BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, September 11, 1825

Conversation Book 96 is entirely devoted to today. It is a fairly large book of 52 leaves. However, only 16 leaves bear writing. The book was apparently gifted to Maurice Schlesinger as a souvenir of Beethoven, at Schlesinger’s request. It did not come into the collection of the Berlin Staatsbibliothek through Anton Schindler, as was the case for the vast majority of the conversation books, but rather from a Dresden antiquarian bookseller.

They meet at Schlesinger’s hotel in Baden at about 8 a.m. Beethoven hands the entirely blank book to Schlesinger while they are waiting for the carriage to Vienna for today’s concert at Zum wilden Mann. Schlesinger for some reason starts the conversation on the last leaf of the book, then goes back to the second leaf, leaving the first leaf blank. Schlesinger, trying to strike up conversation, comments that the sun is shining very brightly today. He mentions he already took a bath today. He left a volume of E.T.A. Hoffmann stories in his carriage yesterday; he will have Leidesdorf get that back to him, and he will give Beethoven the replacement copy he bought yesterday.

Schlesinger would like to obtain the score of the new quartet and have it copied and take it with him. Beethoven asks how long he intends to remain in Vienna. Schlesinger says perhaps another two weeks. Schlesinger is very glad about the new quartet [op.130] and asks when it will be finished. {Beethoven probably gives him an answer longer than two weeks, which is what he has been telling others. It is not finished until December.]

Schlesinger does some shaky writing while in the carriage from Baden to Vienna. He asks whether Beethoven might consider writing something for the new Königstadt Theater in Berlin if Gaspare Spontini creates intrigues at the Royal Opera house. They pay well at the Königstadt Theater. Beethoven mentions the issues he had with that theater over the Consecration of the House Overture, where Beethoven authorized them to perform it, and the theater director claimed he had sold them the full rights to the Overture, and produced an unauthorized four-hand piano arrangement. Schlesinger tells him to get a Privilegium license to protect his works from being reprinted. Spontini would not allow Weber’s recent opera Euryanthe to be performed there. Maurice’s father Adolph Schlesinger is Weber’s principal publisher, and he engraved his Freischütz.

The coach driver is going faster than the usual carriage, and the trip likely will take only two hours instead of the usual two and a half to three. Schlesinger invites Beethoven to come with him to Paris and live at his place. “You should come with me right away.” Beethoven appears to think it over and asks again when Schlesinger is leaving. He will stay in Vienna another two weeks. Beethoven wants to finish the quartets he’s working on first. Schlesinger also wants him to finish the 3 new quintets that he wants. Once he has started, Schlesinger believes he can finish quickly and then come soon to Paris.

Schlesinger thinks Haydn’s Creation is a grand work, likewise The Seasons. “Music should affect the soul. It would be interesting if you were to compose a Creation.” Beethoven objects that he would need a libretto, but Schlesinger thinks he could use the same words. “Why not?”

Schlesinger engages in some musical gossip, inquiring about why Salieri cut his own throat. Beethoven asks where he heard about that. “It appeared in all the journals.” Schlesinger asks Beethoven’s opinion of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. His widow Constanze “is said to be a stupid woman.”

Schlesinger wants to stop in Meidling to say hello to an acquaintance for just a moment, but Beethoven reminds him that they need to be in Vienna for the 11 a.m. rehearsal. As they enter the outer fortifications of Vienna, Schlesinger remarks that the whole region knows Beethoven by sight. Schlesinger pays for the carriage, which is a rental from Baden.

They arrive at Zum wilden Mann. Nephew Karl is already there. He lets his uncle know that they are doing the second quartet [op.132] because there are many present who have not yet heard it. They will do the first quartet [op.127] later. Karl says he has the money draft [likely for the 80 ducats paid by Schlesinger for the publishing rights to op.132] and can pick up the funds from the banker tomorrow.

The concert begins at noon. The first piece is the Piano Trio op.70/1 (“Ghost“) with Carl Czerny at the piano, Ignaz Schuppanzigh on violin, and Joseph Linke on cello.

Sir George Smart’s diary entry for today mentions that he went to St. Michael’s church, where he is invited to attend a Mass by Beethoven to be performed next Sunday. “From hence I went alone to Schlesinger’s, at the ‘Wilde-mann,‘ where was a larger party than the previous one. Among them was L’Abbé [Maximilian] Stadler, a fine old man and a good composer of the old school, to whom I was introduced. There was also present a pupil of Moscheles, a Mademoiselle Eskeles and a Mademoiselle Cimia, whom I understood to be a professional player. When I entered Messrs. C. Czerny, Schuppanzigh and Lincke had just begun the trio, op.70 of Beethoven, after this the same performers played Beethoven’s trio, op.[97; Smart writes 79]—both printed singly by Steiner. Then followed Beethoven’s quartette, the same that I heard on September the 9th, and it was played by the same performers. Beethoven was seated near the pianoforte beating time during the performance of these pieces. This ended, most of the company departed, but Schlesinger invited me to stop and dine with the following party of ten. Beethoven, his nephew, Holz, Weiss, C. Czerny, who sat at the bottom of the table, Lincke, Jean Sedlatzek,—a flute player who is coming to England next year, and has letters to the Duke of Devonshire, Count St. Antonion, etc.—he has been to Italy—Schlesinger, Schuppanzigh, who sat at the top, and myself. Beethoven calls Schuppanzigh Sir John Falstaff, not a bad name considering the figure of this excellent violin player.”

