BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, May 27, 1826 (approximately)

Copyist Wenzel Rampl visits Beethoven about today. They talk about the strange weather they are having in Vienna; at the start of May it was cold, and now it is hot. [According to the May 30, 1826 Wiener Zeitung (Nr.121) at 516, the temperature in Vienna at 3 p.m. has jumped significantly to 19.5 Reaumur, or 76 degrees Fahrenheit/24 degrees Celsius; it will be even warmer tomorrow afternoon, 20.5 Reaumur, and rainy.] Beethoven tells Rampl that he is considering an oratorio on Saul, the libretto to which is being written by poet Christoph Kuffner. He would like to take a look at Handel’s oratorio on the same subject. He asks if Rampl knows someone who has a copy. He believes Herr von Artaria may have Saul. They sell the most music and make money. Rampl says he will ask Prince Johann von Lichtenstein’s kapellmeister, Wenzel Sedlak, if he has it.

Beethoven mentions his incessant need for new housekeepers, and that he prefers widows with a pension. Rampl’s sister-in-law, who is a widow with a small pension, is keeping house for him right now. [Rampl’s wife Anna died of consumption just a few weeks ago, on May 4, 1826.]

Rampl mentions that at the Kärntnertor Theater they have a new ballet coming out in June [Zemire und Azor, with music by Adalbert Gyrowetz.] Beethoven asks who is doing the choreography, and Rampl tells him Philippo Baglioni (1777-1871), the ballet master at the theater.

Rampl delivers the new copy of Fidelio to Beethoven. Rampl had three pieces done through Josepha Schlemmer’s copying business; otherwise he would not have been finished in time.

Beethoven laments that he has not been able to arrange a place in the country for the summer. Rampl tells him that he could perhaps go to the countryside late.

Rampl offers that if Beethoven would like a personal copy of Fidelio, so he doesn’t have to keep trying to borrow one whenever a copy needs to be made, Rampl could work on that over the summer.

Conversation Book 110, 43v-45r.