BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, July 20, 1826 (approximately)

About today or yesterday, copyist Wenzel Rampl visits Beethoven. The composer had asked him to track down a copy of Handel’s oratorio Saul. Rampl reports that it cannot be had anywhere but from the court. Count Harrach is the Court Councilor of Music, and it was promised to Rampl by him.

Rampl’s wife recently died on May 4. Her aunt has been living with him for the last four years, and she will stay with him until she dies.

Some time ago, Frau Josepha Schlemmer [the widow of Beethoven’s favorite copyist, Wenzel Schlemmer] had told Rampl she would like to come and get some of Karl’s old clothes which Ludwig had promised her, but she was frightened to come.

Rampl is not keen on the French opera, though he does like the ballets rather well.

Conversation Book 115, 16v-17v. Although it is not expressly mentioned in the conversation books, presumably the primary reason Rampl is here is to collect the manuscript of the newly finished quartet op.131 in C-sharp minor to make a fair copy for Schott’s. The copy Rampl makes, comprised of 77 leaves, still survives in the collection of the Berlin Staatsbibliothek, NE 240.

Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.164) at 693 includes an advertisement for new music from C.F. Peters in Leipzig. Among those is Beethoven’s Grand Septet, op.20, arranged for wind band by Bernhard Crusell. As has been noted previously, at one time this arrangement was attributed to Beethoven himself and catalogued as Hess 21.