BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, May 7, 1825

Johann comes to the door of Ludwig’s apartment. The composer is not ready for the move and is not dressed yet. He asks Johann where his things are being stored. They are being kept at the baker Obermayer’s, at Kothgasse Nr.61. “You must get dressed now, so that you get away because of the great heat.” Ludwig asks whether Johann is leaving, but he assures Ludwig that he won’t go away until everything is in order.

[Johann is correct about the heat. It reached a high of 84 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday, and as of 8 a.m. this morning it is already over 71 in Vienna, and will eventually reach a high of 86 in the afternoon. Wiener Zeitung May 9 (Nr.105) at 455, and May 10 (Nr.106) at 460.]

But what about the medicine he was supposed to get from the apothecary? Johann tells him that the apothecary in Baden can fill Braunhofer’s prescription just as well as here. Ludwig should give Karl a conversation book and some money so he can buy another one just like it.

Johann asks for a copy of some music [Theodore Albrecht suggests of the quartet op.127] for Prince Radziwill, which he can send with the copy of the Missa Solemnis that Piringer is proofreading while Beethoven moves.

Karl lets his uncle know they need 5 florins to pay the mover. Ludwig wants to go to the apothecary, but Johann tells him they didn’t have any of the medicine, and that he needs to have it made in Baden. Johann tells the wagon to come, and reminds Ludwig that the old woman [housekeeper Barbara Holzmann] will also need money.

Just before he gets on the wagon, Ludwig asks Karl when he will see him next. Karl assures him that he will go out to Baden tomorrow, May 8th. That satisfies Ludwig, and he gets in the wagon to Baden. Presumably Johann and Karl make arrangements for whatever is left in the apartment in the Johannesgasse to be taken to storage with Obermayer, or into the summer City apartment in the Krugerstrasse.

Beethoven arrives once again at Schloss Gutenbrunn in Baden bei Wien, where he will spend the summer this year. He does not know it, but this is the last time he will have a summer in the country. But he hopes to get a good deal of work done as his health recovers, and he needs to finish the other two quartets for Prince Galitzin, who has been very patient over the last few years.

Beethoven is met by the administrator of the property, the Hermitage at Schloss Gutenbrunn. He lets Beethoven know that if he needs a carriage into Vienna, the composer should tell him the day before, and he’ll order it through their new fiacre. It’s a very reasonable price, 7 florins into Vienna.

The administrator watches Beethoven’s Broadwood piano be unloaded from the wagon. He asks whether it is from England. Beethoven proudly tells him it was a gift from Broadwood personally. “That is authentically English,” the administrator agrees. It was a very generous gift, Beethoven adds. “Generous–and highly deserved because of your Art.” Beethoven tells him that he meant to go to England this spring but he became ill and it did not work out. “What a shame that you didn’t go there.” Beethoven hopes that perhaps he can still travel to England. “Your nephew should go with you. They would do everything that they can for you. The English understand that–to reward the Arts and Sciences.” Beethoven expresses his admiration for the English people, and the administrator agrees. “The state will persevere for a long time–concerning freedom.” Beethoven apparently makes a comment that the Catholics are not in charge there any more. The administrator responds, “Do the Catholics still want censorship?” The administrator also observes that British foreign secretary George Canning (1770-1827) favors Catholic emancipation.

The administrator then turns to Austrian politics and complains about the justice system and the tendency to release criminals. He also looks back with fondness to the days of Napoleon, when there was much greater freedom for those not in the highest aristocracy. [Such a topic would never have been broached in Vienna, where Metternich’s secret police were spying on everyone, but clearly out in the country the administrator felt freer to speak his mind, even in writing.]

The administrator will take care of the bed, etc. He’ll return in half an hour and if the things he needs haven’t arrived, he’ll send them over. Beethoven, with the help of Holzmann, gets settled into his new quarters.

Conversation Book 88, 16r-17v, 50v. This concludes Conversation Book 88. Book 89 will begin being used tomorrow when Karl, as promised, comes to visit and help Uncle Ludwig unpack.

Antonio Salieri (born August 18, 1750), who had been suffering from dementia for a few years, dies today in Vienna. Beethoven had studied Italian part-song composition under Salieri in the first few years of the 1800s