BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, February 12, 1825

This morning, Nephew Karl and Uncle Ludwig are gossiping about Brother Johann and his estranged wife Therese. She draws interest from half of his property, from the estate, the wine business, etc.

They are interrupted by a knock at the door; it’s the shoemaker, come to collect payment. Today is Saturday, when he has to pay his people, and he has no cash money. They tell him to come back later, and he says he’ll come this afternoon.

Resuming, Karl thinks Johann cannot allow himself to divorce, because then she will end up with half of everything. Ludwig thinks Johann should cut her off. Karl expects that if he were to do that, she would probably press for a divorce. Johann suspects that she has taken another lover. If he could catch her in the act, then under the divorce laws she would not be entitled to support and his fortune would be safe.

The shoemaker returns later for his payment. Ludwig asks what this payment is for again. It is a pair of new half-boots; the charge is 12 florins. Ludwig pays for the shoes, and the shoemaker departs.

Ludwig wants to raise a matter with the housekeeper [possibly a complaint, or letting her know they are looking for another one], but Karl cautions him not to. She already knows about it, and she also acknowledged that Ludwig was very kind to her recently, and that everything should go better for her from this point on as a result.

Later this afternoon, Ludwig goes with Karl to a coffee house to read the newspapers as usual. He makes a note of Wieland’s translations into German in 16 volumes of classical Greek literature: Lucian, Cicero, Horace, Xenophon, Aristophanes, Euripides and others, available at Doll’s book shop.

Beethoven also makes note of an apartment with 6 rooms. [As the editors indicate, this ad mentioned that there is a stable for four horses and space for 3 carriages; that would not be appropriate for Ludwig, and rather is a note for a possible apartment for Johann.]

Karl points out the prize-winning poem for Emperor Franz’s birthday in Bäuerle’s Theater-Zeitung. Karl thinks it quite beautiful, and he lists some of the judges for his uncle. “The main sentiment in the prize poem is: what Austria was, what it is–through whom it came to be so.”

Conversation Book 84, 34r-36r.

A large musical Akademie concert is held today by the Casino Society in Olmütz, to celebrate the birthday of Emperor Franz I. The generous contributions of Beethoven’s benefactor Archduke Rudolph and several other noble-minded people raises the significant sum of 676 florins, 40 kreutzers, for the benefit of the two communities of Charweth and Ezertorey, in the Tobischau area [now Tovačov] of the Olmütz district, which had suffered a devastating fire. Brünner Zeitung, Nr.109, of April 20, 1825 at 457.