BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, July 21, 1826
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven today. He was supposed to deliver some money to someone; Holz inquired at the coffeehouse yesterday, but was told he is in Baden and will not come back until tomorrow, Saturday [July 22]. His business partner has sent for the money. But one day is not going to make any difference. “I will send it to him today, sealed, if I cannot hand it over personally.”
Holz mentions that there are fewer visitors in Baden this summer, so apartments are very inexpensive.
The housekeeper, Marie Stiegel, needs to always bring fresh eggs for Beethoven.
The value of the bank shares have fallen significantly again, Holz notes. [The value of each share was 1067 florins C.M. on July 18, per the July 19, 1826 Wiener Zeitung (Nr.163) at 687; on July 21 it fell to 1059 florins, per the July 22 Wiener Zeitung (Nr.166) at 701.] It might be a good idea to purchase another share, Holz suggests, since they will no doubt rise again.
Holz asks whether Beethoven has leafed through the piano arrangement of Handel’s Saul, which had been borrowed from Kiesewetter.
Holz tells Beethoven that there will be a charitable concert in Döbling tomorrow [July 22]. Ferdinand Piringer will be conducting.
“It is said that Tobias only took a bigger vault because all the gentlemen, who do not buy anything but only come because of the entertainment, will have more space then.”
Beethoven asks about the status of the quartet op.130. Holz says he gave Artaria the first part of the proofread quartet yesterday. Even though it has gone through six proofs, there were still many significant errors in it. There was an issue with the fugue, having a G instead of an A in one spot.
Holz has a performance today.
Then he will be going to Döbling to see the broker Franz von Bogner. [More specifically, Holz is going to visit one of his daughters.] Bogner’s wife Barbara is pregnant again. Holz says things are not better for them; there was a story in the Wiener Zeitung recently that the Emperor and Empress deigned to visit the area and expressed their opinion about the beautiful location.
Holz tells an anecdote about the Liguorian Redemptionist sect. “It is said about a shoemaker’s boy that he asked a Liguorian why he wore such a broad hat? He answered: My dear boy! This hat will become broad enough to cover the whole world. Then the boy said: It will be dark!” Holz adds, “The Redemptionists and the Liguorians are the same; none of them have beards.”
Holz mentions Carl Czerny and his arrangements of Beethoven’s works.
Poet Ignaz Castelli’s work is discussed. “The most successful is a collection of poems in the Austrian dialect; they are in the style of [Johann Peter] Hebel’s German poems and will soon be published.”
Holz mentions that The Wanderer newspaper, edited by Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried, is being libeled by police order. In the Parisian journal La Pandore, Holz recently read that editor of the Austrian Beobachter [Observer, Joseph Anton Pilat (1782-1865)] calls himself Pilate. “He stands in the service of Metternich. Does he also impartially observe the principles for a newspaper writer, or is he washing his hands come un autre Pilate? [like another Pilate?]
Conversation Book 115, 18r-18v, 20r-22r.
At the Kärntnertor Theater tonight, before the ballet, a musical Akademie concert is held, opening with Beethoven’s Overture to Fidelio. The concert merited “undivided, well-deserved applause.” Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of August 23 (Nr.34) at 558.
Alan Gilbert here conducts the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in a performance of the Fidelio Overture:
In today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.165), Cappi & Czerny repeats its advertisement for three overtures by Ludwig van Beethoven, arranged for piano four hands by Joseph Czerny. These are the overtures from the ballet Prometheus, the tragedy Egmont, and the tragedy Coriolan. These same overtures are also available for pianoforte solo.