BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, March 31, 1826

Beethoven puts “+ 14 eggs” on his shopping list. He then writes several sketches for the second movement of the op.131 Quartet in C-sharp minor, and the transition to the third movement on page 20v, all in very soft pencil. These three sketches are seen here, enhanced for legibility, courtesy of the Berlin Staatsbibliothek.

Beethoven then continues his list:

• ink + laundry

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to see Beethoven, around mid-day dinner time, at 2:30 or so. He has brought with him 1 1/2 pound pike, and 2 1/2 pounds of carp, plus a lantern. Beethoven reimburses Holz 4 florins 3 kreutzers and marks “Paid” in the conversation book. He comments that the housekeeper (who may have accompanied Holz) didn’t dare buy a 2 pound pike; they are expensive because they are very rare now.

Holz notes that it has begun to hail. [According to the April 4 Wiener Zeitung (Nr.76) at 336, there was hail today at 3 in the afternoon, allowing these entries to be dated with precision.]

Holz feels that he was betrayed when he was told yesterday that the Concert spirituel would include a symphony by Haydn; when he came into the City, he learned that Beethoven’s C-minor symphony [Nr.5] was being performed. “They deliberately did not tell me!” Holz adds later about the concert, “The symphony is said to have gone very well, except for some false blows from the horns.” Next time, the conductor [probably Baron Eduard von Lannoy] would like to perform the B-flat major symphony [Nr.4]. “He doesn’t quite know the tempo; I have quarreled with him about that, but he defies explanation. He also plays the last movement too fast.” That keeps the basses from playing it clearly.

Holz mentions that writer Joseph Blahetka (father of concert pianist Leopoldine Blahetka) is completely taken in by the Grosse Fuge [still the Finale of the op.130 string quartet.] Bassoonist August Mittag also wants to pay his respects to Beethoven on Sunday morning [April 2.]

They also need to make arrangements with Archduke Rudolph about the catalogue of Beethoven’s works. Tobias Haslinger will be excluded from the process “so he may only see the fruits of his efforts from a distance, like Tantalus! It was stupid of him that he did not make the register at once while he had the collection in his hands.”

The first procession of the Jubilee Year is to be held on Sunday. [Pope Leo II had declared that anyone taking part in two of the Jubilee processions would be granted a complete indulgence.]

Holz mentions that there is often talk about Beethoven [probably at the Schuppanzigh Quartet concerts] especially when Mylord [Schuppanzigh] kisses Frau Vivenot’s hand; she knows on whose orders he does so. The whole week through he is a real rogue, until next Tuesday when the corporal arrives. [Presumably Schuppanzigh’s wife returning to Vienna.] After eating, he can hardly breathe. In the evening he always eats two portions. [Schuppanzigh was notoriously fat.]

Beethoven has heard about Holz’s prank on Anton Halm’s wife, sending the hair of a goat to her instead of the real thing. Beethoven tells him not to send it, but it has already gone to her.

Holz asks whether Karl is coming. He is expected tomorrow [Saturday, April 1]. Tomorrow there is music at Blahektka’s home. Pianist Carl von Bocklet will be playing Beethoven B-flat major Trio [the “Archduke, op.97, which Bocklet had played at Linke’s benefit concert on November 6, 1825, on Beethoven’s recommendation.] Holz tells Beethoven that Bocklet is a hypochondriac and mentally unstable. “Someone arrived exactly at the right time to keep him from jumping from the 3rd floor. He is a very good, open person; he has nothing of the Bohemian nature.”

Holz asks whether publisher Maurice Schlesinger has written yet. Beethoven has heard nothing, and fears that the publishing deal for his quartets has fallen through. Holz answers, “I said that at once, and I find myself more and more encouraged in this.” And then there was the story with banker Samuel Biedermann, who didn’t have the money to pay for the op.130 quartet and had to write for instructions. Beethoven says that they had an understanding, but Holz retorts that doesn’t apply, if the money isn’t there right away.

Talk turns to Beethoven’s projected edition of his complete works, which Schlesinger also wanted to publish. Holz recommends, “I think you should write to Goethe because of the publication of your complete works; he will certainly give you the best advice. He knows all the reversals, and clauses, and loopholes best, because he himself is trapped.” [In 1825, Goethe had requested a privilege for a complete edition of his works, to prevent it being pirated, a special copyright that applied only to him. It was granted, and the edition was published in 1826 under the privilege.]

Beethoven was expecting someone unidentified, but with a title, to visit him today, but no one appeared. Holz asked if he was supposed to come, and whether Beethoven has saved his address. Holz jokes, “These people hang onto their titles like a woman’s undershirt to her gown.”

Conversation Book 107, 20v-25v.

The April 19, 1826 Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Nr.16 at 266 reports on a musical-declamatory morning entertainment given today in the completely full Berlin Royal Theater. In the second half of the concert, the song Adelaide, op.46, by Matthisson and Beethoven, with piano accompaniment played by Leopoldine Blahetka, was sung by Herr Franz Jäger, who also accompanied himself on guitar. The Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.14 of April 5, 1826, report at 111 by Adolph Marx on this concert complains that this theater always ignores the symphony, and contents itself with opera overtures. “Herr Jäger performed Adelaide by Beethoven and a song of his own very expressively, but in the first composition he could have saved the Italian roulades for the next Rossiniade.” Marx saved most of his venom for the scene from Figaro performed at the concert: the Masetto missed whole passages in a performance that was completely wrong; the choir was without precision and without any energy; several, especially the treble voices and basses, let whole passages pass by in silence. “The choral singing in general in that group is not getting better, but rather getting worse. This is a consequence of the poor choral compositions in the Italian operas that dominate there, but at the same time a serious reproach for the leaders of the musical scene there.”