Ludwig asks one of the servants, the baker’s son Michael Kren, when Therese will arrive. He figures that by mid-day, she will be in Stockerau. Ludwig grouses a bit about having to pay his brother for his meals. Michael is not surprised and tells him, “When your Herr Brother eats at your place, then he deducts it from his wife’s food allowance.” Ludwig admires something and Kren tells him that the Frau bought that; Herr Brother did not pay anything for it. They are disturbed by a heavy sulfuric smell.

Ludwig asks whether Johann pays for the support of Amalie, Therese’s illegitimate daughter. Kren tells him no, the mother must buy everything for her.

As an example of Johann’s careful accounting, Kren tells Ludwig, “A few weeks ago, he gave me 2 florins, and I loaned him 11 groschen, and when I asked for it, he deducted it from me. I had lost a bet of 1 florin to him and had to pay him, but did so gladly. I won 2 florins from him, and got nothing.” Kren has to pay 1 florin 30 kreutzers for his board here.

The work in the fields done, Karl returns to the house. Ludwig asks him a question about the conversation, but Karl was not really paying attention; it was something about Johann’s economy. They are asking why Karl does not talk. He has had enough. Ludwig has the right to say anything he wants to Karl, and he has to endure it.

Johann interjects, perhaps trying to fend off renewed hostility between Ludwig and Karl, that Ludwig will not need half his pension if he continues living out in the country with Johann.

Ludwig still demands a response from Karl, who tells him, “I can only repeat that I cannot give any answer to anything you have said to me today, since I know of nothing better to do than to listen in silence, as is my duty. You must not consider this defiance.”

The housekeeper removes the boot jack, and Ludwig asks why she is doing that. Karl tells him that she wanted it for his brother Johann.

Conversation Book 123, 13v-15v. This concludes this short conversation book. Conversation Book 124 begins to be used today as they await Therese’s arrival with the money. This book is comprised of 27 leaves. The verso of leaf 12 has no writing and is crossed out by Anton Schindler with red crayon. Schindler also makes a mistake in numbering the folia of the book. In its present form, the two halves are bound out of order, with the first 12 leaves belonging at the end. Conversation Book 124 was translated by the late Professor Theodore Albrecht, and is used in this column with permission of his widow, Carol Padgham Albrecht.

Johann tells Ludwig that if he is already finished with the Finale of the quartet, then he could immediately write to Artaria, telling him it will cost 15 ducats. Ludwig decides that for security he will send it to Tobias Haslinger, with instructions to turn it over for the 15 ducats.

The female servants will go to fetch Therese from Krems this evening. They can also pick up music paper there then.

Johann mentions that the greatest chemists have discovered that there is mercury in all kitchen salt.

There is an argument, and Ludwig asks what it is about. Karl tells him that they are arguing about whether Therese is coming or not. Also, Johann is making a joke about her dog.

Therese arrives with the money, but only part of it. While in Vienna, she paid 50 florins that Johann had borrowed in Vienna. Johann promises to pay Ludwig back with thanks within 2 days.

While in Vienna, Therese went to the Kärntnertor Theater and heard Nanette Schechner sing. People are saying that she will soon appear in Fidelio. [She does not.]

Meat has gotten 2 kreutzers more expensive per pound, making up for last month when it was so cheap. Therese accounts to Ludwig for other items she purchased for him, including sugar, laundry supplies and a glass. She can take the piece of flannel with her next time she goes to Krems; that way Ludwig and Karl don’t have to go. [Presumably the flannel is to be matched with other fabric.]

Conversation Book 124, 13r-14v.

Today’s Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.45) is primarily devoted to the controversy over the authenticity of Mozart’s Requiem, and the actions of Abbé Stadler to have the work be recognized as Mozart’s. Gottfried Weber had recently written in the Cäcilia magazine, published by Schott’s in Mainz, that the work was a fraud. At 732-733 of today’s AMZ, we find Beethoven being cited as an authority agreeing to the authenticity of the Requiem. “This manuscript now looks exactly as it has been known, in general and in its essentials, since the first announcement of the work, and as has been stated publicly in many ways. However, as Herr St.[adler], after his own careful examination, has described it most completely and accurately, even in small and incidental details, in his little booklet, and contains the entire Requiem, up to the words: Quam olim, Da capo, the last thing that Mozart ever wrote, excluding only the Introduction and the following Kyrie, both of which movements in the autograph were not originally attached and have therefore now either been lost, or have come into other, as of yet unknown hands.” [These then-missing leaves were actually in the hands of Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the Requiem in memoriam of his twenty-year-old wife Anna.]

“Now, Herr St. had nothing more to do than to have the authenticity of the manuscript of this document recognized as truly Mozart’s by those who, some of them composers, some of them music connoisseurs, had lived with Mozart, or were otherwise thoroughly familiar with his manuscripts, who incidentally, were in possession of such general respect and trust that it would never occur to anyone to harbor the slightest doubt about their statements.”

