BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, August 4, 1826

The heat wave in Vienna continues unabated today, with temperatures again at 26 Reaumur, or 90.5 Fahrenheit. Wiener Zeitung of August 5, Nr.179, at 753. Beethoven continues working on the string quartet in F major, op.135, in the sweltering heat.

After the musical celebration for Dr. Dominik Vivenot’s name day this evening, unpaid assistant Karl Holz stops by Beethoven’s apartment briefly. The celebration was not big, but it was long.

Beethoven asks when he can get back the letter from Prince Nikolai Galitzin. [Holz had borrowed it and given it to publisher Mathias Artaria yesterday, so Artaria can have the Russian crown on Galitzin’s seal engraved for the title page of the quartet op.130.] “I’ll probably not be able to return the letter until after a couple of days, when the seal has been copied.”

Beethoven asks where a particular shop is located. Holz tells him that it’s on the corner of the Kohlmarkt, in the Wallnerstrasse, next to book dealer Joseph Geistinger.

It may rain very briefly while Holz is at the Schwarzspanierhaus, because he says, “It has already stopped again,” before departing.

Conversation Book 116, 30r-30v.

Nephew Karl does not go back to his rooms at Matthias Schlemmer’s this evening, instead staying at Zum schwarzen Bock [At the Sign of the Black Goat], an inn with an attached dance hall in the Wieden suburb of Vienna. Karl attends a ball there. [Note in Conversation Book 116 at 59r]

Artaria & Co. advertises in today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.177) at 740 Carl Maria [von] Weber’s grand opera in three acts, Oberon, “which was given in London before the composer’s death, and which, arranged for solo piano after the surviving original London production, soon will be available here.” Already published are the Overture arranged for solo piano and duet. “The remaining pieces will follow immediately.