BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, July 30, 1826

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven today, succeeding in his second try. He tells Beethoven that he had come an hour earlier, but Beethoven was locked away in his music room. [Apparently the servants were out doing shopping or running other errands.] Although Holz had complained about the hot weather a week ago, today starts a heat wave in Vienna that is even worse, starting at 22 degrees Reaumur (81.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and peaking around 26.5, or a nearly unbearable 92 degrees Fahrenheit on Thursday, August 3.

Holz has come with a letter from Mathias Artaria [which does not survive, but apparently relates to the Grosse Fuge, still the final movement of the quartet op.130.] Holz told him that Beethoven has started another quartet [op.135.] Holz asks Beethoven how much he can tell Artaria about it. Beethoven responds that the material he has so far is in F major. Holz suggests then that it might be in the relative minor, D minor. Artaria brought Holz the letter; it was too hot for Artaria to come all the way to the Schwarzspanierhaus.

Holz tells Beethoven that he will get the new copy of the proof of op.130 on the day after tomorrow [Wednesday, August 2.] “The bars are correct.” But in the copied part, there was yet another error. An F-sharp in the fugue should be a G. Joseph Linke at bar 489 and 490 had written in pencil a way that would make it easier to play. “Did you agree with that?” Beethoven accepts Linke’s change, and Holz confirms that it should be altered in that way. [The bar in the final score is as Linke suggested. See attached detail of Conversation Book 116, 11r.]

Holz had made arrangements to meet Nephew Karl on Friday, July 28 to visit Tobias Haslinger about the title page dispute, but he says Karl did not show up. [Karl had said he went to Holz’s apartment and Holz was still asleep. Which version is true is unclear.] Holz then went to Haslinger’s by himself, and Haslinger told Holz that Karl had already been there about the matter. The new quintet that Beethoven has promised to Anton Diabelli will create new jealousy for Haslinger. “He sees how the other art dealers here leave him behind.” Holz notes that Haslinger is now publishing a deluxe edition of Johann Baptist Cramer’s Etudes. [The advertisement had appeared in the Wiener Zeitung Nr.167 dated July 24, 1826.]

They turn back to the forthcoming quartet, op.135. Beethoven believes it will be rather short, at least compared to his recent quartets. Holz tells him that it may certainly be short, but it won’t be shabby. “The Jew [Schlesinger] does not deserve anything else. I even think that if he should dare to publish these quartets without your consent, you should make public that you did not at all lend him a hand in that. If our journals do not have any other value, then they deserve some acknowledgement after all, because through them one can light a fire of fear in such persons.” Holz suspects he may have already published the quartet op.130, expecting Beethoven’s approval. Holz also thinks Maurice Schlesinger’s love story, with a planned marriage in the fall of 1825, was strange. “He had barely seen her for 3 days, then he went to her father and asked for her hand in marriage. But the father knew Herr Schlesinger better, and said: No.”

At some point during the conversation, they move the conversation to an inn where they have dinner. One of the staff advises that only the jellied food is rewarmed; the rest is freshly cooked. “The innkeeper often likes to hire waiters who persuade you to take this or that dish,” Holz observes.

Violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh would like them to be his guests at dinner tomorrow; Nephew Karl begged off, saying he did not have any time this week.

Prince Rasoumouvsky gives splendid banquets every day, Holz notes. “He is a scoundrel; he proved that when his orchestra retired. He promised to make them all happy. Now Mylord [Schuppanzigh] and [violist Franz] Weiss have 400 florins annually, and [cellist Joseph] Linke has nothing at all. Linke received the pension only for the first 5 years; but when, after that period, he applied for an extension, it was rejected.”

Beethoven gives the canon “Es muss sein,” WoO 196, and a cover letter to Holz, for delivery to Ignaz Dembscher. Holz promises to take it afterwards. Despite Dembscher’s greediness, Holz was confident that he would pay Schuppanzigh the 50 florins that Beethoven instructed him to give as penance for not subscribing to the Schuppanzigh Quartet concerts. Dembscher had pleaded with Holz to try to reconcile Beethoven with him, on account of the matter of the tickets; “but I told him right away that this would only happen if he gave Schuppanzigh 50 florins. At least he showed himself to be obedient. Mylord does him the favor to play at his place when [Joseph] Mayseder cannot come; he has not received anything yet. He has often said that he would pay 50 florins all at once, if someone would invent an instrument which could make you hear again.”

Holz will be going to Baden bei Wien on Sunday [August 6] and he asks whether Beethoven would like him to look for apartments. [Events transpire that prevent Holz from going to Baden this weekend.]

Talk turns to now-deceased composer Carl Maria von Weber. Holz says he started composing too late. “Mylord remembers that many years ago, he [Weber] was called to Breslau as Kapellmeister, and Schuppanzigh was astonished that a man without any talent for music could obtain such a position. By that time, Mylord thought Weber was incredibly stupid. He did not start studying until later in Prague. His advantage was his acquaintance with many poets and learned people, who brought him on the path to thinking. He did think, but the genius of the Freischütz [libretto] cannot be ruined even by a mediocre composer. The first time I had a low opinion of him was when we were at [poet Ignaz] Castelli’s to celebrate his departure; one of your quartets was performed there. It was the one in E-flat major {Lobkowitz} [op.74]. After the Adagio, he said it was very beautiful, however it was too long; we just laughed in his face.”

“Since then, Linke rails terribly against him [probably meaning Rasoumovsky]. He cannot forgive him for that. [Unlike Schuppanzigh, Linke only got a temporary annuity from Rasoumovsky, not a permanent one.] At that time, he did not want to go on playing.”

Holz comments that reflection fails in art without poetry. “I just want to say that he [probably meaning Weber] wanted to present nature artificially, but art never because nature to him.”

Holz assures Beethoven that the funds will be paid to Schuppanzigh right away, in gold.

“Perhaps Bach could write his fugues more easily,” Holz says, possibly in response to the difficulties Beethoven had with the Grosse Fuge. Holz recommends that Beethoven work to finish the new quartet in F. Beethoven says he also needs to work on the oratorio on Saul that Kuffner is writing for him. Holz notes that the Musikverein had voted unanimously to offer Beethoven all the income of the performance of that oratorio at the Reitschule, which held up to 5,000 people, as a bonus. [The German editors note that Kuffner had apparently suggested this offer.]

Conversation Book 116, 10v-19v.