BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, May 28, 1826

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to Beethoven’s apartment fairly early, apparently arriving before Nephew Karl. Poet Christoph Kuffner sends Beethoven many greetings; he is working on the libretto for Saul with heart and soul.

Pianist Dorothea von Ertmann (1781-1849), to whom Beethoven dedicated the piano sonata op.101, is expected in Vienna any day now. [She will arrive on Tuesday, May 30, and stay for several months].

Holz remembers an issue with the E-flat quartet [op.127]. He asks whether Beethoven has a copy at hand. He believes there is a mistake in the engraved second part.

At the Kärntnertor Theater, they will be studying Fidelio in preparation for a performance. [The performance does not happen for five years, until March 22, 1831.] Tomorrow at the An der Wien, they are doing Don Giovanni [Holz first writes Die Zauberflöte, then corrects himself.] Beethoven, possibly thinking of going out to the theater, asks what they are doing at the Josephstadt Theater. There they are doing Der Räuber [The Robbers] by Friedrich Schiller again.

Nephew Karl appears to join them at this point. They discuss hunting and the difficulty of shooting a swallow. They go to the table, but the meal is not ready yet and Holz comments that they sat down at the table too soon.

Holz mentions that he has been invited to a wedding today.

Beethoven brings up the fishmonger Holz had mentioned. Frau Jonas, Holz reminds him. Yes, wasn’t Holz going to bring a form or booklet where Beethoven could order fish from her and then pay monthly? Yes, Holz replies, the booklet has been ready for Beethoven for three days. What about the fish that Beethoven wanted the other day? Holz says he ordered that for him. Beethoven wants to know when he has to pay for the fish. The bill will come soon afterwards. Holz asks Beethoven whether he paid for the fish he ordered from Jonas a while ago. [This may be connected to the letter Jonas that we discussed on May 7, where Beethoven sent some payment along with the letter but requested the amount still due.]

Holz and Karl talk about the Corpus Christi procession and the crowd of people on May 25th. Today, they chanted “Verbum erat apud deum, et deus erat verbum.” [Part of biblical verse John 1:1, “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”]

The housekeeper complains that Beethoven does not have enough butter. She has made soft-boiled eggs on the salad for dinner.

Talk returns to The Robbers by Schiller. Holz quotes parts of some lines from Franz Moor in Act I, scene 1, “Why did nature give me these mole eyes and this red hair?” That is what is written in the part, he adds.

A housekeeper applicant comes to the door. Karl says he has already interviewed her at his place. She is still working, and claims her cooking is good. She will bring references. Uncle Ludwig asks when she can start? She has to hand in her notice first, the usual 14 days. Uncle Ludwig asks when Karl interviewed her. “I told you already. She came to see me the day before yesterday; I did not know if you would find her decent.” The applicant writes in the conversation book, “I think that you, Sir, will be satisfied with me.” Karl says that if his uncle wants to take her on, he can give her the earnest money. Beethoven asks again when she can start, and Karl says in 14 days. Beethoven pays her the earnest money, so she will start 14 days from tomorrow.

She’s working for a Herr Haslinger [apparently not Tobias, but Tobias’s brother-in-law.] Holz knows him and he’ll inquire about her there. Karl notes that she says she is only leaving her position because the pay is too low. [Beethoven, being so notoriously difficult, paid more than double the going rate for housekeepers.] Beethoven laments that it is so hard to find a good housekeeper. Holz jokes that it is easier to win the lottery. Karl adds that they all thought the current one would last. “And yet we were wrong!—One cannot read it in their faces.”

Nephew Karl has an anecdote about writer/composer/editor Friedrich August Kanne, who wrote the libretto to May Night, which the Kärntnertor Theater management has asked Beethoven consider for an opera. “One day he was in a tavern, at a table, at which also sat a baron whom he knew.”
“Kanne: (sneezes)”
“Baron: Bless you!”
“Kanne: Oh! Dear Baron, leave it! I thank you once and for all”
“(sneezes again)”
“Baron: Bless you!”
“Kanne (annoyed): Thank you”
“(sneezes again)”
“Baron: Bless you!”
“Kanne: Waiter! Please carry my dish to another table!”

Holz has another Kanne story: “Once Kanne was standing on the corner of the Rothenthurmstrasse and a carriage drove by so close to him that its wheels almost ran over his feet. Furiously, he ran after the carriage, wielded his stick, and hit the servant who stood backwards on the carriage across the calves as they went down the street, with the words: Bastard! Give it to the one in front!”

These rather crude anecdotes may test Beethoven’s patience because there appears to be another break between him and Holz, who does not appear again in these pages for another week.

In any event, Holz departs for the wedding without saying anything further, and Karl returns to his rooms to do his homework.

Conversation Book 111, 4v-10r.