BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, August 19, 1826
Beethoven writes a letter, rather informally, to someone he knows well, probably today. “You see what is happening here, so if you would ask there whether they would expect us today at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, as I cannot appear without an escort, and you yourself are informed of everything, or better yet, on Monday at 5 o’clock, as one would like to present everything to [you/them] briefly. If this letter does not find you at home, then at your office, and let me know the outcome, whether today or Monday.”
“Will you decide this afternoon, when I may send someone to your office again?”
Brandenburg Letter 2186; Anderson Letter 1004. The original letter is held by the New York Public Library (JOC 72-2). Sieghard Brandenburg concluded from the lack of a salutation and signature that the addressee was probably Karl Holz. Sonneck and Emily Anderson, on the other hand, considered the mention of the office as pointing to Beethoven’s attorney, Johann Baptist Bach. The watermark “Holland/L” is found on Beethoven’s letters between August 1825 and September 1826. This probably relates to the hearings in connection with Nephew Karl’s guardianship in the wake of his suicide attempt. Brandenburg considered that the letter was probably from today.
Beethoven writes a letter dated today to his publishers B. Schott’s Sons in Mainz. “Your excellencies!”
“I am only writing to inform you that the quartet was delivered to Frank [i.e., Franck & Co.] 7 days ago [August 12.] You wrote that it should be an original quartet. That was distressing to me, so as a joke I wrote on the ascription that it was assembled. But in actuality it is sparkling brand new. — The metronome markings (to hell with any mechanism) follow — follow — follow — “
“I have been struck by a great misfortune, but with God’s help it may yet turn out favorably.”
“Yours sincerely, your most obedient Beethoven.”
“The one who has written letters to you several times, my dear adopted son, almost lost his life by his own hand; rescue is still possible.”
Brandenburg Letter 2187; Anderson Letter 1498. Unlike most of Beethoven’s letters to Schott’s, this letter is held not in the Mainz Library, but at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Dreer Collection. The letter bears a “WIEN” postmark, and a notation by J.J. Schott “reply to this letter soon.” The title page of the engraver’s copy of the quartet op.131 bears Beethoven’s inscription: “N.b. Assembled from various things, this and that.” The repeated “follow” at the end of the first paragraph is a humorous imitation of a metronome. We also get the suggestion that Beethoven’s metronome was broken, possibly beyond repair, at least so far as Beethoven knew.
Mathias Artaria today pays an engraver named Hodick 63 florins 12 kreutzers for a Beethoven full score 79 plates in length, presumably the string quartet op.130 (including the Grosse Fuge as the finale). Artaria’s expense register is quoted in Gustav Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p.365.