BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, June 12, 1826 (approximately)
Beethoven works on a shopping list:
- slippers
- sheets
- scarves
- handkerchiefs
- slippers [The appearance of slippers twice on the list suggests that Beethoven may have added items over more than one day. He had also noted that slippers were available in the Wollzeile on Saturday, June 10 while he was out and about. Slippers will appear on the shopping list yet again on Friday, June 16.]
Conversation Book 112, 21v.
Part of today’s conversation book entries are found on two loose leaves held by the Bonn Beethovenhaus. BH 53, pp.35-38. The date can be determined from a reference to a court procession which occurs today.
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven and tells him that publisher Mathias Artaria promised to send the parts of the new quartet, op.130, as soon as the first proofs have been printed.
Holz tells Beethoven an anecdote, which Nephew Karl had already related a few days ago: “8 days ago, 12 journeymen came to the police here. They brought their travel books from Munich in order to have them signed here. In each of these books was found, signed from Munich: ‘In the absence of my police officer: [King of Bavaria] Karl Ludwig.—They said that they had waited in front of the doors to the bureau in Munich during the normal open hours, and then the King passed; he asked why they did not go inside and let themselves be served; the answer was that there was still no police officer present; then the king had the bureau opened at once, and signed the travel books himself. That is a bit like Emperor Joseph [II].”
Holz notes that there was a second procession for the Court today, to obtain Jubilee indulgences from the Church. [The indulgences required a commitment of marching in two separate processions.]
There is an art exhibition in Vienna, which opened on May 25. Holz went to see it this morning. “Few works of art, much smearing. Our most excellent painters have to resort to portrait painting.”
The topic shifts to the planned oratorio on David and Saul, the libretto for which is being written by poet Christoph Kuffner (1780-1846). Beethoven fears it will remind people too much of Handel’s oratorio on the same subject. Holz tries to reassure him, “Kuffner’s project is quite different.” In any event, “Händel’s oratorios, except for Jephta, Messiah, and some larger ones, are not so popular anymore; one hears it and sees it, unfortunately. Moreover, Saul by Händel is less extensively developed, so far as the text is concerned, than the one from Kuffner.”
Beethoven frets about the possibility that someone will perform both of the oratorios in a single concert, and that preconceptions would make Handel’s version seem superior to his. Holz adds, “By the way, such a combination, or as you think, biased comparison, cannot be avoided, even if your oratorio were performed first. Who vouches that Mosel would not arrange it so later?” Beethoven is unconvinced. Holz adds, “Great masters have always come to a meeting of minds on the choice of subjects; the execution, the form however has always been different, and how different would it be with Beethoven!” He asks whether Holz knows for certain that Mosel plans such a stunt? Holz clarifies, “I do not think that Mosel knows about your intentions. I rather think he himself would renounce working on a performance of this [Handel’s] oratorio when he learns that you are writing one on the same subject.” Based on his misgivings, Beethoven suggests that they should not proceed with Saul. Holz tells him that in that case, it would be best to inform Kuffner as soon as possible.
Holz notes that Moritz Graf von Dietrichstein (1775-1864), director of the Hoftheater since 1821, was appointed as Prefect of the Court Library. [This occurred on May 30, so this conversation definitely takes place after that date.] He has been relieved of his duties as Court Councilor for Music and as theater director.
Graf Leonhard Harrach, with whom Holz works at the Lower Austrian Revenue Office, has applied for the position of Court Councilor for Music in Dietrichstein’s place. “He mentioned in his application that 20 years ago he played the flute a little and also that he had hosted quartet performances in his house.” [Harrach was appointed to the position on June 13, so this conversation occurs before that date.]
The London Philharmonic Society gives its eighth concert of the season this evening, with Sir George Smart conducting. The death of Carl Maria von Weber a week ago at the home of Sir George is marked by the performance of the Dead March from Handel’s Saul; this same piece will be played when Weber is interred later this month.
The first act of the concert concludes with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. The second act includes an encore performance of Beethoven’s String Quintet op.29. Other pieces on the program include Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony and Magic Flute Overture. The Harmonicon for July, 1826 (Nr.XLIII) at 152 merely says, “Of Mozart’s Symphony, and the two Overtures, all of which we have so frequently mentioned, we need only say that they were executed with the utmost precision, and heard with unabated satisfaction.”
The Quintet was performed by the same group as in the seventh concert, except Charles August de Beriot takes the first violin part in place of Christoph Gottfried Kiesewetter. The other artists are again Antonio James Oury, Joseph A. Moralt, Charles Jane Ashley, and Robert Lindley. The Harmonicon remarked, “The Quintett strengthened our opinion of M. Beriot’s abilities, though some few thought that he wanted warmth and energy in his mode of performing it. To us, however, it appeared perfect, and exactly in the style that the author himself would have approved.”
Today’s Wiener Zeitung, Nr.132, at 562 includes an advertisement from S.A. Steiner & Co. for Beethoven’s Rondeau brilliant from Concerto op.75 [sic; should be op.73] arranged for piano four hands by Friedrich Mockwitz (1785-1849), for 1 florin 30 kreutzers C.M. On the same page, there is an advertisement from T. Weigl of the Caprice for pianoforte, op.108, by Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny.