BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, November 1, 1825 (approximately)

The November 1825 issue of The Harmonicon, vol.XXXV, contains some mentions of Beethoven. At 199, a letter from Mozart to a Baron, dating from 1783 in Prague, contains the following statement: “I now come to the most difficult part of your letter, which I would willingly pass over in silence, for here my pen denies me its service. Still I will try, even at the risk of being well laughed at. You say, you should like to know my way of composing, and what method I follow in writing works of some extent. I can really say no more upon this subject than the following; for I myself know no more about it, and cannot account for it. When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer; say travelling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night, when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come I know not, nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me, I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself.” The editors add in a footnote here: “Beethoven does exactly the same thing.”

At 210 of this issue of The Harmonicon, there is a very short review of Ewer and Johanning’s Collection of Favourite and Modern Marches, Waltzes, Polonaises, and Minuets, for the Piano-Forte. This “is a new work, well brought out, at a reasonable price. The above numbers comprise much from the Freischütz, marches by Winter and Cherubini, Ogiusky’s polonaise, and a waltz by Beethoven; arranged with a view to accommodate moderately qualified performers.” [If the Waltz by Beethoven is genuine, that would be the Waltz in E-flat major, WoO 84, since that is the only waltz Beethoven has written at this point. But it might also be one of the spurious waltzes issued under Beethoven’s name; we have been unable to find a copy to determine whether it is in fact a Beethoven waltz.]

The Harmonicon also reproduces in English at 212 the announcement of Schott’s in Mainz for the publication of the Missa Solemnis, the Grand Overture in C major [not yet named Consecration of the House] and the Ninth Symphony. Although the subscription is mentioned, the publisher goes unnamed, despite the city of Mainz being mentioned.

The musical supplement to this issue of The Harmonicon includes at pages 245-247 “‘L’Estate,’ an Air for the Piano-forte” by Beethoven. This is actually Bagatelle op.33/4, which is here performed live by Paul Lewis: