BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, November 8, 1822 (very approximately)

Today’s entry involves a fair amount of conjecture. There is an undated letter to brother Johann in the Bonn Beethovenhaus (H.C. Bodmer collection, BBr 128; Brandenburg Letter 1520) which appears to date from about this time. Part of the letter seems to have been used as an impromptu conversation book by Beethoven before he sent it. Johann Chrysostmus Sporschil (1800-1863) probably was meeting with Beethoven at his new apartment about the possibility of turning the incidental music for Consecration of the House into a new opera, The Apotheosis in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon. Sporschil’s libretto survives at the Berlin Staatsbibliothek as aut. 37.30. Beethoven made a few sketches for this revision but got no further with it.

Sporschil was speaking to Beethoven about some kind of catastrophe involving the oven in Beethoven’s apartment causing smoke damage (or possibly a fire), and what could be done about it and the landlord’s responsibility for the damage.

Since Beethoven’s brother Johann had found Ludwig this apartment, there was some kind of blowup between the two over this, made worse by the fact Ludwig didn’t much like the apartment in the first place. Beethoven writes to Johann, wishing to reconcile over the argument.

“I beg you to come to me this morning, as I need to talk to you – what’s the point of this behavior? What should it lead to? I have nothing against you, I don’t hold you to blame for what happened to the apartment, your will was good, and it was my wish that we should be closer together.” Beethoven continues in this manner and concludes, “I hug you from the heart and am your faithful brother as always.”

The original letter (with Sporschil’s conversation) can be seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/en/media/view/5241888995016704/scan/0

This letter seems rather passive aggressive in its inclusion of the discussion with Sporschil; on one hand he is trying to reconcile, while also including the clear threat to pursue the landlord, Johann Ehlers, legally for the damage.