BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Friday, September 8, 1826

This is a holiday, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Beethoven makes a day trip to the village of Nussdorf in the country today to escape the heat of the City. There are no remarks from this trip in Conversation Book 120, which suggests that another book may have been used on this trip and lost or discarded. We know a few details about the trip only from a mention in a letter Beethoven writes to Holz tomorrow.

Holz also writes to Beethoven from Baden again today, but the letter is lost. In it, Holz asks Beethoven if he wants to move to Baden for what is left of the summer. If so, he knows of an apartment that is available there for him. Brandenburg Letter 2196. The letter’s existence and a general description of its contents are known from a mention of it in the letter by Beethoven in response. Presumably Holz also tells Beethoven that he will be staying in Baden a day longer than anticipated and will return to Vienna on Sunday, September 10, rather than Saturday September 9. Otherwise, Beethoven would not write to Holz in Baden tomorrow if he were expecting him back that same day.

Baron Karl August von Klein (1794-1870), an amateur pianist and composer in Mainz, writes today to publisher C.F. Peters in Leipzig. Heinrich Gugel of St. Petersburg recommended that Klein contact Peters to offer him a string quartet that he wrote and dedicated “to our worthy Beethoven.” Klein includes with it Beethoven’s letter of May 10, 1826 (Brandenburg Letter 2153; Anderson Letter 1484), in which he accepted the dedication at the request of Ignaz von Mosel. If Peters is inclined to publish the quartet, Klein would request only a number of copies and a few other musical items. Albrecht Letter 437. Klein would eventually write seven string quartets. Peters, wanting nothing to do with Beethoven, did not publish this quartet.