BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, December 8, 1824
Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, so Nephew Karl has no classes at the University today. He lets his uncle know that it hailed earlier.
Karl may suggest his Uncle join him in going to the Burgtheater this evening to see Shakespeare’s King Lear at 6:30 p.m. If so, Ludwig declines, and Karl goes by himself. Around 10 p.m., Karl returns to the apartment with a report on the play. The title role was played by Heinrich Anschütz (1785-1865), and it is known as his most illustrious role. Uncle Ludwig asks whether he is aged like the character, but Karl tells him that Anschütz is still young. He studied under Ferdinand Esslair (1772-1840), a member of the Munich Court Theater. [Anschütz will read Grillparzer’s eulogy at Beethoven’s funeral.]
Madame Sophie Antonie Schröder (1781-1868) played Goneril, Lear’s eldest daughter. [Frau Schröder’s daughter Wilhelmina (1804-1860) had made a splash singing the title role of Beethoven’s Fidelio in November, 1822, and Ludwig greatly esteemed her performance.]
The translation of Shakespeare into German was done by Johann Heinrich Voss (1751-1826). Karl thinks that Voss’s translation is completely different from those done by Johann Joachim Eschenburg (1743-1820) and Friedrich Ulrich Schröder (1744-1816). [Ludwig owned several volumes of Eschenburg’s translations of Shakespeare, which emphasize the literal meaning rather than the poetic aspects.]
The housekeeper serves them a late-night dinner of eggs with garlic. Karl prefers soft-boiled eggs, because one doesn’t know whether a bad egg gets into the egg dish; if it does, then they have nothing to eat again.
Karl continues his report on King Lear. The Court Fool was superbly played by Carl Ludwig Costenbole (1769-1837). “He played the whole role with an air of bitterness.” Joseph Koberwein (1774-1837) played one of the sons-in-law. But he seems better equipped for specializing in conversation rather than Shakespearean declamation. The most excellent actors, such as Schröder, Maximilian Korn (1782-1854), etc. act only seldom, to Karl’s regret.
Conversation Book 78, 19r-20r.
The last few pages of today’s issue of the Berliner AMZ (Nr.49), 423-424a, are devoted to a publication of the piano bagatelle in B-flat “Ziemlich lebhaft” [Fairly lively,] today catalogued as WoO 60. This marks the first printing of this little piece, possibly written for Polish pianist Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831), in whose album it was found. But she had also collected autographs from Bach and Handel, so not everything in the album was written specifically for her. Because there are extant sketches for the piece, it was almost certainly not written impromptu at the dinner table on August 14, 1818, as the fanciful article accompanying the piece suggests. [In 1840, the Berlin publisher Adolph Schlesinger also palmed the slight work off to unsuspecting purchasers as “Beethoven’s Last Musical Thought.”]
As the tale goes, the sheet with the music was found left behind on a seat in a hunting lodge in Baumgarten near Prague, without the name of the composer. The owners of the paper soon returned, and said that it was written by Beethoven for a delicately raised young lady, in answer to her urgent requests. The writer persuaded the owner to lend it to him and get the opinion of four musicians. “They learned nothing about its creation and how it made its way into my hands, except that Beethoven had written the composition for a foreign lady, at her request. The piece was played twice, and not a word was exchanged about it. Then everyone separately gave their opinion (without looking at the notes.) A fifth musician was told nothing about the results of this attempt, and was only told what was revealed to the others about the reason for the composition. After listening to it three times, he also gave his opinion in writing.”
“Here are the five opinions, printed literally as they were hurriedly written down:”
“1. B initially expresses the annoying wish of a lady for him to write something into her diary, thinks about it, decides to get rid of her with a few bars, shows indifferent gallantry towards her, and says to the other, ‘One is always embarrassed by the fair sex.'”
“2. B is surprised to be asked by a foreign lady he does not know to write something in her family album; decides quickly, seems to find it a little obtrusive, but does it anyway, to fulfill a lady’s wish.”
“3. What should I write there? As far as I know nothing will come of it. Take it as a token of goodwill out of the confusion of a warm heart.”
“4. Do you intend for the artist’s spirit to serve you? Away! I see this fabric, that you cleverly and slyly wrap around me. Could I tear it and yet feel tempted? Is it not the longing for those strange and distant wafting echoes that irresistibly draws my spirit towards them, and which your spirit glows to absorb with an inner urge? And thus we flow on, strangers and yet connected, bound to one another by a relationship of the soul.”
“But – do you understand me?”
“5. So, I should compose? Well, yes, I want to write you something. You great people believe that you can command and with your gracious smile, delight us, elevate us! Ha, how much higher is the artist who rules over the world, and over you too! The most sacred things are open to him, and love. Yes, love! Do you know it? So, now I have composed something for you.”
What does “Ziemlich lebhaft,” WoO 60 say to you?