BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, July 4, 1826 (very approximately)

On a hot day this summer, Beethoven writes an undated note to unpaid assistant Karl Holz. “In this heat, it is probably best if you come to the aforementioned inn in Rossau, directly opposite the street where Rampel [copyist Wenzel Rampl] lives. At one thirty.”

Brandenburg Letter 2165; Anderson Letter 1520. Beethoven was in contact with Holz in both 1825 and 1826. However, Beethoven spent most of the summer of 1825 in Baden, while he remained in Vienna during 1826. Rampl lived in the Viennese suburb of Rossau, at Grüne Thorgasse No.145. It is unclear which inn is meant here, as there are several possible candidates nearby. The original of the letter is held by the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (Grasnick 35,6).

Dating this letter with precision is difficult, since this was a particularly hot summer in the City of Vienna. Today is certainly a possible candidate, since according to the July 4, 1826 Wiener Zeitung, the temperature this afternoon reaches 24.8 Reaumur, or 87.8 Fahrenheit. At some point about now, Beethoven asks Wenzel Rampl, mentioned in this letter, to track down a copy of Handel’s oratorio Saul for him, so that request may be connected with this letter.