Today, a pianist and composer named Carl Schwenke visits Beethoven. Schwenke had previously written to Beethoven in 1822 asking for something in his handwriting (Brandenburg Letter 1500) Beethoven finally got around to granting his request on this visit. Schwenke noted in his memoirs, “[Beethoven] received me very kindly, and as …
Today’s entry is by Guest Editor Birthe Kibsgaard. The Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung published today (Nr.46) contains at 752 a short review of the publication of Grand Exercice di Bravura en forme de Rondeau brillant, op.47, by Beethoven’s former pupil Carl Czerny, published by Cappi & Diabelli. “No one would …
Today’s Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.90) at 360 includes an announcement of a forthcoming musical Akademie benefit concert by G. Lewy, first hornist of the Imperial Opera Orchestra, to be held on Sunday, November 21 at 12:30 p.m. in the National Assembly Hall. The opening piece on the program is …
The November 1824 issue of The Harmonicon contains a continuation of its series reviewing the present state of music in Germany, drawn from A Tour in Germany, and Some of the Southern Provinces of the Austrian Empire, in the Years, 1820, 1821, 1822. (Two vols., Edinburgh and London, 1824). At …
The Zeitung für die Elegante Welt [Newspaper for the Elegant World] published today in Vienna contains at 1758-1759 a short review of a newly published Complete Collection of Beethoven’s Overtures from the Steiner & Co. firm in Vienna, arranged for piano solo and four hands piano. The first entry in …
At some point between October 16 and November 28 when the conversation books resume, a seriously ill Beethoven moves back to Vienna, to the fourth-floor (fifth-floor American) apartment at 969 Johannesgasse, inside the Vienna city walls, owned by a family named Kletschka. There was still some masonry work to be …
Archduke Franz Karl of Austria (1802-1878) today in the early evening marries Princess Sophie of Bavaria at the Augustiner Church in Vienna. [Sophie’s half-sister Caroline Augusta was also Franz Karl’s stepmother, having married his father in 1816.] The wedding ceremony is conducted by His Imperial Highness and Eminence Archduke Rudolph, …
Beethoven likely is still ill with an unknown malady, but he begins making preparations to return to Vienna about now anyway, probably with the assistance of Nephew Karl. Beethoven no doubt prefers being in closer proximity to his doctors, rather than several hours away.
Among the compositions offered for sale today by T.Mollo in the Wiener Zeitung (Nr.252) at 1064 are the first two parts of the “Morceaux choisis [Selected Pieces] de Beethoven, arrangé à grand Orchestre” by Ignaz von Seyfried, and published in Leipzig by H.A. Probst. According to KH2, these first two …
Today’s post is by Guest Editor Birthe Kibsgaard. There is a lot of festivity (concerts, receptions, processions in the city) in Vienna the next couple of weeks because of the upcoming wedding between Archduke Franz Karl of Austria and Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Beethoven probably misses most of it – …
Today’s Vienna musikalische Zeitung (Nr.87) includes at 346-347 a review by editor Friedrich August Kanne of the Six Variations with Coda on a Theme of Beethoven for violin and piano by the composers Joseph Mayseder, Franz Clement, Joseph Böhm, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Hellmesberger and Léon de Saint-Lubin. The theme is identified …
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.247) includes at 1039 a repeat of Anton Diabelli’s advertisement for the ongoing series of Carl Czerny’s Die Kunst des Fingersatzes (The Art of Fingering), which includes in volume 5 Beethoven’s Sonata pathètique op.13 and in volume 11 Czerny’s arrangement of the second movement (Andante con variazioni) …
According to several letters written by Beethoven in mid-November, he falls ill sometime before he moves back from Baden to Vienna, and remains quite ill there for an extended period of time. Such a serious but unspecified illness may help explain the unusually large gap of surviving letters of over …
Beethoven about now receives a request from invalid actor Carl Friedrich Müller (1796-1846) to write a waltz for piano. According to an anecdote related in the Neues Wiener Musik-Zeitung, July 15, 1858 at 110, Müller, “who was also an amateur in the field of music composition, published a book of …
Today’s issue of the Wiener Theaterzeitung (Nr.128) at 511-12 contains an appreciation of the Josephstadt Theater, where Beethoven’s former unpaid assistant Anton Schindler serves as concertmaster. We present here a few excerpts of this laudatory article. “Something about the Josephstadt Theater in general. “How fortunate the insightful management of this …
Issue XXII (October, 1824) of the London musical newspaper The Harmonicon at 178-182 includes an extensive review of Beethoven’s May 1824 Akademie concerts. The article, which although it states is “from a Vienna Journal,” seems largely based upon the one in the July 1 Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. It opens …
In today’s Zeitung für die elegante Welt [Newspaper for the Elegant World], Nr.207 at 1662, published in Leipzig, there is a brief report about Beethoven’s friend, pianist and composer Ignaz Moscheles. “Mr. Moscheles, whose mastery a large audience had the opportunity to admire at his concert held last Monday, will, …
Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.242) includes at 1015 a repeat of Anton Diabelli’s advertisement for the ongoing series of Carl Czerny’s Die Kunst des Fingersatzes (The Art of Fingering), which includes in volume 5 Beethoven’s Sonata pathètique op.13 and in volume 11 Czerny’s arrangement of the second movement (Andante con variazioni) …
Although Beethoven’s visitor Johann Andreas Stumpff had told Beethoven that he needed to leave Vienna by Sunday, October 17 at the latest, he probably leaves Vienna today instead due to some delay. Stumpff mentions that he had come to Vienna from Munich with Prussian Cavalry Captain von Kuroffsky-Eichen as his …
Today’s entry is by guest editor Birthe Kibsgaard. Finally, as announced in the Wiener Zeitung two days ago, the new Burgtor (Castle Gate) into the City is opened to the public today, as of noon, on the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig. It had been ready for 4 weeks …