BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, March 10, 1826
Beethoven makes some notes to himself in the conversation book this morning, though he possibly begins the list yesterday:
- one more chamber pot which can be left outside for 3-4 days.
Open the big machine which is on the floor, in order to place more things in it.
Several volumes of the leipziger Musikalischen Zeitung are missing. - return something from the theater Zeitung to my brother.
- Couch very necessary.
- The housekeeper has 2 blue pillowcases.—
Spoons for the future domestics must be provided. [A new housekeeper is to start Sunday, March 12, and her sister will begin working as a maid for Beethoven a few days later.] - New mattress
- Hannibal one volume Karl, what is missing could be copied
- the shutter [or drawer] here in the big room must be repaired
- to Hatzfeld [about the dedication of the Ninth Symphony.]
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to see Beethoven. Friedrich August Kanne came to see Holz earlier today; he is unwell. “He has no patience; he is intolerable.” The housekeepers are having another row over a missing silver spoon, which is increasing Beethoven’s irritation with them.
Holz tells Beethoven that last Saturday, he and others played a quintet arrangement of the Consecration of the House Overture, with piano four hands and string instruments. [Kinsky-Halm 2 reports no such piano quintet arrangements being published during Beethoven’s lifetime. Holz’s subsequent comments suggest that Frau Vivenot may have had someone arrange it for her based on Czerny’s four-hand piano arrangement.] She at once found 4 customers who bought it for that purpose. Beethoven asked who played the piano part. Holz says young Rudolph Vivenot and another dilettante, Joseph Kerzkowsky. [Kerzkowsky had contributed a variation to Diabelli’s collection Vaterländischer Künstlerverein in 1824, for which Beethoven wrote his 33 variations, op.120.] He plays Hummel well, but Beethoven, not quite right.
Speaking of arrangements, Holz asks whether Beethoven arranged his Septet into a Trio. Beethoven tells him that he did arrange it for piano trio; he even assigned it an opus number, op.38. Holz then asks about the arrangement of the Quintet op.4 for piano trio. Beethoven likely tells him that this was not his work, even though it bears opus number 63.
Beethoven has thought about it and doesn’t need the money withdrawn from Kinsky pension in advance; he can wait until April 1 when it comes due. Holz says then he won’t take the receipt with him today when he meets Notary Walcha about the Kinsky annuity being rescheduled to match Archduke Rudolph’s payments.
Beethoven has a stomach cramp; Holz thinks that having milk and then later citric acid probably caused it. Holz goes to his office and to run errands, including his meeting with Walcha. He will also have a rehearsal tonight with the Schuppanzigh Quartet for the upcoming concert premiere of Beethoven’s op.130 quartet.
Conversation Book 106, 11v-12v.
After Holz departs Beethoven’s apartment, the composer writes him a short letter dated “Friday evening,” i.e., today, from context. “Hardly had you left when I found the housekeeper’s spoons still on the cupboard. I kindly placed them on her table, but since she was still occupied, it occurred to me to check for the others for use and another one was gone— So I immediately said that I would take her spoons back and keep them until she had brought me my spoon again. Now, may God forbid that we should still nibble at love with a spoon in our venerable old age?! The best thing to do is therefore to let them go. If it is not too much trouble for you, they [the housekeeper Frau Lindner and the “old woman” Barbara Holzmann] will both leave the day after tomorrow, and the other two will come in. It is a Sunday, and we are quite rightly looking forward to a Sunday feast. As far as the spoons are concerned, we are exactly where we were the day before yesterday.—”
“Would it be possible for you to see me for a moment tomorrow morning to discuss everything? That would be best. You could have breakfast. [Beethoven double underlines the two letters “ü” in the German word for breakfast, “Frühstück”] The best thing is to conclude this matter as quickly as possible. Something worse could happen—
Friday evening.
Yours truly, primus et ultimus [first and last]”
Brandenburg Letter 2132; Anderson Letter 1507. The original is held by the Royal College of Music in London (Ms.2173). Nephew Karl had noted “She says she hasn’t taken one out;… She thinks it will be misplaced. She hasn’t held a spoon in her hand today. She won’t hear of a deduction because of the spoons, she says, you’d rather investigate than judge.” Beethoven’s repeated threat to get rid of them both at last is serious. The two women will be replaced by a pair of sisters, who start on March 12 and March 17, respectively.
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.57) at 259 includes another advertisement from Cappi & Co. for C.F Müller’s two collections of dances for pianoforte, which include Beethoven’s Waltz in D, WoO 85 and Ecossaise in Elat, WoO 86, as well as last year’s volume, which included Beethoven’s Waltz in E-flat, WoO 84.
The May 11 issue of the Wiener Zeitschrift (Nr.56) at 445 includes the report of concerts in Dresden, written at the end of March. A musical concert organized today by Mlle. Charlotte Veltheim (1799-1873) opens with an overture by Peter Joseph von Lindpainter (1791-1856), “thereupon, the concert organizer played Beethoven’s equally original, beautiful, and effective Piano Concerto in E-flat major [Nr.5, “Emperor“] quite well.”
The “Emperor” Concerto is here performed by soloist Alina Bercu, Orchestra of the University of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar, Nicolás Pasquet conducting: