BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, January 9, 1826

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz delivers the score of the new quartet, op.130, to Vienna publisher Mathias Artaria today. Beethoven had promised it to Maurice Schlesinger in Paris, but Schlesinger’s agent in Vienna, Biedermann, balked at paying on delivery as had been agreed since he had not heard anything from Schlesinger in several months. Holz thus took the opportunity to arrange for his friend Artaria to publish the quartet instead. [Schlesinger will end up with the quartet op.135 instead as a consolation prize.] The Finale of the op.130 quartet at this point is still the Grosse Fuge; the Finale for the quartet that we know now will not be written until much later in the year.

Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.7) at 20 includes an advertisement from Sauer & Leidesdorf for the 21st volume in their edition of the Collected Operas of Rossini, Cenerentola in two acts, or piano solo with the text omitted. The price is 10 florins W.W.; 6 florins to subscribers.