BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, July 16, 1826
Nephew Karl visits his uncle as usual today. He reports to Ludwig that Mathias Mann, the house superintendent of the Schwarzpanierhaus has asked all the tenants to contribute toward the sum of 25 florins for the monthly spraying to keep down the dust. However, some of the tenants have gone to the country, and others do not want to understand. Tomorrow the coachman will see the tenants, and he thinks he will be able to find 5 who will contribute 5 florins per month. For that amount, there will be spraying twice daily, morning and afternoon. The landlord may have to come collect the money himself. Karl suggests that the superintendent is having trouble collecting the money because there are so many Jews living in the building. [The landlord is unsuccessful, because ultimately the tenants, including Beethoven, have to do the spraying in front of their parts of the building themselves, which causes problems with the housekeeper.]
Uncle Ludwig complains that the housekeeper, Marie Stiegel, wasn’t able to buy some food item on Friday. Karl points out that one can’t get fresh ones on Fridays, because they have to be made first.
Karl and Ludwig discuss Karl’s future after graduation. Karl believes that he can get office positions with degrees in either philosophy or in rhetoric. Ludwig suggests a post, but Karl tells him that that is not an office and does not pay anything.
Karl says he suffers a lot from headaches. [This point will be important in a few weeks when Uncle Ludwig remembers Karl saying it.] “It is already a kind of condition with me, because it always hurts in the same place.”
Ludwig suggests that Karl do his homework there. Karl declines; one of his schoolmates will come to him at the Schlemmer house. He also needs to write accounting, for which he needs a lot of paper at hand, and he can’t do that writing here.
Ludwig asks if the upcoming examinations are making Karl sweat. Karl points out that he never sweats. “It won’t do now; there are only a few weeks left and much to do. I can hardly finish the tasks, making it even harder to prepare for the exams, and I will be among the first ones to be examined as it goes according to the ABC [i.e., alphabetically.]”
Ludwig mentions the quartet op.131, presumably telling him that it is finished at last. Karl asks how long the quartet lasts.
Karl says that the French opera at the Kärntnertor Theater is said to have been a failure, though the vaudeville went better. [In contrast, Karl Holz said a few days ago that the French opera was a great success.]
Ludwig grumbles again about the housekeeper being insolent. Karl comes to her defense, saying that he does not think she is being defiant. “I doubt that you will find someone who is more willing to work [than her]; I have not experienced any malice.” She does not, however, think that Ludwig’s proposed side dish goes well with fish.
Uncle Ludwig gives Karl 1 florin 40 kreutzers as his allowance, and he makes a note in the conversation book that because he got an extra 20 kreutzers today, he should only get 1 florin next week.
Conversation Book 115, 5v-7v.
Presumably Holz goes to visit Frau Haymerle with Dr. Vivenot as he was planning to do on Friday, July 14.
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.160) includes an advertisement from Cappi & Co. at 676 for three overtures by Ludwig van Beethoven, arranged for piano four hands by Joseph Czerny. These are the overtures from the ballet Prometheus, the tragedy Egmont, and the tragedy Coriolan. These same overtures are also available for pianoforte solo. The price is 2 florins W.W. for each overture.