BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, March 13, 1824

Copyist Paul Maschek is working on copying the orchestral parts for the Missa Solemnis for the planned Akademie concert, and comes to Beethoven’s apartment with questions, such as whether spaces are to be left in a certain place. Beethoven tells Maschek that he likes the work he has done better than that done by one of his assistants. Maschek acknowledges his writing is good, but he cannot copy everything by himself. Beethoven asks how progress is coming, and Maschek says that the parts that Beethoven has proofread so far [the soprano and alto choral parts for the Credo and Agnus Dei, plus all of the choral parts for the Kyrie] have already been duplicated by the Lithographic Institute. He would like to get the violas and basses now. But he still needs the tenor and bass parts for the Credo and Agnus Dei. Maschek finds some parts on Beethoven’s desk and confirms that they have been proofread, so he will take them to be duplicated. The violin parts for Kyrie are also proofread, so he takes those as well. Maschek returned all of the four string parts to Beethoven for proofreading yesterday, but he has not yet gotten to them.

Maschek recognizes that Beethoven’s proofreading of the parts is going much more slowly than the actual copying. To save time, Maschek, confident in his own work and the work of his assistants, suggests that his copyists just go ahead and duplicate the orchestral parts for the Missa Solemnis, so as not to have to wait for his proofreading to be finished. Afterwards, Maschek can deliver one example of each part to Beethoven to be proofread. They can then correct all the others after that, since there won’t be any substantial mistakes anyhow.

Beethoven rejects that idea, and Maschek complains, “But we won’t be finished otherwise.” Beethoven appears not to budge, and Maschek leaves to copy what he can as he waits for the proofreading on the current set of parts to be finished.

[It is by now evident to Maschek, if not to anyone else, that there is little hope of having everything copied and duplicated in time to have the concert on April 8th as planned. Even though he and his assistants work efficiently, there still need to be five more parts of the first and second violins, three more of the violas, and four for the celli and basses for the Missa Solemnis to be duplicated, plus all the doubled winds. While a fair amount of the copying of exemplars of the orchestral parts for the Mass has been completed, the proofreading is far behind. Beethoven’s slow proofreading will soon make that duplicating process grind to a near-halt. Moreover, Maschek has not yet even begun work on the daunting task of making a fair copy of Beethoven’s autograph score of the Ninth Symphony. If he has seen its condition and its length, Maschek knows that making the fair copy will be neither easy nor quick work. And then all of the parts for the symphony will still need to be extracted from that fair copy, proofread and duplicated, before rehearsals can even begin. Beethoven nevertheless as of yet proceeds as if the concert will occur as planned.]

Conversation Book 59, 10v-11v.

Unpaid assistant Anton Schindler, still having heard nothing from soprano Henriette Sontag as to whether she will come to dinner tomorrow with Beethoven, tries again to get an answer, but neither she nor the other invited guest, Caroline Unger, can be found. Thoughtlessly, or perhaps passive-aggressively, Schindler neglects to contact Beethoven to mention that at least Unger has agreed to accept the invitation and that she has promised to bring Sontag. Beethoven, for his part, is absorbed in the proofreading of parts and either has assumed that since he has heard nothing back from Schindler, Sontag and Unger are not coming, or he has completely forgotten that he even extended the invitation to them.

A now-lost response to Beethoven’s recent letter is probably received from Count Dietrichstein about today. From the circumstances, we can infer that Dietrichstein vetoed the idea of holding the concert on the evening of April 8th, but that April 7th might be available. Beethoven would still need to apply for permission to the Imperial High Court. However, too much of the record is missing to be absolutely certain.

In any event, Beethoven writes today to the Court to request permission to hold a musical Akademie concert on the evening of April 7 in the imperial Redoutensaal. [Beethoven will get a bureaucratic run-around trying to get approval for his concert. We will later learn that theater manager Duport, and indirectly Brother Johann, bears some of the responsibility for these problems.]

Brandenburg Letter 1790; Albrecht Letter 348. The original of this letter is also not known to survive, but the High Steward’s office has a memorandum of the request under today’s date.