BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, September 19, 1825

Nephew Karl was sent into Vienna to negotiate with publisher Maurice Schlesinger and conclude the transaction for the two quartets, and try to get a bill of exchange in payment for op.132, the other quartet being payable when the score is delivered.

Karl returns in the early evening in a carriage for four passengers. The gossip in the City is that “fat Dietrichstein” died the day before yesterday [Saturday, September 17] and left so many debts they could never be repaid. Uncle Ludwig asks the cause of death. “Of a stroke, just as he arrived back from Karlsbad.” [This was Count Joseph Carl von Dietrichstein (1763-1825), not the Court Musical Administrator Count Moritz von Dietrichstein, with whom Beethoven has had to deal with repeatedly.]

Uncle Ludwig complains about his right ear, possibly some buzzing or other phantom noise; he has not been able to hear anything out of that ear for quite some time, though he can sometimes hear things shouted into his left ear even now.

Karl figures up his expenses for the trip:

Tip, going in: 15 kr.
Carriage to Baden, with tip 2 fl. 45 kr.
Dinner 1 fl. 48 kr.
Coffee in Neudorf 12 kr.
Total 5 fl.

There remains 2 florins of the 7 that Uncle Ludwig had given him. [The carriage ticket to Vienna must have been paid in advance.]

Karl observes that the wine doesn’t keep well in the bottles they have; it gets discolored.

Karl asks what the housekeeper is to make for the evening meal.

Karl notices evidence of mice in the apartment. [He will later suggest Uncle Ludwig get a cat.]

There are windows that need to be taken care of [possibly in Beethoven’s projected fall quarters in the Schwarzspanierhaus.] 3 shutters for 30 florins each, or 90 florins altogether. Rolled window blinds would be 6 florins each.

Karl mentions that the tall doctor from Cologne who visited last winter is still here in Baden. [Anton Horst, doctor of philosophy from Cologne, who visited on December 28, 1824.]

Conversation Book 97, 32r-33v.

In Vienna, Sir George Smart, whose visit is drawing to a close, engages a celebrated carriage driver named Janzky to take him and Joseph Ries to Prague, a journey of some four days, for a price of 120 florins W.W., or 48 florins C.M., with Janzky to pay all the tolls. They are to set out tomorrow at 5 o’clock in the morning. Smart then goes to the Stephanskirche and inspects the two organs and tries them out. They go to the Augarten and visit the room there where Ferdinand Ries played for the first time in Vienna, and the tower in the Prater. In the evening, Smart goes to the Burg-Theater, where he paid 1 florin C.M. for a seat in the parterre. “The band played Mozart and Haydn’s symphonies. The violins were weak but the performance on the whole went well. The bassoons were good.”

Cox and Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart, 127-128.