BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, April 22, 1822

In today’s Wiener Zeitung, Cappi & Diabelli repeats its advertisement for the 8 Variations on a French Song, op.10/D.624 by Schubert and dedicated to Beethoven; Artaria repeats Rossini’s message about their firm having exclusive rights to Zelmira (a rather dubious claim in a day with little in the way of enforceable copyrights; Austria did not have a copyright law until 1846).

In the same section of the newspaper, Friedrich Volke, book dealer, advertises for sale the works of Italian poet Pietro Metastasio in a set of 20 volumes in 12. Beethoven was a big fan of Metastasio, setting several dozen of his poems to music. Among these are the soprano aria “Ah, perfido!;” four of the vocal pieces that make up op.82; the scene and aria “No, non turbati” WoO 92a; the duo “Ne’ giorni tuoi felici” for soprano, tenor and orchestra; and the canon WoO 186 (as well as the variants Hess 263 and Hess 264). Beethoven probably developed a taste for Metastasio’s poetry from his lessons in Italian vocal writing that he took from Antonio Salieri in about 1801. Many of the poems set by Beethoven in the Italian part songs WoO 99 are from Metastasio.