BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, September 11, 1820
Conversation Book 16, leaves 73r through 76r
Nephew Karl and his teacher Joseph Köferle take the mail coach from Vienna to Mödling on Monday morning. [Perhaps this is a late celebration of Karl’s fourteenth birthday last week on September 4.] Köferle asks Beethoven for another letter of recommendation in hopes of getting a promotion out of the apprenticeship at the Court Treasury. There is no hurry, but it “would still be very advantageous for me” in dealing with Joseph Franz Körner of the Imperial Treasury, a composer and great admirer of Beethoven. The previous letter made a “very great impression upon him.” Körner took great pains for Köferle specifically because of Beethoven’s letter of recommendation.
Nephew Karl chimes in and talks about his French and Greek teachers. The Greek teacher gives two hour-long lessons per day, and gets paid 600 florins. The Professors at the nearby Gymnasium by comparison are paid only 80 fl. per year, indicating that Blöchlinger’s Institute was very much a premier school and Beethoven was sparing no expense for his nephew’s education.
Still recovering from his hernia surgery back in 1816, Karl will have to wear a truss for yet another year.
Karl says that at military maneuvers the day before yesterday (Saturday, September 9th) Crown Prince Archduke Ferdinand (1793-1875) had his horse shot out from under him. Several people were talking about it in the postal carriage. [Editor Ted Albrecht notes that there is no mention of this incident in the Wiener Zeitung. Ferdinand, mentally disabled and epileptic, later became Emperor from 1835-1848.]
Inflation is hitting baked goods. At school Karl used to get large croissants that cost 3 kr. for breakfast, but the price has gone up to 6 kr. so now they only can have small ones that cost 1 kr.
At some point, Karl visited the resort town at Karlsbad and met a women whom he describes as Circe or a siren. [This is somewhat surprising since he has just turned fourteen years old. The mention of a woman in Karlsbad no doubt triggered memories in Beethoven, since it is generally believed that the Immortal Beloved was staying there in 1812 (Beethoven in the famous letters only writes that she is in “K.”), when their torrid romance reached its abrupt end.]
[There are no further mentions of Oliva’s work on the 25 Scottish Songs, op.108, after this. Presumably he has completed the insertion of the English language lyrics onto the songs, and Karl delivers the printer’s score to uncle Ludwig, as promised by Oliva on Saturday the 9th. As can be seen here, in this portion of the score to Bonnie Laddie, Highland Laddie, Oliva did a fine job.]
Köferle and Karl probably stay overnight with Beethoven at the Christhof and return to Vienna with him tomorrow morning.