BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Saturday, November 15, 1823
Franz Christian Kirchhoffer, cashier and financial advisor to Beethoven, who also acted as intermediary with Ferdinand Ries, visits Beethoven’s apartment. Ries had sent him four harps, which have caused Kirchhoffer a great deal of trouble; he had to pay customs a high tariff, and he has been unable to sell them.
Kirchhoffer asks whether Beethoven has looked through Ries’ two most recent piano concertos. “The last movements are worked out in a fairly frivolous way, and I have scolded him on that account.” Ignaz Moscheles is to return to London next month; Kirchhoffer is surprised that he hasn’t come to see Beethoven yet.
Kirchhoffer comes back to the frequent topic of whether Beethoven will be holding an Akademie concert and when. The first order of business is to get the Ninth Symphony finished. Kirchhoffer, who appears to be up on the musical gossip, asks about the opera and oratorio Beethoven is supposedly working on. [Beethoven’s answer is not recorded, but he had not done much of anything with either Melusine or Der Sieg des Kreuzes.] Kirchhoffer thinks Weber was unlucky with his opera Euryanthe.
Kirchhoffer says he will send Ries’s brother, the piano maker [Joseph Franz Ries (1792-1862)] to visit Beethoven.
After Kirchhoffer leaves, Karl asks what work of his uncle’s will be played for the St. Leopold’s Day concert tonight. [The Fidelio Overture was performed seventh on the program, and had to be repeated. Beethoven did not attend.]
A new housekeeper begins working for Beethoven today. However, he is from the very beginning suspicious of her honesty, though as Karl later observes, she is sloppy in her accounting but he thinks she is honest and a hard worker.
The Beethovens are planning a trip. Karl thinks they should reserve the postal coach and depart in a few days. He observes that although they are now living in the Ungargasse, they have not yet visited “the honorable Frau von Streicher.” [Nannette Streicher (1769-1833) lived about three blocks south from Beethoven’s current apartment. She had frequently advised him on household matters in 1818-1819.]
Tomorrow they will be going to the first subscription concert at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at 12:30 p.m. This will be awkward, as “he must be expecting us.” [“He” is probably Joseph Carl Bernard, who wrote the libretto to Der Sieg des Kreuzes, and would ask about the progress on the music.]
Karl mentions that one of Friedrich Schiller’s sons is still living; he is a judge at a public court. [In fact, both of Schiller’s sons were still living. Ernst von Schiller (1796-1841) was the Prussian Appellate Court Councillor; the other son, Karl, was the High Forester in Württemberg.]
Conversation Book 45, 23v-25r.
The Allgemeine Theater-Zeitung today, in Nr.137 has most of its 4th page devoted to an extensive sketch of Beethoven’s character. Here are some samples:
“For him, Art is divine, not a means to gain fame or money. A despiser of all appearances, he insists on truth and character in life as in Art. When “Fidelio” was given its first performance, the overture that goes with it could not be performed, and another one, written by him, was substituted. ‘People clapped,’ he said, ‘but I stood ashamed; it didn’t belong to the whole.’ He is incapable of pretending.”
…
“Aside from his art, he is devoted to his nephew, Carl, with all his soul. He acts as a father to the orphan in the full sense of the word. Besides his nephew, another brother, Johann von Beethoven, a pharmacist, lives in Vienna.”
“Beethoven’s appearance proclaims pithy power. His head is reminiscent of Ossian’s ‘gray haired bards of Ullin.’ He resembles the pictures of this prince which are sold by music shops. His movements are fast; he hates slowness above all. His table is simple, but well ordered. He especially loves venison, and he maintains it is the healthiest food. He drinks wine moderately, usually only the red Austrian; the Hungarian has a detrimental effect on his health.”
“He lives in Vienna in winter, and he loves after dinner, before he starts his walk, to look through the newspapers in the coffee house with a bowl of coffee, to enjoy a little pipe, and probably to converse with friends as well. Since he has to work late into the night and yet also is used to getting up very early, it often happens that he sleeps an hour after the walk is completed.”
“Apartments facing the North, or those exposed to drafts, have an injurious influence on his health. Beethoven is very sensitive to these things and the rheumatic incidents, to which Beethoven attributes the loss of his hearing. That’s why he found this year’s wet Summer, which he spent in Hetzendorf, extremely disgusting. For two months he suffered from violent pains in his eyes.”
…
“Currently he has completed a Mass which he publishes on subscription. Among the subscribers are His Imperial Highness and Eminence the Archduke Rudolf, and also Louis XVIII. A symphony, quartets, a biblical oratorio in English sent to him from the United States by the American consul, and perhaps an opera (with poetry by Grillparzer) are to be expected in the future.”
[The author of this sketch (identified here only as “S——l”) was obviously quite well-informed. It is this article that establishes that during a move from the country into the city all of Beethoven’s correspondence, and presumably many of the now-lost conversation books, disappeared, whether due to negligence or the perfidy of those in charge of the move. Karl learns about the article and discusses its content with Uncle Ludwig next week as they attempt to guess the identity of the writer.]
[Historian/journalist Johann Chrysostomus Sporschil (1800-1863) identified himself as the author of this essay when writing Beethoven’s obituary in 1827. Sporschil you may recall appeared in these pages in February, 1823, when he was reworking the Consecration of the House libretto for Beethoven. He also at that time borrowed 15 florins from housekeeper Barbara Holzmann and apparently never paid her back, giving her a phony address. This essay had originally appeared in the Stuttgart Morgenblatt of November 5, 1823, Nr. 265 at 1057-1058, but it was this reprint in today’s Theaterzeitung that Karl learned about and told his uncle.]
The grand musical Akademie concert that Karl referred to, for the benefit of public charities, is held at the Kärntnertor Theater in Vienna this evening. The first part opens with the Overture from Cherubini’s opera Medea, and in addition to the usual Rossini arias includes Weber’s Concertstück for piano and orchestra. The second part of the concert opened with Beethoven’s Overture to Fidelio. The Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.95 (November 26, 1823) at col.754 reported, “The masterful presentation of this beautiful overture aroused such enthusiastic applause that it was repeated. All of the musicians of the opera orchestra were inspired by the same enthusiastic fire. The delicate nuances of the middle section were executed with admirable depth.” This account comports with Moritz Lichnowsky’s description in a few days of the Overture as “stormily applauded,” and he confirms it had to be repeated by popular demand.