BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, September 24, 1824
This morning Beethoven is in Baden, probably having spent a sleepless night worrying, and frantic that Karl still has not returned from Vienna. He and housekeeper Barbara Holzmann take an early morning carriage into Vienna, and head straight to the apartment in the Ungargasse. When they arrive, they find Karl is not there, and worse, he does not even appear to have slept there last night.
Beethoven interrogates housekeeper Barbara Holzmann. She thinks Karl is too high and mighty, and doesn’t tell her anything. But he did not say anything to her when he left about what he had planned. Beethoven asks where he was going to stay. Perhaps trying to reassure Beethoven, she speculates he may have stayed at a good friend’s place and will return yet today.
What if they crossed paths, and Karl is on his way to Baden now? The housekeeper assures Ludwig that Karl has a key, so he can get into the apartment there.
Karl in fact does return to the apartment in the Ungargasse in the late morning. Uncle Ludwig blows up and asks why he didn’t return to Baden yesterday as they expected. Karl says he would have gladly come back there, but the business with the “Hausfrau” had to be taken care of. [Presumably the wife of the building superintendent for Beethoven’s apartment in Vienna; Beethoven’s lease will be up on Michaelmas, September 29th, and Beethoven plainly will need to stay over since he has not yet found a suitable apartment.] The wife of the building superintendent had to make him some camomile tea to settle his stomach. If Uncle Ludwig doesn’t believe Karl, he can ask her.
Karl continues, “As soon as I left Baden, I didn’t feel well at all and got stomach aches. [After dealing with the building superintendent’s wife,] I stayed in bed yesterday and wanted to come out today, but got to [the coach station at the Wieden] too late because I had to get up even later. At night, I had to go into the chamber pot several times, and even you can see that I look worse for it.”
Uncle Ludwig wants to know where Karl just came from. Karl repeats that he came from the Wieden at Alleegasse, behind the Karlskirche, where he looked unsuccessfully for a carriage to Baden. Defensive, Karl says he would have come out to Baden in any case. Uncle Ludwig retorts, “When were you going to come?” Karl answers, “This afternoon.”
Uncle Ludwig asks whether Karl took his spectacles for the optician. Yes, Karl says, his uncle told him to, so he did.
Still angry, Ludwig demands to know where Karl spent the night, since he did not spend it here. Karl writes “At [Joseph] Niemetz’s mother’s place. She was here [at the apartment] yesterday and in the course of conversation invited me, because she saw that I sleep so badly here and was in such a bad way.” [Since the servants were all in Baden, there was likely no food to be had in the apartment.] Karl didn’t want to go to a restaurant [Wirsthaus], and since Frau Niemetz has known him so long, he went there. Uncle Ludwig, suspicious, asks how he happened to see her. Karl says he had borrowed a book of Joseph’s, and she had come to ask about it.
Conversation Book 75, 1v-3v. These entries conclude Conversation Book 75. From these entries, we see the composer both highly agitated and deeply worried about Karl (probably worried in particular that he was in contact with his mother, which Ludwig did not approve of), and Karl in turn chafing under the controlling nature of his uncle. Our deepest thanks to regular contributor Birthe Kibsgaard for making the chronology of the last few days much clearer.
Later today, the storm over, Karl mentions that Brother Johann will be coming to visit them in Baden on Sunday, September 26. [They may have received a letter from Johann, which is no longer extant.]
This comment begins Conversation Book 76, and is found on 1r. This book has 29 leaves, covering a period of around ten days. There are, however, no entries for September 25, and it will resume with Johann’s arrival in Baden on Sunday, September 26. The first two leaves were torn at some point, but have since been restored. Schindler has marked the book as “1825 (in Baden). im Herbst [in Autumn]. Stumpf aus London.” The contents of the book seem to refer to the marriage of Archduke Franz Karl in October of 1824. Beethoven’s visitor Johann Andreas Stumpff left Vienna about October 19 of 1824, so Schindler is off by a year, which Thayer noted and corrected in ink on leaf 3r.
The three of them return to Baden either later today or tomorrow morning.
Today’s Wiener Zietung (Nr.220) at 919 includes an announcement that the Emperor yesterday ordered that the court be in mourning for King Louis XVIII of France, who died on September 16, for the next twenty days. The first 12 days, from September 23 to October 4 are to be in deep mourning, and the last 8, from October 5 to 12 should be less deep. [Louis XVIII had earlier this year bestowed upon Beethoven a gold medal in honor of his Missa Solemnis.]