BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, October 14, 1824

Beethoven is still in Baden, reading yesterday’s Wiener Zeitung, probably at a restaurant with Nephew Karl. He notes the advertisement for a number of religious compositions written by publisher Anton Diabelli, who was recently pressing Beethoven for a four-hands piano sonata. Beethoven makes note of the Jubilate, Deo omnis terra, Salve Regina, Laudata anima mea Dominum, and a pair of Tantum ergos, in C and E major.

Karl is reading the Intelligenzblatt supplement to the same issue of the Wiener Zeitung. They trade sections, and Karl makes note of Tasso’s Freed Jerusalem, translated into German.

Karl says that “the piano maker’s wife seems to be a very honorable woman.” [This probably refers to the wife of Augustin Riedl, who was a piano and organ builder in Baden; both Ludwig and Karl knew the women of the Streicher and Stein family very well so there would have been no occasion to comment on them in this speculative manner.]

Karl mentions that at 8:30 the housekeeper sent the maid up to turn down the bed. But instead of coming in, she lay down to sleep in the pantry, and stayed there till he rang the bell.

The roast was ruined. Karl cannot understand how that could happen with the excellent spit they have. She doesn’t have to pay attention to anything except placing the roast at the right distance from the fire. She then sets the time for how often the mechanism is supposed to turn. Ludwig wonders if she was turning the roast too quickly, so Karl explains: It is a kind of clockwork; it will always go slowly. “That way, it doesn’t tire the maid out, and doesn’t harm her chest.”

Karl comments that the apartment itself is certainly very beautiful. Johann will now deal in wine from his estate in Gneixendorf, if he can get someone to buy it. But dragging the wine around is not good for it. Karl thinks it strange that Johann has not told Ludwig about his actual financial status. “We basically don’t know whether he is rich or not.” [As our frequent contributor Birthe Kibsgaard notes, the transition in the conversation from the apartment to Johann’s wine may have been due to Johann’s promise to deliver white wine to them, if they ever got an apartment with a cellar, and the new apartment does have a cellar. So they may have been speculating that he would make good on his promise.]

They are getting excellent service. Karl jokes that his uncle must have told her that the servant behaved well, she would get 50 florins. In any event, they are getting one meat after another, so Karl is not complaining.

Karl reminds his uncle that they need to reserve seats on the public coach back to Vienna.

Back at the apartment, Karl asks the maid why she bought so many grapes. She said, “For the winter.” They likely will be gobbled up long before that, he thinks.

There seems to be a letter (no longer extant) for them from Johann Andreas Stumpff in Vienna. Apparently Matthäus Stein took it badly that Stumpff wanted to tell him what was wrong with the mechanism on the Broadwood piano earlier this month. He particularly was annoyed because he had shown Stumpff the interior design and the improvements that he had made to it. He said that he himself knew what needs to be done, rather than gratefully accepting whatever can be useful to him in that way. Stumpff visited Stein twice.

Stumpff lets them know that he will be leaving Vienna on Monday, October 17, at the latest. If there is anything Beethoven wants taken to London, or there are any other errands he could run, just let him know. Stumpff is of the opinion that Stein badly damaged the interior of the Broadwood, with his various experiments, and it can no longer be restored to its previous condition.

Before bed, Karl comments that Professor Siegismund Dittmar’s weather prediction in the Wiener Zeitung was correct; the nights in October would be very beautiful, the trees would blossom, the birds would nest as in spring, and winter would not begin until later.

They plan their trip to Vienna tomorrow morning.

Conversation Book 77, 7r-11r.