BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, March 3, 1824

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and a national holiday. After working in the morning on the Finale of the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven goes to a coffee house and reads the newspapers. In the advertisements, he makes note of Müller’s book Organ, 2nd enlarged edition, published in Meissen, 1824. He may be thinking about an organ part for the Missa Solemnis.

Art and music dealer J. Bermann advertises in today’s Wiener Zeitung at 227 “Trois Sonates p. le Clavecin” by L. Beethoven, for 5 fl. 30 kr. This advertisement is repeated in the Friday, March 5 edition at 236 and March 8 at 246. Although there are several possibilities of sets of three sonatas by Beethoven, op.2, op.10 and op.31, each of which sets was thus titled in French when published in Vienna, only the op.10 set is identified in KH2 as having been published by Bermann. So that is very likely the set referenced in this ad. Bermann had first published the op.10 sonatas some years earlier, probably between 1816 and 1820, so this may be a new printing by him. Jeremias Bermann was the son-in-law and successor to Joseph Eder, who had originally published this set of sonatas in September of 1798. In his edition, Bermann eliminated Beethoven’s dedication to Countess de Browne, née de Vietinghoff.