BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, November 10, 1825 (approximately)

Nephew Karl writes an undated letter to his Uncle Ludwig in French probably this early afternoon. “My dear father! I would have gladly come to see you myself, but I am so busy at the moment that it is impossible for me to leave my studies. My tutor, whose month ended on November 8, asked me, because of the great expenses that he must currently incur, to ask you for his fee of 40 florins W.W.”

“If you had come to see me yesterday, I would have told you this myself but not knowing if you will do me the pleasure of coming today, I thought it necessary to warn you of this, asking you either to bring the money when you come to my house, or, in case you cannot come, to have the sum delivered to me by one of your servants, so that I can give it to him tomorrow morning.”

“I will try not to need these lessons any longer. Finally, I will take every possible effort to satisfy you in every way. I embrace you will all my heart. Yours, Charles mp [by his own hand.]”

“I beg you to give a few groschen to the boy who brings you this letter.”

Brandenburg Letter 2088; Albrecht Letter 418. The original is held by the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (aut. 35,60b). The letter obviously is written not long after November 8, but probably not November 9, or Karl would have said “yesterday.” Since Uncle Ludwig visits Karl later today as Karl projects might happen, this letter appears to have been written today.

Ludwig goes to the restaurant at Zum wilden Mann and orders four quarter capons. While he is waiting, an unknown person strikes up a conversation with Beethoven about Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, inventor of the metronome and various automatons. He is said to have made a great deal of money with his talking dolls. He did not, however, repay the 3,600 florins C.M. owed to the writer, but offered one of his artistic pieces instead. He asks Beethoven to write a letter to Mälzel, which he will pick up along with any other letters that need to go to Paris, which he can take along at no cost.

The writer continues that he loaned Mälzel 600 pounds in England, which he repaid in Amsterdam. But the second time, he left the writer sitting empty-handed. He took 25,000 florins C.M. in cash away from Amsterdam with his various projects, but repaid nothing over the last two years. He asks that Beethoven write two lines on his behalf, so that Mälzel knows that his bad faith is not a secret. The German editors and Prof. Albrecht suggests that one possibility of the writer, who is someone who had traveled to London and Amsterdam and Paris, and was used to handling large sums of money, might be Prince Esterházy’s courier Caspar Bauer. Beethoven had met Bauer through Schindler in February 1823, and mentioned him in two letters to Ferdinand Ries in that month.

Beethoven pays 3 florins for the capons, and gives a 10 kreutzer tip. He then walks to Karl’s room in the Alleegasse and shares the capons with Karl and his landlord Mathias Schlemmer and wife Rosalia, probably in appreciation for her help in screening housekeeper applicants.

Nephew Karl mentions that he is expecting a visit from a fellow student who is coming to borrow some written materials from the lectures. Karl asks whether Uncle Ludwig saw the housekeeper prospect Theresia Adelmann. She came by Karl’s rooms again. Karl will see her tomorrow and then have her come to see Uncle Ludwig. But the only time he can do it is between noon and 1 p.m. He suggests they meet at the corner of the Alstergasse by the army barracks. [That would be about a block from Adelmann’s apartment.]

Uncle Ludwig asks about the fee for the tutor. Karl says that he got paid too early last month, so those days are calculated in. [Beethoven appears to have given Karl last month’s money for the tutor about October 5.] Changing the subject, Karl asks whether his Uncle has bought wood. Uncle Ludwig presumably gives Karl the 40 florins for the tutor’s charge.

Beethoven’s friend Tobias Haslinger writes a letter today to composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel in Weimar. Hummel had offered a Rondo to Haslinger, but Haslinger’s partner Sigmund Anton Steiner found it to be too pricey at 200 florins. Haslinger writes that Steiner “is elderly and also somewhat strange.” Haslinger also attacks publishers Adolph Martin Schlesinger and Maurice Schlesinger. He inquires as to how much a new Hummel piano concerto would cost.

“We are still without opera, and musical life is in a miserable state. The nobility does absolutely nothing for it anymore. An endless Lamento could be wailed about it. Poor Worzischek has now been given up as hopeless by his doctors, and his end is expected with each passing day. Beethoven is now well again, but he is aging very much. Last Sunday, in his own benefit concert, Linke performed Beethoven’s recently completed thirteenth Quartet in A minor, to great applause.”

Albrecht Letter 419. Translation by Theodore Albrecht. The letter survives only as excerpted and paraphrased passages from a draft. Steiner will retire early next year, allowing Haslinger to publish a number of works that had been languishing, including several by Beethoven.