BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, January 23, 1826 (approximately)

Likely either this morning, or after Holz and Nephew Karl left last night, the new housekeeper, Frau Lindner approaches Beethoven, and he has a short conversation with her. She asks, “Won’t the time be long for Your Honor to be bored while you are alone?” Beethoven asks who she worked for previously. “A certain lieutenant’s wife; she has 6 children.” She was paid 300 florins in silver coin for the year, and was contracted with her for 9 years. Beethoven, possibly joking, makes a comment about his housekeepers cheating him out of money. Lindner answers, “I cannot cheat you out of any money, anyhow, if Your Honor wishes something, I just ask you to call me.”

Beethoven doesn’t think much of the current kitchen maid and her conduct. Lindner says that at least she is willing to work. “One needs only to train her, and if she won’t be dissuaded, then it must end. I don’t allow that.” Lindner doesn’t rely on servants until they have been trained. But she assures Beethoven she will not let the maid be slack. She has made bread soup for today; if Beethoven would like bread soup at any other time, he just needs to ask for it.

Conversation Book 102, 46r-46v. This concludes Conversation Book 102. Conversation Book 103 picks up in early February, so there is probably a conversation book missing that covered the last week or so of January.

Sometime about now, but probably not long after Stephan von Breuning’s visit to Beethoven on January 21, Beethoven writes him a letter. “You are, my esteemed friend, overwhelmed with work, and I too, and I am still not entirely well, would have already invited you to dinner, but now I need several people ‘whose witty author is the cook, and whose witty works are not, in fact, in their cellar,’ yet who still will tend to the kitchen and cellar, and whose company would be of little use to me or to you. However, this will soon change. Do not buy [Joseph] Czerni’s Piano School. [Referring to the recommendation for young Gerhard von Breuning’s piano studies.] I will receive more detailed information about another one in the next few days.” [Beethoven will provide a copy of Muzio Clementi’s piano method later this year for Gerhard.]

“Here is the fashion journal promised to your wife, and something for your children. The journal can always be sent to you by me, just as you have the right to command everything else you wish from me.” [Likely the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode, or Vienna Magazine for Art, Literature, Theater and Fashion, which was published Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.]

“With love and veneration, your friend, Beethoven. I hope we see each other again soon.”

Brandenburg Letter 2107; Anderson Letter 1473. This letter is held by the Bonn Beethovenhaus, H.C. Bodmer Collection Br 108, and can be seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/4818954270801920/scan/0