BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, August 3, 1826

The miserable heat wave in Vienna continues today, reaching a peak of 26.5 Reaumur, or 91.6 Fahrenheit. Wiener Zeitung of August 5, 1826, Nr.178 at 749. Beethoven continues his shopping list on the next page of Conversation Book 116, accidentally repeating the entry from yesterday:

• cabinet Karl

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to see Beethoven. He has visited publisher Mathias Artaria regarding the quartet op.130. Artaria wants to make the title page of the quartet as beautiful as possible. “Therefore, he wants to see one of the letters from Galitzin [who commissioned the quartet, and is the dedicatee] in order to see the shape of the crown from the seal, so he can engrave it correctly onto the title page.”

There are further questions regarding the Grosse Fuge, which is still intended as the finale of the op.130 quartet. In particular, in the cello part, bar 107, Holz questions whether the third note should be an F-sharp, as appears in the autograph. Beethoven tells him it should be a G. There was a cross in the proof, indicating that the error had been noticed, but it had not been corrected.

Holz asks Beethoven, “Did you not say once that after the first part there had to be a repeat sign, which was already overlooked in the original version?” [Assuming Holz is still talking about the Fugue, the final version does not include a repeat of the first part.]

Holz reports that he delivered Beethoven’s letter, along with the canon Es muss sein, WoO 196, to Ignaz Dembscher. He was sitting at a game of chance. Beethoven wonders when Dembscher will make the promised payment of 50 florins to Ignaz Schuppanzigh as he had demanded. Holz tells him, “The canon will have its effect.” [The canon tells Dembscher, who asked, “Must it be?” that “It must be.” Schindler’s story about the canon being related to the housekeeper’s expenses is a fraudulent fabrication, as usual with him.]

Beethoven asks about the schedule for the release of the quartet by Artaria. Holz answers that once the parts are published, the full score is to be released about 8 weeks later. [This delay is a precaution to encourage musicians to buy the parts, rather than buying the less-expensive full score and making their own parts from it.] Artaria will also have a piano reduction made from the other movements besides the Fugue, but he does not know whom to turn to for that. [Anton Halm had arranged the fugue for piano duet, but Beethoven did not approve of it. Artaria considered employing Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny to arrange the other movements, but ended up not publishing a piano reduction of these movements at all.]

Holz asks Beethoven what Nephew Karl had to say about his talk with Tobias Haslinger regarding the dispute over the title pages to the March and Chorus, op.114, and Tremate, empi tremate, op.116. Ludwig fills him in on the conversation with Karl the day before yesterday. Haslinger cannot simply reject the title Beethoven wants. The word “originale” was left out. “One has to laugh at this immense stupidity,” Holz comments.

Beethoven complains that it has taken so long for these and other pieces, which have been with the predecessor firm S.A. Steiner & Co., for about a decade, to get published by Haslinger. In particular, the time is long passed for the cantata written for the Congress of Vienna in 1814, Der glorreiche Augenblick, op.136, to be of much interest. Holz asks whether when he left the cantata with Steiner back then, he expressly specified a time limit for it to appear. Beethoven unfortunately did not.

Holz urges Beethoven to finish the string quartet op.135 before he starts in on the oratorio Saul. If it is already finished, then it just needs to find a publisher, and they are already there. Also, Holz reminds Beethoven, he was going to look for the lieder that he offered to C.F. Peters in 1822 [including the recently recovered song Liebe, Hess 137.] One day of searching should turn them up.

Holz says that his schedule has changed so that he can come more often in the morning, rather than in the afternoons. He can use that time to proofread the Ninth Symphony for the King of Prussia so that it can move ahead. Beethoven doesn’t much like that idea, since he works in the mornings and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Holz tells him, “You just stay in your study; I’ll stay here.”

Holz, always one for musical gossip, makes reference to a female musician, who has a student who also is her lover. [There are insufficient details to be able to determine who he means.]

Holz tells Beethoven he needs to check on Beethoven’s violins, which were recently restrung. “If they are always kept in tune, that will be good for them.”

Dembscher will keep the original of the canon, but Holz would like to make a copy. “I will have it done.” [It is a good thing that Holz makes this copy, because Dembscher’s original does not survive, though there are several sketches scattered throughout the sketch leaves catalogued as Artaria 216, presently held by the Berlin Staatsbibliothek.]

Tomorrow evening [August 4], there is to be a vocal quartet as part of a big musical event at Dr. Dominik Vivenot’s home in celebration of his name day. Mylord [Schuppanzigh] will also be there. That will be the best opportunity to remind Dembscher of his obligations.

Conversation Book 116, 25v-30r. Holz takes a sample letter with Galitzin’s seal with him to deliver to Artaria.

Karl probably is spending time with his mother Johanna about now, and playing billiards in coffee houses, rather than study for his examinations.