BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, May 22, 1826
Today, Conversation Book 111 begins being used. This book is used in tandem with Conversation Book 110 over the remainder of the month of May. Book 111 is a smaller volume of only 22 leaves. The leaves are bound out of order; the last four leaves (19-22) are used first, today, as unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven for the first time in over a week. The reasons for Holz’s absence have left few traces in the conversation books.
Holz, returned from a few days in the country, visits Beethoven in his apartment, and asks whether publisher Mathias Artaria has come to see him. Beethoven says he should have told him that there are other publishers that want to pay 100 ducats for five songs. Holz says he did tell him. “I do not know that it is so [Holz’s discomfort is confirmed by the fact that there is no indication from the surviving correspondence that it is true], but with the publishers you have to talk that way.”
In any event, Artaria has settled up with Anton Halm about the four-hands piano arrangement of the Grosse Fugue finale of the string quartet op.130. He may still publish the entire quartet for four-hands piano, but for now he is only concerned with the Fugue.
Beethoven is satisfied, so Holz confirms that he doesn’t have to talk to Artaria about this any more. Beethoven asked when the quartet op.130 will be published. “It was just a delay on his part; he will regret it, for he asked me to make it possible for him to have the new quartet [op.131, still in progress]. He has a lot to do, I suppose; now [they are doing] the inventory of [bankrupt banking house] Fries’ copper engraving collection; he has to be present.”
Beethoven mentions the letter he wrote to Holz in his absence [dictated to Karl yesterday]. Holz only received it today; he went into the country the day before yesterday [Saturday, May 20.] Beethoven asks where he went. The village of Altmannsdorf, near Hetzendorf. Holz thought that everything was in order with Artaria and that he had come to see Beethoven.
Beethoven offers Holz coffee but he declines, saying he already had coffee.
Holz mentions that Nanette Schechner will be singing for the first time in Vienna in Die Schweizerfamilie by Joseph Weigl. Beethoven asks what the quality of her voice is like. Holz says rather like Anna Milder-Hauptmann [who played Leonore in the 1805 version of Fidelio], but with more flexibility of the throat. Fidelio is also one of Schechner’s main roles. [Later today, Holz will go to see Schechner perform.]
The dinner is the topic of conversation. The meat when cold is very good. It has been fried very well, but the meat itself is not so good. It’s better cold, because it gets harder.
Holz asks whether Tobias Haslinger is playing new pranks again. “If you want me to, I shall go to him once in a while, and ask about your letters. It is simply necessary that you write to your correspondents instructing them not to turn anything in to Haslinger for you, because you would risk receiving important letters only after four weeks have elapsed. The head of the household must speak here.” Beethoven again complains about Artaria’s delays. “I did not go to Artaria, otherwise I would have known of his sluggishness.” Holz doesn’t know what to think about it either. Whenever he goes, Holz never finds Artaria at home. His business is so versatile that Holz understands why he struggles to keep up.
Beethoven also is annoyed at the delays in hearing from B. Schott’s Son’s in Mainz, regarding their response to his offer of the String Quartet op.131. Holz tells him that it will probably be 4 weeks until they respond; at this point it would be impossible under any circumstances to change anything.
“I hear from many friends that a complete edition of your works would be highly welcome; perhaps one could talk to the old Schlesinger [Adolph Schlesinger in Berlin] about this, for now is the time for it. [Beethoven had discussed such an edition with Adolph’s son Parisian publisher Maurice Schlesinger, when he was in Vienna last September.] Beethoven mentions that young Maurice’s storehouse was lost in a fire earlier this year. Holz says “Some will assert that the warehouse was of no importance; others will even slander him, saying that he was protected by fire casualty insurance, and that he set fire to it himself.” Beethoven asks Holz to remind him who handles the distribution for Maurice Schlesinger in Vienna. Holz answers, the Tendler and Manstein bookshop, which has been acting for Maurice in Vienna since 1821.
Beethoven comments on the weather being strange. Holz says that on May 2, St. Petersburg had a heat of 18 degrees [Reaumur; 72.5 degrees Fahrenheit] while it was freezing cold in Madrid.
Conversation Book 111, 19r-22v.
The Fifth Royal Academic Concert is held today in London, England, and the second part opens with Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. “The instrumental pieces in this concert require no comment, they are so well known…” The Harmonicon of June 1826, Nr.XLII at 130.
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.115) at 492 includes an advertisement from T. Weigl’s Art and Music Shop for the newest work by Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny, the Grand Divertissement in the form of a Rondo brilliant for pianoforte, with accompaniment of two violins, viola and violoncello, his op.122. The same is also available for piano solo.
Although this Grand Divertissement op.118 by Czerny does not appear to have ever been recorded, here is a synthesized version of the piano arrangement: