BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, October 18, 1822

A third advertisement for Friedrich Starke’s Vienna Piano School is placed in today’s Wiener Zeitung at p.964, again playing up the participation of “Hr. L. van Beethoven.”

In Prague, there are celebrations of the anniversary of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig (also sometimes referred to as the Battle of Nations). At that battle, Napoleon lost decisively, ending the French Empire’s presence east of the Rhine, and leading to his ultimate downfall.

Festivities begin at 11 AM with a high mass celebrated by the archbishop of Prague, Václav Leopold Chlumčanský, accompanied by rifle salvos and cannons at the appropriate points in the service. In the evening, a performance was given at the local theater, for the benefit of the invalid fund. The performance “opened with a prologue suitable for the celebration of the day, after which Beethoven’s great symphony, the Battle of Leipzig, followed.” Wiener Zeitung of October 24, repeating the news from the local Prague newspaper.

Beethoven of course wrote no such symphony, and this performance almost certainly was Wellington’s Victory, op.91, commemorating the Battle of Vitoria in Spain, earlier in the year 1813, over Napoleon, repurposed for the occasion.

Erich Kunzel conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in this performance of Wellington’s Victory: