BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, August 24, 1824

Beethoven writes today from Baden to publisher Anton Diabelli about his request for a grand four-hand piano sonata, which he had brought up again earlier this month. [The prospective sonata, which was never written, has been a topic of discussion between them for several years now.] Beethoven says it wasn’t possible to write earlier, but he is willing to compose such a work, even though it is not really in his line. However, considering he would have to put off other works that are more profitable and convenient for him, Beethoven would ask that the honorarium be increased to 80 golden ducats. “Like a brave knight from his sword, I must live from my pen, and the Akademie concerts have caused me a great loss.” If Diabelli will write agreeing to these terms, he should do so soon. Beethoven says he is in accord with the specified key signature of the sonata.

Brandenburg Letter 1865; Anderson Letter 1304. The original is in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, Theatersammlung. Diabelli had specified the key of F major for the sonata in his recent letter of August 7, 1824. Despite his insistence that such a sonata was not in his line, Beethoven had previously written a sonata for four hands piano, the rarely-played opus 6 sonata. That work is here performed live in 2015 by Lucas and Arthur Jussen:

The conversation books resume tomorrow.

Today’s Vienna musikalische Zeitung (Nr.69) at 273 offers on its front page two uncredited poems in honor of soprano Henriette Sontag, who sang in Beethoven’s Akademie concerts this May. These poems commemorate with adoration her farewell performance on August 21 [in the title role of Das Rothkäppchen, the German version of Le petit chaperon rouge (1818), or Little Red Riding Hood, by François-Adrien Boieldieu (1775-1834)], as Sontag is about to depart to Graz:

“Oh give us courage to bear the pain,
O don’t say no – say your maybe, that again
You, loveliest, whom we will wish and hope to see.”

and

“It is your beautiful memory, like our love,
Who escorts you out of our circle in mourning!”