BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, March 28, 1826
Beethoven writes a letter dated today to B. Schott’s Sons publishing house in Mainz. “Your excellency! Today I received from the Prussian envoy here [Prince Franz von Hatzfeld] authority from His Royal Majesty [Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770-1840)] to dedicate to him the Symphony in D minor with Chorus [the Ninth Symphony]. You can therefore now add that to the title page, as well as the other Royal Prussian emblems, allegorically conceived, devised and executed, so that there will be no violation of proper form, but rather a well-designed title page may appear.”
“The metronome markings for both the Mass and the Symphony and Quartet [opp.123, 125 and 127] will follow soon. Ars longa vita brevis [Art is long, life is short, a motto that Beethoven was fond of setting to music in canons] — for Paris [Schott’s was opening a new Paris branch] I might be able to give a new quartet. [Op.131, which Beethoven is working on currently.] However little I may be interested in writing merely for a fee, my circumstances nevertheless require me to take this into consideration. But what now, when I still have not received an answer to my letter, in which I requested 60 ducats for a quartet?! [Beethoven had offered that price to Schott’s in May and June of 1825.] Since there is so much competition [for these works] the honorarium should be set even higher!!—”
[Beethoven then engages in wordplay about the name of the publishing firm, B. Schott’s Sons:] “I will therefore say nothing further than that I now receive at least 80 ducats in gold for such a quartet—for the copies and arrangements you sent [of Consecration of the House, op.124, in full score and a piano four hands arrangement], my sincere thanks—Apollo’s sons [Söhne] are somewhat difficult to reconcile [versöhnen], as Homer has set out in the Iliad. As your atonement [Sühnung], 3 casks of Johannesberger [Riesling wine] must be sent, and on each cask, a Bacchante“
“Your most devoted Beethoven.”
Brandenburg Letter 2136; Anderson Letter 1472. According to a registration note, Schott’s received this letter on April 6, 1826. The original is held by the City Library in Mainz as part of the Schott archives (Neuerwerbung 91.1321), and can be seen here:
https://www.dilibri.de/dilibri_kalliope/content/titleinfo/2115476
Conversation Book 107 starts being used about today. This book is comprised of 94 leaves, and three of the pages (two early pages, 1v and 1ar, and the last one, 96v) are blank. Leaves 1-3 were either used at the end, or have been bound out of order, since they relate to events on April 8th. The book covers a little less than two weeks of time, from the end of March through April 8th. We have worked from the translation by our invaluable friend Birthe Kibsgaard, and developed our chronology from the internal evidence, with assistance from the helpful footnotes of the German editors.
Abbé Maximilian Stadler (1748-1833), who wrote the impassioned defense of Mozart being the true composer of the early movements of the Requiem Mass attributed to him, is visiting Beethoven. He shows Beethoven the manuscript of the entire Dies irae from the Requiem, in Mozart’s hand. Stadler had received the manuscript of this movement as a gift. He notes that someone else in Vienna also has the manuscript of the Offertorium, Domine Hostias, quam olim. [That someone was Court Conductor Joseph Eybler, who also had the manuscripts to the Lacrimosa, Domine quam olim, and Hostias quam olim movements of the Requiem, which were transferred to the Imperial State Library (today the Austrian National Library) in 1833.]
Beethoven asks where Stadler lives. “In the Gemeinde Gasse No.60” in the Viennese suburb of Landstrasse. Probably later on, in the lower blank half of the same page, 4r, Beethoven jots a sketch with a soft pencil, which from the parallel entry in the Kullak sketchbook is intended as material for a projected finale of the Quartet op.131 in C-sharp major, a theme and variations, which is reproduced here, enhanced for legibility.
Stadler continues on the next page with some musical gossip. Jan Nepomuk Vitàsek (1770-1839) was appointed as vice kapellmeister, and has declined. [Unpaid assistant Karl Holz had earlier told Beethoven about Vitàsek’s appointment, but not his refusal of the post.] Beethoven asks whether Leopold Kozeluch (1747-1818) ever wrote any church music. Stadler says he did not. Stadler asks whether Archduke Rudolph is expected back in the City soon. Beethoven complains about his restricted diet, and that he cannot have any wine at all, to Stadler’s surprise.
Stadler did not attend the premiere of the op.130 quartet last, and has not yet been able to hear anything of that quartet. “I regret it especially because of the fugue.” [The Grosse Fuge, still the finale of op.130, has already become a topic of conversation.]
Stadler complains that there are no good singers of church music any more. “I read a lot but write little. Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.” [Times are changed, and we are changed as well.] The Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde comes up, and Stadler is dismissive of them. “There is no composer at all among the members who would have anything to say. The dilettantes understand everything better. At conservatories, great masters ought to arrange and procure everything, like it is in Paris, etc.”
Stadler takes his leave of Beethoven.
Conversation Book 107, 4r-5r.