BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, May 26, 1822 (approximately)

Johann Friedrich Rochlitz recounts a conversation approximately today with an “intimate friend” of Beethoven, from O.G. Sonneck, Beethoven: Impressions of Contemporaries, New York: G. Schimer 1926, at 121:

“I never had seen Beethoven and hence wished all the more that our meeting might take place as soon as possible. No later than the third day of my arrival [Rochlitz arrived on the 24th, so if he counts his arrival day, then today would be the third day] I spoke about it to N.N., his intimate friend. [According to Thayer, “it is very obvious” that N.N. is Tobias Haslinger.] ‘He lives out in the country,’ said the latter. ‘Then let us drive out there!’ ‘That we can do, but his unfortunate deafness has little by little made him quite unsociable. He knows that you want to visit him; he wishes to make your personal acquaintance, but at the same time we cannot be sure but that, when he sees us arrive, he will not run away because, just as he is sometimes full of the most spontaneous merriment, so he often is seized by the profoundest melancholy. It strikes him out of the blue, without any cause, and he is unable to make head against it. But he comes to town at least once a week, at which times he always sees us, because we attend to his letters and the like. Then he usually is in good spirits and we have him where he cannot escape. So if you are willing to humor the poor, tortured soul to the extent of letting us inform you at once and then – it is only a matter of a few steps – come in as though by chance….’

“Of course, I was more than glad to accede to his proposal.”

Rochlitz’s story will continue June 1, 1822.