BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, February 16, 1823

On his way to visit Karl at Blöchlinger’s Institute today, Beethoven stops at the restaurant Zum goldenen Strauss [The Golden Bouquet], next to the Josephstadt Theater, possibly just to get warm. There he unexpectedly finds Schindler and the actor Philipp Klingmann, and joins them. Klingmann has hearing problems, sometimes as if his ears were entirely stopped up, and like Beethoven, also hears somewhat better out of the left ear.

Attorney Johann Baptist Bach is ill with his sore neck again and yesterday was in bed all day. He told Schindler to come back tomorrow. There is some discussion of the various roles that Klingmann is appearing in over the next few weeks. Beethoven complains of diarrhea, and Schindler says he’s suffering with it as well. He ordered pastries and roast veal, but for some reason he can’t get it.

Beethoven goes to visit Karl at Blöchlinger’s, and then heads home. Karl does not write in the Conversation Book, suggesting that Beethoven may have been able to hear him clearly enough today.

Conversation Book 24, 24v-27r

Beethoven also responds to Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden in a now-lost letter, presumably letting him know that he is trying to get a copy of the score for Fidelio made for him, since he does not have one himself, and it will be sent to him shortly.