BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, January 4, 1825 (approximately)

The January issue of the London musical journal the Harmonicon, Nr.XXV at 10 gives a little preview in its Miscellaneous column of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, not yet heard in Britain: “The new (Ninth) Symphony of Beethoven, composed for, and now in the possession of, the Philharmonic Society, is characterized, in a Vienna journal, as the ne plus ultra of this master’s orchestral works, according to the unanimous opinion of the first-rate professors of that capital. In the last movement is introduced a song! — Schiller’s famous Ode to Joy, — which forms a most extraordinary contrast with the whole, and is calculated to excite surprise, certainly, and perhaps admiration.”

The same column also mentions that “Beethoven’s Opera, Melusine, remains in status quo…”

The Harmonicon at 14-15 includes a review of Beethoven’s overture to Egmont, arranged by Ignaz Moscheles for piano with violin, flute and cello accompaniment. “Of the music to Goethe’s Egmont, set by Beethoven, nothing is known in this country, except the overture, which was performed some years ago at the Philharmonic Society, and by its grandeur and originality excited the warmest admiration in all true connoisseurs of German music, and has never since failed to produce the same result. It was immediately arranged as a duet for the piano-forte by Mr. Watts, and widely circulated in that form. It is now adapted for quartett parties, to whom in its present state it will be a valuable acquisition: but it may be performed on the piano-forte, divested of the accompaniments, with very good, though certainly not equal, effect.”

“M. Moscheles has arranged this overture so as to omit nothing essential in the harmony: he could not make it easy to execute, but has not crowded it unnecessarily with notes, and it is in a very practicable form. The accompaniments are free from all difficulty.”

Moscheles’ arrangement can be heard here, performed live June 2, 2019:

The foreign musical reports of the Harmonicon at 16-17 include mention that at the last concert in Breslau, “Beethoven’s symphony, entitled Meeresstille und Glückliche fahrt, (The Stillness of the Sea and the Happy Voyage), was performed with much effect, and in a manner that augured well for the future fame of Breslau in instrumental music.”