BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, June 28, 1824 (approximately)

Nephew Karl makes a note of Frau von Tumion. [This may refer to Irene Tomeoni (1763-1830), an Italian soprano who owned two houses in the City and one in Penzing. She may have brought Beethoven a flier on June 24.]

There is no carriage to be had. [Ludwig and Karl seem to be wanting to travel back to Penzing from Vienna.] They could try to get seats in a fiacre. Or, Uncle Ludwig suggests, they could convince Brother Johann to take them.

The theater entrepreneur of Hietzing and Meidling, Leopold Hoch, is negotiating to take over the theater in Baden bei Wien as well. Karl Friedrich Hensler, who has the current lease, has reduced seat prices greatly. A reserved locked seat is only 1 florin W.W., while the ground floor parterre is but 50 kreutzers.

Housekeeper Barbara Holzmann believes the young maid knows very beautiful feminine crafts. Holzmann will be unhappy if she has to go back to the poorhouse for the elderly, and she doesn’t have it so good there; Karl thinks Uncle Ludwig pampers her. [She is currently on a four-week leave of absence from the Spital, which started June 10.]

Karl notes that the Emperor bought a polar bear from Hermann van Aken’s traveling menagerie [which will shortly be leaving Vienna. Frequent contributor Birthe Kibsgaard notes that the purchase may have been for the zoo at Schönbrunn.]

Karl’s friend and fellow student Carl Enk writes briefly in the conversation book. Beethoven asks what he has studied. “Philosophy in Salzburg and Graz; law here.” He doesn’t think there’s a great deal of difference between Graz and Vienna. Salzburg is not what it used to be.

A subscription application arrives from Adolf Bäuerle for his Allgemeine Theater-Zeitung newspaper. Karl asks Ludwig whether he wants to accept it. Uncle Ludwig asks when Bäuerle sent it, and Karl answers on Saturday, June 26.

Uncle Ludwig makes another note of an idea for a Mass for the Emperor: “After the ‘Amen‘ of the Mass, a section with four wind instruments.”

Conversation Book 72, 21r-23v.

In Berlin, Ludewig Krause today writes to Beethoven. Krause notes that on April 6 he sent an assignment of 50 ducats in the name of Prince Anton Radziwill to Beethoven, and requested a receipt and a copy of the score to the Missa Solemnis. However, nothing has been received in return. His Serene Highness has now returned from Russia to Posen, and asks about the status of the Mass. Krause asks Beethoven to promptly respond with confirmation that he received the 50 ducats, and to send the score, so he can forward it in turn to Prince Radziwill.

Brandenburg Letter 1847; Albrecht Letter 371. The original, which bears a June 29 Berlin postmark, is held by the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (aut.35,48). Beethoven will continue to ignore Krause’s requests for some months.