BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday: February 19, 1824

Violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh visits Beethoven this afternoon. He has made a proposition to Duport about the concertmaster position at the Kärntnertor Theater. They can give him compensation in the meantime and then when they want to, they can give him the position, but they haven’t responded. [Schuppanzigh seems to be suggesting that to keep the second concertmaster happy, Schuppanzigh would be a part of the orchestra, and get paid as a concertmaster, but he would not take the position proper in the meantime.] That would probably last until December. There isn’t any income to be had in the summer [since everyone with money goes to the country.] Beethoven is surprised that the recommendation of the Archduke didn’t carry the day, and a rather bitter Schuppanzigh tells him to write to Archduke Rudolph and tell him his recommendation was of no use, because he was rejected.

At the Hofkapelle, they also chose Jansa over Schuppanzigh. Jansa has his own group of supporters, and Abbé Stadler took such a great interest in the matter that it made him ill.

Changing the topic, Schuppanzigh tells Beethoven it is now time to think seriously about the Akademie concert, because the vocalists will have to study their parts. Beethoven is concerned that it will require more performers than there are professionals in the City. Schuppanzigh tells him that if you require a great many performers, you will have to use some dilettantes, but there are some very good dilettantes in Vienna. Beethoven would prefer professionals, and Schuppanzigh agrees that the bad thing about talented dilettantes is they take the bread out of the mouths of professional musicians.

Beethoven tells Schuppanzigh that he should keep trying for a position. “That’s very easy to say, but what then am I supposed to live on? It is 9 months until December [when the theater is willing to engage him.]” Beethoven thinks Duport would want Schuppanzigh. “If Duport were concerned about keeping me here, believe me, he would certainly make sacrifices for me, but nothing worries these people.” Why do they quibble about a sacrifice of a couple or 200 florins, when they will readily engage a singer who won’t perform until half a year later? Beethoven asks whether he has written Duport, and he did the day before yesterday, but there still has been no response.

The stage director Gottdank at least is in Schuppanzigh’s corner, and promises he will give Duport no rest until he hires Schuppanzigh. He knows that Duport asked Joseph Weigl for a reference, and he said it would be very good to engage Schuppanzigh. Weigl himself was rejected as kapellmeister at St. Stephan’s cathedral. The appointment for Weigl had already been written, and if he had gone personally to pick it up then it would have been done, but he waited and suddenly the decree came from the Emperor to hold it all up. [And then the position was given to Gänsbacher.]

Conversation Book 56, 27v-30v.

Artaria fires another salvo in the dispute over the rights to publish piano reductions of Rossini’s operas, advertising in today’s Wiener Zeitung at 175 vocal scores and solo piano versions of Semiramide, Zelmira, Corradino, Maometto, and Elisabetta. “In addition, these well-published operas by Rossini for piano, both with and without text, fully transcribed by popular demand by the most skillful artists, are available from us without need for subscriptions, at the cheapest prices.”

J. Bermann at 176 of the Wiener Zeitung today also once again advertises Beethoven’s Das Glück der Freundschaft op.88, the Pathètique Sonata op.13, and the unspecified set of 6 variations for piano.