BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, March 5, 1825
Beethoven places a notice in today’s Wiener Zeitschrift, Nr.28 at 236, warning of an unauthorized edition of his work. “I consider it my duty to warn the musical public about a completely flawed four-hand piano reduction of my last overture [Consecration of the House, op.124], which is unfaithful to the original score and has been published by Trautwein in Berlin under the title: Fest-Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven, all the more so since the piano reductions for two and four hands, written by Mr. Carl Czerny, and completely faithful to the score, will soon appear in the only legitimate presentation. Ludwig van Beethoven.”
Music publisher B. Schott’s Sons in Mainz writes to Beethoven today. Brandenburg Letter 1943. The letter does not survive, but its contents and date are known from previous and later letters. The publisher inquires about the engraver’s copy for the quartet, op.127, and the other works. Schott also asks about the additional canons that Beethoven promised them for their music journal Cäcilia. Finally, they need the opus numbers for the works that have been sold to them thus far [the Ninth Symphony, the Missa Solemnis, the Consecration of the House Overture, and the other small works recently sold to Schott.]
Beethoven is also in a spot of trouble with the Vienna taxing authorities. It seems that he neglected to pay his class tax for 1824 when it was due. The payments were supposed to be made in two installments, at the end of April and at the end of July of 1824. When the first payment was due, he was consumed with the preparations for the May Akademie benefit concerts; at the end of July he had already gone to Baden and paying taxes was not on his mind.
Accordingly, an official notice (Third Reminder), addressed to Ludwig von Beethoven [sic], Composer, is issued today by the Provincial State Accounting Office that he is in arrears for 21 florins C.M. It must be paid without fail and without delay but no later than March 31, “for otherwise the Lower Austrian Government would find the unpleasant necessity, according to its duty, to take all measures prescribed by the highest authority in the collection of this outstanding tax sum.” Beethoven was instructed to pay it directly to the Class Tax Cashier’s Office in the Minoritenplatz. The notice bears Beethoven’s address at 969 Johannesgasse. The original document, most of which is a printed form, is found in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (Mus.ms.autogr. Beethoven 35,23.), and can be seen nearby.
Beethoven’s friend piano maker Johann Andreas Streicher writes a letter to Leipzig publisher C.F. Peters today. Peters had written him on October 18, complaining about Beethoven. Streicher responds, “But what shall I say about Beethoven’s behavior towards you, or how should I try to excuse him? I can only do so through his own opinion, which he expressed about himself in my house. ‘Everything I do apart from music turns out badly and is stupid.’ These are his own words, which are also in complete agreement with his actions, as well as the experiences his own friends have had with him and through him. It was I who advised him last August in Baden to collect and organize his works and to publish them with improvements. But I also knew how difficult, indeed, how impossible, it would be for him to persevere through to the completion of something that requires so much effort, so much patience and several years of time. That is why I asked you. That is why I also advised you not to make any announcement until the first six volumes were finished, and not to pay for them until the next six volumes, also completed, had been deposited here with a third party. In this way, you would have taken little risk, and he would have been compelled to finish the work.”
“Permission from his previous publishers would have been unnecessary, since every author must have the right to improve his work, and the publisher has already benefited from the first edition. He therefore has no disadvantage to fear from the second. But you will hardly ever come to a settlement, because nothing is so foreign to him as self-control, and a correct judgment on matters that are not purely musical.”
“I would be surprised if you came off well in your first dealings with him. He received an invitation to London, where he was to arrive in February and receive 1,000 pounds sterling for it. [The offer was in fact only for 300 guineas.] At first he seemed almost determined, but in the end he stayed here, which he did very wisely, even though it was involuntary. Despite all his whims, contradictions, caprices and bizarreries, one must still respect him, especially for his profound, magnificent compositions, the latter of which surpass everything he has done before.”
Brandenburg Letter 1944. The original is in the Vienna City and National Library (I.N.8703). From a notation on the letter, it appears Peters received it in on March 12, and replied on the 16th.