BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, December 6, 1824

Today is St. Nicholas’s day. Beethoven writes in his conversation book “+Christus Natus est,” referring to various phrases used on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day in the liturgy. Beethoven may have been considering composition of a Christmas Mass.

He also writes:
+Canons. [Beethoven is planning to send some canons to Schott for their musical journal, Cäcilia]
+to Galitzin: subscription to the Mass and to the Symphony.
Also to Paris, a Quartet.

Karl addresses the envelope for the letter to Schott in Mainz that Uncle Ludwig wrote yesterday, confirming in the conversation book that they are music publishers in Mainz.

Conversation Book 78, 17r.

Beethoven’s visitor in Baden during late September/early October, Johann Andreas Stumpff, returns home to London today. He remembers his promise to get Beethoven a set of the Complete Works of Handel, and starts trying to make arrangements to turn that pledge into a reality, but it will take much longer than he expects.