BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, May 3, 1825

Temporary housekeeper Barbara Holzmann is sticking around for a while, and will also move to Baden with Beethoven at least for a month. She makes preserves for him.

Nephew Karl wants to go collect funds from Fries & Co., but he needs the official bill of exchange document to do that. He asks Uncle Ludwig where he keeps that. He gets it and says that he’s going for a bath, and then he’ll take it to Fries’s bank. Ludwig asks where he’s having a bath; Karl says at the Dianabad. If he does go for a bath, he’ll take a fiacre to Fries, since it’s quite warm today.

Laundryman Anton Wiesinger comes to the door of the apartment. He is picking up some wash, and he presents his bill for 3 florins 23 kreutzers. Ludwig is anxious that Wiesinger brings it back before the move to Baden on Saturday, May 7. Wiesinger assures him he will bring it back on Friday afternoon. There is some confusion about whether Ludwig has ended up with one of Karl’s handkerchiefs, but Karl’s are all accounted for. He expects there will be one of his uncle’s in Karl’s laundry.

Holzmann plans the mid-day dinner menu, and asks Beethoven whether he would like veal or chicken ordered, and whether he also wants a long loaf of bread. She also asks if he would prefer a marrow-bone or an herb soup. Unfortunately, clumsy as she is in old age, she breaks the soup pot and will have to start all over. It’s shattered, Karl says.

They talk about Karl’s entrance to the Polytechnic Institute. He wants to seize the opportunity presented there, but he is starting mid-term, and thus he won’t be able to learn anything until he is fully there and has a tutor arranged. Ludwig accuses him of neglecting his studies, and Karl repeats that he can’t be neglecting anything because he doesn’t have a tutor yet.

Brother Johann visited Reisser, the Vice-Director at the Polytechnic. Once Karl’s formal admission is completed, then the tutor will come; there’s nothing to do without him. Ludwig doesn’t understand why Karl can’t be studying now. Karl repeats for him, this is not the beginning of the curricular cycle, so he can’t just attend classes; he won’t understand anything since he doesn’t know the beginning material. So Reisser arranged for a tutor to be assigned to Karl, who would get him up to speed to comprehend the rest. But again, the tutor won’t come until he’s formally entered.

Ludwig demands why Karl has kept this a secret from him for the last month, when he thought Karl was attending classes. Karl responds that he believed that Uncle Ludwig would be annoyed that he couldn’t attend classes immediately. So therefore he took advantage of those remaining days to study English, French and Italian, which are very necessary for him and might be useful in the future, and partially to read in Latin and Greek. He has also been at the library, reading reference works. “You must not believe that things will go badly as a result when I can actually attend lectures; also, I’ll remain there and take all pains, all the more so, since I can be well employed in an office within a short time.”

Uncle Ludwig wants to know where Karl will live once he has moved to Baden this weekend. Karl believes with Laurenz Lippert, in the Kothgasse, two blocks from Johann’s apartment. Johann knows the place; Karl hasn’t been there yet himself. Lippert is not home in the afternoons because he’s an official. [Lippert was an office assistant at the Imperial Court Treasury, just down the block from Beethoven’s current apartment.]

Karl observes that the almonds that were being ground to make almond milk for Uncle Ludwig during his illness were left in the mortar too long and have become green with mold.

Annoyed at the situation, Karl would like to still go to the University library. There, he can read Greek literature, which he usually does in the afternoon. It’s a good place to do so because they have the best reference books. In the mornings, he reads Latin classics. Uncle Ludwig tells him to go to the library, and he does so.

After Karl is gone, Beethoven tallies up his significant expenses. Out of the 50 ducats for the quartet op.127, or 575 florins, he still owes 375 florins for the apartment in Baden, and Karl’s tuition at the Polytechnic is 150. That accounts for 525 of the 575 florins.

The idea for the text of a canon in honor of Dr. Braunhofer comes to Beethoven, and he jots down, “My doctor helps me, because I could no longer write notes [Noten]; but now I write Notes, which help me get out of my need [Nöthen].” A revised version of this text (similar to puns he has made several times in his correspondence) will eventually turn into the canon WoO 189, which Beethoven will write out for Braunhofer next week.

Brother Johann is already back in Vienna; apparently his trip to Gneixendorf Sunday was a very quick one. He expected to see Karl this morning at 8 o’clock to go see the landlord Mathias Schlemmer and make arrangements for his room there.

Ludwig complains of the oppressive heat this week. [It has been between 84 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit.] Johann agrees that the heat is very great and weakens a person. That makes it all the more important that Ludwig go to Baden very soon.

Ludwig complains that he needs to make arrangements for a temporary apartment in the City. Johann tells him he can always use Johann’s own apartment as a temporary place; he’ll leave a key with his brother-in-law, the baker. Ludwig can have a bed in the cold front room.

