BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, July 25, 1826

Beethoven works on an errand list this morning after working on the next quartet, op.135 in F major:

Carl wallet. —
wax candles
mirror
to the tailor
two barber razors

Later in the day, he goes to visit Nephew Karl at his rooms rented from Matthias and Rosalia Schlemmer. The housekeeper, Marie Stiegel, likely doing shopping, either accompanies Ludwig or meets him there. Karl reports that the tailor did more with the overcoats than he was instructed to do; “I only wanted him to mend the torn lining, and he gave it to the cloth cutter. I went to him today and told him to fetch it and have it changed because he did not do it well. He is going to change it.”

The spraying in front of the house is apparently not enough to keep dust down; Karl suggests getting a watering can, which would not be so expensive, and have the maid do the spraying.

There is discussion about the problematic title pages to the March and Chorus, op.114, and Tremate, empi tremate, op.116. Tobias Haslinger said himself that he would not print them in this form. Uncle Ludwig thinks he will go see Haslinger. Karl reminds him that Haslinger’s shop is in a different building now; his shop has moved.

Ludwig suggests that since Karl is near the end of his studies, he can dispense with the tutor. Karl says that it not possible now. Everyone learns in the way that seems the easiest for him.

Stiegel couldn’t get any more cucumbers for dinner, so she is forced to chop up the ones she had in a way to make them look more plentiful. Ludwig mentions Holz coming to dinner; Karl petulantly asks why his uncle invites him so often.

Talk returns to Haslinger. Why would he not accept what Uncle Ludwig is requiring of him? Karl doesn’t want to get involved. “I cannot help it — I do not care whether you are on good terms with him or not — however, I think that most of these things take place through intermediaries, and that is why he is so agitated. And I do not think that he said everything about what has been imposed on him; his former behavior was certainly, so far as I could see, full of awe regarding you, not only when dealing with you personally, but also towards strangers, as he proved when you were in Baden.” Karl thinks he could straighten it all out if he went there personally.

The spraying issue is affecting the Schlemmers as well. She says that the soldiers could also spray, but one cannot expect them to do that. The cost at the Schwarzspanierhaus for use of the watering equipment is about 4 florins. There is also a similar assessment for the lighting of the building, but only a few tenants actually pay, and the building superintendent has no leverage to make them pay. They tell him, We do not mind if the stairs are dark. [A lighting bill for the Schwarzspanierhaus from September, 1826 is shown nearby.]

Uncle Ludwig starts to insist that Karl come visit him more often, and then that Karl stay home and spend more time on his studies with his examinations coming up. This annoys Karl: “You are switching from one extreme to the other; it is not possible for me to spend the evening here, if I do not want to end up in a tight spot; however, it is not necessary that I do not come at mid-day either; I do have to eat, and I cannot study the entire day through.” It doesn’t help whether he comes at mid-day or not. Uncle Ludwig suggests that Karl have evening supper with him. “I do have to eat, but in the evening I cannot come. — It is not necessary to make so much fuss about the bathing, and spend so much time. I can do it over there in half an hour. —” Uncle Ludwig does not trust Karl with the money for the baths. Fine, then, “Holz must buy a ticket at the bath and give it to me, then this matter will be solved as well. And I do not care. I am already used to it.” Uncle Ludwig wants the receipt for the 80 florins rent paid to the Schlemmers. Karl assures him that he will get it.

Landlady Rosalia Schlemmer intervenes between the quarreling nephew and uncle. She is sympathetic to Karl’s desire to study with another one of his classmates. “I think he wants to study much with someone, that is what I think when he stays away.” She backhandedly compliments Karl, saying everyone is afraid to play games with him because he is so clever. [This may also be Schlemmer’s way of hinting that Karl cheats at games.]

Frau Schlemmer lets Ludwig know that they are moving into the City. [As a result Karl will need to leave, though since he is near the end of his studies that should not be an issue.]

Conversation Book 115, 22r-25v.

Today is the first day of the Eighteenth Yorkshire Amateur Musicians Meeting held at York, England, having been postponed from the usual time in June because of the elections. “The public attention was considerably directed towards it, on account of its being held for the first time in the Festival Concert Room, which was graced by a splendid display of beauty and fashion; above 1000 persons being present on the first day, and 1100 on the second day. Although the postponement deprived the meeting of some of its most constant attendants, the band nevertheless was numerous and complete, consisting of thirty-six violins and basses, and twenty-six wind and other instruments. The choruses were supported by upwards of forty voices; but unfortunately the reverberation of sound proved sufficiently great to impair the effect, although it was not perceptible in the glees, and scarcely so in the instrumental pieces. Nothing will probably correct this but lengthening the room, of which we are sorry to learn that there is no immediate prospect; and we are also grieved to find that an entrance to it through the great Assembly-room has been denied, contrary to the wishes of some of its proprietors, and those too of high rank, on the plea that it would be degraded by being used as a passage; at the same time that it is let to itinerant jugglers—’admission, back seats, one shilling’!”

The first day’s concert began at twelve o’clock noon, opening with Beethoven’s Grand Symphony in F, op.93 [the Eighth]. The meeting of amateur musicians will continue tomorrow. The Harmonicon for September, 1826 (Nr.XLV) at 184 was unimpressed by the performance of the Eighth Symphony. “Beethoven in F. was not very effective.”

In Russia, five officers who were leaders of the Decembrist revolt are scheduled to be executed by hanging at 3 AM. The revolt had been the subject of several discussions between Beethoven and Brother Johann earlier this year, and it had a profound effect on composer Mikhail Glinka, who observed the Czar’s loyal troops firing into the crowded square in St. Petersburg. Czar Nicholas personally selected the five condemned to serve as an example for the rest. They are led out into the glacis of the Peter-Paul Fortress, and placed on the scaffolds with signs on their chests reading “Criminals—Regicides!” Their epaulets are torn off their uniforms and burned. After they receive the last rites, the command is given and the supports pulled away. Three of the five fall out of their nooses to the ground. One of them, named Muravey, shouts as he awaits the noose to be replaced, “My God! In this hopeless country they cannot even hang people properly!” Historian Jean Henri-Schnitzler, quoted in Y.M. Gordin, Mutiny of the Reformers: 14th December 1825-4th August 1830, Pushkin Foundation, St. Petersburg 2016.