BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Sunday, September 18, 1825

Nephew Karl is still with his uncle in Baden. They go out to the coffee house to read newspapers in the afternoon, and Karl copies down an advertisement for a patent stylus for his uncle.

They talk about the arrangements for publisher Maurice Schlesinger with regard to the quartet op.132, which he has purchased. He needs to provide instructions to the banking house, and he has not given Ludwig a bill of exchange. Karl suggests he could drive there alone, and then back out to Baden again immediately in the afternoon. Karl will also have to go with him to the French embassy to get the authorization for publication of a foreign work in France. Otherwise, Karl is arranging everything related to business the same as before. He promised Karl there would be a bill of exchange.

Beethoven writes an undated note to Schlesinger about today, or possibly early tomorrow: “Karl has been instructed to speak with you about matters of mercantile interest. Afterwards, it will be a pleasure for me to see you here in Baden. Yours most devotedly, Beethoven.”

Brandenburg Letter 2058; Anderson Letter 1437. The original is in the Schlesinger-Haslinger-Lienau publishing archive. Nephew Karl goes to Vienna to discuss business with Schlesinger tomorrow, and returns on Monday the 19th.

Ludwig seems to make a remark about having to come up with his ideas entirely in his head, without trying them out on an instrument. Karl observes this is an advantage; he isn’t dependent on hatching his ideas at the piano, the way that other Herr Composers have to.

Karl believes that Schlesinger also is buying the first quartet, op.127, from Schott. Schott and Haslinger are afraid that if they don’t sell it to Schlesinger, he’ll just pirate it. Karl mentions that Uncle Ludwig has never once stolen anything from himself. The Schlesinger family is rich, but Karl has not yet met a publisher who pleases him so well as Schlesinger.

Karl asks his uncle, “Have you read the Arabic Tales, A Thousand and One Nights? There is even a story in it where a woman goes by night to the place of burial and digs up bodies in order to eat them—as in Hoffmann.” [E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story, Der Vampyr, adapted from The Story of Sidi Nu’man, Night 946 of the 1,001 nights.]

Housekeeper Barbara Holzmann has made preserves, because Uncle Ludwig said that they must be prepared like preserves. The potatoes are the best. Karl thinks his uncle would like the English beer. Holzmann intends to make stewed peaches for the evening meal. Karl comments that Holzmann looks like she just came from the Blocksberg [an area of the Hartz Mountains that reportedly was a gathering place of witches.]

Uncle Ludwig is still thinking about the admiration he might get if he went to England. Karl agrees, saying “Even the phlegmatic Englishman [Smart] wanted to kiss your hand.

Karl mentions, “Perhaps you have read that a Bavarian company is now playing at the Theater an der Wien? He pays Palffy 100 fl. W.W. rent every evening.” [The Munich Theater ensemble, led by Carl Carl, was initially intended to be a two-month engagement at the Theater an der Wien but ended up being more than eight months.]

The local miller is not happy that Holzmann gets her flour from someone else. He said it was not about the money, but the shame that they are living in Schooss Gutenbrunn, but get their flour from elsewhere. Karl has just learned the reason he is upset is that he is a son of the late owner, Johann Schimmer, who died in February. He is the eldest son of this family of landowners.

Karl mentions that Nikolaus Zmeskall is feeling better now. “He can go out alone again. [Carl] Czerny said recently that he played something for him that he had earlier studied thoroughly for himself (I don’t know by which composer), without discovering a mistake in it, but Zmeskall immediately and merely from hearing it, declared that there were parallel fifths in it, which in fact were subsequently found.”

The plan is for Karl to go to Vienna tomorrow morning, run errands and deal with Schlesinger, and then return later in the day.

In Vienna, Sir George Smart is suffering from a “terribly sore throat,” but he nevertheless goes to the Karlskirche, “where Baron Prentano, the amateur clarinet, took me into the orchestra, according to his promise last Sunday at St. Michael’s church. He introduced me to the director, Mr. Weber—no relation to the one at Dresden—and to the leader, Mr. Horzalka. Kirchoffer, with young Ries, also came to hear the performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C. The opening and gloria were slower than I take them, which in church is more appropriate. Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” with Mozart’s accompaniments, was also performed but it was taken too fast to be effective. A movement by Seyfried was also introduced, which I did not like.”

“The orchestra went well together. There seemed to be twelve violins, four viole, three ‘celli and three bassi, with the wind instruments including trumpets. I find the flourish of drums and trumpets with the organ extempore, to introduce each movements, is the usual mode in the church service. The organist faced the organ as with us. The pitch was only a comma above mine. The principal soprano was short, loud and good, the alto lady was old, fat and tolerable, and the tenor and bass were coarse but firm. Women and boys were here the altos, as is the case at other churches. The performance gave me pleasure but the performers thought it too long.”

Joseph Ries checked on conveyances leaving Vienna on Tuesday the 20th. There are no places in the diligence either, so Smart decides to go by voiture on Tuesday morning. He walks around the ramparts entirely around the City. At a garden, he sees a good band playing, dressed in green uniforms. On his return to his hotel, he finds that Maurice Schlesinger had visited and left his card.

Cox and Cox, Leaves from the Journals of Sir George Smart, 125-126.