BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, April 8, 1826

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz takes Beethoven’s letter by himself to the censor this morning. “I would have gone there yesterday, but where to find the time?” he tells Beethoven. Holz has learned from the censor that there is apparently a decree relating to Beethoven’s compositions. [This is probably the decree that was referenced at the end of 1823, prohibiting art dealers in Vienna from engraving Beethoven’s works. However, no trace of this supposed decree has ever been found, and Beethoven never saw it.] That may or may not apply to the works that Haslinger is printing, since they were sold by Beethoven over ten years ago. The censor wanted to know when Steiner and Haslinger published it. “I am to tell you that he was very pleased to see you, he will be happy to serve you in anything.” Referring to Haslinger, Holz gloats, “The fox thought he was already out of the trap.”

The concierge comes to the door to tell Beethoven that tomorrow the windows must be illuminated. [In honor of the Emperor’s first trip after his illness, the entire city was illuminated on April 9.]

The sick housekeeper is still at Beethoven’s apartment, though she is now able to get out of bed.

Holz mentions that the Wiener Zeitschrift from Thursday morning [the April 6 issue] contains something already about the premiere of the Quartet op.130. [Extensive quotations from this review were included in our March 21 column for the concert.] Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s wife Barbara asks Beethoven to come to dinner one day. Holz points out that Schuppanzigh has good wine; he bought it himself. He mentions Schuppanzigh’s young adopted daughter [Theresia]. She played the Andante from Beethoven’s 7th symphony. Beethoven asks when they want him, and Holz tells him Monday [April 10. However, Beethoven does not meet with Schuppanzigh and his wife until Tuesday, April 11.]

Beethoven makes a note:

• chamber pot.

Nephew Karl comes as well, but he cannot stay. “The days are not long yet, and in the evening I cannot write very nicely.” He thus would like to have dinner early. There is some confusion about the new housekeeper candidate. [This is no doubt the housekeeper who used to work for Frau von Schmid; Uncle Ludwig interviewed on April 4. Uncle Ludwig now seems to have changed his mind about hiring this woman.] A day after Ludwig spoke to her, Karl asked Uncle Ludwig whether he wanted to hire her, and Karl promised her the position because his uncle said yes. But Karl doesn’t even know where she is working now, and he cannot speak to her until Monday [April 10], when she is expected to show up at Uncle Ludwig’s apartment. “It was very important for her.”

The sick housekeeper is feeling better; she is no longer taking any medicine. As soon as the other housekeeper arrives [on Monday] she will depart. Karl says Frau Schlemmer [his landlady] knows why Beethoven has such trouble with servants. “She says she is convinced that almost everyone who hears about the position thinks: Oh, with a gentleman without a wife in the house, you can do whatever you want. However, they are often disappointed.” Karl will ask Frau Schlemmer about the prices on the market and write them down for Uncle Ludwig, so he has something to compare against when the housekeeper tells him what she paid for various things. Game and so forth is very inexpensive now. “We eat things like that almost every day, and certainly at a low price.” Moor hens are too expensive; in the City they cost 24 kreutzers, but in areas where they are plentiful they can be had for 6 kreutzers. Beets, potatoes and things like that can be bought any time as they are always in stock. “Women are damn stubborn; everyone believes they know everything already.”

Karl comments on poet Franz Grillparzer and his timidity. “He actually may mean well, but he is too fearful.” But Grillparzer has cause to complain about the censorship. “The most beautiful parts of his poems have been crossed out. That also makes one fearful. I think that there is no one like Grillparzer. Have you read his Ahnfrau? [The Ancestor, an 1817 drama based on a South Bohemian legend.] What language!”

Karl notes that the Schlemmers are hosting a small ball today. Tomorrow [April 9] His Majesty will go out for the first time.

Poet Carl Meisl (1773-1853) is in Karl’s opinion very patriotic. He is an official in the Navy. [Meisl had adapted Kotzebue’s The Ruins of Athens for use as Die Weihe des Hauses (Consecration of the House), Beethoven’s op.124.]

Karl goes home, possibly attending the Schlemmers’ ball; he does not appear to visit Ludwig tomorrow.

Conversation Book 107, 93r-96v (which is blank), 1r-3v. This concludes Conversation Book 107. Conversation Book 108 continues tomorrow without interruption.

Publisher Mathias Artaria, whom Beethoven has been working with for publication of the string quartet op.130, follows up his publication of Schubert’s Ave Maria (D.839) earlier this week with the announcement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata Nr.2, op.53, and Divertissement à la hongroise for piano four hands, op.54. These works are catalogued today as Piano Sonata Nr.17, D.850 (“Gasteiner“) and D.818. The piano sonata D.850 is here performed by Elisabeth Leonskaja live at the Mänttä Music Festival, August 10, 2016: