BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, June 23, 1825 (approximately)

There is a brief exchange with housekeeper Barbara Holzmann about money in the conversation book about today. As usual, she writes phonetically. She seems to have accepted coins that have had some of the metal shaved off, making them less valuable. She professes ignorance of how to tell: “Because I don’t know money better –good or bad money.” She has closed out the receipt [which Beethoven had made reference to in the prior conversation book entry.

Conversation Book 12v.

T. Weigl’s Art and Music Shop advertises various pieces of new piano music in today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.141) at 607. Among these works is a Fantaisie et Potpourri (sur des themes de Mozart et Beethoven) for piano and violin, op.49, by Johann Peter Pixis (1788-1874). The Potpourri includes materials from the second movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and later on, from the first movement of the same symphony. Our thanks to the Netherlands Music Institute for generously providing a copy of this work by Pixis from their collection.

Anton Diabelli & Co. also advertises in the same issue of the Wiener Zeitung at 608 the newest published works of Franz Schubert: Tantum Ergo in C for vocal quartet and orchestra op.45 (today catalogued as D.739), and his First Offertorium (Totus in corde lanqueo), solo for soprano or tenor and clarinet, with accompaniment of 2 violins, 2 flutes, 2 horns and organ, op.46 (D.136).

Schubert’s Tantum Ergo D.739 is here performed by the Hugo Distler Choir and the Vienna Academy Orchestra, conducted by Martin Haselböck: