BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, August 31, 1824 (approximately)

Conversation Book 74 starts being used, likely today. This book has 32 leaves. Leaves 15v and 17v are blank, but crossed out with Beethoven’s red crayon used for editing with a large “X” across each of the pages.

Beethoven returns to Vienna about today from Baden. He makes a shopping and errand list:

+Odelga. [Carl von Odelga, ambassador for Tuscany and Nassau, who had acted as an intermediary regarding subscription copies of the Missa Solemnis. Nephew Karl will visit Odelga in about a week.]
+Letter from Brother. [Johann.]
+Seal. Where? Why?
A method book for chess.
Trousers.
Why?
If the French letter has already been delivered, I see the draft. [Perhaps Beethoven is concerned that the letter was never finalized and mailed?]
1/4

There is reference to a gardener named Fischer. [This is followed by the name Fiser, which may be a misspelling of Fischer, or might be a different person. In any event, the gardener named Fischer is the person they need to see about an apartment in the Himmelpfortgasse. They may go to visit that apartment later today.]

Nephew Karl meets with his uncle. There was some confusion about when Uncle Ludwig would be arriving back in Vienna. The housekeeper Barbara Holzmann had told Karl that Ludwig would be leaving at 4 o’clock, and so he said he would meet at 6 o’clock. Karl waited in the Wollzeile until 9 o’clock, and would have gone out to his rooms in Wieden, but thought his uncle might have been prevented from leaving so early. So as not to miss his uncle, he remained at home.

Karl expects he has failed his examinations and will need to start over next year. “It is really all the same if I begin again next year. Many people certainly do that.”

They discuss the bill of exchange terms from Schott. Uncle Ludwig is to deliver the works to Fries & Co., and then he will be paid 3 months afterwards. Fries would give Ludwig a note immediately, and accept the exchange. The money would be paid in twenties. Ludwig asks how he knows that. Karl says that’s what the exchange says. He assumes it is easier for them to pay only then. But the cashier made it clear to Karl that there is complete security there.

Karl needs his uncle’s signature for the Embassy’s secretary. Ludwig resists, and Karl insists, “Just write.”

The housekeeper Barbara Holzmann comes up as a topic. Does she still need to go anywhere and run errands?

Despite his struggles, Karl’s classes are still continuing. The lectures in Philosophy at the University last longer than those in the Gymnasium, which start already at the end of August. He is still going to the English lectures. This is the last week. Next Tuesday, September 7, he should know whether he has passed. He will only have to speak to the Vice-Director. Former unpaid assistant Anton Schindler also attended there and is still notorious as a student. Karl writes, possibly in response to a suggestion Schindler could put in a good word for him, “Schindler would be more bad than good in that respect.”

Karl asks his uncle whether he intends to visit Dr. Staudenheim. Ludwig says he needs some kind of article of warm clothing. Karl agrees that it would be good not only for winter, but also for when it is cool in Baden.

Karl mentions that a man had a request for some kind of contribution to a concert Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny is intending to give. Perhaps Uncle Ludwig could conduct something, or provide a new work. He said many people would agree to get involved if Beethoven’s name appeared on the poster. He said Czerny is organizing it, and advised the man to turn to Beethoven. But Karl believes others are organizing it for Czerny.

Karl thinks it would be better not to start anything with “him” again. “The end must always be the same, as was the case two times earlier.” [Is this a reference to possibly getting Anton Schindler’s assistance again? Beethoven had fired him twice before after bringing him back.]

Beethoven adds a number of financial figures. Karl says he should give a woman 1 florin.

Brother Johann’s invitation for Ludwig to spend time at his estate in Gneixendorf comes up. Karl believes that “the people associated with Gneixendorf would sometimes annoy us, but the region is probably very beautiful.” [By “the people associated with Gneixendorf,” Karl means Johann’s wife Therese and her daughter Amalie, both of whom Ludwig despised.] When Uncle Ludwig frets about the expense, Karl reminds him that Johann said he would have everything free of charge there. Ludwig has another objection, possibly that Johann would charge him. Karl says, “He absolutely would not dare.”

A woman [Holzmann?] only has 3 and a half teeth left. She has had 5 children, and as often as she was expecting, she had to have 2 or 3 teeth pulled out. [As Dr. Michael Lorenz notes, losing teeth was common during this time period during pregnancy, when the importance of calcium and iron, especially while bearing children, was unknown.]

Karl is out of money. “I don’t have anything left from earlier, good fellow.”

Later in the day, Beethoven reads the newspapers in a coffee house. He makes notes of four possible apartments for the fall, all noted in today’s Intelligenzblatt at 244.

Beethoven likely returns to Baden in the evening.

Conversation Book 74, 1r-7v.

In Paris, a young Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) today writes to his disapproving father to tell him that he is abandoning medicine and turning instead to music. “I am driven involuntarily towards a magnificent career–no other adjective can be applied to the career of artist–and not towards my doom. For I believe I shall succeed; yes, I believe it…I wish to make a name for myself, I wish to leave some trace of my existence on this earth; and so strong was the feeling–which was an entirely honorable one–that I would rather be Gluck or Mehul dead, than what I am in the flower of my age.”