BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, November 30, 1825

Leipzig publisher Carl Friedrich Peters has had enough of Beethoven and his attempts to avoid repaying the 360 florins owed since 1822 by giving him a string quartet. Peters has made some poor decisions, but the following letter, written today, may be the biggest mistake by him yet, as he brusquely demands a return of the cash rather than accepting one of Beethoven’s late quartets as payment. “I hereby request Herr L. van Beethoven in Vienna to pay back through the Steiner & Co. Music Store in Vienna the three hundred and sixty gulden in convention money that he received from me in August 1822, which you have now placed at my disposal again since no business has come about between us, and to receive this as a receipt from me in the same amount in return. C.F. Peters, Music Publisher.”

Brandenburg Letter 2098; Albrecht Letter 420. The original is in the Berlin Staatsbibliothek (aut.35,70). Below this is a receipt in Steiner’s handwriting, “We confirm that we have received the above amount the 7th of December, 1825.”