BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, January 13, 1825
Nephew Karl and Brother Johann appear to go with Ludwig to the Fries banking institution to make sure that they are ready to accept the scores of the Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis (which are very nearly in final form), and to hand over the bills of exchange from Schott’s. Johann comments to Ludwig that “These bills of exchange are as good as gold.” They can be collected in one month and two days. The gold is already here in Vienna.
Johann says that he has twice given the Consecration of the House Overture to Ludwig in good copies, which he still has. Johann wants to send them to London in a couple of days to Johann Reinhold Schultz, who had written to Tobias Haslinger on December 10, asking if he might be able to publish the Overture in England, assuming the rights had not already been sold.
The banker notes that Schott is also expecting the quartet [op.127] very soon. After they leave, Johann remarks that the banker’s representative was a countryman of theirs from the Rhineland, given his manner of speaking.
There is a brief review of Ludwig’s finances. In addition to the forthcoming 1,600 florins for these two scores, 50 ducats are coming from Prince Galitzin, and 50 ducats from Schott for the Quartet. [50 ducats would be about 225 florins, so over 2,000 florins would be received soon.] Ludwig starts talking about buying a house, and Johann agrees it would be suitable. Both Haydn and Salieri had a house.
The three of them adjourn to a coffee house to read the newspapers. Ludwig makes note of an advertisement in the Intelligenzblatt that winter game meats, venison, chamois, partridges, hazel-hens, black grouse, and rock-hens are available at the Auerhahn. [Beethoven had copied out an earlier appearance of this advertisement in December.]
Johann points out someone to Ludwig, identifying him as Karl’s Professor in English. “You surely know him; he praises Karl very much.”
Johann mentions that he didn’t find someone unidentified at home, but left word with his wife that he should come see Ludwig tomorrow for a quarter of an hour. [This may be copyist Ferdinand Wolanek; but no one writes tomorrow in the conversation books other than Johann and Karl. If it is Wolanek, this might be when Beethoven arranges to have him copy the op.127 quartet for Prince Galitzin once it is finished. Or this may relate to yet another subscription copy of the Missa Solemnis.]
Someone named Dr. Schlosser introduces himself and says he knows Ludwig from Linz. [No “Dr. Schlosser” has thus far been identified. “Dr” could refer to a medical doctor or a professor. This also might be the professor of English mentioned above.]
The dividends are also payable on Ludwig’s bank shares, and Johann volunteers to take the shares and go collect the money tomorrow after mid-day dinner, at 3 o’clock. After Johann leaves, Ludwig thinks of something he wanted to discuss with him and wants to write a letter. Karl suggests they leave it until tomorrow, since they know he’s coming then at 3 o’clock. Ludwig concedes that will be fine.
Conversation Book 81, 1r, 2v-4r. This book is made of up 31 leaves, all of which have writing on them. The first page had by all appearances been used a week earlier, and then this book is used beginning at 2v today, after Conversation Book 80 had been filled. Johann then flipped back to that first page at times today, possibly making entries that he did not want the Fries representative to see, since they concerned other publishers. Finding several blank pages (1v-2r) in between after Beethoven’s death, Anton Schindler filled in fraudulent entries making it look as if Beethoven was consulting him for his advice on publishers and how to deal with Johann.
Carl Wilhelm Henning (1785-1867), the music director of the Royal City Theater in Berlin, responds from there to Beethoven’s January 1 letter accusing him of making and publishing the four-hands piano arrangement of the Consecration of the House Overture, op.124. In his defense, he claims that since the administration of the Royal Theater in Berlin paid for the work, along with The Ruins of Athens incidental music, it was entitled to do so. Henning had given Beethoven the assurance, at his request, that the Overture would not be published sooner than one year after it was received.
“As much as I am convinced that, under the current circumstances, the publication of the same is entirely legal, I am nevertheless very sorry to have come into what I would consider a very unpleasant collision with you. With the best intentions to comply with your wishes, however, the edition for four hands that was published by Herr T. [Trautgott] Trautwein cannot be withdrawn, since he came into possession of the piece through legal means and has already published it. As for the other arrangements which were also to be published, I will now gladly give up my intention to do so out of respect for you and your wishes, and will put the manuscript aside. Since this matter is based on legal issues and nothing further can be changed on my part, I can only hope that this matter will not cause you any further inconvenience.”
“With the assurance that I will never cease to admire you as the esteemed master, I ask for your continued favor and have the honor of remaining yours sincerely, C.W. Henning.”
Brandenburg Letter 1923; Albrecht Letter 391. The original of the letter is not known to survive; a copy in an unknown hand, probably Henning’s own copy, is in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (aut.48, Beilage 1). Unfortunately, the written contract does not survive, so we cannot be certain as to what the terms of the transaction were. The conversation books and Beethoven’s surviving letters do not shed much light on the issue.
The Berlin correspondent for the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Nr.7, February 15, 1825 at 118, makes mention of a concert given there today by Madame Anna Milder-Hauptmann (1785-1838). The celebrated artist sang a number of numbers by Blum, Haydn, Schubert, Meyerbeer and the duet from Zingarelli’s Romeo and Juliet. She also performed an unidentified Terzet by Beethoven with Hrn. Stümer and Sieber to general applause. [Regular readers of this feature may remember Milder-Hauptmann visiting Beethoven last summer in Vienna. He had also written the riddle canon “Ich küsse Sie” WoO 169 for her in a January, 1816 letter.]
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.9) at 37 includes a short advertisement by Anton Diabelli & Col. for Schubert’s song Die Forelle [The Trout], for solo voice with piano accompaniment, on a poem by Christian Daniel Schubart. The song is today catalogued as D.550. The original poem was about a trout being caught by a fisherman, with the final stanza revealing that the poem has been a metaphoric warning to young women about the dangers of young men. When Schubert set the poem to music, he deleted this final verse. Schubert set seven versions of the song with minor differences between them. The theme was also used for Schubert’s Trout Quintet D.667, where in the fourth movement there is a set of variations upon it. Apparently one of Schubert’s friends, Johann Leopold Ebner, pointed out to Schubert that the song unconsciously quoted Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture. Schubert was going to destroy it, but was persuaded not to. The song had previously appeared as a supplement to the Wiener Zeitung on December 9, 1820. Franz Liszt also did two separate transcriptions for solo piano, catalogued as S.563/6 and S.564.
Die Forelle is here sung by Miriam Kutrowatz, accompanied by Elizabete Sirante:
At page 39 of today’s Wiener Zeitung, the Lithographic Institute repeats its advertisement for the pocket book Polyhymnia, including Beethoven’s song Trinklied, op.108/13.