BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, March 15, 1826
Today’s entries are all written vertically, and starting at the end of the book and then working backwards from 34v to 30v.
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz is at Beethoven’s apartment today at mid-day dinner before the Schuppanzigh Quartet rehearsal there of the op.130 quartet under the composer’s supervision, scheduled for 7 p.m. Holz asks when Beethoven thinks he will finish the quartet he’s working on [op.131 in C-sharp minor. The quartet is not finished until July, but since Beethoven habitually underestimates how long it will take him to complete a work, he probably tells Holz within the next month.] Holz thinks he should ask 100 ducats for it. “Good fellow! You’ll have it finished right away!” Holz asks whether the quartet has been promised to publisher Maurice Schlesinger in Paris. [Schlesinger had been promised the op.130 quartet, but that has now been sold to Mathias Artaria, so Beethoven might be considering the next quartet as a substitute for Schlesinger.]
They have dinner, and the housekeeper serves lettuce; she believed something was put on the lettuce. Holz understands that Schuppanzigh will come to visit Beethoven in a few days and introduce Jacques Féréol Mazas (1782-1849), the French violin virtuoso. [Schuppanzigh typically visits Beethoven on Mondays, so this may be planned for Monday, March 20.]
The topic changes to Mozart’s Requiem. Holz says, “Breitkopf would protest if André publishes Mozart’s Requiem, actually it is Breitkopf’s property.” [J.A. André had been requested by Mozart’s widow Constanze to publish the score of the Requiem, and he issued a subscription announcement.] Holz then makes an obscure comparison: “Frau von Mozart and Frau von Beethoven.” [Holz uses “von” rather than “van,” designating nobility, which neither family was entitled to use. “If she had the Mozart manuscript, why didn’t she give it to Breitkopf, or at least a copy with the annotation M[ozart] and S[üssmayr]?” In response to a comment from Beethoven, Holz responds “His Fantasie in C minor.” [K.475.] Holz adds, “What’s more, if one wanted to be precise, it’s an insulting negligence.”
Holz returns to the subject of potential publishers for the new string quartets. If Beethoven had waited to hear from Schlesinger as to whether or not he still wanted to pay for the op.130 quartet, it would still in the end look like Beethoven didn’t know anyone who would take it. Haslinger said that Steiner wouldn’t have done that. But Beethoven didn’t share the letter from Schlesinger with Holz, and he hasn’t spoken to the Biedermann banking house, which was unsure as to whether or not Beethoven was to be paid. “We merely talked about it.” But the quartet is not something that is to be sold on credit. There is also nothing to be done here; perhaps the Schotts would be the best entrepreneurs [to sell the quartet to. Schott’s had purchased the op.127 quartet and is about to publish it.] In any case, it will last long enough for the second [Galitzin quartet, op.134] to appear.” Paper is cheap in Berlin and Paris, compared to Vienna; a bifolium there costs 10 kreutzers in Rhenish currency.
The banking houses are falling one after another, Holz reports. Ballabene & Co. in Prague has gone under. [This news would probably have been disturbing to Beethoven, if he understood that firm was the one handling the payment of the Kinsky estate’s annuity to Beethoven.] Lion Abraham Goldschmidt has died; Holz suggests he committed suicide [Goldschmidt died of a stroke.] Within half a year, he had lost 60 million florins.
They discuss the musical scene in France briefly. Pierre Baillot [1771-1842, the concertmaster at the Paris Opera] plays nothing by quintets by Luigi Boccherini. “In this respect, the French are generally far behind,” Holz opines.
Holz doubts that a proper Conservatory such as they have in France will ever come about in Vienna. Beethoven points out that the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde has a conservatory attached, but Holz dismisses it since they don’t have a good singing school. Beethoven asks who teaches singing at the GdM Conservatory. Holz replies, Joseph Frühwald (1783-1856). Holz goes back to his office.
Beethoven, apparently feeling better, goes out to a coffeehouse and reads some old newspapers. From the February 22 Intelligenzblatt, he copies an advertisement for DIe Fahrstrasse under dem Wasser [The Highway under the Water], by Friedrich Löhmann from the English original, regarding an undertaking to build a two way highway underneath the Thames River.
Beethoven also copies an advertisement for Catechism of Rhetoric, According to Quintilian, by Dr. Fr. Philippi, available at all German bookshops. The advertisement is found in the March 2 Augsburger Zeitung. In the margin, Beethoven makes a note of 3 1/2 kreutzers, possibly the cost of his coffee.
Beethoven makes a note to himself, “+ Ask Holz how it goes with Karl concerning service outside the house, whether he is also at home, etc.”
Finally, Beethoven makes a note of the Handbook of Dietetics by Dr. Caspari, from the February 9 Intelligenzblatt. Beethoven was definitely very interested in this book; he also copied the advertisements for it in July and September of 1825.
He then returns home and awaits the advent of the Quartet for the rehearsal.
Holz returns to the Schwarzspanierhaus apartment about 6 p.m., ahead of the other three members of the quartet. The housekeeper reports that she has prepared the work in the kitchen [probably the refreshments for the rehearsal.] Unfortunately, Conversation Book 106 ends here, and the succeeding book, covering the rehearsal and afterwards, is missing. The next extant Conversation Book, number 107, begins near the end of March, so there may be two books missing here.
Conversation Book 106, 34v-30v.
The Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung for today (Nr.11) contains a report on the concerts held in Genoa during the month of January. At 178, there is a description of the second concert given by Herr and Mad. Weisbaum, which was attended by His Royal Majesty and received with great applause from the large audience. The concert organizers pleasantly surprised the audience and accomplished a daring deed by performing some excellent pieces of music by German masters. “It is no small feat to sing in German to applause in front of an Italian audience. Beethoven’s Adelaide [op.46] and a little song by Carl Maria von Weber, performed with great tenderness and deep feeling by the eleven-year-old Friedricke W., seemed particularly appreciated; both pieces were received with enthusiastic applause.”
Adelaide is here sung by Anne Sofie von Otter, accompanied by Melvyn Tan:
The Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.11 at 87 gives a short overview of the subscription concerts of the Schuppanzigh Quartet, given Sunday afternoons at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in November and December. “The entrepreneur himself plays the first violin masterfully; a very skilled art lover Herr Holz, the second, the Princely Razoumovsky Chamber Musician Herr Weiss, the viola; and the soloist in the Vienna Theater Orchestra, Herr Linke, the cello. The absolute excellence of each individual can be seen, as they are accustomed to hold careful preliminary rehearsals together, as if inseparable, and perform everything with such delicacy, harmony, precision of touch and soul as to remind me of the hours of enjoyment that we owe to our highly celebrated Möser every year. Other skilled amateurs, Messrs. Piringer, Gross, Pechazeck, etc. also participate in the polyphonic pieces. The fact that only the best works by recognized masters are on the agenda is demonstrated by the pattern of those already given, namely: … By L. van Beethoven: Quartet in B-flat, No. 6 op.18; in A minor (the newest manuscript); Trio in D, op.70, with the pianoforte part played by Professor Würfel; Quartet in E-flat op.75; Quartet in C minor (Rasoumovsky) [op.59/3].”
Madam Schulz gives a concert in Berlin today, according to the March 22, 1826 Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.12) at 96, but “like almost all her previous ones, has had only a very slight appeal to the public. Why? Because this great singer also paid homage to the so-called fashionable tastes and sang nothing but Italian pieces. Among them was a scene with violin and choir from Margarethe von Anjou by Meyerbeer, which was distinguished by its truly eminent shallowness. Whatever a singer can achieve in a Simon-Maier duet, a terzet by Rossini and bravura variations by Moser, Madame Schulz, and for their parts Mad. Seidler and Herr Stümer, managed to do. In addition, Herr Aloys Schmidt played a new, brilliant and very well-crafted piano concerto, with Herr Möser on the violin and Herr Schunke on the French horn. Beethoven’s immortal Egmont Overture opened this concert, and deserved a better following than what it received, especially the vocal pieces.”
Franz Liszt gives the first of two concerts in two days at Nimes today.