BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, May 31, 1823 (approximately)

Beethoven spends part of the day at a wine house. While there, he makes a number of entries in a fairly stream of consciousness manner.

He notes the Reading Book for Country Schools, in two parts (Vienna, 1820).

Beethoven considers a place in a country town like Perchtoldsdorf in both the summer and winter. But he would need to rent an apartment. [He seems to have given up on the idea of buying a country home, which he has been entertaining for several years.]

He is becoming dissatisfied with the honorarium for the Missa Solemnis, and considers including a declaration in with the published version listing the subscribers.

Beethoven makes a reminder not to send the Missa Solemnis to Ries yet; the subscribers were told it would not be published for another year and a half [and they have not yet received their copies.]

He toys with the idea of getting a position as a church-music composer in the mold of Bach. He leans against it, “Though I well believe that among my contemporaries, I would not be the most inferior in this area of specialty.”

Conversation Book 33, 26r-28r.

Probably today or tomorrow, Beethoven writes an undated letter to Anton Diabelli about re-engraving the Piano Sonata, op.111. Diabelli has forwarded to him a copy of Schlesinger’s Paris edition, which was advertised by Sauer & Leidesdorf in the May 27 Wiener Zeitung as being in stock. Beethoven suggests using the French edition as an exemplar although it has a number of serious errors, but he is sending an errata list to Moritz Schlesinger and will send it to Diabelli as well, so that the Cappi & Diabelli firm can have a corrected edition. Beethoven would like four copies for himself, including one on nice paper for the Archduke.

Beethoven has another favor to ask: He would like to borrow 300 florins for 14 days. “My sickness, which was increased by the disgusting apartment [in the City] –yes, I have had sore eyes for the last three weeks at least (and at the request of the doctor I was forbidden to read or write) is to blame for this. Today is the first day that I have been able to use my eyes at all, and then only carefully and gently.” He may not need the money, but he asks that Diabelli let him know if he would lend the money. He has a work to finish and then there will be some money coming in. [If he means the Ninth Symphony, that will not be finished until next year.] With the subscriptions, he is forced to advance money before he can receive money. “You can see to what state these mercantile operations with the Mass have brought me, so that I am ruined before I can turn it to advantage. But as is evident, I cannot turn back now.” He begs Diabelli not to tell Brother Johann or Schindler about this request, as he doesn’t trust either of them.

Brandenburg Letter 1661, Anderson Letter 1182. This letter is preserved in the Bonn Beethovenhaus, H.C. Bodmer Collection Br 115, and can be seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/en/media/view/5147065915015168/scan/0