BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, December 19, 1824

The menu for dinner today has some options: Vegetable soup, or herbal soup; almond horseradish or capers; sweet blue kraut with smoked chops; lamb or sheep brains. In the evening, young chicken and sheep brains.

Copyist Ferdinand Wolanek comes back to see Beethoven this morning, though Karl mostly writes on his behalf. Wolanek was copying the subscription copies of the Missa Solemnis the whole night through, burning candles and keeping the place heated. He cannot copy more than 3 or 4 folios of score in one day, so he was losing money. He will copy at 15 kreutzers per folio if he has to copy into the night.

Beethoven tries to make it up to Wolanek by letting him copy in the apartment. Uncle Ludwig and Karl leave Wolanek there and go out to run some errands [using Conversation Book 79 for this purpose, still writing sideways.] They stop by the Steiner music shop on Paternostergässchen to visit Tobias Haslinger. There is a concert of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde this afternoon. Haslinger says that the women singers still have rehearsals in the Theater, so the vocal pieces must be rehearsed now. The final vocal piece is “Zu Gott” [To God; that is, Mozart’s Gottheit dir sey Preis und Ehre!, from Thamos, König in Ägypten, K.345 (K.336a), written 1779.]

Karl decides he is going to go to the Musikverein’s concert today in the Redoutensaal at 12:30. The concert includes the Mozart Jupiter Symphony, Conradin’s Violin Concerto and other vocal and orchestral works. He asks Uncle Ludwig whether he is coming. Ludwig asks when they will have to leave. Karl replies, by noon. Ludwig tells Karl to enjoy himself at the concert, but he will not be going.

Beethoven makes a note, “+In the future in my scores: 2 lines for contrabass and violoncello; also 2 lines for the flutes.”

Wolanek will still have to copy until evening to get the score done, and wants to complete it here at Beethoven’s apartment, presumably to avoid an extra trip to deliver it. By way of comparison, Wolanek says he can copy 30 folios of Rossini scores in one day, but of Beethoven’s he can only manage six.

Karl departs for the concert about noon. Wolanek thinks that the Theater an der Wien is likely to go bankrupt. The actors are still not getting paid. The problem, he thinks, is the shortage of plays. They are going to again try the gimmick of selling lottery tickets, with the prize being an evening’s income from the Theater. Count Palffy is in arrears for salaries in the amount of 40,000 florins C.M. He is a gambler; a short time ago he lost 20,000 florins in one night. At the time of the Congress of Vienna [1815], he lost one million in Paris, and the Emperor had to vouch for him.

Karl returns from the concert about 2:15 or 2:30, in time for mid-day dinner. He looks through the mail. There is a letter from Franz Xaver Kleinheinz, kapellmeister in Pesth. He would like to come to Vienna, if he can find employment in a theater here. [Kleinheinz had arranged the Serenade for Flute op.41 and the Nocturne for Viola op.42 for Beethoven, and (with corrections by Beethoven) had done a good enough job that Beethoven authorized these arrangements to bear his opus numbers.]

The pastry for dinner isn’t ready yet. Karl reports that Jacob Reinlein, one of his elementary schoolmates, was also at the concert with his mother. [They had also attended the previous concert on November 28.] She invited Karl to come visit.

Karl notes they need to get food from The White Swan gasthaus nearby, and get fish instead of beef roast. The housekeeper ought to taste the soup from the Swan, so hers won’t be worse.

Continuing about the hypothetical possibility of Uncle Ludwig conducting the Christmas benefit concert, Karl says, “I have never seen anyone who conducts the way that you do. The participants will really be thrilled by your inspiration, and so it succeeds admirably.” Uncle Ludwig thinks about the last time he conducted, at the May Akademie concerts, when the orchestra ignored him because of his deafness, and followed Michael Umlauf instead. This turns to Beethoven’s recollection of the young ladies who sang, Henriette Sontag and Caroline Unger. [They are both singing at the Advent benefit concert of Handel’s Jephtha at the Burgtheater on the 22nd and 23rd, which may give rise to this comment. They will both be at the Christmas benefit concert as well.] Karl dismissively says that Umlauf had to coach both of them on every note for the Akademie concerts.

Karl asks whether the carp is to be boiled thoroughly. [Uncle Ludwig’s answer is not recorded. It is unclear whether this comment is written at the Schwan or while still in the apartment.]

Wolanek is still at the apartment, copying. He himself hears very poorly, and one must shout to be understood. He was engaged as a tenor by the theater in Lemberg, and was paid 25 florins per week, which was a great deal at that time. Then a scaffold fell suddenly where he was standing and smashed his nose bone to pieces. In a moment his career was ended, for all his teeth were broken. He was in the hospital half a year, but received no salary during that time. He is continuing to copy here in the apartment. Ludwig asks how much he is going to copy, and the answer is “as much as possible.”

Later in the afternoon, Beethoven goes out to a coffeehouse and to run errands as usual, probably with Karl. Ludwig makes note that at Anton Strauss’s shop in the Dorotheergasse, they have the same calendar as he used for 1824, on printing paper, for 3 florins 30 kreutzers W.W.

Karl would really like to go to the Theater an der Wien to see Friedrich von Schiller’s Der Räuber [The Robbers]. They are giving a series of Schiller’s dramatic works, and he would like to see them performed. One never knows when they will be seen again, since this only usually happens once per year.

The housekeeper, Barbara Holzmann, has already arranged for maids, since the temporary one’s service is up next Monday.

In the evening, Karl goes to the play at the Theater an der Wien, and returns about 10 p.m., surprised to find Wolanek is still there, copying away. Karl remarks again that Wolanek does not hear well.

Karl mentions that at the Musikverein concert earlier today, he saw publisher Sigmund Anton Steiner. “When he saw me, he called out: ‘Servus, Beethoven!'” [Servus is an informal greeting, according to editor Theodore Albrecht.]

At the usual Christmas Day charitable benefit concert that they were discussing yesterday, Frau Schleicher will play something on the clarinet. [Schleicher was actually her maiden name; she was married to Ernest Krähmer, principal oboist of the Burgtheater, and they have made several appearances in the conversation books and in advertisements of musical events.]

[Wolanek presumably at last finishes the movement of the Missa Solemnis score he is copying for Beethoven, and heads for home. He will be back in a few days to work on the Gloria.]

Conversation Book 78, 5r-8v; Conversation Book 79, 21v-21r. Book 79 is not used again until December 22, after Book 78 has been completely filled.

In London today, the directors of the Philharmonic Society resolve in their minutes “that Beethoven be invited to this Country for the ensuing Concerts, offering him the sum of three hundred Guineas, under the stipulation that he shall write a Symphony and a Concertante for the use of the Society exclusively during his residence in England, and that he shall preside at the performance of his own works.” London, British Library, Loan 48.2/2. Charles Neate is appointed to write Beethoven making this request.