BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, July 8, 1824

Beethoven, still in Vienna, goes to see Dr. Staudenheim for his advice. As the doctor’s wife had predicted, Staudenheim recommends that the composer go to Baden and stay there two months. Bathe 40 times, and drink a half quart from the Ursprung mineral spring every day. Beethoven asks whether he needs to drink it all at once. The doctor clarifies, no, it should be broken up, with one glass every quarter hour. Dr. Staudenheim suggests that he use the Frauenbad and Carolinenbad bathing facilitiy. [This building was still quite new, having been built only three years earlier. Its opening was a major cultural event.]

Beethoven asks how the doctor is after his journey. “I’m still very hot and tired after a quick journey of 2 days and nights.”

[At this point, a leaf is missing from the conversation book. The next conversation, with Nephew Karl begins mid-sentence, so the leaf was torn out after the pages had been written on. However, since there is no corresponding discontinuity later in the book, the page was probably ripped out within the next few days.]

Uncle Ludwig returns to his apartment, and tells Karl that he cannot stay there. Karl says he does not understand why, and he thinks it would be best if he would remain. Karl’s failure on his examinations will not happen again. He is trying to catch up, and it is going well.

Karl acknowledges that his uncle is concerned about his situation, but it is unnecessary. His friend Carl Enk “looks out for me, also studies with me, and clears up the doubts that plague me.” Karl tells his uncle that he always returns home by the right time, unless he has to run errands or there are other unforeseen circumstances. He is still taking the prescribed set of courses, and will prepare better for the Winter, so he can spend his vacations with Uncle Ludwig. “I am taking the Teacher’s Examination, and to study for it am also taking some lectures; and so the expenses are saved in this way, and we need not ever be separated again, which nevertheless would already be sufficient–in the eyes of the world–to think the worst.” [Karl’s desire to be a soldier has clearly been swept under the rug as he continues with his original plan to be a teacher or tutor of languages.]

Uncle Ludwig asks where Karl and Enk have their dinner. Usually in the Landstrasse, at the Blumenstock. They also sometimes go to Neuling’s beer hall in the Ungargasse.

Conversation Book 73, 2r-3r.

The Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung includes a review of the second Akademie concert, held May 23 at noon in the great Redoutensaal. The pieces reviewed for the first concert are not mentioned. “We heard the Terzet about twelve years ago, and today it was performed very successfully, but the same could not be said for the other movements, which here and there left a lot to be desired. For that, the locale, which is by no means favorable, also bears part of the blame. David sang the cavatina ‘di tanti palpiti‘ a fourth higher, transposed to B-flat, really beautifully.”

“There were only a small number of listeners, because not everyone likes the midday hour. When it gets to three o’clock, the most impetuous of all admonishers ruthlessly asserts his inherent rights. Without a doubt, the composer would have speculated much more advantageously if it were repeated in the theater, where the difference in admission prices makes similar artistic enjoyment accessible to many less well-off people.” Leipzig AMZ Nr.28 (July 8, 1824) at 452.