BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, July 2, 1820

Conversation Book 14, leaves 71v through 87v

As promised on Wednesday, June 28, Joseph Carl Bernard, editor of the Wiener Zeitung newspaper, comes to visit Beethoven in Mödling in mid-to-late afternoon, bearing with him an uncooked food item as a gift. They have quite a long chat in the conversation book. As a journalist, Bernard is full of news to share with Beethoven.

Bernard relates that he visited the Blöchlinger Institute and spoke to Karl. The boy admits he ran away to his mother Johanna van Beethoven in order to persuade her to request that he not be punished at Blöchlinger’s. Bernard repeats Frau Blöchlinger’s gossip that Johanna is expecting [neither man is yet aware she already gave birth on June 12.]

It is unclear whether the Jewish housekeeper has yet come to Mödling, since Bernard talks about her in the abstract and accuses her of putting on airs, and being more appropriate to be a chambermaid in a great household. When Beethoven objects, Bernard backs off and concedes that the only important thing is whether she does the necessary work.

They talk about Karl’s co-guardian, Karl Peters, who is still in Italy as tutor for young Prince Ferdinand Lobkowitz. Peters would have loved Facebook; Bernard says his letters home only talk about what pictures he has seen and what he ate for lunch. [Previously, it has been remarked he wrote about eating oysters in Venice and seeing a Raphael painting in Bologna.]

Viennese artistic circles are abuzz about an article in the June 15, 1820 Stuttgarter Morgenblatt, where an unnamed author, in a review of the tragedy Die Albaneserin, by Adolf Müllner, criticized the administration of the Court Theaters. Court Theater Secretary and Censor Joseph Schreyvogel [whom Wähner described last month as being in cahoots with Bernard] is furious and demands to know the name of the author of the review; Bernard knows it was Müllner himself reviewing his own play, but he apparently has not spilled the beans to Schreyvogel. Müllner blamed the failure of the play on the lack of skill on the part of actors “who could not comprehend it and who also could not act.” Bernard finds himself in agreement with Müllner; the performance was nonsense, and the actors wholly incapable of presenting anything beyond the normal.

Bernard then gossips a bit about various actresses and their talents, referring to one as prostituting herself in a comedy “just as in real life.”

Prince Liechtenstein (1760-1836) wants to turn the Kahlenberg area north of Heiligenstadt into an enclosed hunting preserve. That surely would have upset Beethoven, who when he stayed at Heiligenstadt frequently walked in the open countryside.

Franz Janschikh, one of Bernard’s friends, had wanted to accompany him on this Mödling visit. But Bernard never heard anything more about it. [This was probably fine with Beethoven, who on February 7, 1820 had had a disastrous time at the home of the Janschikhs, rife with naive questions about music and conversation full of sexually explicit humor. A lengthy visit with Janschikh was not something Beethoven would look forward to.]

Leaf 77 of this conversation book is entirely missing. Bernard’s last comments on leaf 76 were about Archduke Rudolph, and he may have made some remarks on leaf 77 that Beethoven considered politically unwise to keep, or that Schindler later felt were dangerous or unflattering to Beethoven.

The topic changes to the long-overdue libretto for Victory of the Cross, which the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Friends of Music) had commissioned Beethoven to compose on Bernard’s text. Bernard asks for another week to finish it, and also asks for part one back since he has misplaced his own copy. [It would actually take Bernard four more years to finish the libretto.] There is more discussion later about the finances of selling the libretto, and the type of voicing Bernard would like. In the process, Bernard makes the mistake of insulting Franx Xaver Huber (1760-1810), the librettist of Beethoven’s oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, op.85. [Beethoven will remember and bitterly remark on this insult years later when he rejects Bernard’s libretto, calling Huber a musical poet and one he would be happy to collaborate with at any moment.]

On the positive side, Bernard is able to reassure Beethoven about the lost umbrella and money sack; Bernard spoke to the post office in Mödling, and these things were not stolen after all. When they arrived in Mödling ahead of Beethoven on June 28th, a miller thought they were his, and he took them by mistake, leaving his own behind. The miller will bring them back to make the exchange on Wednesday, July 5. Bernard draws several heads in profile on leaf 79v of the conversation book here. Are they meant to be nephew Karl and uncle Ludwig?

Discussion returns to Blöchlinger’s Institute. He has only 23 children under his administration, including Karl. Captain Baumgarten (who owns the boarding house where Bernard and Oliva have lunch contracts) has several children there also, since he felt that the women tutors he had were too lenient and would not allow the children to be punished. [It seems Karl’s complaints about punishment at Blöchlinger’s were quite well-justified.]

Bernard complains it has rained every Sunday and been cold [consistent with Beethoven’s reminder earlier to bring along a blanket for drives in Vienna.] He promises to come visit Mödling every Saturday afternoon in the future.

The conversation turns to politics, and Bernard asserts his opinion that the French Revolution caused governments and nobility to mistrust the people, leading to oppression. [To Beethoven, as a great fan of the Revolution and Enlightment ideals of liberty, this must have sounded incredibly obnoxious.]

Bernard notes that Franz Clement (1780-1842), the violinist for whom Beethoven wrote his violin concerto, is declining in skill; his playing is not what it once was. [Clement was formerly a child prodigy whom Beethoven had known since 1794.]

Bernard recommends The Enchanted Rose, an epic Romantic poem by Ernst Conrand Friedrich Schulze (1789-1817), published in 1818, after the poet’s death. Bernard suggests it could be adapted as an opera, and calls it the most beautiful piece that the German language has produced in this style. He also suggests The Corsair by Lord Byron would be very suitable for adaptation to opera. Beethoven’s familiarity with Byron seems limited, although he did set several Byron poems to music, including one in op.108, which he had just sold to Schlesinger. The composer’s guest has to describe Byron in a number of different ways. [Or perhaps the well-read Beethoven has just had enough of this visitor and is being difficult in order to encourage his departure?]

Bernard takes his leave in the evening of Sunday, July 2. The next conversation book entry dates from Tuesday, July 4.