“And that is what Herr St. did. Beethoven, [Joseph von] Eybler, [Johann Baptist] Gänsbacher, [Adalbert] Gyrowetz, Carl and Joseph Czerny, [Maximilian von] Leidesdorf, [Johann Andreas] Streicher, Mozart’s son [Wolfgang Amadé] present in Vienna, among the composers; [music critic Ignaz] von Mosel, [musicologist Raphael Georg] von Kiesewetter, von Doppelhof [musician and collector Baron Karl von Doblhoff-Dier], [Beethoven’s good friend music publisher Tobias] Haslinger, [musicologist Franz Sales] Kandler, among the music connoisseurs (we only mention these here because they will be the best known abroad), all of whom know Mozart’s handwriting, which is quite easily distinguishable, as well as their own, have unconditionally recognized that manuscript as such, and have also given Herr St. authority to name them and to make it publicly known that it was recognized as such by them (as well as several others whom we have not mentioned here.)”

“He, however, did this in the just-published pamphlet: Addendum to the Defense of the Authenticity of Mozart’s Requiem, by Abbé Stadler, Vienna, at Tendler’s, where one can now read in more detail what we have briefly reported here. One can also read many other things there, both good and true, which, however, we will not report here, true to our stated purpose.”

In a later 1827 answer to Gottfried Weber, Stadler clarified that he had specifically shown Beethoven the Dies Irae portion of the manuscript, the pages numbered 11 to 32. Precisely what Beethoven told Stadler is not recounted, though he says Beethoven agreed that it was Mozart, as Stadler had written in his Defense.

Beethoven was familiar with the Requiem. An October 4, 1852 interview of Karl Holz indicated that Beethoven “was of the opinion that he was more satisfied with Cherubini’s first requiem than with Mozart’s. A requiem should be a melancholic remembrance of the dead, and one must not make too much of the final judgment.” This is consistent with remarks in the conversation books in 1825, in which Beethoven indicated that if he were to write a requiem mass, he would follow Cherubini’s example in many ways.

The controversy of how much of the Süssmayr completion of the Mozart Requiem is actually by Mozart continues to this day. The referenced words “Quam olim Da capo,” likely the last words Mozart ever wrote, were torn off and stolen during the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, and have never been recovered.

Issue 46 of the Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, issued today includes at 363-364 a review of a new music journal being published by Fischer in Frankfurt am Main, the Allgemeine musikalischen Anzeigers, and its supplement, Minerva. The editors of the BAMZ note that this new journal tends to focus on Rossini. The learned correspondent in this journal says German opera “suffers from four main defects that will never allow it to rise above mediocrity and equal the Italian. These include: 1. The sacrifice of singing for expression, which leads into the arms of exaggeration, and from there follows the path of unreason and caprice; it turns one’s back on nature, as recently happened to a famous German symphonist. Listen, exclaims the author, to Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Weber’s Freischütz! How many charming ways of singing are not found here, cut in half, because of this blind idolatry of words.”

Brother Johann is not around the estate today. He went to taste wines with one of the farmers. On his return, he is a little tipsy, and he’s talking about his doings in the cellar. The farmer wants to drown the big dog, but Johann will not tolerate that.

Johann reminds Ludwig that he gave Therese 5 or 6 florins W.W. in notes, and that needs to be deducted from her expense reimbursement.

Ludwig asks why the farmer wants to drown the dog. Karl tells him that when it gets away from him off the leash, it eats too much.

Uncle Ludwig has a question about the mails. Karl is going to go to Krems to take something in for Johann. While he is there, he can ask at the post office. Ludwig also needs pens; Karl tells him that in Krems they cost 30 kreutzers.

Brother Johann tells Ludwig that if he wants to live with them, he can have everything for 40 florins C.M. per month, which makes 500 florins for a whole year. [This comment will be a sore point with Ludwig later on, as he will complain about Johann charging him like a boarder.]

Beethoven’s patron, Archduke Rudolph, left Vienna yesterday, and today he has reached Kremsier [now Kroměříž in the Czech Republic], where he inaugurates the second chain bridge in the Austrian Empire. “His Imperial and Royal Highness, the Most Serene Archduke Rudolph, had this bridge built at his own expense by the archepiscopal engineer Talherr [Karl Thalherr] in Kremsier, over a branch of the March River [now the Morava River]. His Highness was the first to cross it upon his return from Vienna, on the 7th of this month, and thus, from that day forward, it was open for general use.”

