BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, October 20, 1825

Today’s Dresden Abendzeitung (Nr.252) has this small note in its Diary from Vienna at p.1008: “From 7th-14th August. Beethoven is in Baden to restore his health and there he has completed the composition of a new quartet for string instruments. He is said now especially to find joy in the composition of small canons, of which he has already finished many. ‘I do this like a poet who writes epigrams,’ he told a friend. May full health again smile on the great man and may he gain his external power to be able to communicate the effects of his inner power to the world.” [Translation by Birthe Kibsgaard.]