BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, June 6, 1825

Nephew Karl takes an early carriage, before 6 a.m., from Baden to Vienna since he has classes today at the Polytechnic Institute.

It seems that there was some tension between Karl and his uncle that is not reflected in the conversation books. Ludwig today drafts a letter to Karl in the conversation book after he leaves, in French, so as not to be readable by the servants. Ludwig rather surprisingly uses the polite form of you, “vous,” rather than the familiar form, “tu.” “You received your florin, and if you need something else, must say so and must send a letter. In regards to the apartment” [The sentence here ends. Ludwig had earlier told Karl that he should borrow a florin from the household where he is staying if he needs money, Ludwig probably has given him the florin to repay that obligation, but does not sound very pleased about it, likely suspecting that Karl is spending money on frivolous things.]

Brandenburg Letter 1985; Albrecht Letter 408. Whether Beethoven ever sent this letter is unknown.

Beethoven also gives some more thought to the projected collected edition of his works for piano: “Sonatas, Variations, etc., divided into several volumes. Perhaps the Breitkopf Company’s treatment will serve as a model.” [The Breitkopf firm had published collected editions of Mozart and Haydn early in the 19th century, but they were not complete. They eventually published the complete works of Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, Handel and others, but did not begin doing so systematically until many years later. Breitkopf will also eventually publish Beethoven’s collected works in the Gesamtausgabe, some 50 years after Beethoven’s death.]

Conversation Book 89, 35r.

The eighth and final concert of the London Philharmonic Society’s season is held this evening, under the baton of composer Thomas Attwood (1765-1838). Once again, the concert begins with a Beethoven symphony, this time the Seventh in A major. The Harmonicon for July, 1825 wrote at 118 that, “The merits of Beethoven’s symphony in A we have before discussed in this work, and we repeat, that, except the movement from it published in a former number of the Harmonicon [the second movement], it is a composition in which the author has indulged a great deal of disagreeable eccentricity. Often as we now have heard it performed, we cannot yet discover any design in it, neither can we trace any connexion in its parts. Altogether it seems to have been intended as a kind of enigma–we had almost said a hoax.”

Jeffrey Arlo Brown writes about this very review for VAN Magazine, as picked up by Google Arts & Culture, at https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-best-takedowns-of-beethoven-ranked/3AVB-0NtjUh7yA?hl=en : “There are Beethoven pieces that lack design (‘Choral Fantasy‘ Op. 80, cough cough). But to make that accusation about the Seventh Symphony, one of the most exquisitely-structured orchestral pieces ever written? Besides, the last sentence hardly makes sense: Enigma is an excellent condition for art to aspire to, and very different from a hoax.”

In today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.126), Anton Diabelli & Co. advertises at 548 a set of three newly published lieder on poems by Goethe, composed by Franz Schubert, as his op.19. These are: 1) An Schwager Kronos (today catalogued as D.369); 2) An Mignon (D.161); and 3) Ganymed (D.544). The second of these poems, An Mignon (Über Thal und Fluß getragen) is not the same as Goethe’s Mignon (Kennst du das Land), which was set by Beethoven as his op.75/1, written in 1809.

Schubert’s An Mignon D.161 is here performed by Graham Johnson and Martyn Hill: