BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, August 25, 1824
Beethoven is in Vienna today, and makes a list of errands to run. This list will be continued on Friday, August 27. Today’s list includes a number of advertisements copied from today’s Intelligenzblatt.
To [attorney Johann Baptist] Bach concerning the re-printing here. [A reference to a pirated edition? Or the projected publication of the Collected Works by Sauer & Leidesdorf?]
Kienmarkt No.459, apartment on the 2nd floor [3rd floor American], 4 rooms, reception room, etc. [It is once again time to rent an apartment in Vienna for the fall.]
Restaurant, Tuchlauben [Nos.] 556 and 557 at the Sign of the Blue Hedgehog, 5 meals, 1 fl. W.W.
Piano, licensed, very bright, full and long-lasting tone, obtained through an installed board; low price; Naglergasse, Neubad No.289, main stairway, 1st floor [2nd floor American], on the right. [The referenced piano maker is Joachim Ehlers. The latter three entries are all advertisements on the same page of the Intelligenzblatt Nr.195 at 222.]
+At Steiner’s. Ask Karl when the Leipzig Fair is. + [Steiner often traveled to the Leipzig Fair, and Beethoven may be expecting that he will be there.]
French invitation for Paris and St. Petersburg from the French language teacher. [Probably the French language teacher who is listed on the same page of the Intelligenzblatt as the apartments. This note may relate to the unrealized plan to sell the Missa Solemnis in a subscription for an engraved or lithographed edition. Beethoven seems to have deemed it important enough that he did not trust Nephew Karl’s linguistic skills.]
Conversation Book 73, 23r-24r. Beethoven returns to Baden later today.
Our regular contributor Birthe Kibsgaard notes that the Intelligenzblatt also includes an advertisement for the apartment that Beethoven will eventually rent in September in the Johannesgasse, listed above the ones on the same page that he did copy. It’s unknown why that apartment did not seem worthy of notice at this time. Did the area not appeal to him, or might he already have looked at it?