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.