BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Monday, September 5, 1825

Beethoven works on the quartet op.130, including the Grosse Fuge Finale, this morning. Parisian publisher Maurice Schlesinger has mid-day dinner with Caroline Pichler, and possibly Henriette von Pereira. After that, he comes to visit Beethoven. He asks whether Beethoven had not taken a walk in the park with former pupil Carl Czerny. Frau von Pereira had told him today that she saw the both of them there. Czerny told Beethoven he was fortunate because head and heart are united in him. Beethoven asks how she knows about this. “She heard it; you passed by her in conversation.” [Apparently Beethoven’s hearing was good enough that day for Czerny to be heard if he shouted into his left ear. This of course led to conversations being overheard.]

Talk turns to the other eminent pupil of Beethoven, Ferdinand Ries. Schlesinger says Ries wants to live only in his art, God willing, but that means now his compositions don’t please audiences any more. “People prefer to live from Art, rather than with Art.”

Beethoven mentions that he turned down an offer to be Kapellmeister for Jerome Bonaparte as King of Westphalia, which was how he ended up getting the stipend from Lobkowitz, Kinsky, and Archduke Rudolph. Schlesinger says it’s just as well he turned it down, since Bonaparte did not last very long. [Bonaparte ruled Westphalia from 1807 to 1813.]

Talk returns to the projected collected edition. Schlesinger agrees to undertake the task. But again, he wants to begin with the Trios, Quartets and Quintets, and asks that Beethoven give him a precise list of his other works so the work can proceed. And Schlesinger will require one more quartet and 3 new quintets. Anything else Beethoven would write in those genres would be most welcome both to him and to the public. “I would like all of this, so that we can at least begin a complete edition of your works.” But it can’t all be brought out at once; the public is poor in money. [Beethoven apparently does not understand (or pretends not to understand) Schlesinger’s request for these additional works very well, because he repeats it a third time.] Since he can’t count on getting the quartet from Schott [op.127], Schlesinger will need a new third one to go with the two he purchased yesterday [op.132 and 130.] Beethoven suggests that perhaps Schlesinger could make a deal with Schott’s to trade pieces, but Schlesinger says Schott “gets nothing from me; he and I do not get along.” Schlesinger is not willing to negotiate the prices further; the price has been set. “Therefore, please just write the works; that is all that I wish.”

Schlesinger asks again for confirmation of the additional quartet and three quintets, and whether they could be delivered in three to four months. Schlesinger will send the funds to Vienna so there will be no trouble about payment. Beethoven objects that this would leave him no time to work on the oratorios and operas he has promised, and there are ideas for a Tenth Symphony. “Naturally the large-scale works may not be interrupted. But I mean one every month; that will surely be easy for you.” [Schlesinger clearly has no idea how slowly compositions are worked out by Beethoven, unless he is thinking of small bagatelle-like works.]

The op.127 quartet has been proposed to be played for Schlesinger at his rooms in Vienna; he asks whether Beethoven has found the parts so that he can take it into Vienna with him for that purpose. Beethoven wonders whether it would be better to have the performance of that and op.132 here in Baden. “If you want to do it here, then I’ll come here. However it best suits you, I’ll happily comply with everything, if only I can be so fortunate as to hear it.” Beethoven seems not to be able to find the quartet parts at the moment.

Schlesinger says he will pay Nephew Karl the money for the op.132 quartet. He will get the funds for the second one when it is delivered to the Viennese banking house that he designates.

Schlesinger asks how the little Lied or canon is coming, that he requested of Beethoven for his private collection. Beethoven tells him he is still working on it. [This will be the canon “Si non per portas,” WoO 194, which will be presented to Schlesinger in about three weeks.]

Beethoven mentions that he is planning to make the Finale of the next quartet, op.130, as a grand fugue. Schlesinger approves, “A Beethoven should write such a work—only he now knows the true Art of Fugue!” Again not understanding Beethoven’s working methods, Schlesinger suggests that Beethoven dictate it to Nephew Karl, and that way it would be easier.

Beethoven tries to give back the miniature portrait of Schlesinger’s ex-fiancée, but Schlesinger says “You would give me great pleasure if you accept it as a small souvenir.”

Beethoven brings up the idea of putting his explanation of the brouhaha with the Haslinger biography in Schott’s Cäcilia magazine. Schlesinger offers to also place it in the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, once it’s published by Schott’s.

Beethoven finds the parts for the op.127 quartet and gives them to Schlesinger.

Schlesinger returns to Vienna this afternoon. Beethoven makes a note that the musicians should just bring their bows with them for the proposed performance. [He seems to have his quartet of stringed instruments with him since he is working on quartets.]

Conversation Book 94, 23r-31r.

From Vienna, this evening or early tomorrow, Nephew Karl writes to his Uncle Ludwig (after talking to Schlesinger once he returns to the City) that the planned performance of the op.132 quartet has been scheduled for Friday, September 9. But circumstances require that the performance be in Vienna, and not in Baden as Ludwig had suggested. Unpaid assistant Karl Holz will probably come to Baden on Thursday, since it is a holiday, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Brandenburg Letter 2053. The letter is lost, but its existence and contents can be surmised from the surviving response by Beethoven to Karl tomorrow.

Sir George Smart attends a performance of Der Freischütz at the Theater in the Josephstadt today. “This was a smaller theatre than the Leopoldstadt but more tastefully fitted up. It was very crowded and the orchestra was only tolerable. The violins were weak, and the conductor beat time at a desk in the centre even with the violins, the pitch was rather above my fork.” Cox and Cox, Leaves from the Journal of Sir George Smart (London, 1907), p.100.