BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, December 11, 1824

Nephew Karl is at Ludwig’s apartment today. Someone, perhaps Streicher, seems to have offered to find the Beethoven’s a housekeeper. Karl is opposed. “I don’t want to press my opinion about this on you, because you know him yourself sufficiently. He would need a commission in any case.” It would be better to do without, as would be the case if they have a regularly-employed housekeeper.

Karl believes that Frau Schlemmer found them the new maid. She’s fine, but extremely naive, Karl thinks. Karl counts out for his uncle 150 beans to make coffee with.

Karl thinks that his uncle should give some copying work to Reinhold von Duesterloh, a nobleman who is spending several months in Vienna. “He would surely copy correctly, because he is very musical. He lives on the same street where [Karl’s student friend] Enk lives.”

Karl and Uncle Ludwig go shopping and running errands in the afternoon. Karl thinks they should pick up the cream first, since that’s the same street where the candles are.

Back at the apartment, they try out the new maid for mid-day dinner. The offerings are liver dumpling or rice in the soup, and spinach with tongue. Karl questions whether they would have venison in the evening, since that is typically a lighter meal. The meat can stay turning on the spit, since it turns itself and no-one needs to attend it.

Later that afternoon, Beethoven goes to a coffee house to read the newspapers. First he makes a note to contact Benjamin Gebauer (c.1758-1846), formerly the principal oboist at the Theater an der Wien, about making copies. [Beethoven hired Gebauer two decades ago to copy the Third Symphony, and was not pleased with the results. But he must be getting desperate to finish the remaining subscription copies of the Missa Solemnis at this point, since they are well over a year late, and he can hardly afford to offend a large swath of the European nobility.]

Beethoven makes a note of two apartments available on the 3rd floor [4th floor American], and 4 more rooms, and another on the third floor in the area. He also makes note to buy 13 new shirts. [The fact Beethoven is already looking for apartments, having barely been in this one for a month, suggests that the landlady has by now told him he has to leave.]

Back at Beethoven’s apartment, Nephew Karl lets his Uncle know that the bookbinder’s apprentice is here, asking whether they have anything ready for him, and how many sheets it would be. [Again, they may be considering binding subscription copies of the Missa Solemnis.] Karl also observes that the stove chimney needs cleaning.

Karl remarks that he recently needed a handkerchief and told the housekeeper to get him one. She brought him one of Uncle Ludwig’s.

Ludwig starts to launch into another tirade about Karl’s failures at the university, and accuses him of not attending one of his classes or discussion sections. Karl has had quite enough; Uncle Ludwig need not take him at his word, and he can himself investigate it. After that, Karl went across the Glacis and then headed home to his rooms. Karl says he will leave once he is finished with what he intended to study. One of his exams is a day earlier, and the other later. Ludwig gets defensive, and complains that Karl won’t let him say anything about his schooling. “I did not say that you shouldn’t say anything about it.” Ludwig demands that Karl stop doing something unidentified. “I shall comply with your wishes and stop it; but it is sad that something that serves others as a sign of love is only an empty gesture between us.”

Ludwig complains that he has to pay a florin for the garbage to be taken out. Karl explains that it’s a charge paid by every apartment, because no one’s own servants will do it. There are women who carry water, but there is one woman who carries out the garbage for everyone.

Karl asks for money to buy a pack of quill pens, because his current pack is gone.

Ludwig asks at what time editor Friedrich August Kanne is supposed to arrive today, to talk about revisions of the libretto by Joseph Bernard to the planned oratorio Der Sieg des Kreuzes. Karl says Kanne wrote down 3 o’clock.

Kanne arrives, probably around 3 as he had promised. Ludwig asks him what improvements have been made to the Bernard libretto. Kanne says it has been much shortened. He is getting a revised copy from Bernard tomorrow or the next day, and Bernard says he has cut out a great deal. Beethoven asks what episodes have been removed. Kanne doesn’t believe any episodes are gone completely, but they are shorter. He thinks Beethoven will now find there is great variety in it. He should read the new version.