Cox and Cox, Leaves from the Journal of Sir George Smart (London, 1907) at 113-114.

Holz briefly leaves to deliver a copying order to Wenzel Rampl. Fraulein Eskeles offers her thanks to Beethoven in person for the splendid composition that he wrote in her album, Der edle Mensch sei hülfreich und gut, WoO 151 on a text by Goethe on January 20, 1823. Schlesinger mentions that she plays very beautifully and especially adores Beethoven’s compositions. Nephew Karl tells his uncle that she is the fiancé of Count Wimpffen. He is a captain who is being promoted to major. Schuppanzigh says that “It pleased him boundlessly today. He said that the Trio was the non plus ultra of all piano music. But it is also horribly long.” Schlesinger told Eskeles that Nephew Karl is in training to become a merchant, and she said she will arrange with her banker father to get him a position. [This seemingly innocent exchange will have important repercussions over the next year.]

As the group adjourns to dinner, Schuppanzigh mentions that Madame Cibbini was quite transported today, and never took her eyes off Beethoven. He introduces Smart saying that he directed the violins at the London performance of the Ninth Symphony. Smart wants to know exactly how Beethoven wants the recitatives in the symphony to be played. Schuppanzigh writes, “He says that it cost them a great deal of work.” Smart would like Beethoven to play that passage for him on the piano after dinner. Beethoven asks how they did it, but Smart says only that they were unanimous in how it had to be played.

Holz rejoins the group for dinner. “I have given Rampel the command from On High.” Dinner is partridge.

Smart jokes that Handel must have written for Austrian trumpeters, because the English are the worst imaginable. Beethoven quotes a bar of the trumpet part from Handel’s Water Music here, writing “Clarini in D.” Smart says that in Handel’s time there was perhaps one person alive who could perform such things, but nobody can do it today. Smart offers a toast to Beethoven’s health in the name of all English musicians. A second toast follows: Long live the quartet!

Schuppanzigh says Holz is a good fellow. Nephew Karl is sitting next to Holz, who comments on two Karls being next to each other. Holz writes the musical joke on Tobias Haslinger’s first name, WoO 205h, and Schlesinger writes “Tobias” underneath it.

Schlesinger proposes a toast to Nephew Karl’s success. He hopes that he can contribute something to Karl soon entering the Eskeles banking offices. Fraulein Eskeles will take care of it. “She is a dear and kind girl. She understands a great deal, has a kind heart, a great deal of spirit, and real talent.” But her fiancé Wimpffen, while a man from a great family, is otherwise a great scoundrel.

At the conclusion of the dinner, Zum wilden Mann proprietor Sebastian Schmidt mentions to Beethoven that he recalls him improvising on a theme by Salieri when he was in the service of Count Johann Georg von Browne (1767-1827).

Karl encourages his uncle to play for the group. “My good fellow! Play something for us!” [This is some wordplay in German calculated to appeal to Uncle Ludwig: “Bester! Gebt was zum Besten.” Usually, such a request to play would be dismissed by Beethoven, often with anger, but he seems to have been in extraordinarily good spirits today over the positive reception given to his new quartet, and he agrees to extemporize.]

We here pick up again with Sir George Smart’s diary entries regarding the dinner and afterwards: “We had a most pleasant dinner, healths were given in the English style. Beethoven was delightfully gay but hurt that, in the letter Moscheles gave me, his name should be mixed up with the other professors. However he soon got over it. He was much pleased and rather surprised at seeing in the oratorio bill I gave him that the “Mount of Olives” and his “Battle Symphony” were performed the same evening. He believes—I do not—that the high notes Handel wrote for trumpets were played formerly by one particular man. I gave him the oratorio book and bill. He invited me, by his nephew, to Baden next Friday. After dinner, he was coaxed to play extempore, observing in French to me, “Upon what subject shall I play?” Meanwhile, he was touching the instrument thus:

to which I answered, “Upon that.” On which theme he played for about twenty minutes in a most extraordinary manner, sometimes very fortissimo, but full of genius. When he rose at the conclusion of his playing he appeared greatly agitated. No one could be more agreeable than he was—plenty of jokes. He was in the highest of spirits. We all wrote to him by turns, but he can hear a little if you halloo quite close to his left ear. He was very severe in his observations about the Prince Regent never having noticed his present of the score of his “Battle Symphony.” [Wellington’s Victory, op.91] His nephew regretted that his uncle had no one to explain to him the profitable engagement offered by the Philharmonic Society last year. I have had a most delightful day. Schlesinger is very agreeable, he knows Weber and Franz Cramer’s family. About seven I took a little walk with Carl Czerny—whom Neate taught, he says, to speak English. I then went to his house and played four or five duets with him, they are clever compositions, but not easy. He taught young Liszt. About nine I went home by myself, having promised to go to C. Czerny’s on Wednesday evening.”

