BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, June 26, 1820 (approximately)

Conversation Book 14, leaves 57r through 58r.

Beethoven is reading the June 24 Intelligenzblatt at a local coffeehouse. Since Mödling is a small town, the coffeehouse may not have been open on Sunday, in which case he would not be reading the Vienna Saturday newspapers until Monday. The dating is uncertain, but within a day.

He makes note of an advertisement for rubber elastic hearing organs by Dr. Sigmund Wolfsohn, who had operated on Karl’s hernia earlier.

Coffee-loving Beethoven is interested in a “newly invented coffee machine” that works with cold water, advertised by a master tinsmith.

Beethoven makes note of another Vienna apartment for the fall on the Mölker-bastei, this time at number 1237.

On of the more unusual books of interest is a slipcased edition of “The Dentist: A Pocketbook for the Fair Sex” (Vienna, 1817).