BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, September 23, 1825

Nephew Karl comes out to Baden to visit his uncle, in the company of Parisian publisher Maurice Schlesinger. Schlesinger spoke on Karl’s behalf with Baron Eskeles. Eskeles promises to either take him into his office, or put him in another office, since he doesn’t have a lot to do right now. But he wants to meet Karl and speak with him, in order to get acquainted. Schlesinger will accompany him, so it needs to be done while there’s still time before his upcoming departure from Vienna. He would thus like Karl to come to Vienna tomorrow so he can be introduced to Baron Eskeles.

Schlesinger looks through some of the music stacks. He finds the six bagatelles op.126, and asks whether they have been sold yet. Beethoven tells him, yes, Schott published them earlier this year. Since they are already engraved, it’s regrettable that no dedication could be added, which might result in some additional money.

Schlesinger, imagining Beethoven can churn out compositions on command, would hope that the 3 new quartets and 3 new quintets will appear over the course of the next year. Beethoven does not appear to disabuse Schlesinger of this hope.

Schlesinger gently reminds Beethoven of his promise to write him a song or a canon as a souvenir. [Beethoven had previously written Glaube und hoffe, WoO 174, as a souvenir on Schlesinger’s earlier visit to Vienna in 1819.] Schlesinger says it matters a very great deal to him.

Schlesinger invites Beethoven to come to Vienna on Monday, September 26 to spend the day and to have dinner. A quartet performance would be arranged before dinner. Beethoven appears to be ambivalent.

As Schlesinger continues thumbing through the bagatelles op.126, he notices that not all of them are there. He asks when Beethoven will write a new piano trio. Beethoven doesn’t have anything planned in that genre, and has quite a few other things to take care of first.

Beethoven suggests that Schlesinger stay in Baden overnight, and then go into Vienna with Karl tomorrow. Schlesinger declines, since he has already paid for the seat in the carriage back to Vienna. Karl will follow tomorrow. Schlesinger thinks he will come back in 3 or 4 months. He has “a more important affair than business” leading him back to Vienna. Nothing has been arranged yet. [Schlesinger appears to have found a romantic interest in Vienna, whom he plans to ask to marry when he returns.]

Schlesinger mentions that someone told him that Beethoven wanted to marry Catharina Cibbini, and asks if that were true. [Prof. Theodore Albrecht suggests this was unlikely; Cibbini’s father was Leopold Kozeluch, whom Beethoven disliked.] Schlesinger says that if he is to get married, Beethoven will be the first person to whom he will introduce his fiancée.

Karl, on Schlesinger’s behalf, tells Ludwig that he should come on Monday though. Czerny and Holz are making the musical arrangements. He will be heading to Berlin next. Schlesinger goes back to Vienna; Karl remains with his uncle.

Karl does not think much of the publishers. “They stick together. Haslinger tries everything — and so does Steiner–to speak disparagingly to you about him.” He is looking forward to the new quartet.

Karl points out that the entree with Baron Eskeles was not just Schlesinger’s doing; the Baron’s daughter had promised Karl to speak about it to her father at the dinner following the premiere of the op.132 quartet, and she already had done so when Schlesinger contacted the Baron.

Karl mentions that Karl Holz wants to play first violin on Monday. [Since the quartet op.127 is being performed, Holz may want to show that he is able to play the first violin part that Schuppanzigh had difficulty with, while Schuppanzigh is in Pressburg for the festivities connected with the Empress being crowned Queen of Hungary.]

Someone unidentified must have eaten too much, Karl thinks, because he often had the inclination to vomit.

The day’s conversation book entries conclude with Karl writing, “Good fellow! You must note the word—homeopath.” [Presumably Beethoven was misremembering the word. He and Karl have frequently talked about homeopathy, and several books on the subject have been noted by Beethoven in the last year or so.]

Conversation Book 97, 41r-44v.