BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, October 5, 1820

The Giannatasio family visits Mödling, but they don’t get to see Beethoven long, because he is about to take Karl back to the City.

Cajetan Giannatasio del Rio managed a private school for boys, which Karl attended in 1816, in the midst of the acrimonious litigation between Ludwig and Karl’s mother Johanna. Johanna had caused trouble with the Giannatasios similar to that she has recently been causing at Blöchlinger’s Institute. Fanny, a daughter of the family, once had a crush on Beethoven and earlier wrote a number of anecdotes about him in her diary.

Reported in Thayer/Forbes, p.764.