BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, October 18, 1826

Tobias Haslinger writes to Leipzig publisher C.F. Peters today. From the contents of this letter, it is apparent that Haslinger read Beethoven’s letters of October 13 to Adolph Martin Schlesinger in Berlin and B. Schott’s Sons in Mainz, in which Beethoven tried to firm up plans for a collected edition of his works. In relevant part, Haslinger, in a major betrayal of his friend, writes, “Now to a subject about which I also wrote in exactly the same way to Herr Härtel (senior), in order to be able to achieve our goal more quickly and certainly, through charitable consultation and action. As I have learned from an authentic source, Beethoven, in association with Schott or Schlesinger, intends to organize an edition of his complete works by subscription. We can be certain in advance that all necessary arrangements will be made undisturbed to carry this out, for both the former and the latter will undoubtedly use his Paris firm as a cloak for their activities.” [Both Schott’s and Schlesinger had Paris branches.]

“If we were not to resolve to take joint action against this, our property would be diminished in no small way. My preliminary, albeit non-binding, suggestion would be this: that we publish all of Beethoven’s works that have appeared in our publishing houses, namely with you, Br.[eitkopf] & Härtel, and myself (perhaps also Mollo) in a pleasing format, the details of which we shall mutually agree will be published bearing the names of all three publishers, at the lowest possible price (approximately 10 kreutzers C.M. per sheet), and announced in advance in all the journals that are read: ‘that we three publishers have joined together to publish the complete works of Beethoven in a tasteful and inexpensive edition, etc. etc.’ The keyboard works should be published first, as these can be published most quickly and are also the most sought after by the public. We can reach an agreement on the terms later.”

“This is only a hastily drafted document, which I submit to you for further examination and consideration.”

Albrecht Letter 440. See also footnote 2 to Beethoven’s letter of October 13, Brandenburg Letter 2221. The original is held by the Vienna City and Provincial Library, H.I.N. 792. Haslinger’s eagerness to deprive Beethoven of his hoped-for profits from a collected edition with Schlesinger or Schott’s is quite shocking, and suggests that his relationship with Beethoven is not nearly as healed as the composer thinks.

In today’s Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, there is a continuation of the article begun two weeks ago on the form and content of newer music. The final paragraph again makes mention of Beethoven, partially quoted here: “With the now-discovered direction of the musical idea, there is a new relationship of the individual to the whole, and with this are the new forms to be understood. We have already noted above that the unfolding into several externally separate parts cannot be appropriate for the expression of every subjective sensation, and this must apply even more so to the representation of an objective intuition, which cannot be arbitrarily separated or unified, but has its completely defined content. Beethoven also often threw off the shackles of habit when no internal reason prompted a connection with what had been presented, and did not add a third to two movements when he had already said what he wanted to say. [This may be an oblique reference to the two-movement piano sonata op.111, the publisher of which innocently asked whether the Finale had been misplaced.] The fact that even some famous musical works have been assembled from several pieces composed by the author at different times that originally did not belong with one another cannot nullify the demands of criticism that works of art should be formed from a single mold, developed from a single idea. And the fact that every author of sense and spirit will be guided in the selection of the individual pieces available according to the idea he wishes to represent as a whole, also confirms the justice of these statements.” Berliner AMZ Nr.42 at 333-334.