BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, October 24, 1824 (approximately)

Beethoven about now receives a request from invalid actor Carl Friedrich Müller (1796-1846) to write a waltz for piano. According to an anecdote related in the Neues Wiener Musik-Zeitung, July 15, 1858 at 110, Müller, “who was also an amateur in the field of music composition, published a book of waltzes. Each of them was composed especially for the occasion by a different composer, among them the most popular and renowned composers of the time; for no one refused to make this musical contribution to the publisher, who was to use the proceeds to pay for a spa treatment in Carlsbad. The book was unusually well received and sold well. The publisher then thought of asking the great Louis von Beethoven, with whom he had already been acquainted through his grandfather and father in earlier times, to contribute something. With the noblest and most loving willingness, the great composer promised to fulfill the requester’s wishes and not only provided a waltz, but (he was the only one) also a trio. He asked the publisher to send for the finished work in about four weeks.”

The story will continue on November 21, when Beethoven completes the Waltz for Müller. The newspaper article sets this story as occurring in 1825, but it must be from 1824 since the Waltz written for Müller in 1825 does not have a Trio, while the one written in 1824 does have a Trio.