The span between the two banks, just outside the archepiscopal garden of Rudolph’s palace at Kremsier, stretches 68 feet, and it has a capacity of 105,939 pounds. Brünner Zeitung of December 1, 1826 (Nr.331) at 1397-1398. No photographs of the bridge are known to exist since its useful life was only a few decades before it was replaced, but the Museum of the Kroměříž Region today has a large stylized model of it. Although he is not mentioned in the newspaper article, the iron suspension mechanics were designed by pioneering Bohemian engineer Friedrich (or Bedřich) Schnirch (1791-1868).

An 1825 drawing by Schnirch, of his first chain bridge, at Strážnice, is attached. The bridge at Kremsier was reportedly modeled after this bridge, which helped usher in the modern suspension bridge.

Uncle Ludwig is thinking about how to send the new Finale for the op.130 quartet to Vienna, rather than making Johann take a special trip again as he did for the op.135 quartet. He could mail it from Krems, he suggests. But Karl points out that there is no direct mail of parcels going from Krems to Vienna. Rather, packages go from Krems to St. Pölten, from where they are forwarded to Vienna. Would the stage coach be an option, then? No, Karl tells him. The stage coach to Vienna only comes on Sundays.

Ludwig would like to go out later. Karl tells him that they will go out today, but it has to be soon, since otherwise it will be dark.

Then there is the matter of collecting the 80 ducats from Tendler & Manstein for the op.135 quartet. They toss around the idea of writing to Johann’s brother-in-law Leopold Obermeyer [wife Therese’s brother] and having him collect the funds and forward them. Karl points out that if they write to Obermeyer tomorrow, then it will take until next week to get the funds, because the money cannot be sent securely by carriage until then. Therese offers to go to Vienna tomorrow so that there is no risk to the money. She or her brother can collect the funds, and then she will be back home on Wednesday, November 8. She will take the Stellwagen. Ludwig will need to pay the travel expense, but that won’t amount to much. “In any case, she will bring the receipt, so that she can make arrangements at the post office at once.”

What about the receipt? asks Ludwig. It is made out as if Brother Johann were collecting the funds. Karl tells him that it can be changed, only instead of his brother, it can be written out as received by the female bearer of the receipt.

Conversation Book 123, 10r-12r.

According to the Wiener Zeitung of November 7 (Nr.255) at 1095, Beethoven’s patron Archduke Rudolph leaves Vienna today for his archbishopric of Ölmutz in Moravia.

“Due to a most peculiar confluence of circumstances, which the bearer of these lines can explain to you in more detail, you are only now receiving my letter, which should have been in your hands more than a year ago. I do not retract it, because one part of its content, namely, the expressions of my esteem for you, as well as what is said in recommendation of the aforementioned, still applies. As for the invitation, which I so gladly expected to be accepted, I merely postpone it until the next time I can again obtain such a pleasant and comfortable country estate for my summer stay, which I will probably manage to do next year as well. However, should you decide to travel this year and be accommodated in the city, it would be very convenient for us to receive you there in our house. We have a spacious apartment of twelve rooms, and our family is so small. Reconsider my proposal, Herr v. Beethoven, and do not add to the displeasure caused by the unfortunate fate of my letter the further displeasure of a negative reply.”

“Marie L. Pachler K[oschack]”

Brandenburg Letter 2226; Albrecht Letter 442. Pachler had written to Beethoven (Brandenburg Letter 2031) on August 15, 1825, inviting him to stay at her country estate in September of that year, but the letter was suppressed by an official who absconded and hence the invitation was delayed by over a year. She gives the letter to Johann Baptist Jenger, who personally delivers both letters to Beethoven in Vienna in December of 1826.

Karl eventually arrives back in Gneixendorf, and reports that a parcel for Vienna must have been left behind in St. Pölten, and will not arrive in Vienna until tomorrow. [Parcels went from Krems to Vienna via St. Pölten.]

Karl reports that there was a fire in the imperial Burg. [This fire occurred on October 18; several rooms in the western wing, the Amalienhof, burned.]

Karl asks whether Uncle Ludwig wants eggs.

Johann apparently has made another trip into Vienna and returned today. Johann has spoken to the man in Vienna who wanted to buy his estate, but it isn’t going to happen after all. Johann also spoke to Karl Holz and cellist Joseph Linke. “The latter would like to perform the quartet in which the Fugue is [op.130] at the benefit concert.” Holz has not been eating and looks unwell.

Ludwig is concerned about whether he will get the 80 ducats for the quartet op.135. Karl assures him that the money is there.

Karl has an anecdote, “Half a year ago in Langelnois a syndic, an archvillain, who had attracted the hatred of all the inhabitants of Lois, was shot. Now they have brought in the jurors from Lois, 13 in all, whom they consider, as the most distinguished citizens, to be the murderers. No one knows what awaits them, but they have been in prison for a year now.”

Ludwig asks whether Therese has gone to bed. Karl tells him no, it is not yet late, and she always goes to bed late.

