BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, September 16, 1825
Karl Holz comes fairly early, probably before 9 a.m. to Beethoven’s apartment in Baden, to help prepare for Sir George Smart’s visit today. Holz lets Beethoven know that he has made arrangements for a new housekeeper as soon as Beethoven returns to Vienna, Holz will bring her to him.
Holz also has some bad news: “[Publisher Maurice] Schlesinger is Judas the Arch-Scoundrel.” Beethoven asks what it is that he has done. “He wants to take the advantage wherever he can.” Beethoven asks for specifics, what is Schlesinger doing? “He wants to buy the first quartet [op.127] from Schott.” [Beethoven would see no money from this transaction, and Schott would get all the profit, since Beethoven’s quartets are now worth a good deal more than the fifty ducats Schott had paid for op.127.] Beethoven indeed feels betrayed that he sold Schlesinger his second and third quartets [op.132 and op.130.] Holz adds, and perhaps even a fourth. [Beethoven had commented earlier with displeasure about a rumor that Schlesinger had sold one of the quartets to Steiner, cutting him out of those profits as well (though that rumor was incorrect.)]
Beethoven asks Holz to write the name of his visitor, probably so he can make sure he has it correct.
Holz indicates that Tobias Haslinger is asking for even a portion of the corrected proofs for the King Stephan Overture op.117 and the March with Chorus op.114, originally from The Ruins of Athens. Beethoven’s attention has been devoted to quartets lately, so he has done little proofreading of these old works.
Holz reminds Beethoven that the score of the quartet op.132 also still needs to be proofread. Schlesinger intends to leave on the 20th or 21st of September. It’s his responsibility to make a copy of the score, but he would like it to be proofread by Beethoven personally. Holz offers to proofread it, but Beethoven tells him he will do it. Holz says that it will need to be sent later, then.
Holz mentions that Smart intends to come by way of Mödling, where Beethoven had spent several summers. Holz goes to find Wenzel Würfel to join the group, but he went to Vienna to get a pass to go to Pressburg (now Bratislava) for the coronation of the Empress as Queen of Hungary next week.
Smart arrives with his friend Joseph Ries, the younger brother of Beethoven’s former pupil Ferdinand Ries, probably around 10 a.m. Beethoven asks what tempi they used [probably for the Ninth Symphony] and Smart indicates with his hand. Smart tries communicating in English, but Beethoven does not understand, so they switch to French. Smart has many questions about the Ninth Symphony, in particular the tempo of the Finale. Beethoven does not have the score here with him. He asks how long it took to write the symphony, and how long it should last. The English performance was about an hour, Smart says. [The Harmonicon reviewer put it at an hour and 5 minutes.] Beethoven tells him it should be more like 3/4 of an hour, which Smart finds hard to believe.
Nephew Karl suggests the group go for a walk. When they stop for refreshments at about 12:30, Holz has a private conversation with Beethoven about Schlesinger. He plans on publishing a complete edition of Beethoven’s quartets, and since he’s intending to publish them chronologically, the 13th quartet, op.132, might not appear yet for two years. Holz suggests that Beethoven insist that the edition appear without delay; “always in the future in the case of any of these Jews.” He won’t be finished soon if he doesn’t start publishing it until next year. Beethoven could always use the threat not to write any more quartets for him to make him publish the new quartet promptly.
By now it’s 12:45 and Smart and Ries have reserved a carriage for 4 p.m. They also want to look at a bathing house.
Schott hasn’t done anything yet with op.127. Holz was worried about the manuscript and feared Schott had already sold it to someone else; Tobias Haslinger thinks the same thing too. “He is quite angry about Schlesinger’s disgusting behavior.”
Karl runs on ahead to let the housekeeper Barbara Holzmann know that they will be arriving soon for dinner.
Smart mentions that in England a German has set up a drinking establishment like the ones here, where one can get bottled water from Baden and Carlsbad. Ferdinand Ries has newly rebuilt the estate that he bought in Bad Godesburg after he returned from England.
Smart mentions that the Philharmonic Society has a splendid orchestra with an even-tempered concertmaster; without his having to give many beats it goes his way without mishap. Beethoven asks how many rehearsals they had for the Ninth; Smart says they repeated it five times. [It is unclear whether he is counting the concert as one of the five.]
Holz will also be going to Vienna at 4 o’clock this afternoon, and he will need the stamped paper for Haslinger.
Smart mentions that in England they do not know German for vocal works. He plans to attend a performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C op.86 at the Karlskirche on Sunday, September 18. Beethoven asks about Friedrich Kalkbrenner, who had signed his Broadwood piano. Smart says he is in Paris now. Beethoven asks for the names of the best English piano makers. Smart lists off Broadwood, Stoddard, Tomlinson, and Clementi & Co. Beethoven asks what kinds of works are popular in England. Smart tells him four hands piano duets. Now would be the time for Beethoven to compose some of those. Holz jokes that he could make a sweet-smelling English nosegay for them.
Beethoven asks about the preeminent English pianists who have played with the Philharmonic. Smart lists off Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858), Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870), Charles Neate (1784-1877), and Cipriani Potter (1792-1871).
The subject of almonds comes up and Holz reminds Beethoven that Ferdinand Ries cannot tolerate them. Beethoven asks who told him that, and Holz says his brother Joseph. The wine arrives at the table, and Holz jokingly calls the headwaiter Ganymede, cupbearer to the gods. As they drink, Smart mentions that he is organist to the King, because the previous one died of exhaustion and a fit of coughing at the coronation. Beethoven asks why Joseph Ries is here, and he explains that he’s journeying with Smart. Ries’ father Franz (1755-1846) will be 70 years old on November 10. The whole family intends to gather for the celebration. [Franz Anton Ries had given Beethoven violin lessons as a youth.]
Beethoven asks about the route Smart took to Vienna. He traveled by way of the Rhine and the Danube. Beethoven asks whether he is Catholic or Protestant, and Smart answers that he is Protestant. But the most important thing is to be an honest man.
The party has a fish dinner, but Smart only likes fish from the sea. The group decides to have a drinking contest. Smart writes, “They made fun of me in Germany; compared to them I am a boy.” Frau Holzmann is upset that she didn’t understand what kind of meat she should shop for, sensitive about Smart’s dislike of the fish.
Holz indicates that they will plan a gathering for next week, and he’ll announce the details on a flyer. Haslinger will arrange the proprietor. Holz, getting increasingly drunk, says he will bring Tobias’s corpse wrapped in a strip of cloth from the Paternostergassel to Mödling.
Smart asks Beethoven for a couple lines of Beethoven’s handwriting. Beethoven writes out for him the riddle canon Ars longa, vita brevis, WoO 192, which is performed here by the Chamber Choir of the Berlin Vocal Academy:
Smart and Ries go to get their carriage. Beethoven asks Holz how long Smart will be here, possibly with the intention of inviting him back. Smart is leaving the day after tomorrow, Holz says. [He actually does not leave until the 20th because of difficulties getting a carriage.] Holz says he has talents. “Jupiter fulminans.” [Jupiter throwing lightning bolts, possibly a comparison to Smart’s conducting.]
Conversation Book 97, 10r-19v.
Smart’s diary for his time in Baden today begins as follows: “On Friday, September 16th, at half-past eight in the morning young [Joseph] Ries came and we went in a hired carriage from Mödling to Baden. The distance is about six miles south of Mödling and sixteen miles southwest of Vienna. The journey cost five florins in paper money and took us about an hour. After walking in the little park and looking at the baths we went to Beethoven’s lodgings according to his invitation.”
“These are curiously situated, a wooden circus for horsemanship has been erected in a large court before his house. He has four large-sized rooms opening into each other, furnished a la genius, in one is the grand pianoforte, much out of tune, given him by Broadwood, in which it is written, besides the Latin line, the names of J. Cramer, Ferrari, and C. Knyvett. Beethoven gave me the time, by playing the subjects on the pianoforte, of many movements of his symphonies, including the Choral Symphony, which according to his account took three-quarters of an hour only in performance.”
“The party present, namely Holz, the amateur violin; Carl Beethoven, the nephew; besides young Ries, agreed that the performance at Vienna only took that time; this I deem to be totally impossible. It seems at Vienna the Recit was played only with four ‘celli and two contra bassi which certainly is better than having the tutti bassi. Beethoven and we deservedly abused [Anton] Reicha’s printed specimen of fugueing. He told me of a mass, not yet published, which he had composed. We had a long conversation on musical subjects conducted on my part in writing. He is very desirous to come to England.”
“After ordering his dinner with his funny old cook and telling his nephew to see to the wine, we all five took a walk. Beethoven was generally in advance humming some passage. He usually sketches his subjects in the open air; it was on one of these occasions, Schuppanzigh told me, that he caught his deafness. He was writing in a garden and was so absorbed that he was not sensible of a pouring rain, till his music paper was so wet that he could no longer write. From that day his deafness commenced, which neither art nor time has cured. The water at Baden, whither he goes every summer, has been of service to his chest and gout, and his health is better than formerly. He would show me Prince Charles’s beautiful château in the mountains and also some of the baths.”
“On our return we had dinner at two o’clock. It was a most curious one and so plentiful that dishes came in as we came out, for, unfortunately, we were rather in a hurry to get to the stage coach by four, it being the only one going to Vienna that evening. I overheard Beethoven say, ‘We will try how much the Englishman can drink.’ He had the worst of the trial. I gave him my diamond pin as a remembrance of the high gratification I received by the honour of his invitation and kind reception and he wrote me the following droll canon as fast as his pen would write in about two minutes of time as I stood at the door ready to depart.” [The 3-voice riddle canon noted above, Ars longa, vita brevis, WoO 192. The original is now in the British Library, Add. Ms. 38069, leaf 8. The inscription reads, “Written on the 16th September 1825 in Baden when my dear talented music artist and friend Smart (from England) visited me here, Ludwig van Beethoven.” ]
“He was very gay but I need not write down more, for memory will ever retain the events of this pleasurable day with Beethoven. We got back to Vienna about seven in the evening. I went immediately to bed exhausted with pleasure.”
Cox and Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart, 123-125.
On the way back to Vienna from Baden, Smart catches a cold. The conversation continues with Holz and Nephew Karl after Smart and Ries depart. Karl is watching the horseback riders at the corral in the courtyard.
Holz resumes the conversation about his distrust of publisher Maurice Schlesinger. He expects Schlesinger will come to Baden one more time before he departs. “Do not trust him, I pray you, for god’s sake, and do not promise him anything unconditionally! You take the world to be too good, and do not look beyond the brilliance of your own light to see the many dark shadows that want to influence you.” Beethoven appears to resist Holz, who now brings out the big gun: “Even if you don’t want to do it for your own sake, make sure that there is something left over for Karl.”
There is some discussion by Beethoven and Holz of poets, one who is unnamed [Prof. Albrecht suggests possibly Ignaz Castelli] being described as “not without understanding, but is a blind tool.” It’s much worse for poets in dealing with the office of the censor than it is for composers, since they have to work against the obscurantism and stupid alterations at the Censorship Office.
Haslinger is coming to Mödling next week, and he asks again that Beethoven not forget the proofs; they will need them very soon.
Holz will give Schlesinger the uncorrected copy of the score for op.132, and will suggest that he correct it by comparing it to the parts, or else wait for Beethoven to do the proofreading himself. Schlesinger doesn’t intend to start publishing the quartets as part of the complete edition until next year. He doesn’t want to begin with the large scale works like the symphonies, opera, oratorio and Masses, presumably because they have less sales appeal. Holz has instructed copyist Wenzel Rampl not to tell Schlesinger that he has the manuscript, otherwise Schlesinger would be in a position to confiscate it.
