BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, May 2, 1825

This morning, Beethoven and his former housekeeper Barbara Holzmann take a fiacre to Baden bei Wien in order to secure a summer apartment for the composer. Holzmann is along to make sure that he will have what he needs during his summer stay. Brother Johann departs for his estate in Gneixendof today, so he will not be able to accompany Ludwig. The first place they look at has the kitchen upstairs. It gets the sun midday and in the evening, which is not so practical since Beethoven likes to work in the morning and vitally needs morning sun.

What may be a different apartment is not a good option either; it is available only for two months, because they have a tenant secured for July. They have another apartment in the same building, however. If they will wait till noon and come back, the administrator should be back by then to let them know the rent.

Beethoven and Holzmann head to Schloss Gutenbrunn, where they had spent last summer. The new landlord will not make much of a concession; he will agree to drop the price another 25 florins W.W., but he can have it from today through the end of October, 1825. He should bring the mattresses out. The windows in the four rooms will all be changed within the next few days; the glazer is starting his work on the windows tomorrow. Beethoven can have it through October [he had stayed there until October last year too] but in November the widow, Frau von Schimmer, will be moving in herself.

The traveling and exertions are getting to the aged Holzmann, who asks that the carriage be brought to the Schloss. [The temperatures are probably in the 70s Fahrenheit.] The administrator says he has lived there in Baden 20 years and is healthy, but he also gets a great deal of exercise. He suggests Beethoven should live there year round, since health is the most important thing for a person.

The Schimmers’ daughter is going to Ischl in Hungary for the summer. Her apartment is available while she is gone, but that one would cost 1,000 florins. There are also some beautiful rooms up in the attic, but they are too warm to be comfortable in the summertime. It is important that they get the apartments rented for the summer because there are taxes to be paid by Johann von Schimmer’s estate.

Beethoven is still toying with the idea of a house that he could occupy fully or purchase. Are there any such in the neighborhood? The administrator says he knows of one that is very suitable and reasonably priced, near the garden of the Schloss. If Beethoven can come back in a few days, they can take a look at it. The earnest money would be very reasonable. It has one floor [two floors American.]

Beethoven starts to complain about his health. The administrator shows concern, asking whether he is in pain, and which doctor he is seeing about his problems. The administrator is surprised when he hears that Braunhofer is handling his care, and asks whether Dr. Staudenheim, Beethoven’s usual doctor, is sick himself. [He follows suit calling him “Staudenheimer” as Ludwig and Karl usually do.]

Beethoven decides to take the Schloss Gutenbrunn apartment, for a rental fee of 475 florins W.W., which is more than he had wanted to spend, but he clearly doesn’t want to make a second trip, and he knows the property already so it seems the best option under the circumstances. Beethoven pays 100 florins earnest money for the apartment. He and Holzmann take the fiacre to the public coach, and then they ride that coach inexpensively (3 florins each) back to Vienna.

Once back home, Ludwig meets Nephew Karl. Karl will see Fries tomorrow about the bill of exchange. There should be no further delays. The maid informs Beethoven that Ludwig Rellstab came to visit him this morning while he was in Vienna.

Ludwig asks whether he needs to meet with someone [likely Franz Reisser at the Polytechnic, who would be serving as Karl’s co-guardian.] Karl thinks that unnecessary, but if Uncle Ludwig wants to, the only time where he could be seen would be between 8 and 9 in the morning. He has his morning coffee then at the Blue Stag coffee house nearby.

Ludwig wants to know whether Karl intends to be diligent in his studies now that he has left the University. “If I want to make progress now, it goes without saying that I must be diligent, which I will. Otherwise, I have no objection at all to the choice of co-guardian.”

They talk about Brother Johann having departed for Gneixendorf. Ludwig asks whether Johann’s adulterous wife is still in Vienna. No, Karl responds. She isn’t here now; she went to Linz. She has her own money to spend, and she can waste it however she wants. Johann seems to be happy that she’s living elsewhere.

Conversation Book 88, 44v-49r.

Rellstab gives this account in Sonneck, Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries at 189-190. He has just returned from Pressburg and Eisenstadt. “Our pleasant excursion into Hungarian territory had been accomplished under the serenest skies of the awakening spring. We still had two days left for Vienna, days into which, it is true, a great deal had to be crowded together. Yet I did manage to snatch an hour in order to hunt up Beethoven once more; for since our last moment of parting I felt that we were more closely connected; that, perhaps, we might approach each other even more intimately; and with this feeling confidence in my undertaking once more grew strong within me.”

“Hastily I had hurried up the long flight of stairs–but in vain. For the first time I was told that Beethoven was not at home. The first moment I was painfully moved; yet soon reflected that, after all, it probably was best so. My unforgettable moment of farewell could not be repeated; instead of that most glowing recollection I might have carried away a chiller one. Hence I made up my mind to leave behind only my name, with a word of adieu beneath it, that Beethoven might see no heedless negligence on my part had prevented my revisiting him. Once more I cast a glance at the anteroom, at the door before which I had experienced such strangely tense and oppressive moments, then turned quickly away, in an unclear mingling of emotions, which every one who understands such matters will comprehend without description, and which nothing in the world would make comprehensible to one untouched by the fact itself.”

“I now regarded all these matters as settled, so far as I was concerned, and attended with a greater feeling of ease to what I still had to do in the beautiful, radiant imperial city.” But Rellstab will pay one more call on Beethoven.