BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, May 9, 1822

Although Artaria & Co. and Rossini announced last month that Artaria had been granted the exclusive right to make arrangements of pieces from the opera Zelmira, currently playing repeatedly as a sensation in the Opera Festival in Vienna, that did not stop or even slow down the enterprising Viennese publishers in a world without much in the way of enforceable copyrights.

Today, Cappi & Diabelli announces in the Wiener Zeitung the publication of an Introduction and Variations for solo piano on the Cavatina “Sorte secondami” from Zelmira, composed by Beethoven’s former student Carl Czerny as his op.21. In the same vein, Cappi & Diabelli offers vocal and piano arrangements of several pieces from Mathilde, which Rossini had just announced on Monday, May 6, was also an exclusive Artaria property, under the name Corradino. Not to be left behind, Pietro Mechetti today announces the release of their own piano arrangement of the Overture to Corradino, done by Hieronymus Payer (1787-1845). So much for exclusive rights.