BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, September 10, 1820 (approximately)

Conversation Book 16, leaves 70r through 73r

If my surmise yesterday about the date is correct, Beethoven goes to Blöchlinger’s Institute and picks up nephew Karl and his teacher Joseph Köferle and they head into the City for mid-day dinner. They meet editor Joseph Bernard, who dominates the conversation as usual.

As they make plans for Karl and Köferle to pay a visit to Mödling on Monday, they discuss walking paths in the area; Bernard likes one behind the church and up the Brühl valley; it is rocky and extremely pleasant.

Rocky hiking above Mödling near the Black Tower (1809)

Beethoven asks Karl to remind him what his teacher’s name is. Bernard repeats his story from yesterday about the emperor being mad about being deceived about false reports in Italy that will cost him half his army. Bernard believes the Neapolitan rebels will fight hard and vindicate themselves like the Spaniards did. [The revolution against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was based on a desire for a written constitution and an end to governmental corruption. These were goals that Beethoven would almost certainly have been sympathetic toward.]

There is more talk about the Duke of Cambridge; Bernard refers to him as the Viceroy of Hanover. [At this time Adolph Frederick is actually only governor general of Hanover, a title he has held since 1816; he becomes viceroy in 1831.]

Bernard also brags that he walked from the Leopoldsberg to the Kahlenberger Dörfel in six or seven minutes. [Editor Ted Albrecht notes that the steep walk actually takes more like half an hour.] Bernard draws two heads in profile in the right margins.

Conversation Book 16, leaf 73r (courtesy Berlin Staatsbibliothek).

Beethoven next writes seven lines that begin “I believe the” and ending in two exclamation points “!!” but the rest of these lines are heavily scratched out and unreadable. [They were probably politically dangerous comments since Beethoven did not feel comfortable saying them aloud. They may have been remarks in support of the revolution in Naples, which likely would have had repercussions for Beethoven if overheard or read by Metternich’s ubiquitous secret police.]

After returning Karl to his school, Beethoven returns to Mödling to prepare for his visitors tomorrow.

In the afternoon, presumably the carriage took at least some (probably six) of the chickens from Mödling to Vienna as planned on September 8th.