BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, December 31, 1825
At a coffee house this afternoon with Nephew Karl, Beethoven copies down references to two books of interest, the Aglaya almanac for 1826, 12th edition; and Beatus by the physician and popular writer Wilhelm Blumenhagen. Karl may be busy writing out his New Year’s greetings cards that he needs to give to his professors at the Polytechnic, because he interjects only rarely today.
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz joins the Beethovens, possibly still at the coffee house. There is some discussion about counterpoint and how Handel did it; Holz and Beethoven together write five bars of counterpoint, with Beethoven writing in the upper line [see leaf 36r.] Below that, Holz notes that it’s also a double fugue by Cherubini in the Gloria. Holz quotes the Amen fugue from the Credo of Cherubini’s Mass Nr.2 in D minor at the bottom of the same page. Holz writes, “That’s how he did it.”
On the next page, Holz quotes the canon Ars longa, vita brevis, WoO 192, which Beethoven had written out for Sir George Smart in September of 1825. Beethoven appears to comment these are the sort of things that Mozart would enjoy setting to music. Holz jokes that Mozart would also have enjoyed setting the Wiener Zeitung to music. Holz mentions that the fugue in the Overture to The Magic Flute is said to actually be by Handel. [Holz is incorrect; the fugue subject quotes a theme from Muzio Clementi, not Handel.] Holz believes Mozart wrote another overture to the opera, but Emanuel Schikander rejected it. [A fragment K.620a reportedly includes a possible sketch for another overture to The Magic Flute.] Holz quotes the beginning of the song of two armored men, though inaccurately.
Holz suggests that it would be good if the part [possibly to the op.130 quartet] were played to Schuppanzigh Monday evening.
Holz quotes the tuba mirum from the Credo of Cherubini’s Requiem in C minor, again not entirely accurately.
Beethoven believes that Maurice Schlesinger should not be able to reprint the quartets that have been sold to other publishers. Holz asks, what if Schlesinger wanted to publish a collection of all the quartets? Would he not be able to reprint them either? It would be an expensive proposition to acquire all the rights.
Franz Grillparzer was pleased to hear that Beethoven plans to send a copy of his libretto to Melusine to Berlin, to see whether they would be interested in commissioning it as an opera. [Grillparzer had given up on Beethoven ever setting it to music.]
Every week Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider, the kapellmeister in Dessau, has his orchestra play Beethoven’s symphonies twice. They have a precision that one has not heard here in Vienna in a long time. The orchestra there plays with inspiration.
Holz asks how a recent performance of the Fifth symphony went, and whether Mozart was a good piano player. [Holz’s question suggests that Beethoven likely heard Mozart play when he was in Vienna the first time.]
Holz complains that people want to argue about Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1772-1806), whom Beethoven had met in 1796 and again in 1804. The prince was a pianist, and Beethoven dedicated the Piano Concerto Nr.3 to him. He was killed in battle in 1806, and many in Vienna still mourned him. Holz says he cannot develop any enthusiasm for him or find any inspiration in him.
Karl diplomatically changes the subject to the prices of some unspecified objects.
Holz asks when he will be able to proofread more. He questions who deserves more credit for having broadened the path of music, Haydn or Mozart. [Presumably Beethoven would side with Mozart, generally esteeming him more highly than his old teacher Haydn.]
Holz suggests Beethoven write another symphony with choruses. “It is a beautiful contrast; the joyous song then stands out all the more clearly. The upward leap is so staggering. I am looking forward to the [Ninth] symphony [at the proposed Akademie benefit concerts] like a child.”
Holz doesn’t understand folk music. There are old Bohemian hymns that are very beautiful. “Our deaf Austrians could not sing such melodies, much less note them down.” Even the Gypsies could do better. Holz takes his leave.
Nephew Karl agrees with Holz’s comments a few days earlier; people are like that. Some of Schuppanzigh’s regular subscribers have delayed their subscriptions because of the holiday. [One of the Quartet concerts fell on Christmas Day, another on New Year’s Day.] “It is surely a momentary gain [to delay the purchase of a subscription], but in the long term a lasting loss.”
Conversation Book 100, 35v-41r.
There is extant a letter ostensibly from Beethoven to Tobias Haslinger, possibly written today. “Best little adjutant! Along with this I send you a New Year’s greeting—and further an invitational note; send it to all the real and pretend denizens of the little Paternostergasse. They are invited for beer. We’ll see each other this evening in your cellar. Your B–n.”
It is quite possible that there was a beery New Year’s Eve celebration this evening at the Steiner music shop. Later comments in the conversation books over the next few days make references that support this notion. Sieghard Brandenburg suggested that this note was a forgery, and he did not include it in his edition of Beethoven’s letters. Professor Theodore Albrecht considered it more likely to be genuine, and did include it in Letters to Beethoven as Letter 423A (III, 126-128). However, he admits that the letter is lacking in provenance and thus is not free from doubt.
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.298) at 1259 includes an advertisement from Anton Diabelli & Co. for the newest work for piano from Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny, his Variations in Easy Style on the popular theme Pulverstoffel from the farce, Staberl’s Reise Abentheuer in Frankfurt und München, op.115. Rather unusually, this piece is not accompanied by Czerny’s usual puffery of his own work.