Cox and Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart, at 114-115.

Schlesinger passes on the request from Schmidt that Beethoven sign the piano where he extemporized. Finally, Schlesinger asks that he be allowed to keep the conversation book, since he both began and ended it. Beethoven gives him both Conversation Books 95 and 96.

Conversation Book 96, 52r-52v, 2r-15v; Conversation Book 95 12a [This leaf was separated from Conversation Book 96 and mistakenly bound into Book 95.]

Beethoven returns to Baden along with Karl Holz. Their conversation continues in Conversation Book 97, a book of 58 leaves that covers a little over the next two weeks. Anton Schindler misidentified this book as being from 1826. Every page of the book contains writing.

Holz describes flutist Johann Sedlaczek (1789-1866), who was at the dinner but did not write in the book, as a “false Tamino,” but acknowledges that he was in dulci jubilo. “He was still a tailor [his family’s trade] ten years ago. Now he has advanced to being an artist. Here every virtuoso calls himself an artist; he may over-refine art as much as he wants.” Holz asks how Beethoven liked the Englishman Smart. But they provided a director and don’t need an Englishman.

The piano quartet version of the piano quintet op.16 comes up, and Beethoven wonders why Steiner never published it. Holz conjectures, “It is possible that Tobias doesn’t want to publish the Piano Quartet until many years from now.” [It would eventually be published in December of 1828 by Haslinger as part of a projected set of Beethoven’s collected works.] Perhaps that could be given to Schlesinger, Beethoven wonders. Holz quotes Franz Grillparzer’s Sappho:

“It does not diminish the fame of him who possess it,
His touch is filled with the strength of the gods.”

Holz says that Schlesinger should not get the autograph manuscript in any case. Someday that document will be capital for Nephew Karl. Beethoven starts to get annoyed at Karl’s neglect of his studies. Holz thinks that once Karl is staying with Ludwig and is under the watchful eye of the housekeeper, things will be better. “I know what it’s like to fall in with bad company; that happened to me once, and it took me a great deal of effort to get out of the mess.” Beethoven is not so sure that Karl will manage that. Holz replies, “He is not without a head.”

Talk turns to Gaspare Spontini, who had been mentioned during the dinner. Holz says his opera Nurmahal only got a single performance and did not please. Holz calls him a noise maker, and tells an anecdote, “It happened that in the first act of a Spontini opera, someone left because the great noise alarmed him so. When he came out into the street, 40 drummers passed by him, performing their Zapfenstreich [curfew music]. ‘Thank God!’ cried the Berliner, ‘Finally I’m hearing softer music.'” Beethoven asked where he heard that story, and Holz says from Henning, the concertmaster from Berlin.

Holz mentions that the Court has decided to let the position of Chamber Composer expire after the death of the current holder of the position, Franz Vincenz Krommer (1759-1831). [Beethoven had expressed an interest in that honorable position.] Holz jokes that “There is still the question as to whether it is honorable to obtain the position after such a one.”

Abbé Stadler, who was at the concert this afternoon, is a protector of the competent, Holz says, a courier. “Today he praised the same compositions of yours about which he raised his reed warbler’s voice a short time ago. I may as well forgive him. His swinging cannot move so much as to fly behind you yourself when listening (and I do not talk about composing).”

When Beethoven comes next to Vienna, they need to have a serious conversation about the planned Akademie benefit concert. It needs to be considered in a timely manner. Beethoven asks how they can afford to pay the orchestra, and Holz says they can use the dilettantes [presumably from the Musikverein, who had supplemented the orchestra for the May 1824 Akademie concerts.] “Mylord [Schuppanzigh] complains about all dilettantes, but he needs them. He and many others don’t like it if the dilettantes can do something and they can’t.” Holz adds that Schuppanzigh “played better than ever today.” He was particularly good in the recitative transition to the final movement. “He has something that no-one else can learn; but for that reason he has also not learned anything beyond it.”

Holz and Beethoven arrive in Baden; Holz immediately takes the public carriage back into Vienna, and Beethoven goes to his apartment at Schloss Gutenbrunn alone.

Conversation Book 97, 1r-5r.