BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, December 27, 1825

In the afternoon, Beethoven reads newspapers at a local coffeehouse. He copies down a bookseller’s advertisement for a two-volume set on Popular Astronomy by J.J. Littrow.

Later today, unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven. Beethoven asks for cellist Joseph Linke’s address, and Holz gives it to him.

The subject of housekeepers comes up; Adelmann’s children seem to be an irritation to Beethoven. Holz says they are the only reason for him to feel sorry for her. Frau Vivenot recommended another housekeeper applicant, an old spinster. She served for 20 years for a sickly, quarrelsome woman, and she had to put up with everything. The woman apparently died and she is now available. “Frau Vivenot vouches for her honesty and love of order, and that she understands cooking, as one can easily surmise from her caring for a sick woman’s diet for 20 years.”

Talk turns to the planned Akademie benefit concerts. Holz suggests that it might be possible to use the auditorium at the university, but that is problematic; they typically give it to companies, not individuals. But perhaps Dr. Vivenot could use his influence to change their position for Beethoven. In the meantime, the Landständischer Saal will have to do. Holz will arrange for the female soloists in Beethoven’s name. The ones he is thinking of are extremely secure musically.

Handel’s oratorio Solomon [HWV 67, 1748], which had been performed at the Burgtheater on December 22 and 23, is the next topic of discussion. Some people found it boring, Holz says, but he thinks the real problem is poor performance by the singing voices. He thought the final chorus of the first finale was most interesting, especially with the two obbligato transverse flutes. Holz writes a short quotation of three bars. Beethoven responds with a four-note motif from the cello part in the second movement of the new quartet, op.130. [See attached musical examples from Conversation Book 100, 10r.]

Holz gives Beethoven his congratulations for being elected an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, along with 14 others, including Cherubini, Spontini, Spohr, Weigl and others. [Gaspare Spontini was not in fact one of those elected.] Beethoven could expect the diploma in a few weeks. [It for unknown reasons does not arrive until March 7, 1827.] Holz says he regrets having left the Society. Beethoven asks why he left. “Because I only earned annoyance, rudeness, and ungratefulness for my agreeableness.” He thinks Ferdinand Piringer is rude, though he concedes that he is certainly the best director amongst the dilettantes. “What annoyed me the most was the hick town society, which treated everything in so small-townish and narrow–minded manner. One member of the Gesellschaft complained to the representative body that he had been assigned the eleventh chair in the first violins, which he had won by lot. He wrote a letter: ‘Since the public is accustomed to seeing me always in the 3rd chair, I do not want to lose my chair this time!'” Holz thinks it’s a vanity project, rather than an artistic endeavor devoted to a higher purpose. Now they want to acquire a collection of biographies for their “museum.”

When the Musikverein decided to perform the Eroica [on November 27, 1825], they decided to increase the violins. They took new, inexperienced members, who were more detrimental than helpful to the whole. On top of that, they had an unreliable director and the symphony did not go well. He also proposed a singer [Betty Schröder, who sang a scene from Rossini’s Otello] who was a protege of the director’s; she sang, and sang badly.

Holz has a superb lied by Goethe that he thinks would be superb to set to music; he is unsure whether Beethoven is familiar with it. Holz writes out several verses from Goethe’s Singspiel Lila. [Whether Beethoven was acquainted with this text is unknown, but he did not set it to music.]

Beethoven asks what will be performed at the next Schuppanzigh Quartet concert on next Sunday, New Year’s Day. Holz says the Mozart quartet in A [K.464, which he briefly quotes], and Beethoven’s String Quintet in E-flat op.4. [Haydn’s quartet in G minor op.20/3 will also be on the program, but Holz does not mention that work.]

Holz is curious about the Les Adieux piano sonata op.81a. “Were the sonatas Farewell, Remembrance, and Return written in reference to something specific?” Beethoven tells him that it relates to Archduke Rudolph’s exile from Vienna during Napoleon’s occupation.

The concert on Christmas day by the Schuppanzigh Quartet included Beethoven’s string quartet in A, op.18/5. Schuppanzigh played it superbly, Holz reports. “One thing in his playing really does not please me; you should especially press him about it. He doesn’t use his bow precisely, and in this way breaks many ornaments that, in their essence, may not be broken.”

Holz complains that pianissimo is not what it was in the days of Carl Heinrich Graun (1703-1759).

Holz thinks Ludwig Spohr has no thoughts of his own. “The late [violinist Martin] Schlesinger has noted, not incorrectly, that north German composers are mostly beer drinkers; therefore all of them are lacking in passion.”

Beethoven may mention the great fugue that concludes the new quartet. Holz says, “I always envision a fugue like a building that is built symmetrically according to all the rules of architecture; I admire it, but it will never delight me.” Beethoven seems to take umbrage at Holz’s dismissal of his work. “I mean usual fugues here,” Holz backtracks. “Usually they are treated dryly. I am speaking of these; they are also unbearable to me.” Beethoven retorts, but what about the fugues of Johann Sebastian Bach? Holz then really steps in it: “I still have never heard a Fugue by [J.] S. Bach well played.” That seems to set off Beethoven, who had studied Bach’s fugues carefully and with admiration, because Holz leaves abruptly, without another comment.

Conversation Book 100, 7r-17r.