Today, Conversation Book 111 begins being used. This book is used in tandem with Conversation Book 110 over the remainder of the month of May. Book 111 is a smaller volume of only 22 leaves. The leaves are bound out of order; the last four leaves (19-22) are used first, …
Nephew Karl is with Uncle Ludwig again today. Karl mentions that someone unidentified [possibly unpaid assistant Karl Holz] does not dare to meet piano maker Conrad Graf. The housekeeper says that Beethoven can eat the leftover rabbit from last night cold tonight; it is very good cold. Karl has some …
Nephew Karl comes to visit his Uncle Ludwig today. The housekeeper tells him the following menu for today: Soup, veal udderBeef with chive sauce{vegetables} Pie with oxtailRoast: PartridgesHazel Hen. For supper, there is rabbit. Uncle Ludwig doesn’t think there is any rabbit in the apartment. The housekeeper says she will …
Nephew Karl comes to see his uncle today. He advises Ludwig that the housekeeper [who gave her two weeks’ notice yesterday] recently told him that she does not think the maid will stay either. Karl didn’t say anything to the maid, though. If it comes to that, she will tell …
Beethoven makes a note to himself in the conversation book, apparently despairing about the situation with Karl: “Resign from the g__________p, [guardianship] it won’t work.” Conversation Book 110, 30r. Beethoven’s current housekeeper (who seems to have been there only a few days, since the prior housekeeper’s service was up on …
Nephew Karl comes to visit his uncle. He has gone to see Mathias Artaria twice, but he was not in. Artaria did leave a message that he talked to Holz today, and that he can give Ludwig the answer to his question. [Ludwig wanted to speak with Artaria about Anton …
Beethoven starts a shopping list about now: 1 1/2 Ells of flannel for 2 vests. Conversation Book 110, 22r.
Today is the Whit Monday holiday, and Nephew Karl is visiting his uncle, despite complaining Saturday about all the work his professors have assigned over the holiday weekend. Karl and his uncle are discussing wines, as Karl inquires about the cost of the red wine his uncle has. The one …
Today is Whitsunday. Unpaid assistant and Nephew Karl both come to visit Ludwig today. Karl wasn’t able to get Mathias Artaria to come today. Holz notes that it’s difficult to find him at home. Karl adds, “Artaria has so much to do these days because of [the banker] Fries’ bankruptcy …
Nephew Karl comes to visit Uncle Ludwig today. He has spoken with his landlady, Frau Schlemmer, about various market things, like butter, eggs and the like. Butter costs 42 kreutzers per pound. But in a household like Uncle Ludwig’s, where everything is made with butter, he can save 12 kreutzers …
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to visit Beethoven this afternoon. He went to see Alois Zettler at the Censor’s office yesterday, but he still doesn’t know anything about the copyright decree that supposedly protects Beethoven’s compositions. Head Censor Franz Sartori said that Beethoven should not worry; nothing will happen against …
Beethoven makes a reminder note in the conversation book: In the Imperial Augartensaal, a morning concert is given by violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh. The concert had originally been scheduled for May 1, but was postponed for a week and a half due to bad weather. The concert opens with the “latest …
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven today. Beethoven is concerned about a comment from the housekeeper that the firewood in the basement is getting wet. Holz is skeptical, because they are not near the river. The wood is very dry, he reports, from an ironwood tree. He could have had …
After a break of a little over two weeks of lost conversation books, Conversation Book 110 begins being used about today. This is a volume of 58 leaves, the first and last three pages of which are blank, other than red X’s drawn on two of them by Anton Schindler. …
The fourth Royal Academic Concert is held today in London, England, and opens with Beethoven’s Sinfonie Pastorale. The Harmonicon for June, 1826 (Nr.XLII) reported at 130, “The Pastoral Symphony was well performed, but in its best state is always too long, particularly the second movement, which, abounding in repetitions, might …
Sometime around now, Beethoven writes an undated letter to fishmonger Therese Jonas (c.1775-1837), sending along 5 florins W.W. “I respectfully request a carp of 3 or even 4 pounds, or better yet, a pike of at least 3 pounds. Should none of these fish be available, I request that you …
A single leaf from a now-lost conversation book used around today survives in the Bonn Beethovenhaus, BH 53, pp.4-5. Former unpaid assistant Anton Schindler visits Beethoven, delivering the text of a libretto for a romantic opera in three acts, “Die Mainacht oder der Blocksberg” [The May Night, or The Blocksberg]. …
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.102) at 440 includes an advertisement from S.A. Steiner & Co. for the “Newest Quartet (in E-flat) for two violins, viola and violoncello, by Ludwig van Beethoven. 127th Work. 3 fl. 36 kr. Conv. Münze.” This edition was published by Schott’s in Mainz, though Steiner makes no …
Today is the Ascension Day holiday in Austria. Beethoven writes a letter dated “Thursday, the 4th of May” to unpaid assistant Karl Holz. “Most urgently and with all haste: As recently as the day before yesterday, I did not believe you would arrive so early; moreover, I was detained somewhere …
Sometime about now, Beethoven begins using Pocket Sketchbook aut.9/4. This bundle of 21 leaves is held by the Berlin Staatsbibliothek. This was another homemade sketchbook assembled by Beethoven himself, and he stitched six of the leaves in backwards. The sketchbook is entirely devoted to the String Quartet op.131, mostly the …