing that overture until 1826. The reference to Piringer and rope is another obscure in-joke of the kind that Beethoven loved to make with his close friends such as Haslinger. It might be related to a September 2, 1825 comment by Holz in Conversation Book 93 at 5r, referring to either Piringer or Haslinger, “Today I forgot the rope with which I meant to lead him here.”

Clearly from the tenor of this letter Beethoven believes that all has been forgiven regarding the incident with the Cäcilia magazine and the facetious biography of Haslinger that Beethoven had written and sent to them.

A notice in today’s Allgemeines Intelligenzblatt (Nr.194) supplement to the Wiener Zeitung at 1179, dated August 19, indicates that Franz Schubert, among nearly 50 others, is in arrears for his annual contributions to the Widows and Orphans Institute. If these payments are not brought current before January first of 1826, they will be expelled from membership in the group. Anyone claiming an exemption must provide evidence of their unfortunate circumstances no later than January 12, 1826. This notice is repeated in the Monday, August 29, 1825 Allgemeines Intelligenzblatt.