BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY, Wednesday, June 21, 1826

An idea strikes Beethoven for the transition from the sixth movement to the seventh movement of the op.131 string quartet, and he jots it down with pencil in the conversation book on 29v, below the remark made yesterday about the death of Weber at age 40, as seen here

Below that, he writes a shopping list in large letters:

• slate-pencil
• Karl underpants
• rose water

New housekeeper Elisabeth Passy arrives at Beethoven’s apartment in the Schwarzspanierhaus. He is not happy that she leaves and is not there at night. She explains, “It is only because the baby always cries.” She will have to do this only until he is used to it, and her mother is also unwell. She intends it only to be for a couple days. She repeats that it will only be for a couple of days, then everything will be as Beethoven wishes.

Mollified, Beethoven asks what is for dinner. She tells him boiled chicken, warm bread, soup. She will get everything ready.

She promises she will come early tomorrow morning and that he will be satisfied. She will do the accounts today and write out the menu; tomorrow they will have fish. “I have faith in God and in you,” she says.

Conversation Book 113, 29v-30v.

Likely about today Nephew Karl visits his uncle, and unable to lay his hands on Conversation Book 113, starts a new one, Conversation Book 114. While most of that book is devoted to the month of July, Karl mentions that the weather is too chilly. While it is rather cold between June 20 through 22 according to the Wiener Zeitung weather reports, it begins getting warmer tomorrow, June 23, and then it is hot for the next two weeks straight. Hence we suggest that the first part of Conversation Book 114 is used by Karl about today. There is also discussion of chicken for dinner and leftovers, which will be the topic of conversation over the next few days, supporting our conjectural dating.

Conversation Book 114 is a notebook today consisting of 32 leaves. Leaf 3v is blank and has been crossed over in red. Beethoven wrote at the top of the first leaf “June and July,” though there is nothing that can be definitively dated to July of 1826. Anton Schindler wrote “++ Summer 1826. H. Holz about H Drouet and Fräul. Carol. Unger leaf 27 et” on the bottom of this same page.

Nephew Karl is visiting his uncle. Karl asks where Uncle Ludwig got his vinegar. His landlady, Frau Rosalia Schlemmer, has excellent vinegar, which she makes herself. She buys ordinary vinegar and adds raspberries to it.

Uncle Ludwig notes he has not heard from publisher Tobias Haslinger lately. Karl suggests it is because Haslinger is still angry about the humiliation from the censorship of several of Beethoven’s compositions he was publishing. Haslinger told Karl that he will take no tasks from Uncle Ludwig, but Karl doubts that Haslinger would say that to strangers as well; he would harm himself more by doing so, because the world knows Uncle Ludwig, and not him. “Therefore, I do not think you should drive the little fox to total despair.”

Uncle Ludwig wants a letter written; Karl says he will make a draft.

For dinner they are having chicken first, and are saving the best for last (though Karl does not indicate what that might be). The housekeeper, Elisabeth Passy, says that the smoke from the stove is insignificant, and is much worse in many other houses. Karl suggests that his uncle should eat the leftover chicken this evening, since it likely will not keep.

Karl thinks that when it is just the two of them, they will not need as much wine.

Uncle Ludwig suggests that they have a bath. Karl still has problems to do for his homework, and he won’t be finished with that until tomorrow. Also, it is getting rather chilly now. If the weather is fine tomorrow morning, they could meet at 7 a.m. Karl asks which bath his uncle would like to use. Karl suggests the Danube bath “Zum Karpfen,” in the Landstrasse suburb. Uncle Ludwig doesn’t like that suggestion and Karl asks him where he wants to go. Karl has to leave; he has too much to do. It is not that urgent for him to go to the baths, as he often takes foot baths. “So there is no hurry if the weather should not be fine tomorrow; today it is already cold.”

Conversation Book 114, 1r-2v. According to the June 23, 1826 Wiener Zeitung at 601, today at 3 p.m. it is only 11.5 degrees Reaumur, or about 58 degrees Fahrenheit, and drops to 9.0 Reaumur, or 52 degrees Fahrenheit in the evening. It is rainy all day, tomorrow and even colder, so they probably do not meet to have a bath.

The June 29, 1826 Wiener Theaterzeitung (Nr.77) at 311 contains a review of an Akademie benefit concert held in Vienna today at 6:30 p.m. at the Kärntnertor Theater. The concert givers were the mandolin virtuoso Pietro Bimercati [or Vimercati] accompanied by pianist Fraulein Marie Stuck (who also sang an aria by Rossini from Adelaide di Borgogna). The opening Overture from Beethoven’s “brilliant” Fidelio was “performed with considerable finesse.” The Akademie concluded with the ballet Zemire und Azor, by Adalbert Gyrowetz. The review in the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of October 4, 1826 (Nr.40) at 323 sardonically noted that the concert program included “Overtures by Beethoven and Mozart (Fidelio and Figaro) and Arias by — ? — of course, by Rossini.”

The Wiener Zeitschrift account of the concert in the July 1, 1826 issue (Nr.78) at 628 states, “Beethoven’s Overture from Fidelio, whose revival we eagerly anticipate at the Kärntnertor Theater, opened the Akademie in an imposing manner. The glorious spirit that permeated it was conveyed by the orchestra with diligence and precision, but even more so con amore. The performance was powerful, fiery, and delicate, for a single minor error by one instrument was quickly rectified.” The concert had initially been announced in the Wiener Zeitschrift as occurring on June 17, but it had been postponed.

Today’s Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.25) at 407-409 contains an account of the concerts over the last year in Elbing (today Elbląg in Poland.) Singled out for particular notice is a ten-year-old keyboard prodigy from Elbing, Wilhelm Markull (1816-1887), a student of the organist Karl Kloss. Markull has played concertos such as Hummel’s concerto in A minor as well as chamber music, including a Trio in E-flat by Beethoven [no indication is given as to whether this is op.1/1 or op.70/2, both of which are in E-flat] and Variations by Ferdinand Ries. He plays these “in steady time and with a fairly round and elastic attack. However, he was not able to completely master some of these. This boy also showed a lot of skill as a singer last winter.” [Markull will have a long and successful musical career, will later become Royal Music Director in 1851, and will write several operas, oratorios and symphonies, as well as a great many works for organ.]

Today’s Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.25) contains a review of Te Deum laudamus by Johann Gottfried Schicht (1753-1823), published in Leipzig by Friedrich Hofmeister (1782-1864). In discussing the fugal work contained here, the reviewer writes, “Beethoven also included fugues in his sonatas, which prove quite clearly that even in the fugue one can work with life, with a free spirit, with ideas that are completely devoted to feeling.”

Carl Maria von Weber died on June 5 in London, and permission had been sought to inter his body in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Consent was refused on the grounds that a requiem over the dead being a Catholic rite, it could not with propriety be performed in a Protestant church. Instead, Weber is interred this morning in the vaults beneath the St. Mary Catholic chapel in Moorfields, which was then outside the City of London, near its northern wall. Weber’s funeral begins at 10:30 in the morning, with approximately 2,000 mourners. As the coffin approaches the principal aisle, Mozart’s Requiem is performed. The body is then conveyed from the chapel into the vaults below, while the orchestra plays the Dead March from Handel’s Saul. The ceremony is primarily in Latin, through a few prayers are recited in English. The ritual takes about an hour and a half. The Harmonicon for August 1826 (Nr.XLIII) at 148.