BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, July 18, 1825
Beethoven writes a letter of recommendation to Nephew Karl today for Alexander Thal, the son of a St. Petersburg merchant, who had been sent as a courier by Prince Nikolai Galitzin. This letter is catalogued as Brandenburg Letter 2011. The letter is not known to exist today, but its existence is known from the following letter to Karl. Thal appears to have kept the letter as a souvenir. Thal will come to visit Beethoven in Baden next Sunday. Thal arrived in Vienna from Venice on July 2, 1825, according to the Wiener Zeitung arrivals column for July 5, 1825 (Nr.150, p.693).
Beethoven writes a separate letter dated today to Karl, enclosing the letter for Thal. “Dear son! You see from this letter what can be seen — just remain modest. Fortune crowns my efforts, but do not let your misfortune be based on false views of yourself. Be truthful, and indeed, precise in your statements of your expenses. Leave the theater alone for now–follow your guide and father, follow him, whose thoughts and aspirations is always designed for your moral well-being, and is also not entirely without regard for the ordinary.”
“This H.[err] Thal will come to you, he will also be with Hönigstein [i.e., Galitzin’s banker Henikstein]. You can give him the overtures [Name Day Overture op.115 and Consecration of the House, op.124] at your discretion. He will stay here [presumably in the Vienna area] for three weeks, and you can offer him the opportunity to dine here once, preferably on Sundays when a certain rascal is present. Preferably he should come very early in the morning, by means of a carriage that I will send. Let us light the fire with these people; the best and noblest people are connected through art and science. Your future status [as a business person] does not exclude you from this.”
“If your time permits, you could take a carriage to Rampel [copyist Wenzel Rampl] about copying the quartet [op.132], you could tell him that I am writing quite differently now, more legibly than I did during my illness, and that this quartet is to be written out twice. I will then send it in; someone here [probably Manetinsky, who visited Beethoven two days ago looking for copying work] has also offered to do it, but I don’t know what he is capable of. I wouldn’t want to put too much trust in the wood of Christ or the splinter of the wood of Christ [i.e., Karl Holz] at first.”
“Write right away, the old goose [Barbara Holzmann] is coming to Vienna, perhaps the day after tomorrow. Farewell, follow my teachings, Your faithful, warmly embracing father.”
Beethoven adds as a postscript, “Perhaps you will go with this H. Thal to Hönigstein, but you must not ask too much about the money.”
Brandenburg Letter 2012; Anderson Letter 1402. The original is held in the Biblioteka Jagiellonska in Krakow (Mus. ep. autogr. Beethoven 36). Part of Thal’s mission was to deliver the funds of 50 ducats each for the next two quartets to Henikstein, to be paid out upon receipt of the scores from Beethoven. Beethoven had been thinking of having Henikstein forward the overtures to Galitzin. Rampl lived in the Vienna suburb of Rossau. Although he was one of Beethoven’s favorite copyists after the late Wenzel Schlemmer, Rampl refused to work from Beethoven’s autographs any more. Joseph Linke and Karl Holz will thus make a fair copy of the parts for this quartet for Rampl to work from, and he will make the copy for Galitzin and also for the publisher (as yet to be determined.)
According to the Wiener Zeitung of July 20, 1825 (Nr.163) at 693, Archduke Rudolph returns to Vienna this evening, arriving “at the Imperial and Royal Hofburg in the desired state of well-being.”