BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, December 7, 1825 (approximately)
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to visit Beethoven. He finally has a housekeeper that Frau Vivenot recommends. But Beethoven appears to have come to terms with Frau Adelmann to continue to act as housekeeper, at least for the time being. Holz had intended to come with his candidate tomorrow December 8 [which is a holiday, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception] but since Beethoven already has a housekeeper arranged, he will cancel that.
Holz starts to explain why he has been unable to retrieve the score of the Missa Solemnis from Franz Michael Reisser of the Polytechnic Institute, to whom Nephew Karl had loaned the score so he could make a copy. “I was at Reisser’s three times. He always lets me stand in the hallway like a servant and dismisses me with a message that he will send me the Mass the next morning. The ‘next morning’ has come and gone three times, and I still have nothing. The last time I even had him told that I found it very strange that he could not be held to his word. Such a Viennese pedant.”
Beethoven apparently tells Holz that he was able to get the score from Nephew Karl yesterday. Holz, seemingly offended that he has thus wasted his time on both the housekeeper and the Missa Solemnis score, rather abruptly says, “Therefore I have fulfilled my obligation; someone is waiting for me below,” and departs.
Several pages from a conversation book are held at the Bonn Beethovenhaus, BH 53, pages 21-22 and 31-32. These two pages are continuous, and probably follow Holz’s comments above. Nephew Karl is with his Uncle Ludwig, probably at a coffee house in the afternoon or early evening. Karl says he has to go home because he has a lot to do. Yesterday, they were given the calculations for 62 commercial transactions, which are due Monday, and that will take a lot of effort and time. If Uncle Ludwig wants to give Karl the money for the tailor, he can hand it over, but there is still time. He promises to come to Uncle Ludwig on noon on Saturday. Karl reminds his uncle that the month is up for his tutor, so he will need to be paid again.
Despite what Karl says, he apparently does not leave immediately. Uncle Ludwig reads the newspapers and copies an advertisement for Styrian capons. He also copies an advertisement for meals at the restaurant At the Sign of the Blue Hedgehog.
The dating of these pages is a little complicated, but the ad for the Blue Hedgehog appears in the December 5, 7 and 10 Intelligenzblatt supplement to the Wiener Zeitung, so those dates are the likely choices. The 10th is a Saturday already, so that can be eliminated. In November, the tutor’s month was up on the 8th, so Wednesday the 7th of December seems the most likely candidate.
At the end of the second leaf, Karl notes 118 florins 39 kreutzers, which seems likely to be a combination of 40 florins for the tutor, plus the tailor bill referenced earlier. They may be determining how much cash will be needed tomorrow, which would explain why Ludwig wanted to visit a banker yesterday. This might also be an entry from a later day, possibly December 8th, when Ludwig and Karl are dealing with the tailor.
The Steiner Music Shop forwards the 360 florins due to Leipzig publisher C.F. Peters as instructed, signing a receipt for it. Thayer/Forbes at 969. That payment finally resolves the debt Beethoven has owed to Peters since 1822, when he was given that sum (80 ducats) as an advance for a number of compositions but Peters rejected them all as unworthy of the composer. Beethoven has since sold all of the rejected works to other publishers, primarily Schott’s. As a last ditch effort, Beethoven had offered one of his new string quartets to Peters, but the publisher shortsightedly chose to accept the cash instead, tired of dealing with Beethoven’s promises. Beethoven instead has paid the debt with the 80 ducats received from Mathias Artaria for the op.130 quartet.
Today’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung contains at 809-817 a very lengthy review of a History of Music, translated by Aug. Lewald from the French of Frau von Bawr, newly published in Nuremberg, derived from the Encyclopedia for Ladies. While the reviewer concedes this is not one of the bad works in translation, he has issues with its coverage of German music. In the review, the author quotes extensively from the final chapter on the current state of music, which includes the following section relating to Beethoven, together with the reviewer’s editorial commentary in parentheses: “Ludwig van Beethoven, born in Bonn 1772 [sic], a master whom we call next to Mozart, who penetrated the deepest secrets of the world of music, powerfully touched all parts of the soul in his wordless poems. He has rightly been called the Jean Paul of composers. It is almost unbelievable that the art of composing for instruments can be taken any further, his works are so rich, so new, so imaginative. But even with him it is often the case, especially in his newer works, that in his intention to create something ever more original, he becomes incomprehensible to the listener and degenerates into the bizarre. His heroic symphony, his Pastoral Symphony (only this one?), his opera Fidelio (?), several of his songs, and the music for Goethe’s Egmont belong to the most magnificent things that art has to offer. But his works stand on the summit, from which a small step leads downwards again. To want to surpass Beethoven, and, as is almost inevitable, to want to surpass his genius, must produce a grimace.” The reviewer also complains that even in the area of church music, Sebastian Bach has been forgotten.