BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, December 30, 1824
Karl’s advertisement for a new housekeeper is repeated in today’s Intelligenzblatt supplement (Nr.299) to the Wiener Zeitung, at 824. The text is identical to the one published on Tuesday, December 28, and again asks for anyone interested to get more details at the apartment between 8 and 9 a.m. and between 12 and 1 in the afternoon.
The only applicant who shows up in the conversation books is Frau Lamatsch, mother of Julius Lamatsch, the aspiring composer, who also accompanies her to show Beethoven some of his work. The mother demonstrates she is able to write well. She promises, “honesty, loyalty, cleanliness, and I promise to take care of well prepared meals, as well as mending and repairing the linens, to the best of my ability.”
Karl says she doesn’t mind. She is simply looking for a place.
Julius studied with Friedrich Dionys Weber (1766-1842) in Prague for half a year. He has quite a lot of lessons, but is in no position to support his mother.
He continues, “I probably have very many thoughts that are good, but unfortunately lack the necessary preliminary instruction. May I therefore most submissively ask you to grant me your favor and kindly to support me sometimes.” Ludwig is probably noncommittal in response, and tells the boy he is doing fine without his instruction. “But the mistakes,” Lamatsch pleads. How many hours of lessons is he taking now? “2 to 4 hours.”
Beethoven asks what the young man plays. “Yours, Mozart’s, Czerny’s, and Clementi’s, but unfortunately I have little music.”
The Lamatsches probably leave the apartment disappointed. Frau Lamatsch is not taken on as housekeeper, and 19-year-old Julius, lacking in formal instruction, would have faced a difficult task of breaking through in the Viennese musical world.
After they depart, Beethoven makes a note to himself about the tempo indication for the Opferlied, op.121b: “Solemn and slowly, but not too much.”
Conversation Book 79, 14v-15v. This concludes Conversation Book 79. The books resume in early January.
Today’s Wiener Theater-Zeitung (Nr.157) at 626 includes an overview of the twenty-three musical Masses performed at the Augustiner church in Vienna over the year 1824, under the direction of Herr Schmidt as choirmaster and Beethoven’s friend Ferdinand Piringer as orchestral director. Among the performances heard was a Mass by Beethoven (twice). This was presumably the Mass in C, rather than the Missa Solemnis, which was still not generally available and remained unpublished.
Do you still need a last-minute musical gift for a loved one for New Year’s 1825? The collection of 40 new waltzes, including Beethoven’s Waltz in E-flat WoO 84, is offered yet again in today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.299), this time by J.Bermann music dealer (at 1277), and by a new entrant, Pietro Mechetti (at 1278). Both ads mention Beethoven by name.