BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, November 1, 1823

Today, Moritz Lichnowsky visits Beethoven in his apartment. Nephew Karl is there as well, though he pretty much stays out of the conversation. Like Beethoven, Lichnowsky will also be moving back into the City, for his daughter’s sake. He inquires as to whether Beethoven was satisfied in Baden. Lichnowsky mentions that he attended Schuppanzigh’s quartet concert at noon yesterday, and it included Beethoven’s Quartet in A major [op.18/5.]

Like many other observers, Lichnowsky feels that Weber’s music for Euryanthe is not appropriate to the text. “It is much too tragic, contains nothing but dissonances, unnatural transitions, and far-fetched difficulties.” This kind of thing, he thinks. might kill the opera form entirely. Because it was such a disaster, Beethoven likely will no longer be able to demand what he wants from the administration for him to write an opera. But Lichnowsky would guarantee the difference. One could also reserve the rights to sell it in foreign countries and domestically. If Beethoven wants to experience the opera, Lichnowsky will reserve them a couple seats.

Lichnowsky approves of Nephew Karl’s progress in Greek. The conversation turns to Beethoven’s brother Johann, and his grasping wife, Therese. Lichnowsky notes that she already has half of Johann’s property, and on his death she will have all of it. [Lichnowsky’s wife and Therese van Beethoven were friends. Johann, despite his health scares, in fact outlived Therese by twenty years.] Ludwig says something inflammatory about Karl’s studies, and Lichnowsky is taken aback.

After Lichnowsky leaves, Karl makes a wry comment that “the sound of metal [coins] is doubtless far louder, but also very unclear.”

Professor Stein, his Greek teacher, is very learned though peculiar. [Stein, as has been discussed by Karl previously, insisted on modern Greek pronunciation rather than using the actual pronunciations.] More fearsome to Karl is the professor of religion, who requires that the textbook be memorized word-for-word. He considers it “absolutely nothing but empty stuff,” but has already committed it to memory. He cautions his uncle about making a fuss, because that would make enemies of not just that one professor, but all of them. It would cause nothing but difficulties. The only real objection one can make is that the old Greeks certainly did not speak in this manner. The same situation applies to Latin; even if Italian is a bowdlerized form of Latin, it certainly has quite different pronunciations.

As an example, Karl says that Stein and the New Greek school would pronounce “Odysseus” as “Ozisseus.” So Karl will need to accommodate Stein on this point. Karl believes only philologists Philipp Carl Buttmann (1764-1829) and Friedrich Thiersch (1784-1860) have any authority on the question. But otherwise, Stein is a good Greek specialist who has written in Greek and only recently adopted the “New Greek” pronunciation.

Karl then makes a reference to his uncle’s music for August Kotzebue’s The Ruins of Athens, op.113. [In that drama, Athens is in ruins, overrun by Turks. Minerva or Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, decries the loss of Greek civilization. She learns, however, that a new temple of the arts has been built in Pesth, and she revels in its beauty. This was, of course, the theater that the music was written for.] “The Ruins of Athens” will still remain true for a long time. But if it ever becomes untrue, and if Minerva needs to find her Old Athens, then I’ll write a sequel to Kotzebue’s play, and you can likewise set it to music.”

[The maid seems to be ill.] There was an unbearable odor from the toilet, which she attempted to hide with cologne water. Karl would prefer the odor from the toilet to the smell of all that perfume. She thought it was funny that he “called the excellent smell that she made an odor.” The cologne water is in any event too expensive to be used in that manner. Karl thinks the maid eats too much, and he is concerned about her health. She should change to a healthier diet. [A doctor is summoned to examine the maid, so there was likely more wrong than just a stench.]

Karl thinks the people of Vienna are dreadfully naive, and badly educated. Their spelling is terrible and their style is worse. If one reads their letters, you can see how they were educated in their youth.

Karl’s attention turns to Napoleon. During his time, the region around Laibach and Krain [now in Slovenia] was French. University education was entirely different then. Everyone who excelled in a subject received a neck chain with 20 francs and was kissed on the forehead by the principal.

Karl’s university classes begin Monday [November 3.] “I shall be a student in Philosophy, or ‘Philosoph’ as they call it here; therefore please honor me appropriately.” If his uncle doesn’t mind and it won’t disturb him, Karl will set up the library now. [This suggests that they have returned to Vienna quite recently and probably did not move into the apartment when it was first available.]

The doctor arrives to examine the maid. Karl fills him in as best he can about her condition. The maid understands him well, and the suspicion is that she is suddenly getting much better food than she is used to and has enjoyed it “a little too abundantly.” The difference between her old food and that here was sudden and pronounced. They only extremely seldom got a roast to eat at her old position.

Tomorrow is All Souls Day, so Karl will attend the grand service in church. [Editor Theodore Albrecht observes that one of the functions of All Souls Day is to pray for those in purgatory, and Karl may be mindful that the seventh anniversary of his father’s death is approaching.] The Veni, sancte Spiritus will be sung.

Karl looks at his boots and realizes he needs new soles; he now only has one pair that he has to wear every day. Medicine, powder and tea totals 1 florin, 20 kreuzer.

For the evening meal, Karl suggests that soft eggs would be a good idea. That way they could see whether the eggs were still good. If they cooked them into a dish, it would be less easy to tell.

Karl looks forward to his studies in Philosophy, since there is no regular textbook used here.

Uncle Ludwig draws a reproach, since Karl is acutely aware of the spying secret police everywhere in Vienna. “It is not good that you express yourself so openly; for example, when you just spoke about the arrangement for my studies, Lichnowsky made a face. He will not keep it to himself, and then it will be said that you are making me into someone who scorns the Fatherland, and even more about such fine things.”

The discussion turns to Jewish banker Solomon Rothschild (1774-1855), who came to Vienna in December, 1819 and immediately ingratiated himself with the imperial court, annoying the established Jewish banking families. He really didn’t need to cause such difficulties, since the Pope himself honored Rothschild. “I find it extraordinarily humiliating that in all of Christendom (in which there are many people who differ with His Holiness), these people kiss his slipper and the glorification of God and the Pope are differentiated merely by the words ‘worship’ and ‘adore.'”

Karl relates another anecdote about Napoleon. When he was campaigning against Austria, one of his commanders, Brigadier General de Mandeville [Karl calls him Mandl] switched sides. He said that “right after a battle, Napoleon had quite calmly eaten his midday dinner on the battlefield amid the death rattles of the seriously wounded, and when someone asked him whether he could enjoy his meal, surrounded by the dead and wounded who had fallen in his name, he replied, ‘What do these dogs mean to me?'” Karl thinks this is nonsense. While Mandeville did change sides, who would have the nerve to dare to ask Napoleon such a question. “His excuses were made up.”

Before bed, Ludwig makes a note that on Monday they need to buy coffee cups and a coffee mill.

Conversation Book 44, 10r-22v.