BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, December 28, 1824
Today’s Intelligenzblatt supplement (Nr.297) to the Wiener Zeitung at 809 includes the advertisement for a new housekeeper that Karl had drafted a few days ago. “Housekeeper is sought. A widow of moral character, who is well versed in cooking and has already managed a small household, and can also read and write is sought as a housekeeper for an annual salary of 300 fl. Further details can be found at Johannesgasse No.969, on the fourth floor on the right, daily in the morning from 8 to 9 and from 12 to 1 p.m.”
The departing maid comes by to pick up the rest of her things, semi-literately writing “I want everything.”
Karl is disgusted at the now-departed maid. “How stupid these domestics are! Like the maid! And now she goes home and becomes a burden to her parents, instead of earning her bread here, and saving something every months.”
Several maidens come in answer to the ad. Karl considers them both to be very useable. A tryout in the kitchen would help determine the outcome. There was also an old woman with painted lips and cheeks, but Karl sent her away.
Talk turns again to the advertisement in the Cäcilia about all Beethoven’s new works being published by Schott. Karl believes that the agreement with them to publish these works can no longer be canceled, because they are assured that they will get them.
They try out one of the applicants with mid-day dinner, roasted lung.
Karl mentions Lamatsch, who visited yesterday. [Prof. Albrecht suggests Lamatsch’s mother may have come to interview about the housekeeper position, possibly arriving after the appointed time. She will have an interview for the position on December 30.]
Dr. Anton Horst (1799-1829), doctor of philosophy from Cologne comes to visit Beethoven. He is in Vienna studying theology. He has a letter with him from Jacob Richter, director of the Progymnasium in Andernach on the west bank of the Rhine. [Richter had signed Beethoven’s autograph book in 1792.] He had met Johann while on a journey on the Danube. [Johann may have suggested that Horst could drop by Ludwig’s apartment.] Beethoven is rather busy, however, and asks for Horst’s address. The young man then departs.
Karl and Ludwig discuss something unidentified that happened on Friday, the day before Christmas. Karl’s philosophy class is never on Fridays; on that day it’s always mathematics and religion, or Greek.
When Karl visited former housekeeper Barbara Holzmann at the home for the aged yesterday, she told him that the female house superintendent at the Johannesgasse apartment building gets 2 kreutzers for every tub of water. That would be 6 kreutzers for 3 tubs per day, or 3 florins per month, or 4 florins with the garbage. They have so few plates at the home that they have to wash them all between one course and the next. Karl tells the applicants how Holzmann did it as a warning example to them [suggesting that in her old age she frequently broke plates, and that the costs of replacement came out of her salary.]
Ludwig asks whether Brother Johann was able to retrieve score from Seyfried that was used in the Christmas benefit concert. Karl says he did not; he could not get them because everything was so crowded they could only get orchestra seats on the main floor, and almost everything there was already gone as well. Seyfried said the overture score was in safe keeping, and that he would send it. [Beethoven has likely received it back already, though Karl seems not to know that.]
Housekeeper interviews continue. Frau Sartory shows that she is able to write. She is a widow, and has an oral recommendation from Court Agent Schönfeld. Her late husband was a school teacher. Her parents are still alive. Karl tells her they will call her if anything develops.
Karl divides 7 into 365, computing by division the number of weeks in a year.
Later this afternoon, Brother Johann stops by and delivers the issue of the Cäcilia magazine in which Schott announces the publication of the Missa Solemnis, Ninth Symphony and other new Beethoven works. Johann intends to write them a letter, and asks Ludwig for the address.
Afterwards, Ludwig goes to a coffee house to read the newspapers. He carefully copies out an advertisement from today’s Intelligenzblatt. “Mountain game meats at the Auerhahn in the Wildpretmarkt, Baron Gudenau’s building [Bauernmarkt 579]. Chamois, venison, rock-partridges, hazel-hens, black grouse, rock-hens [ptarmigan].”
Conversation Book 79, 16r-11r. Again, these pages are bound in the conversation book in reverse order.
Ignaz von Seyfried has probably returned (or Tobias Haslinger has procured and delivered) to Beethoven the score and parts for the Consecration of the House Overture, op.124, by now.
Beethoven writes an undated note of gratitude, around today, to Seyfried, who conducted the Christmas benefit concert for the St. Marx’s Spital. The concert had included the precious score and parts to Consecration of the House Overture, op.124, which need to be sent to the printer in Mainz. Seyfried had just returned these manuscripts when Beethoven writes in response:
“My dear esteemed brother in Apollo!”
“My heartfelt thanks for the effort you have made on behalf of my work for humanity, and I am pleased that its success has been generally recognized. I hope that you will never pass me by when I am in a position to serve you with my limited strength. The honorable Citizens’ Commission is already sufficiently convinced of my good will. In order to demonstrate this to them again, we will discuss in a friendly manner how you can be best served. – If masters like you take part with us, then the wings will never fail. With warmest respect, your friend, Beethoven m.p.”
Brandenburg Letter 1915; Anderson Letter 1109. The original is lost, but the text was printed in Seyfried’s book on Beethoven’s studies in figured bass, counterpoint and composition, published in Vienna in 1832, in the supplement p.9 (Nr.9). Seyfried’s description of the letter is: “The occasion was a large fugal festival overture, which I performed in a concert for the Bürgerspital fund, and for which I sent back the borrowed editions along with the obligatory letter of thanks from the administrative commission.” These benefit concerts for the Bürgerspital always took place on December 25th in the large Redoutensaal.
The J. Bermann firm again advertises the Musical Gift for the New Year, a collection of 40 new waltzes, including Beethoven’s contribution in E-flat major, WoO 84 written a month earlier. Wiener Zeitung Nr.297 at 1269. The same compendium is also advertised for sale by Anton Diabelli & Co. on the next page of the Wiener Zeitung.