BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, September 1, 1826

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz meets up with Beethoven later today. They probably go to see the magistrate about Karl first. However, an unspecified number of pages are torn out of Conversation Book 119 at this point, so exactly what is discussed is unknown. They discuss Nephew Karl in the general hospital, still recovering from his self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. While he is not in much pain, the healing is slower than the doctor had expected.

Uncle Ludwig asks what Karl wants to do. Holz tells him, “Karl says it does not help talking to him; he himself does not know what might still happen. He wants to get away from Vienna in any case. Then immediately afterwards, he would be pleased to join the military, especially if his progress in commercial establishments is uncertain. He won’t progress at the Polytechnic Institute. He does not want to because of mathematics, which is a dry science. That is nothing to him, he is too impatient.”

How will he join the military, then, Beethoven asks. Either pianist Dorothea Ertmann’s husband, Generalmajor Stephan von Ertmann, or Beethoven’s friend Stephan von Breuning will find a way. Wouldn’t he need to learn mathematics in the military, Beethoven asks. “He will certainly acquire the necessary skills for it, but he does not want to join the artillery. If he liked mathematics, he’d rather work in an office, for there [in the artillery] he could at most rise to a chief fireworks officer in 20 years. There the advancement is very slow. Beethoven suggests another part of the military, but Holz says he does not have the temperament for that. Holz thinks the best fit would be with the grenadiers.

Many government positions require philosophy and law. He doesn’t want that either, as there is no hope for advancement. Right now, there are interns everywhere.

Beethoven asks with concern whether Karl might suffer a relapse. The doctor says there is no risk of that.

Karl asks Uncle Ludwig to reimburse his mother Johanna just a little for what she has paid for his care; “she has not got a single Kreutzer left.” Holz told him all that his Uncle had paid, and the bills still to come. Where should that be paid from? Ludwig is willing only to pay a little of it.

Holz had planned to go visit his friend Gross in Rannersdorf, a small village southeast of Vienna, tomorrow, Saturday, September 2. He thought Beethoven might want to come along. Holz confesses that it isn’t so much going into the countryside, but paying a guilty visit. Beethoven has other plans for Holz, so he says he will write [to Gross] Rannersdorf and cancel.

Holz buys cigars for Karl, which he had requested; the charge is 2 florins. There is also a notation, probably relating to a wine merchant, for Heiligenkreuzerhof, a very good Austrian wine for 1 florin per measure.

Conversation Book 119, 49r-52v. This concludes Conversation Book 119. Conversation Book 120 begins being used probably tomorrow.

In Paris, a musical soirée was “given by the MM. Hermann of Munich, four brothers, two of whom are performers on the violin and the other two on the viola and violoncello. In a quartett of Beethoven, the want of superiority in the first violin was strongly felt by a number of amateurs of the severe style, and the effect altogether was very heavy.” The Harmonicon of September 1826 (Nr.XLV) at 194.

The advertisements for this issue of The Harmonicon include pianoforte duet arrangements of two Beethoven works. The first is the Overture to the “Men of Prometheus,” arranged by I.W. Holder, and the second is of the Grand Septet, arranged by G.E. Griffin. These works are published by the Royal Harmonic Institution.

Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.200) at 842 includes an advertisement from Tobias Haslinger for the Impromptu brilliant in A major for piano four hands, op.116, by Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny.