BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, November 28, 1824

The surviving conversation books resume at last with Book 78. The book contains 36 leaves. Page 10v is crossed out with Beethoven’s red crayon that he used for editing. The pages have been stapled together out of order; leaves 11 through 36 should come before leaves 1 through 10. This book will be used for a period of about three weeks. In addition, the last few pages of this book were used contemporaneously with Conversation Book 79, so there will be some jumping back and forth between the two in mid-December.

Beethoven seems to have a toothache this afternoon. Nephew Karl recommends that rather than have the tooth pulled, since it will not grow back, he have a little piece of gold or silver put in. That will be just as good.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. As Karl went into the church, he ran into Maria Pamer, Uncle Ludwig’s former housekeeper. “She stood there and asked how you were. She looked very bad and down on her luck. I learned incidentally that she was unemployed and was staying with the woman in the Bischofhof. She says that she has been very sick.” Till recently, she had worked for a Polish countess but had to leave that service due to her illness. Karl believes “she appeared to regret her moral lapse extraordinarily, since her child cost her a very great deal.”

After church, Karl had gone to the first concert of the season at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, held at 12:30. The program included Beethoven’s Symphony Nr.8 in F, an Aria and chorus from Mercadante’s Gli amici di Siracusa, a set of cello variations by Joseph Merk, the Overture to Cherubini’s opera Elisa (1794), and the chorus from Ahasverus (after Mozart) by Ignaz von Seyfried. The review in the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.52, December 23, 1824, at 857 says about the concert, “Everything was played promptly and precisely.” A program of these works would have run about an hour and 40 minutes, including an intermission, so it is probably after 2:30 in the afternoon now. Karl saw Frau von Reinlein, the mother of one of this school friends, at the concert. She invited him to come and visit. [Karl had previously stayed with the family for some time in 1823.]

There is some discussion about the works that Ludwig had given to Brother Johann in payment of some debts. These included The Consecration of the House, op.124, Opferlied op.121b, Bundeslied op.122, Der Kuss op.128, and the Six Bagatelles op.126. Ludwig had sold them to H.A. Probst for 100 ducats in March; Ludwig then offered them instead a few days ago for 130 ducats. Karl thinks it would be better to honor the deal with Probst. “Better that your Herr Brother makes 30 ducats less, than someone could guess only most remotely that you want to have more than you yourself asked.” [It seems Karl does not approve of his uncle’s shady dealing.]

Karl notes that he bought meat for 20 kreutzers, and a roast for 30 kreutzers. He doubles that to make 1 florin 40 kreuzers, so he would have 1 florin 20 left over from his 3 florins. Uncle Ludwig meanwhile approximates multiplying 42 by 5, through means of making a column of 42 written five times.

Karl advises his uncle that the maid cannot carry water today. She needs at least 10 buckets for the laundry, but if it is done tomorrow, that will be too late and she will then need to wash for two days. She also needs patches.

The capons are expensive, 50 kreutzers per quarter capon. That would make 3 florins 20 kreutzers for a whole bird.

Karl mentions that Streicher is always sick. He doesn’t know what to make of them [it is unclear whether he means here the Streichers, Beethoven’s longtime friends, or more likely someone else]. It seems as if people just become associated with Uncle Ludwig in order to further their own reputations.

Later today, Beethoven, still suffering from dental woes, at a coffee house reads yesterday’s Intelligenzblatt and copies down the information of dentist Sigmund Hamberger, “Master of Dental Health” with office hours between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. [Karl noted on September 7 that dentist Joseph Biehl died the day before; if Dr. Biehl was Ludwig’s regular dentist, then he would need to find a new one to deal with his toothache.]

He also notes down Spiritus Vini rectificatissimus [Most highly rectified spirits of wine], for use in night lamps, from an advertisement elsewhere in the Intelligenzblatt from yesterday. [The Wiener Zeitung, to which the Intelligenzblatt was a supplement, did not publish on Sundays.]

Beethoven makes a shopping and errand list:

+Different ear machines.
+[Friedrich August] Kanne concerning Oratorio. [Der Sieg des Kreuzes, which Beethoven had committed to write the music for, but he was unenthusiastic about Joseph Bernard’s libretto. He may have been intending to ask Kanne his thoughts on whether the libretto was worthwhile. Kanne had already suggested some significant cuts to the libretto to Bernard.]
+Washing powder; Wollzeile.

Conversation Book 78, 11r-13r.