BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, May 30, 1826

Beethoven needs to decide whether or not to keep the maid on. Nephew Karl comes and talks to him, telling him that he needs to speak to the maid about it, because otherwise her time is up on Thursday, and he will have no servants at all on Friday and will sit here alone. Ludwig decides to let her have a cooking trial to see whether she is satisfactory. Karl says he will come tomorrow; if the cooking trial from the maid turns out well, Karl will tell her that if she promises to behave, Uncle Ludwig will keep her on as a cook. Then we shall see what she says.

Uncle Ludwig asks whether he should pay the usual 25 florins per month. Karl doesn’t think so; perhaps 15 to 18 florins at most. But Karl will see what she has to say tomorrow. He will also give Frau Schlemmer a commission to find a maid, since Uncle Ludwig will need one regardless.

Uncle Ludwig is reading Friedrich August Kanne’s proposed opera libretto, Die Mainacht oder der Blocksberg. Karl rejects it: “That is no book for you.” Johann Friedrich Kind, who wrote the libretto for Weber’s Der Freischütz, might perhaps be able to create something good. Maybe a Greek subject.

Karl says, “I’ll leave now, as I still have much to write and do. I’ll see you tomorrow after 12 o’clock. If there are some letters to be written, I shall conduct my office as secretary. You can take it easy concerning the housekeeping; Frau Schlemmer also does everything she can to find someone. So, it won’t matter if the maid is also leaving.

Uncle Ludwig asks when Karl will be there tomorrow; he says around 12:30. Uncle Ludwig thinks that if the maid’s cooking trial fails, he could hire Elise Seidl, who was interviewed the other day. He asks Karl what her address is, and Karl writes it down for him.

Before Karl can leave, unpaid assistant Karl Holz arrives briefly. He has been to see publisher Mathias Artaria. Anton Halm [who arranged the Grosse Fuge for four hands piano, but Beethoven disapproved of his work] is supposed to come see Beethoven [presumably to see if there is a way to salvage Halm’s arrangement], and Artaria asks when it would be convenient for him to stop by. He very urgently wants to publish a 4-hand arrangement of the Fugue.

Karl says he has to go; he has to work together with one of his classmates on a project, but he assures his uncle that right now he’s going straight home, and he’ll go to the classmate later. Before he can leave, Uncle Ludwig asks whether the letter to Schott’s that he dictated on May 20 ever got mailed. Karl tells him that it was sent long ago.

Conversation Book 110, 45v-47r.

Pianist Dorothea Ertmann and her husband arrive in Vienna today, according to the June 1, 1826 Wiener Zeitung Arrivals column. She will remain there until September 16, and will be in contact with Beethoven over the summer.

Carl Maria von Weber, terminally ill with tuberculosis, makes his final public appearance today in London, at a concert given by Mary Ann Paton. He decides to leave London on June 6, after a benefit performance of Der Freischütz at Covent Garden.

At the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the melodrama Bianca e Gernando by Vincenzo Bellini is premiered in front of the royal family, on the name day of King Fernando. It will receive 25 performances this season, and later be staged under the name Bianca e Fernando.