Kanne brings Beethoven up to date on his personal news. He inherited some property from his late father, and borrowed a small amount of capital from his mother. Kanne would have written music for dramatist Ferdinand Raimund (1790-1836) again, but Raimund was too cheap. He got Joseph Drechsler, from the Josephstadt theater, to write the music for a mere 150 florins W.W.

Kanne is throwing in the towel on the Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. [The publication will cease as of December 28th. Kanne may have brought Beethoven a copy of today’s issue of the musical newspaper that he has edited for a number of years.]

Kanne gossips some about various composers. Johann Gottfried Schicht (1753-1823), formerly cantor at St. Thomas’s Church in Leipzig [so a successor in that post to Johann Sebastian Bach, from 1723-1750] was a collector of music, and had amassed a large library; his heir wanted 20,000 florins C.M. for it.

Beethoven asks again about the libretto. Kanne says he will send it early in the morning on Monday December 13th.

They talk about the Paris opera competition that Beethoven has considered entering. Kanne says it will be the lead article in the December 15 AMZ. Beethoven asks again what the prizes are, and Kanne tells him 4,000 and 2,000 francs, depending on the length of the work.

There is also discussion of the rampant musical piracy. Hornist Johann Gottfried Schunke (1777-1861) complains that a set of Variations he composed on God Save the King have been published in Vienna under Conradin Kreutzer’s name. [Schunke’s letter of protest will also appear in the December 15 Wiener AMZ.] Kanne jokingly calls Kreutzer “gazza ladra” [Rossini’s Thieving Magpie.]

Kanne asks Ludwig whether he has heard the new kapellmeister, Joseph Eybler (1765-1846). [Eybler had in June succeeded Antonio Salieri, who was now suffering from dementia.] Eybler gives performances at the Augustiner monastery and church [within view of Beethoven’s current apartment.]

Kanne says he must go, and departs.

Nephew Karl is still there, presumably having continued studying while the two men talked business. But he overheard the discussion, and chimes in that 4,000 francs would be nearly 4,000 florins W.W. Presumably the best libretto will be identified first, so that the music can be composed to it. It would be difficult to determine the winner unless everyone composed music based on the same material.

The new maid cannot read or write, so Karl had to read the recipe for dinner to her from the cookbook.

A chimney sweep cleans the stove and chimney in the flats. Afterwards, the sweep wants 2 and one-half florins for the work, and Karl refuses to pay it. He believes it is the building owner’s responsibility to clean the chimney. But now the sweep says that the stove costs extra. Karl thinks he should have mentioned that before he did the work, since they could have declined for it was quite unnecessary.

Conversation Book 78, 24r-31v.

Today’s Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.99) at 393 includes an overview of the most recent subscription series for Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s string quartet concerts, which were held on October 17, 24 and 31, then November 7, 14, and 21, each running from 4:30 in the afternoon until about 6:30 p.m. Six quartets by Haydn, three by Mozart, and four by Beethoven were featured. The Beethoven quartets in particular were alternately “fiery and cheerful, very peculiar and artistic.” Also on the programs were works by Spohr, Weiss, Beethoven’s former pupil Ferdinand Ries, and Georg Onslow.

“The discreet yet powerful way that Herr Holz carries out his performance of the second violin; the beautiful playing of the viola by the famous composer Herr Weiss; and the serious yet shaded and nuanced taste with which Herr Linke treats the violoncell–These are advantages for Herr Schuppanzigh that are beyond belief, and when united the performances of this quartet are most impressive.” The writer suggests that there should be a unanimous agreement to forever cement them working together as a permanent winter quartet. He is pleased that the new subscription series of the Quartet has already begun.

The Wiener Zeitung for today (Nr.284) at 1210 contains an advertisement from Sauer & Leidesdorf for the second annual Album Musical, suitable as a Christmas or New Year’s gift, with works for piano solo and voice with piano accompaniment. This year’s volume contains two works by Franz Schubert, Les Plaintes d’un Troubadour [Moment Musical op.94/3, today catalogued as D.780/6, Allegretto in A-flat], and Die Erscheinung [op.108/3, today catalogued as D.229, text by Ludwig Kosegarten.] These mark the first publications of both compositions. This advertisement is repeated several times over the coming weeks.