BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, October 1, 1826

Ludwig and Karl are at Brother Johann’s estate in Gneixendorf. There is some confusion about breakfast and when it is available. [Beethoven appears to have forgotten to wind his watch, which may be related.] Karl reminds Ludwig to wind up his watch.

Ludwig asks where the servant is. Karl tells him she is in the farmyard, feeding the chickens.
Ludwig is not pleased with the hours for breakfast. Karl tells him, “You can have breakfast at any hour. She [Therese or the housekeeper] thought that you didn’t want it before 8 o’clock.”

A shopping trip has to be made, but since today is Sunday it will need to be put off till tomorrow. Ludwig finds Johann in his office. Johann says that in the afternoon he will show Ludwig his hillside vineyards that are in a particularly beautiful area. Ludwig asks where the maid is. Johann offers one of the village boys to Ludwig as a servant. He can have a clever fellow. [This servant is Michael Kren, whose father oversees Johann’s winery.]

Karl makes a number of calligraphic doodles on leaf 25v of the conversation book, something he had not done for some months before his suicide attempt.

Later in the day, Johann leads them on a tour of the estate to the furthest area under cultivation. As they are about to go out into the fields, Johann tells them that “Everything that one sees here belongs to the estate.” Johann points out the sundial in front of Ludwig’s room. [A picture of the sundial is nearby. The windows of Ludwig’s room at the Schloss are the two to the left of the sundial.] Johann acknowledges that he seldom closes the window shutters, so they don’t work very well.

Johann says he will have fewer irritations if he operates the land himself. The buildings will also be better taken care of, because the lessees allow everything to fall to ruin.

Johann plans to take them today to Imbach, which lies in a beautiful region. There are also some historical monuments to be seen. [Imbach is about 2 miles west of Gneixendorf and 2 miles northwest of Krems. Among the sights are a ruined castle and a Gothic convent church. Ludwig will later write that the area reminds him of the Rhineland of his youth.]

After the tour of the estate is completed, they return to the house for dinner. Ludwig asks about the mail coach, and is told that it comes Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m. The Krampensteiner wine they are drinking gives one an appetite.

The dinner conversation is heavily focused on the business of music. Prince Nikolai Galitzin, who still owes Ludwig money for the late quartets, is in Moscow and will need to return to St. Petersburg soon. Count Rasoumovsky pays well. Ignaz Schuppanzigh will begin quartet performances at the usual place again soon. Johann will try to get some copies of the Morgenblatt [published in Stuttgart but widely circulated in Austria].

Johann points out that everything is made with the freshest butter. “The wine is so healthy that everyone who drinks it for 60 or 70 years will live to become old,” he jokes. When his wife Therese is absent, Johann says he lives on 30 kreutzers per day, for one pound of meat, soup and vegetables, and 1 measure of wine. Ludwig says Johann never ate much when he was younger. Johann agrees but now he has more of an appetite. And since he has married, he looks neater.

They then go to Imbach on the Krems River. Johann tells him, “This is the convent where Margarethe, Ottokar’s wife, died. The scene is portrayed in Grillparzer’s play.” He suggests they have a drink at an inn, and then head back home. Johann feels like the landscape there is much like the Helenenthal near Baden. [The Helenenthal was where Karl shot himself; whether Johann knew this when he makes the comment is unclear.]

Conversation Book 122, 25r-27v.