BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, May 2, 1826

The Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.19 of May 10, 1826 at 150-51 includes a rather fanciful and mocking account. The writer has been told that there will be a concert tonight at the Berlin opera house, with a symphony by Beethoven. “First kind of shock, a joyful one. What? I exclaimed, has the eternal reminder of our newspaper [the Berliner AMZ had been highly critical of the lack of symphony performances in that city, which were often fragmentary when they did occur] finally been able to penetrate even the royal houses? Will it be carried through? Is the Golden Age approaching when no concert will ever be scheduled and started without a symphony at the top? Hat and stick; march forward to the opera house.”

“Heaven knows how it happened, but I couldn’t get hold of a program, so I remained in complete uncertainty about what was to come. Now the bell rang. A maestro took the conductor’s chair. Aha! It will be something big, perhaps the A major [Nr.7] or Pastorale (we are currently enjoying a beautiful May day.) Of course, that can’t really work without reliable direction. Instead, the seventh chord held by classical instruments suddenly rang out, that is, C major [Nr.1.] The second kind of shock, a mild one. Perhaps there will be seven or eight such concerts during the summer, and each one will begin with one of Beethoven’s symphonies. In that case it’s quite right that Nr.1 is played first; after all, it’s still always Beethoven that we hear, and the Allegro stormed off, and I was all ears. The orchestra did its duty under [conductor Karl] Möser’s leadership. The last notes of the movement had barely faded away when the engineer again rang the bell in the theater. What does that mean? Does the man think the symphony is already over?”

“Instead of any answer, the curtain opened and my old friend Haitzinger, surrounded by 19 choristers, presented himself to the drunken eye. Third kind of shock, a great one. Heavens! A program, a program! I called just as anxiously as my neighbor asked for a scent bottle for his lady, who had lost all consciousness at the sight of the choristers dressed in black civilian clothes, whom she was used to see only in Roman or Greek costume. The program came, I read, ‘Grand Italian singing scene, performed etc.’ And so it went on, little bits of the symphony, with some singing in between. Finally, a potpourri by [Ludwig] Spohr.”

“Now only the Rondo-Finale of Beethoven’s work was still missing. The curtain had already fallen and my impatience grew with every second. Finally, finally I heard knocking. God be praised! I looked towards the orchestra, but saw a strange man in front of the conductor’s desk. Has our good Möser fallen ill? But at the moment it started: What? The introduction to a ballet of goats? The fourth kind of shock, a monstrous one, as I rushed out of the house like a madman. People thought I was insane; that was not far off.” The author is Heinrich Ludwig Edmund Dorn (1794-1892), a lawyer, composer and critic who wrote under the pseudonym Nr.4. Although he wrote numerous reviews of Schubert’s lieder, this seems to be the only one of his writings in the BAMZ devoted to Beethoven.

The account of this concert in the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.24) at 392 of June 14, 1826 rather more sedately only mentions that a “grand symphony by Beethoven” was performed, as was an Italian opera scene with chorus, by Herr Haizinger, who also performed a duet from Rossini’s Zelmira with Herr Sieber, and with them, Herr Beer and Devrient performed a vocal quartet by Eisenhofer. Finally, there was a Potpourri for violin, on the theme from Jessonda by Spohr. There followed a ballet, Der Zögling der Natur [The Student of Nature], so the comic Berlin account has a good deal of veracity behind it.

Today’s Intelligenzblatt supplement to the Wiener Zeitung (Nr.100) at 655 includes a notice, dated April 19, 1826, stating that because on August 19, 1825, a number of members of the Widows and Orphan’s Institute, some of whom have already been expelled after several warnings, and others (including Franz Schubert) are in arrears and they will have to make their payment no later than July 12, or face the same fate. The notice is repeated in the Intelligenzblatt for May 5 1826 at 672, and May 8, 1826 at 690.