BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, August 2, 1826

The heat in Vienna is quite oppressive today, with temperatures around 25 Reaumur, or 89 Fahrenheit. Wiener Zeitung (Nr.177) of August 4, 1826 at 745. Holz had described a somewhat lower temperature last week as “walking through Hell.”

Nephew Karl stops by Uncle Ludwig’s apartment this morning very briefly. He helps his uncle go through the mail. Uncle Ludwig believes one bill to be from the tailor, but Karl tells him it is not.

Karl gives his uncle the letter he drafted to Stieglitz & Co. in St. Petersburg regarding the money due from Prince Galitzin, asking why he is delaying payment for the third quartet, op.130. Brandenburg Letter 2179. This letter does not survive, but its date is known from Stieglitz’s answer on August 13, 1826. Uncle Ludwig notes that the letter is quite short. Karl tells him, “With merchants you have to be concise; if that does not work, then you take the last resort.”

Uncle Ludwig asks Karl something, to which Karl responds before he leaves, “The end of August.” [His school term is up at Michaelmas, September 29th, so unless he misspeaks here, Karl must mean something else. Karl gives no hints that he intends to commit suicide in the very near future and has purchased two pistols for this purpose. However, we do note that his comments in the conversation books of late are rather businesslike. He no longer doodles in the margins or engages in calligraphy, and the jokes and puns are gone. Uncle Ludwig does not appear to have noticed this change in Karl’s demeanor, or at least seems not to mention it to Karl.]

Sometime after Karl departs, former unpaid assistant Anton Schindler pays a call on Beethoven. Much of the time is spent with Schindler complaining about his own health. He is only going out for the third time today. Everything should be fine, “only my head just won’t get better; it is like a revolutionary.” He is going out to the country today, at least to Schönbrunn. Beethoven offers Schindler a beer. “I am not allowed to take one, also not to drink any wine.” He must avoid anything that heats him up. “I had a very skillful doctor, or else it would have been the end of me.” It is Professor Johann Baptist Wisgrill (c.1795-1851) from the medical faculty at the University of Vienna.

The planned performance of Fidelio is in danger. “The tenor [who is to sing Florestan] has fallen ill and won’t be singing it. What is worse is that Radicchi would have taken over the part, for he cannot sing a tone that can be heard. He sings like a 60-year-old woman, and when he offers to sing, it is a terrible presumption.” Joseph Eichberger (1808-1862) will sing the role instead. He sang the tenor part in François Adrien Boieldieu’s opera The White Lady [which was performed in a new German version at the Kärntnertor Theater last month.] “He is the best high tenor we have, and a man who tries much harder than anyone else.” Schindler also notes that yesterday he heard Nanette Schechner, who has been engaged at the Kärntnertor this summer, is saving Fidelio for her benefit concert, which will probably not take place until September or October, which will be for the best for the opera since people will be back in the City.

Beethoven mentions that Schindler promised to bring Schechner to visit him, but they never appeared. Schindler assures him that they will suddenly surprise him, once he is well again and can arrange everything.

Schindler asks whether Beethoven has talked to Baroness Reigersfeld from London. She is in Vienna [arrived July 28th] with her two daughters. She is married to the ship captain who had written to Beethoven several times. Beethoven asks how he knows all this; Schindler responds that he read it in the newspaper. [It was in the Arrivals column of the Wiener Zeitung of July 31, Nr.173.]

Schindler complains that it is hard to live in the countryside, because everything is bad, though the wines are excellent.

“Now, my great master, farewell, and when I am free again, I will with your kind permission come to talk with you again.” Beethoven appears not to object to Schindler’s proposal to come back.

The composer starts a shopping list after Schindler’s departure:

• library cabinet Karl
• Metrick etc. [most likely a reference to Heinrich Voss’s Meter in the German Language, which was the topic of discussion with Karl, who wanted a copy, on Sunday, July 30.]

Conversation Book 116, 21v-25r.

Publisher B. Schott’s Sons in Mainz writes to Beethoven today to inquire about the quartet op.131 that they purchased. In particular, they ask whether the copy has been delivered yet, and whether it is an original composition. Brandenburg Letter 2180. Although the letter is today lost, its date and contents can be deduced from Beethoven’s letter offering the quartet, and his response dated August 19, 1826 in response. The quartet as of today has not yet been delivered to Franck & Co., and is probably being copied presently, though it is of course original.

Today’s Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.31) at 245-246 continues its review of Charinomos: Contributions to the General Theory and History of the Fine Arts, by Karl Seidel (Magdeburg, 1825, vol.1). The author demonstrates the importance of rhythm, and then launches into an exhaustive overview of rhythmic formations.

But the reviewer takes issue with the author’s simplistic treatment of rhythm, using an example from Beethoven. “The author has not demonstrated any aesthetic or other law that would make further rhythmic formation, e.g., five- and seven-part, inadmissible. Even experience speaks against it; in the first movement of Beethoven’s sonata op.54, for example, we find the five-part rhythm (in quintuplets) in extensive use. The opinion that such rhythms are useless has only spread because for a while people enjoyed forcing and artificially creating five-part rhythms (in order to be new in one respect at least), which then of course were considered forced and artificial and unpleasant to be perceived.”

The August 2, 1825 Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.31) opens with a letter from a traveler about Vienna’s art treasures. In it, he discusses the collections of major patrons of the arts. At 499, the traveler recounts that Herr Tobias Haslinger of the S.A. Steiner art and music shop, has sold the theoretical portion of his select collection to Beethoven’s patron, Archduke Rudolph, including “the famous scores of all Beethoven’s compositions, in some sixty folio volumes, all by one hand, entirely flawless on English drawing paper, written with calligraphic elegance.” The writer notes that it “will most likely remain unique of it kind, because, due to its cost and the time involved, it could hardly be undertaken a second time.”

The concert report from Cassel at page 508 of today’s AMZ mentions that the third concert of the season, held at the opera house, opened with Beethoven’s Overture to Egmont.