BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, August 21, 1825

Nephew Karl comes to visit today as he usually does on Sundays.

Frau Holzmann, the housekeeper, asks Karl to write to Uncle Ludwig that she engaged a porter to transport the case of wine bottles when she was in Vienna, but she didn’t notice that he was very drunk and that the wine case was in danger of falling at any moment. Suddenly, he put it down on Michaelerplatz, demanded his money, and didn’t want to carry it any further. “Now there arose a horrible spectacle over it, which ended when she had to take a fiacre to get any further. A crowd of people gathered around her, and they all heard how he called her an old witch, etc.” [This story indicates that Ludwig and possibly Karl as well, have been not only calling the long-suffering Holzmann a witch to each other, but in public where they can be heard and imitated by others.]

Karl gives his accounting of expenses for the last week:
Breakfast in Neudorf 24 kreutzers
Carriage to Vienna with tip 2 florins 15 kreutzers
Out here [to Baden] with tip 2 fl. 15
For me [spending money] 1 fl.
A bath this week 1 fl. 40 kr.
Total 7 fl 34 kr.

Karl mentions that at the house where he is living, the wife always pays the cook, who does all the work alone, 100 fl. W.W. annually, and believes that she pays a great deal because others pay only 72 florins. [Beethoven pays a good deal more than that—300 florins—probably because he was so difficult to work for.]

Karl reminds his uncle that he needs to be gone before 4 p.m. today. There is a roast for Sunday dinner. He would like to visit the Helenenthal [where his Uncle often goes walking] one of these days. Holzmann has already paid for the carriage back to Vienna.

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz arrives not too long after Karl. He is feeling quite well today. Yesterday he was not doing so well because he ate some infamously bad sausage in Neudorf. Karl gave his sausage there to a dog.

There is some discussion amongst the three of Ignaz Assmayr (1790-1862), a composer and piano teacher. Holz says he has a crazy appearance. Karl mentions that he was the piano teacher at Giannatasio’s, a tall man.

[Holz inserts two easy lines of music here.] [A feminine pronoun curiously is used here] is still too young to be composing a Mass. Beethoven asks him why, and Holz responds, “Because one must already have a long beard in order to compose a Mass.” Holz thinks it possible that Assmayr will be the organist in the Hofkapelle. He is a protege both of the brilliant protector [Count Moritz von Dietrichstein, the Court musical administrator] and Joseph Eybler [(1765-1846), Court kapellmeister.] But he has already faded into memory; his appointment as professor leaves only a weak impression. [Holz is correct in his prediction; Assmayr becomes the second Court organist in December of this year.]

Who should get the premiere of the new quartet in A minor, op.132? Holz thinks that Joseph Böhm would need at least two weeks of study and rehearsal of a quartet. He mentions that at a rehearsal once, Antonio Salieri [who died a few months ago] stepped in for a timpanist on his instrument. This leads Karl to ask whether guitarist Mauro Giuliani didn’t play timpani for Wellington’s Victory, op.91, at the University Hall at one time. [Ignaz Manker played the timpani for those concerts in December of 1813, but Giuliani, who was sitting in with the cellists, may have played bass drum at some point.]

Holz continues that he told playwright Ignaz Castelli (1781-1862) that he was very sorry that the joke [the fictional biography of Tobias Haslinger published in Schott’s Cäcilia magazine] had been spoiled. He said that if it had been carried out properly, it would have given him joy.

Holz mentions that operatic soprano Angelica Catalani once sang an aria in D with obbligato violin. At the repeat, “without batting an eyelash,” violinist Franz Clement accompanied her in D-flat.

Uncle Ludwig and Karl discuss their clothing requirements. A shirt costs around 15 florins. They don’t need to get new knitted foot muffs; Karl took the old ones to be reknitted, and they will be like new. Karl needs 2 black neckties. He doesn’t really need such fine shirts. But the old neckties can’t be used any more; they are quite torn. He only has six shirts. Uncle Ludwig asks how many Karl needs, and he says 10. “Two black ones [neckties] are best.” But it doesn’t have to be 6 shirts; he has some and they are all good. He can wear one per day.

Holzmann asks whether Beethoven wants the partridge, and he does. She asks whether he wants it for mid-day dinner or evening supper. Evening, he thinks. She will make lung-pastry, meat with Bertram sauce [a sour sauce with Spanish pepper], spinach, and then a large chicken for mid-day dinner. For the evening meal, then, she will make the partridge with vegetables, since it’s quite small.

Conversation Book 92, 42r, 1r-3v.

Not long after dinner, Holz and Karl depart in order to take the 4 p.m. coach into Vienna. The plan is for Karl to return to Baden on Tuesday to pick up the corrected parts for the new quartet op.132, which Ludwig intends to work on this afternoon. According to Beethoven’s account, he spends the entire afternoon at this detail-oriented work after they have left. Beethoven is increasingly unhappy at the number of errors he finds, especially in the placement of dynamics and slurs and treating staccato dots interchangeably with staccatissimo wedges.