The current housekeeper tells Beethoven that she knows both of the prospective housekeeper candidates that are under consideration. One of them cannot cook but the other cooks well. Karl joins his uncle as promised yesterday. Beethoven makes a note “No 5 Carp,” which is followed by some calligraphic doodling by …
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to visit Beethoven with news that piano maker Conrad Graf intends to come tomorrow morning. He asks whether Beethoven will stay at home to meet him. He would have come earlier, but he had too much to do. Beethoven is annoyed with Holz’s friend, publisher …
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 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 …
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 …
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 …
The Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung Nr.19 of May 10, 1826 at 150-51 includes a rather fanciful and mocking account. The writer has been told that there will be a concert tonight at the Berlin opera house, with a symphony by Beethoven. “First kind of shock, a joyful one. What? I …
According to the April 26 letter to Holz, Brandenburg 2150, Anderson Letter 1482, Beethoven expected Holz for mid-day dinner today. The May, 1826 issue of The Harmonicon (Nr.XLI) includes at 100-101 a foreign musical report from Warsaw that includes a very early mention in England of young Frederic Chopin. The …
In London, a seriously ill Carl Maria von Weber attends the premiere of the opera Aladdin by Henry Bishop (1787-1856) at Drury Lane Theatre. Bishop had intended it to compete with Weber’s Oberon, which was playing at Covent Garden. Upon Weber’s entrance, the house rose. During the “Hunter’s Chorus,” the …
A benefit concert is held in the Hanover Square Rooms in London by Mr. Bellamy this evening. The instrumental music was comprised of the overtures to Iphigenia by Gluck, and to Prometheus by Beethoven, the remainder of the concert being devoted to vocal music. The Harmonicon for June 1826, Nr.XLII …
Composer and pianist Anton Halm, who had been commissioned by Mathias Artaria to arrange the Grosse Fuge Finale from the String Quartet op.130 for piano four hands, writes a letter dated today to Beethoven. “Most esteemed Herr v. Beethoven,” “I have finished your Fugue, which I have the honor to …
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz comes to see Beethoven with news that Mylord [Ignaz Schuppanzigh] wants to play the March with Chorus, op.114, which is about to be published by Steiner, at his April 26 Augarten concert. He asked Haslinger for it, but “he said however that he did not dare …
Today Conversation Book 109 begins being used. This is a rather thinner book of 31 leaves, and covers only a period of three days, mostly because poet Christoph Kuffner comes this evening and uses the book in a profligate manner, with one thought on a page, rather than the rather …
Unpaid assistant Karl Holz visits Beethoven today, probably around dinner time as usual. He asks when Karl is expected back. Holz is eager to hear what someone unidentified has to say about the planned oratorio Saul in cooperation with Christoph Kuffner. He thinks it will certainly please him. “I like …