Ludwig complains about his medical care. Johann tells him that Dr. Braunhofer is known throughout the whole City. They can talk to him tomorrow and get his recommendations for wine.

Karl returns while Johann is still there. Johann believes that beer is healthier for Ludwig than wine. Even Dr. Staudenheim prescribed beer for Ludwig back then. Braunhofer will give Ludwig an essence to take along; a small spoonful of that condensed medicine can be placed in the bottle, which can then be filled with water.

Karl’s mother Johanna is in need of money, and she approached Johann. Johann is inclined to help her out, since her late husband, Caspar Carl had loaned Johann the money to get him started. Johann paid him back in the first year. He will make her a loan if she can give him some security that he will be repaid.

Ludwig asks Karl if he will come out to Baden to visit him. Karl tells him he will take the public coach, which is how he always came out that way.

Karl reports that the piano movers are very busy now, so they can only be hired at an extremely high price, at least 25 florins. Johann Schanz, however, has his own wagon, and he guarantees that nothing bad will happen to Beethoven’s piano. The wagon would be the best method of transport, and bedding materials could be used as padding to protect the instrument.

Conversation Book 88, 49r-49v, 1r-7v.

Beethoven writes a short letter dated today to Ludwig Rellstab, who is about to leave the City and return to Berlin. “As I am about to go out to the country, I had to make some arrangements myself yesterday, and so unfortunately you came in vain. Please forgive my still weak health; as I may not see you again, I wish you all the best. Remember me in your poems. Your friend, Beethoven.” Beethoven also sends his regards to Zelter, who had written Rellstab’s letter of recommendation, “To Zelter, the brave upholder of true art, all love and honesty!”

Beethoven also gives Rellstab a short two-bar souvenir canon on a separate page. “In my convalescence I am still extremely weak. Please accept this small reminder of your friend Beethoven.” The canon in the letter is Das Schöne zu dem Guten, WoO 203, as found in the De Roda sketchbook, also dating from May, 1825. The original letter is no longer known to exist. Brandenburg Letter 1963; Anderson Letter 1366b and 1366 [Anderson treats the page with the canon as a separate letter.] Brandenburg omits the text of the canon, but it does appear in Rellstab’s memoir at 109. The text comes from Friedrich von Matthisson’s poem Opferlied, “Give me, as a youth and as an old man at my father’s hearth, O Zeus, the beautiful for the good.”

Das Schöne zu dem Guten, WoO 203, is here performed by Accentus:

Rellstab will briefly visit Beethoven in two days, just before his departure from Vienna.

At some point between now and Saturday, May 7 when he leaves Vienna, Beethoven will consider transferring part of his pension for Karl’s upkeep to Karl’s mother Johanna to help her survive. An undated draft fragment addressed to Johanna is found in the Vienna City and State Library (I.N.34387). “In the future, if you are here in Vienna, please always enclose your address with the receipt. If you are not here, you must send in a certificate from the local priest that you are still alive and residing there on stamped paper; I will reimburse 6 of the stamps. Furthermore, you should send them every quarter of the year to Steiner, where you will receive money against a receipt. There must be nothing in it about the transfer of the pension, because how could I transfer something that is not mine at all? You just have to write a receipt for the amount you received, nothing more. According to my brother, if a guarantor could be found, he would advance the 1000 florins C.M. How much of it or not you [need] that’s what you should inquire with him personally. Besides, you know that I honor my promise to give you an account of it. [The last two lines are heavily crossed out and made illegible.] Beethoven.” The abrupt beginning suggests that at least one page is missing from this letter. Beethoven appears never to have sent this (there are no postal markings) or to have given her the pension, however.

Brandenburg Letter 1965, Anderson Letter 727. Anderson tentatively dated this letter to 1816, not long after Caspar Carl’s death in November of 1815, but based on the reference to a loan from Johann in the specified amount of 1,000 florins as mentioned in today’s conversation book entries, it almost certainly dates from about now. This has become a regular pattern between them: Beethoven will learn of her dire circumstances and want to do something for her with a generous impulse, and then (perhaps after talking to Johann) will remember his own impecunious state and think better of it.

According to the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.30 at 512, in a concert today in Bremen a quintet by Beethoven is performed [probably op.29 in C major, but possibly op.4 in E-flat], as is a new double quartet [Nr.1 in D minor, op.65] by Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859).

The Wiener Zeitschrift for today (Nr.53) at 217-218, includes a discussion of comparisons made by Giuseppe Carpani (1752-1825) of various composers and musicians. “Beethoven was already famous enough at that time (1812) that Carpani did not put a painter alongside him. The grandeur, splendor, cheerfulness, often even idyllic flirtation must have made him more comparable to Rubens than to Hasse.”