Then there would be five string quintets, counting the three projected ones that Schlesinger has asked Beethoven to write. Holz asks Beethoven his thoughts on quintets with two violins and two cellos, in place of the more typical two violins and two violas. George Onslow has written them very effectively; the first cello plays mostly in the tenor range, and the second only in the bass. Louis Spohr intends to write two more double quartets, but four violins seems like too many to Holz. The thing Holz likes about Spohr’s Double Quartet op.65 is that it is not as puffed up as a lot of his works, but other quartets by him are merely artificial. The deceased violinist Martin Schlesinger (1751-1818) said that Spohr and Friedrich Fesca (1789-1826) are only beer-drinkers; nothing in the world can faze them. .
Holz suggests that Schuppanzigh ought to play Beethoven’s violin sonatas, as well as his quartets. He doesn’t have a copy of them but Haslinger will give them to him right away. Beethoven asks where the Schuppanzigh Quartet rehearses, and Holz says at the house Zum weissen Hirschen.
A tipsy Holz probably misses his carriage back to Vienna and has to stay the night at the local hotel. Nephew Karl stays with his uncle into next week.
Conversation Book 97, 20r-24v.
Possibly at the party or not long thereafter, Beethoven starts to write a humorous canon, “Uns ist ganz kannibalisch wohl als wie fünfhundert Säuen” [We feel cannibalistic, as if we were five hundred pigs], Hess 302 on leaf 4v of the current pocket sketchbook, Autograph 9, Bundle 2. The words are a slightly garbled version of a line from Goethe’s Faust, when Mephistopheles takes Faust drinking.
The sketch is reproduced here. The canon has never been recorded, but it can be heard at The Unheard Beethoven website, worked out by Willem Holsbergen as a four-part canon:
https://unheardbeethoven.org/search.php?Identifier=hess302
The Second Yorkshire Musical Festival concludes today with the concert at the York Minster, dominated by Handel with a few selections by Mozart and others sprinkled in throughout the three acts. No Beethoven works are performed, however the wrap-up in the October issue of The Harmonicon (Vol.XXXIV) contains a few mentions of the composer.
According to the account at pp.183-184, the festival raised £ 1800 for the York County Hospital, and the same sum each to the infirmaries of Leeds, Hull, and Sheffield, with a small balance remaining in the hands of the committee to fund the next festival. Souvenir books were printed under the direction of the Committee of Management, and included at the end of the volume were reproductions of the autographs of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber; these autographs also appeared as a security measure on the admission tickets. [The Harmonicon reproduces these autographs as well at 184.]
The Harmonicon reviewer, “Clio,” sums up the festival on pages 184-185. “The most prominent feature of this wonderful festival was the choir: the chorus singers, male and female, were selected from the different towns and villages in the counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and if we mistake not, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. (We believe we may safely aver that on these occasions, not a single chorus singer from London is engaged), and whether belonging to their several churches, or different musical societies, they are sure to be conversant with choral music of every description, and when united, sing with a feeling and precision which we must in vain look for in the metropolis, or any part of the west or south of England. To what cause to attribute this vast superiority among our northern countrymen, we know not; but true it is, that superior they certainly are, and, in an eminent degree, and it is not the mere accuracy with which so many to a part are sure to lead off the most intricate points of fugue, whether the composer be Handel, Mozart, Haydn, or even Beethoven; but there is a corresponding spirit; they are not the cold mechanical drudges that are paid for doing a reluctant task, but energetic musicians anxious to execute well and satisfactorily, a delightful duty.”
With respect to the instrumental music of the festival, the reviewer Clio found the organist to be most excellent. “As to Beethoven, we know what to say;–we must not venture to object to so mighty a genius, as he is universally considered to be, we must therefore honestly exclaim, like the poor Italian singer in the Critic–“me no understand.” [The pseudonym Clio is known to have been used during this period by English cleric, writer, schoolmaster and antiquarian Thomas Harwood (1767-1842), living in Staffordshire, but we cannot be certain as to whether this lengthy piece in The Harmonicon is by him or another.]