BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, December 9, 1825

Nephew Karl comes to visit his uncle around noon. He sees that housekeeper Theresia Adelmann’s two daughters are there, and he asks whether they are always eating there. Uncle Ludwig tells him that the arrangement is that they can sleep with their mother, but they have their meals provided elsewhere. She has turned out to be a good cook, Uncle Ludwig thinks. Karl agrees but the best cook was the one they had that time in Mödling, five or six years ago.

Adelmann is going shopping. Karl mentions that she assured them she could make pastries well. “Perhaps she believes that you don’t like to eat them because you haven’t ordered any. But the pie she made recently was good.”

Uncle Ludwig asks which of his pieces will be played at the Schuppanzigh Quartet concert on Sunday, December 11. Karl answers that they will be playing his Septet in C, op.20.

Karl mentions that he saw a poster [probably for Linke’s benefit concert on November 6] that indicated a “Grand Trio by L.v.B.” Someone asked, ‘Why a Grand Trio?’ The answer was that compared to the Trios by Beethoven, anyone else’s Trios are Mini-Trios.

Frau Adelmann returns and reports that there was no Bertram sauce [a sour sauce with Spanish pepper] to be had. So she got cucumber sauce instead. She says the smell isn’t bad or unusual, but it should have been pickled.

Uncle Ludwig is concerned that Adelmann is buying food that is spoiled, which is not good for his sensitive stomach, and he thinks he needs to remind her about that. Karl agrees that can’t hurt. But he warns his uncle not to frighten her, because she is already so timid. “I told her that in the future she should only buy items that are good and fresh. She says that she is trying very hard; it surely hurts her if you are not satisfied with her.”

There is another kind of meat; Adelmann will prepare it differently. She is very sensitive. They can eat at 2 o’clock, if Ludwig wants. Karl has to be finished and gone by 3 since he has late afternoon classes.

Later this afternoon, unpaid assistant Karl Holz stops by. He has spoken to another potential servant for Beethoven. She is very young. Holz will have her registered at the police tomorrow, but he needs to get her birthplace and where she served before. Holz asks when would be the best time to register her.

Conversation Book 99, 11v-13v.

Cappi & Co. offers in today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.280) at 1177 the newly published “extremely accurate portrait of the composer Franz Schubert, as painted by [Wilhelm August] Rieder. The brilliant Schubert, well known to the world of music, who has so often delighted his listeners, especially with his vocal compositions, appears here engraved in copper by the artistic hand of Herr. [Johann Nepomuk] Passini, in a most striking likeness, and we therefore believe we have presented a welcome gift to Schubert’s numerous friends and admirers.” Rieder’s original, probably the most famous image of Schubert, was a watercolor, presently held by the Austrian National Library. Cappi repeats this advertisement in the December 20th Wiener Zeitung (Nr.289) at 1218. Rieder later painted several oil portraits of Schubert, based on this watercolor.