BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, September 21, 1826

Beethoven writes a short note to his friend Stephan von Breuning about today, forwarding the Muzio Clementi piano method sent by Haslinger for Breuning’s son Gerhard: “Dear worthy! Finally, I can get the wind out of my windbaggery, here follows the promised Clement. Piano School for gerard. [sic.] If he uses it, as I will already indicate to him, it will certainly bring good success.”

“I will see you very soon and embrace you most warmly, yours truly, Beethoven.”

Brandenburg Letter 2203; Anderson Letter 1532. The letter is presently bound into a copy of Clementi’s Introduction to the Art of Playing the Pianoforte, op.42. On the last page, Beethoven has inscribed “For Herr Hofrath v. Breuning.” According to the German conversation book editors, Beethoven’s name for Gerhard was Windbeutel [windbag]; Gerhard’s Memories of Beethoven at 70 mentions that other nicknames for him included “Hosenknopf” {trouser button] and “Ariel.” The volume and the letter are held by the Bonn Beethovenhaus, H.C. Bodmer Collection Br 109, and can be seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/5395985744265216/scan/0

Beethoven writes an undated note, possibly this morning, to unpaid assistant Karl Holz. “Worthy friend! You should therefore go to Breuning, ask if he will assume the guardianship, whether you should perhaps go to the Magist.[rate] for him, and when he intends to go with me to Karl. Especially ask him for expediting the last point, and you may also kindly offer that he can always count on Good Holz. — I will send to your chancellery later for an answer from you on these points – forgive my trouble. On your wedding day, I will make everything right. Yours, Beethoven.”

Beethoven adds a postscript: “So, at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, I will see you.”

Brandenburg Letter 2208; Anderson Letter 1501. The original is held in the Prince Furstenberg Court Libary, Donaueschingen (Briefe, Mappe IV).

Uncle Ludwig goes to visit Nephew Karl in the General Hospital today. There are books that Karl would like that need to be fetched from Johann Tauer’s antiquarian bookshop. Karl does not need a hat any more, but a cap [to cover his wound] would be very good. He can also wear that when he is in the military. He plans to travel where he is assigned in uniform. Karl would like a Greek-German dictionary; not the big Greek one by Johann Gottlob Schneider, but the smaller one by Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer.

“Now I ask you to send me a long [comb] and a lice comb (probably both can be found among my things) and a small bottle of almond oil from the apothecary, which I need.” Karl believes he can depart soon, but will need to wait until his hair grows out [before enlisting]. Uncle Ludwig asks how long the hospital is paid for, and Karl tells him until October 6.

Uncle Ludwig asks how much Karl is smoking. Karl tells him he smokes one cigar daily. They aren’t necessary, but they can be had there for 1 kreutzer C.M. and they are better for him than chewing tobacco. “To give up smoking completely while in the military will be difficult, for the smell in the guardroom would probably not always be that pleasant.” Karl believes that in many regiments there are few cadets. In winter the cadets have school.

Afterwards, Uncle Ludwig goes to a coffee house. He copies information from the Wiener Theater-Zeitung Nr.113 of today, at p.458, about cures of long-term eye illnesses that have resisted the usual remedies, being healed within twenty days by coffee vapors and washing with a cold concoction of unroasted coffee. [Ludwig’s eyes apparently are still bothering him, months later.] He also copies an advertisement from today’s Intelligenzblatt for partridges and wild ducks, as well as one for the Textbook of Aesthetics by Carl v. Reinhard. He also makes note of an Italian grammar for Karl.

Some heavily faded lines by Beethoven are partly legible on the final page of the conversation book: “that Karl … remove…” At the beginning of the book, there are similar entries by Beethoven that are mostly illegible, but one can make out “the habit … must the days…”

Unpaid assistant Karl Holz meets briefly with Beethoven (it is unclear whether still at the coffee house, or later at Beethoven’s apartment). He reports that Tobias Haslinger says that the Ninth Symphony for the Prussian King will be hard to bind because of the irregularity of the paper. [The fourth movement in particular is on much larger paper than the rest of the symphony due to the additional vocal parts.] “He also thinks it is more appropriate to send the king an engraved copy, beautifully bound.” Beethoven prefers the personal touch of the hand-copied score.

Conversation Book 121, 44r-46v, 1r-1v

Beethoven writes about now an undated letter addressed to Court councilor Ignaz Czapka (1791-1881), who had supervision over Karl as a member of the political senate. “Your Excellency!”

“I urgently request that you order that, since my nephew will be recovered in a few days, that he be allowed to leave the hospital with no one but me and H.[err] von Holz — It is impossible to allow him to be very close to this most depraved person, his mother, given her very bad and malicious character. Indeed, Karl’s temptation to swindle me out of money, the likelihood that she shared in these sums with him, and was familiar with Karl’s partner in crime [Joseph Niemetz], the stir which she arouses with her daughter, for whom the father is sought; indeed, even the suspicion that he would make the acquaintance of women who are anything but virtuous at the M — r, justify my concerns and my request. Being habitually around such a person cannot possibly lead a young person to virtue. — In bringing this matter to your attention, I commend myself to you most sincerely, and only add that it greatly pleased me, although on a very painful occasion, to have made the acquaintance of a man of such excellent intellectual qualities.”

“Yours truly, I remain with genuine respect, Beethoven.”

Brandenburg Letter 2206; Anderson Letter 1502. The original is held by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna (A 84/8). The father of Johanna’s daughter Ludovica was generally accepted as Johann Caspar Hofbauer (and he contributed to her upbringing), though the family also considered a tenant in her home, Samuel von Rady, to likely be the father. Beethoven gives the letter to Karl Holz for delivery to Czapka tomorrow. Czapka will serve as mayor of Vienna from 1838 to 1848.

Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.216) at 916 includes an advertisement from Sauer & Leidesdorf for Four Poems by F. Rückert and Graf Platen, set to piano accompaniment as Franz Schubert’s op.59. These four lieder are: 1) “Du liebst mich nicht” (2nd version) D.756; 2) “Dass sie hier gewesen” D.775; 3) “Du bist die Ruh” D.776; and 4) “Lachen und Weinen” D.777. The last of these songs is here performed by Bryn Terfel, accompanied by Malcolm Martineau: