BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, May 28, 1824

Nephew Karl comes to Uncle Ludwig’s apartment about 1 p.m., with word that Brother Johann intends to come at 5. Ludwig considers inviting him to dinner, but Karl observes that there isn’t enough pike for the three of them.

Karl mentions that today he almost had an accident. “When I was coming out of the hatmaker’s and was walking away across the Graben, holding the hat in my hand, pieces from two broken window panes fell down right next to me. Luckily, none of it struck me.” Uncle Ludwig asks how much the hat cost, and Karl tells him 14 florins.

They talk about the artist who came to draw Uncle Ludwig late yesterday afternoon, Stephan Decker. He admitted that the Lithographic Institute hopes to make a great profit from the portrait, since Ludwig has made such a great sensation with his most recent works. Uncle Ludwig wonders how much they will sell it for, and Karl thinks a florin. They expect large orders from foreign countries.

Ludwig goes to a coffee house and reads the newspapers. He makes a note of a book on eye problems, The Eye Doctor, or the Art of Preserving Good Sight into Old Age, and of Quickly and Successfully Eliminating Eye Maladies and Troubles, by Dr. K.F. Lutheriz, recently published in Thuringia.

When he returns to the apartment, Karl is about to go get his pen knife sharpened. He offers to take along any straight razors that his uncle needs sharpened.

Mid-afternoon, Friedrich August Kanne, editor of the Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung comes to visit Beethoven. He’s writing a large scale article about the Akademie concerts and Beethoven’s new compositions, and would like to have a look at the scores in order to write knowledgeably. [Editor Theodore Albrecht notes that Kanne is one of the few people who was able to address Beethoven with the familiar “du.”]

Beethoven is still unhappy about the publication of the Petition last month in Kanne’s AMZ and Adolf Bäuerle’s Allgemeine Theater-Zeitung. Kanne tries to temper Beethoven’s anger, saying Bäuerle put him in a position of trust regarding the Petition, and allowed him to read it. He also is an old friend.

Beethoven also grouses about the poor pay for composers of vocal works. Kanne is quite in agreement; the poet gets 1200 florins, and the composer does not do nearly so well. Kanne had written the opera Lindane, and he got only 250 florins while the poet [Bäuerle] received 1000. The theater lulled him into security, so he continued writing. They rehearsed for 14 days, and it was conducted 20 times, but he saw nothing from that success. He told Bäurle that he would not have done it for 250 florins if he had not been fooled. But he made some of it back by peddling the piano score to Anton Diabelli. Two weeks later, Diabelli sent him a second contract full of stipulations, but Kanne refused to sign that one.

The various injustices start to get Beethoven heated, and Kanne tries to calm him back down. “Friend! Do not get angry! Life is too short!” He has enough to do anyway with his newspaper. The maid asks whether Kanne would like any refreshments and he asks for a bit of cheese.

The theater believes Kanne must come to them, but he demands a minimum of 200 florins C.M. Old Wenzel Müller [(1767-1858), kapellmeister of the Theater in the Leopoldstadt] always wrote for 2 sopranos, 2 tenors and 2 basses, but they only had one of each and Kanne thought it sounded alright. Müller writes the clarinet parts with four sharps in E major, and no B-flat clarinet can read them. [Editor Theodore Albrecht notes that this comment describes scoring passages in D major for B-flat clarinets, with the result that these transposing instruments must play in the then-awkward key of E. He thus implies that such passages should be handled by clarinets in A, a solution which Beethoven himself had used in the Finale of the Ninth Symphony.]

Carl Friedrich Hansler, manager of the Theater in the Josephstadt “opened his yap at me.” He wanted Kanne to set two dramatic pieces. But he has had his fill of the concertmaster there. [Anton Schindler. Kanne uses an elaborate metaphor to avoid saying Schindler’s name.] “He is very devoted to you.” The other two theaters are a lost cause. No chorus had been rehearsed at the Leopoldstadt in 30 years; with Kanne they rehearsed three. The great number of creditors makes no unity possible.

Last August, Kanne had submitted his tragedy Padmana to the censor to be printed, as well as his Donaustrom. Thus far he has had no reply. Beethoven asks whether they gave any reason. Kanne laughs that they don’t have time to give a reason.

The Kärntnertor Theater lease is up in December; seven have applied for the rights, including the singer Anton Forti and the ballerina Antonie Millière.

Kanne was unimpressed by Sontag and Unger in the Akademie concert. “A pair of choirboys would have been more secure.” He also never placed much trust in the Musikverein. Beethoven asks about the gigantic production they made about a dozen years ago. Kanne recalls it was an adaption of Alexander’s Feast, set by Handel and orchestrated by Mozart.

The new Mass by Franz Stockhausen, with German text by Joseph Bernard comes up. Kanne calls it “a wretched piece.” He quotes a short excerpt in fifths. Esteemed harpist Josepha Müllner-Gollehofer (1768-1843) “she of the elevated heart, doesn’t want to touch the bass strings.”

Kanne makes fun of composer Conradin Kreutzer. “His Taucher [the opera Der Taucher, recently performed numerous times at the Kärntnertor] euryanthes all over the place. It is overworked too much; the melodies are without energy. Too much chiaroscuro in the middle colors and tones.”

Weber [composer of Euryanthe] also comes in for criticism. “If it weren’t for the ‘Hunter’s Chorus’ – plundered from the Overture to Fidelio – Freischütz, despite its beauties, would not have become well known.”

Kanne goes on in this vein for quite a while, but finally gets down to business. He would like to look over the three movements of the Missa Solemnis that were in the first Akademie concert. [the Kyrie, Credo and Agnus Dei.] Beethoven shows him the scores to both the Mass and the Ninth Symphony. Kanne comments that for many passages, the rather dry acoustic of the Kärntnertor Theater in the first Akademie was better than the Redoutensaal for the second, for example the Scherzo of the Ninth. Beethoven asks why he thinks that, and it’s because the Redoutensaal echoes too much.

After Kanne departs, Karl and Brother Johann arrive around 5 p.m.

Johann comments that Ludwig seems to be himself again. Johann will be going to his estate at Gneixendorf this week. [He in fact leaves about June 1.] Looking back at Kanne’s lengthy conversation, Johann remarks that Kanne must have something going on with the Kärntnertor theater, because every time he went to see the manager, Louis Antoine Duport, Kanne was there.

Karl notes that they need to look for another housekeeeper.

Johann goes over the proposition for the Missa Solemnis again. The expenses, the honorarium, printing and engraving and paper will come to 10,000 florins expense. He will lay it all out in writing for Ludwig. Johann will take on those costs, and give Ludwig 1,000 florins C.M. upon delivery of the score, and then later once the subscriptions are sold he will pay another 150 ducats, which Ludwig should put aside immediately, and perhaps more beyond that. Ludwig is unsure about this arrangement, and Johann says that Ludwig had already promised it to him. Ludwig mentions that it would need to have a piano score, but Johann has sold it without a piano score. He has calculated it all personally. Based on the length of the Mass, the engraving plates would cost 5,000 florins, and printing that much as well. [Johann appears to leave abruptly at this point, which may indicate Ludwig refused to cooperate with this plan.]

Conversation Book 70, 11v-20r.