BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, July 27, 1825 (approximately)

Today’s entry is derived from a surviving leaf from an otherwise lost conversation book. Beethoven is likely in Vienna, since he has a conversation with Nephew Karl, who typically comes to Baden only on the weekends because of his studies.

Beethoven copies down an advertisement for a Handbook of Homeopathic Diatetics by practicing physician Dr. Karl Gottlob Caspari (1798-1828) from today’s Wiener Zeitung. [Beethoven will copy this advertisement again in September, 1825.]

Nephew Karl tells his uncle he should write again, or Karl should write on his behalf. [Grita Herre suggests that Karl may be suggesting a follow-up letter to publisher C.F. Peters regarding a trade of the quartet op.132 for the 360 florins Beethoven owes him. Karl had written the first letter under his own name. If Peters is willing to accept that offer, Beethoven needs to know so he does not try to sell it to other publishers, though he has already offered it to Adolph Schlesinger in Berlin.]

Karl asks whether his uncle is taking long walks. His chest is good, better than it was. “The worm cannot be brought out.”

Karl makes reference to an imperial civil servant by the name of Weischl, but the leaf ends there before we can determine who that is or what they need from him. This might relate to Karl’s pension from his father.

Bonn Beethovenhaus BH 53, 17-18.

Today’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.30 at 512 includes an account of the winter concerts held in Bremen. On unspecified dates, “Beethoven’s wonderful music for Egmont appeared in several concerts, as did his Adelaide [op.46.] At the Union Concerts in Bremen over the winter, Beethoven’s Overture to Leonore was performed, as well as his Second and Fifth Symphonies, at 513.