BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, May 31, 1824

Ludwig makes a short errand list today, for the tailor and the locksmith. Nephew Karl adds up the expenses of these errands, plus the amounts spent at the market and small shops.

Conversation Book 71, 6v.

Conversation Book 70 being filled and Book 71 not at hand, Karl likely goes back to page 5v of that book and inserts further comments there in an empty space. He tells Uncle Ludwig that Italian composer Carlo Soliva (1792-1853) is coming tomorrow to visit; he has to leave early on Wednesday, June 2.

About now, Beethoven writes a short undated letter to his brother Johann. He asks that he be allowed to borrow the Overture to Consecration of the House, op.124, and the Bundeslied, op.122, to check something for a day. Johann can then give them together with the lieder and Arietta Der Kuss to Sauer & Leidesdorf for publication. [Why Ludwig needed these works briefly is unclear. Sauer & Leidesdorf ended up not publishing the works in any event.]

The June issue of The Harmonicon magazine (Nr.XVIII) contains at 112-113 a review of Beethoven’s Piano Trio Variations on Wenzel Müller’s “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu,” op.121a, as published by Chappell & Co. in London. “Nearly all the new compositions of Beethoven which it has been our lot to notice, in this part of our work, have been of so elaborate and difficult a kind, so full of harsh and unaccountable combinations, and strange notation, that we have found it an arduous task to escape from mentioning them in terms of downright censure, and have struggled hard with duty, out of respect and gratitude to a genius of the first magnitude, whose former productions have afforded, and must always afford, us so much pleasure. But in reviewing the present trio we have nothing of so painful a kind to contend with; it is in a style quite different from those alluded to, and is, for Beethoven, so familiar in its manner, that some determined admirers of whatever is far-fetched and obscure, will, very likely, despise it for its comparative simplicity. In fact it might pass as Haydn’s; the subject, as will presently appear, cannot fail to recall him to the performer’s memory, it has all his clearness of melody and distinctness of rhythm.”

“In this Trio the accompaniments are obbligati, though they do not require performers of any great powers: and indeed, with the exception of a few passages, the piano-forte part may be undertaken by any tolerably good player. It consists of two movements; the first, an introduction, adagio assai, in G minor, and the second, a Theme varied. The former is in the grand style, and though it does not surprise with any thing quite strange to the ear, yet it shews the master in every note….”

“The violin and violoncello have but little to do in the Introduction, it might almost be performed without their aid.”

“The Tema, Allegretto,…we recommend that it be played as a moderated Allegretto.”

“There are ten variations upon this subject, which are devoid of the common-places that we have so often to deplore. They are full of spirit, shew the active imagination of the composer, are melodious, and quite scientific enough for the general taste and nature of the piece. The first is for the piano-forte solo; the second, chiefly for the violin, requires rather an active bow; the third is very smooth and graceful, and therefore given to the violoncello; the fourth demands a strong, agile left hand in the pianist, and the sixth, in octaves, will call his right into action. The seventh is a duo, for the two bow-instruments, and is a very elegant variation; the eighth is a sort of conversation piece, the interlocutors being the violin and violoncello on one side, and the piano-forte on the other; the ninth is a fine adagio, not too long, and the tenth is a kind of gigue, presto, very brilliant, and the most difficult of all for the keyed instrument.”

“We are much pleased by this Trio, and recommend it to all who do not insist upon liking compositions that are overcharged with musical learning, and repulsive from excessive difficulty.”

The Lithographic Institute of Vienna advertises in today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.124) at 524 the 14th issue of The New Amphion. This release includes a set of piano Variations on a Moldavian Air by Beethoven’s former pupil, Ferdinand Ries. This is likely Ries’ op.105/4 in E-flat, which was first published in 1823 in London by Clementi and Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. The advertisement also promises that the Lithographic Institute’s next publication will be a portrait of “Hrn. van Beethoven.”