BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, September 21, 1825
This morning, Beethoven and Nephew Karl take a carriage to Vienna to meet with publisher Maurice Schlesinger. They arrive in the later morning, and Schlesinger says that they will meet with Baron Bernhard von Eskeles at precisely 12 o’clock.
Ludwig and Karl run some errands, and stop by Karl Holz’s office briefly. Holz mentions that Ignaz Schuppanzigh has all the characteristics of a Provincial Marshal.
The Beethovens meet with Schlesinger and go to Baron Eskeles’s office in Vienna at the appointed time, but Eskeles is not there. They wait for a while for him to return, until Schlesinger suggests that Karl stay in Vienna, and they can go to see Eskeles tomorrow. Then Karl can return to Baden tomorrow afternoon. Today, it’s getting too late to get to see him. Ludwig decides they will both stay in the City tonight.
Afterwards, they stop at a coffee house and read the newspapers. The Wiener Zeitschrift of Tuesday, September 13 is there, and Karl explains a Latin riddle that appeared in that newspaper about an inscription in the Lamspring Monastery, demonstrating Karl’s continued interest and aptitude in linguistics.
It’s not clear where Ludwig spends the night; he might stay with Karl in his rented room, since he disliked using Johann’s apartment and the small apartment he had rented in the Krugerstrasse for use as an office in the City might not have had a bed.
Conversation Book 97, 38v-40r. On the previously blank page 39r, Anton Schindler added fraudulent entries after Beethoven’s death.
Today’s Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.38) at 636 contains a report of concerts in Braunschweig (Brunswick) during the month of August. A grand benefit concert by the ducal court orchestra, conducted by Hofkapellmeister Gottlob Wiedebein (1779-1854) including the first part of Haydn’s Creation, the Sinfonia eroica by Beethoven, and the final chorus from Handel’s Messiah, was held at the castle church in Brunswick Palace. Wiedebein had met Beethoven in 1810, when he spent three months in Vienna, after Beethoven had previously advised against him moving to the city. He had served as Kapellmeister to the Duke of Brunswick since 1816. In 1826, Wiedebein will conduct the first performance of Fidelio in Brunswick, and he was influential in introducing Beethoven’s works to the local audiences.
At 637 of the same issue of the AMZ, there is a report of the Association for Instrumental Music in Frankfurt, which gave a series of three concerts last winter, executing works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc. “with great precision on the whole.”