BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, July 6, 1825

Beethoven spends the afternoon in a coffee house in Baden, reading Vienna newspapers from July 4 and 5. He makes note of a house with garden in Gumpendorf for sale for 6,000 florins C.M. He also copies an ad for Austrian wine authentic Vösslau wine. Karl may have brought his uncle a bottle of the latter when he went to Vösslau Sunday morning.

Finally, he notes that there are 8 building construction plots in the Allegasse, not far from Karl’s apartment. Perhaps it would be better to build a house rather than buy one?

Beethoven also makes the note, probably in relationship to his friend Tobias Haslinger being angry about the facetious biography, along with canons, that Schott published: “Someone who was angry at someone and asked me to reflect this immediately in a canon, this Tobias is often, as they say, no shining light.”

Conversation Book 90, 28v-29v.

Today’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.27 at 463-467 gives a lengthy report of the Winter concerts last season in Zurich, many of which included Beethoven compositions. The second concert opened with Ferdinand Ries’ Symphony in F major [Nr.4, op.110, written by Beethoven’s former pupil in 1818.] The second Act of that concert was devoted to Beethoven’s setting of Egmont, with the declamatory accompaniment by Friedrich Mosengeil. Hr. Lips, the well-known engraver, took on the difficult task of the declamation. Fräulein Hirzel sang Clärchen’s Lied gracefully.

The third winter concert in Zurich opened with Beethoven’s 8th Symphony. The fourth concert included Mozart’s Symphony in E-flat [probably Nr.39, K.543] and continued with the Overture to Fidelio by Beethoven. The second act included “the beautiful Trio for Pianoforte by Beethoven Op.11, executed by Dem. Schulthess von Hottingen, her brother, and Hr. v. Blumenthal.”

The sixth of the Zurich concerts included the Overture to Prometheus by Beethoven, while the 8th of these subscription concerts opened with Beethoven’s Second Symphony. The ninth and final concert, held to celebrate Good Friday (which fell on April 1 this year), included an unidentified Larghetto by Beethoven.

Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.151) at 648 includes an advertisement from A. Pennauer, art and music dealer in Vienna, for a newly published set of Variations for Piano Four Hands on an English Theme in F major by Ferdinand Ries, his opus 136. Not listed here are the names of the English theme, “Oft in the Still Night,” and “Hark! The Vesper Hymn is Stealing,” both from Moore’s National Melodies.