BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, June 2, 1820 (approximately)

Conversation Book 14, inside front cover. While Beethoven is in Mödling, the dates of the various conversations are generally approximations since there are very few definitive internal clues. In addition, there are not entries for every day, indicating that Beethoven frequently remained in solitude during his summer months in the country. The single word entry for today probably dates from the first or second day of June

On the inside front cover of Conversation Book 14, Beethoven notes “June, 1820” and “Starke.” This was apparently a reminder that when he went to Vienna next, he needed to pay a call on Friedrich Starke (1774-1835), a horn player and piano instructor in Vienna. In about 1815, Starke had served as nephew Karl’s piano teacher. During the period 1819 through 1821, Starke published a series of pieces for students, called Vienna Pianoforte School. Beethoven contributed a number of his compositions to this series. In the June, 1820 edition, Starke included the second movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Sonata, op.28. Since it was an instructional publication, Beethoven also provided detailed fingerings for the movement, making this one of the very few instances where we have the composer’s clear instructions for fingering one of his piano compositions. It’s quite likely that this visit was connected to that publication; Beethoven may have written out those fingerings for Starke on this date, since Starke was on his mind. Beethoven loved making puns on Starke’s name (“stark” in German meaning “strong”), and his conversation books and letters are full of them.

Glenn Gould plays the 2nd movement Andante from the Piano Sonata nr. 15 in D major, op.28 “Pastoral.”

The next conversation book entry dates from about June 5. While editor Ted Albrecht suggests that some additional writing on the inside front cover by Franz Oliva dates from June 3, the timeline for a visit to Vienna on that date does not make sense. Beethoven was just in Vienna on May 31, when he wrote to Schlesinger in the previous entry, and begins on about June 5 compiling an extensive shopping list, which would not be necessary if he had just been to Vienna twice in the space of four days. Beethoven would also probably not run out of wine on June 8th if he had just been in Vienna on the 3rd. More likely that entry by Oliva dates from the all-day June 10 shopping trip on which he accompanied Beethoven; Oliva in that entry is discussing prices of some unidentified objects. It seems more probable to me that Oliva in haste just used a blank space that presented itself.