BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, June 17, 1824

Conversation Book 72 begins being used probably today, which is the Corpus Christi holiday. This is a book of 34 leaves, all of which bear writing, and it covers a period of about two weeks, since Beethoven had fewer visitors while in the country, and talkative Anton Schindler is permanently persona non grata.

Nephew Karl comes out to visit Uncle Ludwig at his country apartment in the village of Penzing today, with his friend and roommate Carl Enk, who is also studying philology.

Piano maker Matthäus Andreas Stein (1776-1842) is visiting Beethoven and demonstrating a new apparatus to make his Stein piano more audible for the composer. He tells Beethoven that he will hear better if he places his head under the machine. Beethoven asks what the hammers are covered with. Stein replies that they are thinly leathered. Otherwise, the tone would be too hard, and hard tones do not penetrate.

Stein has low opinions of other piano makers, calling all of them “mere carpenters.” He focuses on how the instruments play. Through that, the piano maker differentiates himself from a carpenter. He has a low opinion of Conrad Graf [Beethoven had at least one of Graf’s instruments as well.] Graf has risen to prominence through his association with the publisher Steiner, who used him as a tool for foreign speculation. Steiner paid Graf 30,000 florins, and let him live in his house. Beethoven asks how Steiner could do that, and Stein says he has three houses.

Stein returns to the City, and Enk goes back with him, leaving Karl with his uncle. Ludwig asks why Enk left already. Karl says he locked up the dog, so he had to hurry home.

Karl mentions he was talking with Enk about the first Akademie concert, and how it profoundly affected Enk. He wished he could have heard the Missa Solemnis complete, rather than just three movements.

Enk said he wandered around aimlessly after the Akademie, and that it was too far to go home when he came to his senses. “It affected him that way for an entire week.” He might have continued in this manner, if he hadn’t believed that he might become even more preoccupied with the Akademie over time, if he didn’t stop.

Karl continues that he would like for his uncle to write a few lines to Ludwig Schwebel, at the French Embassy. [Beethoven seems to have still not written his appreciation for the gold medal awarded by the King of France.]

Karl, himself getting ready to leave, mentions that the wagon between Vienna and Penzing is just not very pleasant when it’s full. He always gets into it resolved to say not a word. He thus sits in complete silence amidst everyone’s empty talk. Karl leaves to take the wagon back to Vienna since he should have classes tomorrow (Friday), leaving Uncle Ludwig with housekeeper Barbara Holzmann.

Conversation Book 72, 1r-3r.

The Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.25 of today at 402 reports on several concerts held in Zurich between the end of November, 1823 and mid-January 1824; in one Beethoven’s second symphony in D, op.36 was performed, and in another his Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt, op.112, with a chorus of fifty. In the sixth concert of the season in early February 1824, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C minor, op.67 was on the program, while the seventh concert, in March, included his Overture from The Ruins of Athens, op.113.

At 412 of the Leipzig AMZ, there is a short and approving review of an arrangement of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony in F, op.68, for piano four hands by F. Mockwitz, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. “The work itself is well known. Who doesn’t know, respect and love Beethoven’s symphonies! The transcription was made with insight and diligence, without timidity or lack of mastery, so that you can see Mr. M. is quite experienced in such arrangements. Music lovers who want to mentally repeat what they have heard in full voice, or to prepare themselves for what they are about to hear, or generally want to converse in this way, will receive his work with applause.”

A piano four hands version of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is played live here in a July 2020 performance: