BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, June 27, 1820

Conversation Book 14, leaves 58v through 59r

Beethoven makes note of a few things of interest in the advertisements in yesterday’s Intelligenzblatt from Vienna. Oil, clocks and night-lamps are available at Benkert’s. The night lamp has a clock face that shows the hours by the consumption of oil. At the Wild Duck, they have “fresh, fresh venison.” Since there is no “Wild Duck” business in the City, Editor Ted Albrecht suggests Beethoven may mean the “Golden Duck” at the corner of Riemerstrasse.

Beethoven also challenges his meager math skills in figuring out how much his servant would get every two weeks, at a rate of 20 kr. and 30 kr. per day. Rather than attempt multiplication, Beethoven instead writes out a column of the number 20 fourteen times and adds them all up.