BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, January 3, 1826
The Schuppanzigh Quartet [possibly without violist Franz Weiss, since Karl said yesterday that he would not be able to attend until the day after tomorrow] rehearses Beethoven’s new quartet, op.130. Holz complains about the parts; nothing has been proofread. The participants will need to practice the last movement, the Grosse Fuge, at home; Holz asks whether they may borrow the parts. Beethoven asks why, and Holz says that it is difficult, an opinion shared by most string players today.
The group breaks for refreshments or dinner and musical gossip. Holz jokes that Schuppanzigh is having a double portion. Holz mentions to Beethoven, “We are speaking of the generative power, the aesthetic one, of yours.” Schuppanzigh has eaten so much already that he is full.
Tobias Haslinger doesn’t know Maurice Schlesinger’s address precisely, but he thinks that addressing a letter to Maurice Schlesinger, Editeur de Musique, Quai Malaquai No.13 [the address of Schlesinger’s first shop; he had moved twice since then] should suffice. That address was what was shown on a work Schlesinger had published long ago. It takes 9 or 10 days to get a letter from Vienna to Paris. Later on, Holz will recall Schlesinger’s current address is in the Rue Richelieu.
Schuppanzigh asks that Beethoven change nothing in the Cavatine. Holz says that the string quintet op.4 in E-flat played at their concert Sunday, on New Year’s Day, electrified everyone.
Schuppanzigh says Holz is taking a nap; the Grosse Fuge quite wore him out. Gottfried Weber’s article in the Cäcilia about Mozart’s Requiem is the subject of discussion. Schuppanzigh thinks it rather cheeky of Weber to hold up his own Requiem composition as a model.
Holz is apparently not quite asleep, since he writes, “Dies irae” [Day of Wrath] to the discussion of the Requiem. He adds there is a great battle over whether Wenzel Müller is a composer or not.
Beethoven’s new cook is so good Schuppanzigh would like to take her away. Holz says he is very sorry Nephew Karl is not there. He can wear corduroy pants. He no longer obeys, and Schuppanzigh cannot stand to look at him any longer. Holz jokes that Mylord [Schuppanzigh] always says that he can eat no more, and then takes one piece of food after another.
Ignaz Assmayer is now serving as second Court Organist. But he cannot play the organ, Holz opines. Yet he was accepted without competition. Beethoven asks who they should have appointed instead. Holz says Joseph Eybler.
Holz asks when they can rehearse the op.130 quartet again. Anyway, the parts will not be sent so early. “The Fugue is so difficult.” Beethoven asks what parts of it are difficult, and Holz replies that it is difficult on the whole.
Schuppanzigh asks whether Beethoven still remembers his String Quintet in C, op.29; as he recalls it, he gave Beethoven the theme.
There is some discussion about Schuppanzigh’s first quartet, over 20 years earlier. Anton Kraft, the cellist, now deceased was rather dissolute [the German words used suggest an interest in young boys] Holz asks whether Schuppanzigh was a libertine in earlier times. Schuppanzigh, apparently tired of being the butt of fat jokes, answers, “At least I wasn’t as obvious in the same manner as was Holz. Holz seduces small girls.” He is compared to Prince Aloys von Kaunitz (1774-1848), who had to leave Vienna after seducing many young ballet students and fled to Paris. Holz had heavy drinkers at his place today; for his part, Schuppanzigh says he was very moderate. Holz continues to be impressed by Englishman Sir George Smart winning their drinking contest in September, 1825.
Holz, who seems to be getting increasingly drunk, suggests they rehearse the quartet again next week. “We are drinking to the unattainable Grand Master of the Halidom of Music and many more fruits of his eternally blossoming genius.” Holz turns from a large forest fire in Canada that burned 120 square miles, to a turd of unusual size that was found in front of the Bernardiner Monastery in Lemberg [today Lviv in Ukraine.] “At first, the public thought that it was a turd from the Father Prior, who was believed to have been seen in bordellos. Others believed that it was from the Archbishop, who procreated children every year. It appears that they played a practical joke on a physician in the hospital by sticking a cut-off turd in a sack; this physician wanted to pull out his snuff cloth from his sack, and got hold of the other shred, and threw it away.” Holz then tries to blame Schuppanzigh for this story.
Schuppanzigh calls the increasingly disordered rehearsal to a close. He tells Beethoven that arrangements have been made for his Akademie benefit concert to be held on the second Norma Day [which would be Tuesday, February 28, 1826.]
Conversation Book 101, 9v-18v.