BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, April 25, 1826

The surviving leaf from the now-lost conversation book (Bonn Beethovenhaus H.C. Bodmer Collection Br 288, SBH 513) that covers yesterday contains at the end what looks like it may be the beginning of today’s shopping list:

“Homeopathic chocolate.” This entry suggests that Beethoven’s digestive system is still bothering him.

Anton Halm delivers the four-hand piano arrangement of the Grosse Fuge to Beethoven this afternoon. Beethoven apparently does not react well to Halm’s arrangement; in June unpaid assistant Karl Holz will tell Beethoven that Halm is still afraid to face him.

Beethoven also writes to violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh today, telling him that he authorizes Tobias Haslinger to lend him the score and parts for the March and Chorus from the Ruins of Athens, op.114. The letter is not known to survive, but its existence and contents can be presumed from the response by Schuppanzigh written tomorrow.

C.F. Peters in Leipzig today advertises at page 408 of today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.94) the arrangement of Beethoven’s Septet op.20 for wind band by Bernhard Crusell. The manuscript of a portion of this arrangement was erroneously thought to be by Beethoven, and was catalogued as Hess 21.