BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, July 17, 1826 (approximately)

Violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh visits Beethoven sometime in the first half of this week, but the date cannot be narrowed down much more than that. Since Schuppanzigh often did so on Mondays, we propose the visit may occur today. As usual, Schuppanzigh addresses Beethoven in the third person, which is ignored here for clarity.

Schuppanzigh asks if Beethoven knows the new Court Councilor for Music, Carl Leonhard von Harrach (1765-1831). Beethoven knows of him through unpaid assistant Karl Holz, since they both work in the same government office. [Harrach succeeded Count Moritz von Dietrichstein in that post as of June 13, 1826.] Schuppanzigh was on the interview panel. Harrach told them he played the piano and the flute somewhat in his youth.

Beethoven is interested in the French opera troupe at the Kärntnertor Theater, and whether it is like Italian opera. Schuppanzigh thinks French opera is not worth anything either. But they are now going to rehearse Fidelio. [The performance does not occur until 1831.] Schuppanzigh thinks it would be good to give the tenor part of Florestan to Giulio Radicchi (1763-1846). Schuppanzigh discussed it with him. “He says that if he were asked by the management, he would not reject it because of his esteem for Beethoven, despite the fact that he is only engaged by the Italian opera. [Unpaid assistant Karl Holz will later dismiss Radicchi as singing “like a 60-year-old woman.”]

“The archduke is here [in Vienna] now. Does he not want to hear your new quartets? When are we going to rehearse the new quartet?” [op.131] Beethoven tells him that the score is finished but parts still need to be made. Schuppanzigh tells him that his quartet can write out their own parts from the score.

Schuppanzigh asks if Beethoven did not receive a letter from Anton Diabelli (1781-1858). Beethoven has not. Schuppanzigh tells him that he wanted to have a quintet, and would pay 100 ducats for it. He also says Beethoven promised to write him a sonata for piano four hands for 80 ducats. He is firm on the quartet and it is settled. He asked Schuppanzigh to inquire with Beethoven beforehand, if those conditions were acceptable to write a quintet. If they are, Diabelli will come personally to set the terms. Beethoven thinks that was a smart approach. Schuppanzigh jokes that people are becoming smarter with time.

Count Andreas Razoumovsky is arriving from Russia in Vienna today. [Razoumovsky was the dedicatee of the op.59 quartets, and has served as the Russian ambassador to the Austrian court for over 30 years at this point.] While he agreed to pay Schuppanzigh a pension, nothing has been received for the last 5 months. He expects that it will be paid when Razoumovsky arrives in person.

Schuppanzigh asks whether Beethoven has seen Frau Dorothea Ertmann, who is visiting Vienna, yet. Beethoven tells him, yes, she and her husband paid a call on him. “She wants very much to hear your new quartets.” [Schuppanzigh and Holz will try to arrange a private concert for them next month.]

Conversation Book 115, 8r-10v.

In Berlin today, an outdoor concert is given by Music Director Karl Möser (1774-1851). The Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of July 26 (Nr.30) at 242, continuing into the August 2 issue (Nr.31) at 246-248 gives editor Adolph Marx’s account of this presentation, making note of the Berlin audience’s resistance to what is now called program music. Möser “had chosen an open garden area surrounded by trees for the concert and had reinforced the orchestra with amateur musicians. The musicians from the Königstadt Theater were also invited but were apparently unable to attend. So, the beginning of a more collective effect has finally been made in Berlin. What more could be achieved here by combining all forces and what a sense of community could be gained? If the great mass of players had been brought together in one hall, the effect would have been impressive.”

“Despite all the energy that the violinists used, the reverberation that gives the proper fullness was missing, and the string instruments and the timpani in particular failed to have the effect they are capable of. Due to the lack of resonance, the sounds of the string instruments especially became so isolated that one would easily have been able to hear each individual violinist continuously if one had only paid a little attention to them. We will later discuss how detrimental this was under the circumstances.”

“The selection of concert pieces left almost nothing to be desired for a garden concert. The Pastoral and Battle Symphonies [Wellington’s Victory, op.91] by Beethoven, the overtures to Oberon by Weber, to Olimpia by Spontini, to Faust by Spohr, songs for male vocalists by [Carl Friedrich] Zelter and [Friedrich Ferdinand] Flemming – perhaps never before has so much good and great music been united in a single Berlin concert.”

…

“The most important productions of this evening were Beethoven’s great musical paintings, the Pastoral Symphony and Wellington’s Victory. The former is becoming more and more a favorite of Berliners and today, surrounded by slender, light trees, under a gently lit evening sky, the innermost meaning of this spring scene seemed to emerge once again so vividly and so beautifully. A happy coincidence happened in the first G major in the Andante where the flute soars so lightly; the sun, which had been hidden until then, once again shook the leaves with its rays.”

“Nevertheless, a kind of noble reserve is evident, particularly among the more educated part of the local public, towards individual passages of this music, as well as towards the greater part of the Battle Symphony and similar works, for example, also towards Haidn’s The Seasons. The reserve is based on the fact that the so-called tone paintings, and consequently the compositions themselves which contain them, are regarded as games, the offspring of a petty conception; in short as an unworthy aberration, and thus the influence of those works is overlooked – a view which is equally daring and incorrect in both its premise and conclusion, and which the reviewer has long since intended to oppose.”

“Unfortunately, today’s performance did not offer a good opportunity to make this matter clear through deeds and words. Probably because the venue was unenclosed, the noise of battle accompanying the symphony was amplified with drums, cannon and musket machines and actual fireworks to such an extent that the music could hardly be heard at all, let alone be the main thing. The introductory marches and fanfares were also lengthened by repetition to such an extent that they could not but reduce the tension instead of increasing it.”

“After that concluded, the field music did not start immediately or quickly enough, and there was therefore no fusion between the music and the purely musical masses. The French drums were tuned as low as the English ones, contrary to the truth and character, instead of giving them the shrill, rattling French sound (after the rolling drums of the northern nations); the French ‘Marlborough‘ also began too slowly—without that French impetuosity that Beethoven was surely counting on.”

“Finally, even the thunderstorm in the Pastoral Symphony was supplemented with rain, storm and thundering machines, and thereby the musical description, indeed, the music in general (which could hardly be heard in its entirety) was pushed into the background, to which the unfortunate location contributed a great deal, as I have already mentioned.”

“If one also takes into account the mistakes of the engineers, e.g., the storm machine coming on too early in the Pastoral Symphony, the continuous rain when the music was describing the opposite, one cannot expect the audience to come away with a correct understanding. The critic therefore wishes and expects a more satisfactory and favorable performance in order to present his opinion, but then also wishes every music lover to break away from their preconceived opinions and to devote themselves in an unbiased manner to understanding the work, under conditions suitable to a satisfactory understanding.”

“In the meantime, against the authority of the theorists who have spoken against painting with music, it should be remembered that there is hardly an artist of any importance who has not so painted, and indeed in complete opposition to that opinion: Sebastian Bach, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber—these are names which outweigh any other and should at least hold back the noble judgment against tone-painting.”

“Herr Music Director Möser is the man whose enthusiasm and talent we can pin our hopes to for a speedy and successful repetition of the same compositions in a more favorable venue. The editor hereby certainly expresses the wishes of many.”

The Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of September 13, 1826 (Nr.37) contains a brief notice of this concert as well at 611. “Among the almost daily garden concerts, one that deserves special mention was that given by Music Director Möser on July 17th in the beautiful spaces of Reimer’s Garden. In addition to the Royal Orchestra, several musicians from the Königstädt Theater, the royal students in his class, several amateurs, and military musicians participated. He performed Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony and Battle of Vittoria, the overtures to C.M. von Weber’s Oberon, Spohr’s Faust, and Spontini’s Olympia; finally, the Royal Singers, the Royal Choir, and the royal singing students performed several men’s choruses by Zelter.”

The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Antal Dorati here plays Wellington’s Victory: