BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, August 10, 1820

Conversation Book 15, leaf 41r and 41v.

Beethoven is in Mödling, having his afternoon coffee. While reading the newspaper advertisements in the Intelligenzblatt of yesterday, his eye is caught by an ad for the New Large Tested and Proven Cookbook by Maria Elisabeth Meixner, 4th improved ed. (Linz, 1818), expanded to 153 dishes, for sale at Franz Wimmer’s shop. This was probably for the new housekeeper’s use, since it’s difficult to imagine Beethoven doing his own cooking.

He also notes he needs to buy pens, suggesting he is hard at work. His principal projects right now are the autograph of the Credo for the Missa Solemnis and the third movement of piano sonata #30, op.109.