Blog Post

Today is an unseasonably hot Trinity Sunday, and Beethoven has lunch with Nephew Karl, brother Johann, and Johann’s wife Therese at Johann’s apartment in suburban Windmühle at Kothgasse No. 61. Karl is having issues with a stained pair of trousers and needs to visit the tailor, but he is of …

You will recall that Leipzig music critic Johann Friedrich Rochlitz had arrived in Vienna about a week ago and was eager to meet Beethoven. A mutual friend promised that when Beethoven was in town and with him, he would send a messenger for Rochlitz to come. Rochlitz continues his story, …

Beethoven has lunch with nephew Karl at about 2 pm on Thursday, which is visitation day. Karl’s examinations went well. Karl doesn’t like that the professor of religion, who is embittered toward Blöchlinger’s institute, keeps calling on him in class. But it always turned out well in the end. Beethoven …

Nikolaus Simrock, having received from Franz Brentano a copy of Beethoven’s letter of May 19th (the original remained in Brentano’s possession), responds cordially, thanking him for communicating that letter. He regrets that Beethoven’s illness contributes to the delay in Simrock receiving the Missa Solemnis. He reminds Brentano that the agreed-upon …

It has been a seeming eternity since we last had a conversation book to offer more detailed accounts of Beethoven’s doings on a daily basis (actually around 20 months). But at last, we have a surviving conversation book, number 17, which begins about today and runs for approximately two and …

Johann Friedrich Rochlitz recounts a conversation approximately today with an “intimate friend” of Beethoven, from O.G. Sonneck, Beethoven: Impressions of Contemporaries, New York: G. Schimer 1926, at 121: “I never had seen Beethoven and hence wished all the more that our meeting might take place as soon as possible. No …

Franz Brentano, receiving Beethoven’s letter of May 19th with instructions to share it with Nikolaus Simrock, makes a copy of the letter almost instantly upon receipt. He forwards the copy to Simrock, retaining the original in his files. The mails were traveling very quickly this week, with the letter making …

Johann Friedrich Rochlitz (1769-1842) arrives in Vienna today, according to the May 28, 1822 Wiener Zeitung. A musicologist, playwright and critic, Rochlitz was the founding editor of the long-running Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (not to be confused with the journal of the same name published in Vienna.) Considered the foremost …

Another music dealer defies Rossini’s grant to Artaria of exclusive rights in certain of his operas. Today in the Wiener Zeitung, Anton Paterno advertises his editions of vocal piano scores of selections from Rossini’s operas Maometto II and Mathilde, both of which Rossini had announced were exclusives with the Artaria …

Beethoven’s former pupil Ferdinand Ries is not immune to Rossini Fever. S.A. Steiner & Co. today advertises in the Wiener Zeitung a Polonaise for piano, arranged from Rossini’s opera Tancred. The piece is Ries’ op.104. In the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, the Breitkopf & Härtel firm advertises the newly published …

Goethe in Weimar today receives Beethoven’s score of Meeres Stille und Glückliche Fahrt, op.112. He notes in his diary simply, “Score received from Beethoven.” As mentioned in our entry for May 11th, Beethoven in his haste and poor health seems to have omitted any cover letter to the poet and …

Beethoven at some time about now gets the desire to write an overture in a Handelian style. This will end up being the Consecration of the House Overture, op.124, but as of yet Beethoven does not have any firm particular plan for it. Still, interested in the possibilities, he will …

Beethoven writes to Franz Brentano in Frankfurt am Main today. He begins by making excuses and promises related to the Missa Solemnis and his previous agreement to let Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn have the publication rights. The highly disingenuous, if not downright deceptive, letter, is designed to be shown to …

A new publisher enters the field, as Leipzig bookseller Carl Friedrich Peters (1779-1827) writes to Beethoven today. Peters had bought out Kühnel & Hoffmeister’s Leipzig music publishing business, called Bureau de Musique, after Ambrosius Kühnel’s untimely death in 1813. Although Bureau de Musique had published some Beethoven works under the …

At some point during the latter part of May, 1822, Beethoven moves to Döbling, 135 Alleegasse (today 13 Pyrkergasse) once again for the summer. Since Simrock’s letter of May 13 is forwarded to Beethoven in Döbling, and he sends Franz Brentano what appears to be an oblique response to that …

If Beethoven’s letter of May 19th to Franz Brentano is to be believed (and there are many reasons to be skeptical, as we shall see), then Beethoven today retrieves the score of the Missa Solemnis from Archduke Rudolph’s library to try to get it into shape for copying and publication. …

Bonn publisher Nikolaus Simrock, having reached an agreement to buy the Missa Solemnis long ago, writes today to Beethoven asking why nothing has been heard from him about it. Completely unaware that Beethoven has now sold the Mass for a higher price to Schlesinger in Berlin instead, Simrock points out …

About now Sigmund Anton Steiner publishes the orchestral score of Beethoven’s choral settings of two of Goethe’s poems, Meeres Stille und Glückliche Fahrt (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage), op.112. Beethoven sends a copy hot from the press off to poet and dedicatee Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Weimar. Beethoven is …

Apparently the Vienna premiere of Matilde di Shabran, aka Corradino, did not go as well as Rossini had hoped. Rossini begins making rather significant cuts to the opera in an effort to make it less unwieldy. Here’s an interesting brief look at a German production of Corradino at the 2020 …