Ludwig asks about the man who wanted to buy the Schloss Wasserhof estate. In Vienna, Johann found out in a clever way from the servant of the man who came there, that he wants to establish a sugar factory. Johann doesn’t believe anything will happen until next spring now. He tells Ludwig that Linke urgently asks for the new finale of the last quartet [op.130] so that he can use it at another Akademie benefit concert. They need to write directly to Artaria at once. They can tell him that the last movement is finished against payment. [The new Finale is not yet finished.]

Conversation Book 123, 7r-10r.

Therese says that late in the evening she cannot eat anything but the soup; it is not good for her. But she approves of the medical practice of bleeding. “Bleeding is healthy when it is not too much; it clears the head.”

The conversation continues. Beethoven writes to Karl in French, not wanting to be understood by Therese, “de quoi parle-t-on.” [What are we talking about?] Karl answers, “About speculations which he [Johann] has made which, however, mostly turned out badly.” Therese notes that he only has 2 more years to pay on the Gneixendorf estate, Schloss Wasserhof. She is proud of her husband’s shrewdness. The whole thing cost Johann only 18,500 florins C.M.; before that it had never sold for less than 30,000 florins C.M. “He bought it at a good price, for the previous owner was forced to sell it.” [Johann had purchased the estate in 1819 from Karl von Catinelli.]

Conversation Book 123, 6v-7r.

Beethoven’s longtime friend Johann Nepomuk Hummel is today made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor by King Charles X of France. Hummel was at the time extensively touring across Europe, while serving as the Weimar Kapellmeister. Hummel was later promoted to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor. Jarl Olaf Hulbert, The Pedagogical Legacy of Johann Nepomuk Hummel (2006 Univ. of Maryland diss.) at 9.

The November, 1826 issue of The Harmonicon (Nr.XLVII) in its review section at 225 covers the Journal Hebdomadaire, or Weekly Journal of the latest and most admired foreign Vocal and Piano-Forte Music, published by Boosey & Co. on Holles St. in London. “The present volumes were received at the office of our printer some time ago, but inadvertently laid aside, so that they have been in our possession only within the last few days. This is a very pleasant miscellany of Italian, French, and German vocal music, of marches, waltzes, &c., amongst which are several pieces from the Freischütz and Preciosa [both by Weber]; airs by Ledesma, Piantanida, Paer, Beethoven, &c., and romances by French composers. Many things that had appeared in the Harmonicon, have found a place in this Journal, which we are bound to consider as a compliment to our taste in selection; though where English words are set to foreign airs, we cannot conscientiously say that the adaptor engaged for the above work has always been successful in the execution of his task. Nor do we think it was politic in the publishers to insert German songs in a work got up for sale in the British dominions, without an English translation. Whether the Italian should stand alone, or not, may be a question; though it is almost invariably the practice of the Harmonicon to give an English version of it. The piano-forte music—chiefly waltzes—is easy, and the vocal compositions within the compass, both as to voice and execution, of the generality of amateurs. The plates are closely engraved, in rather a diminished character, so that much matter is compressed into a small space; and if all the pieces contained in the two volumes had been equally unexceptionable, the work would have been uncommonly cheap; even as it is, the price fixed on it is quite reasonable.”

The musical supplement to this issue of The Harmonicon at 226-227 includes a “Waltz for Piano-forte” allegedly by Beethoven. This is in fact the spurious Schmerzenwalzer, WoO Anhang 14/2. This waltz had been circulating under Beethoven’s name at least as early as 1815, when it was published as such by Schott in Mainz, and a number of unscrupulous publishers followed suit. However, Beethoven had nothing to do with it.

Muzio Clementi’s complete Gradus ad Parnassum (which had appeared piecemeal over the prior decade) is published simultaneously today in Paris, Leipzig and London. This landmark of pedagogical piano technique standardized keyboard training throughout the 19th century and laid the foundation for the concert etudes of Chopin and Liszt, bridging the baroque music of Bach with the expression of the Romantic era. Beethoven admired Clementi’s writing and recommended his works to his students. Clementi through his systematic treatment of technical challenges also helped inspire Beethoven’s former student Carl Czerny to write his many collections of piano exercises and studies devoted to particular skills.

“I am sending you, through my brother, my newest violin quartet, composed for Herr Schlesinger, and request that you deliver the fee of eighty ducats, which were deposited with you for this purpose to the former [Johann], for which I hereby acknowledge receipt.”

“With highest respect, your most devoted Ludwig van Beethoven.”

Brandenburg Letter 2225; Anderson Letter 1537. The original is in Nephew Karl’s hand, with the signature by Ludwig. The original is held in the Vienna City and Provincial Library (I.N. 39746).

Also sent to Tendler & Manstein is a second letter, addressed to publisher Maurice Schlesinger in Paris, forwarding the full score and the parts of the rather short string quartet, op.135: “You see what an unhappy man I am, not only that it was difficult to write this because I was thinking of something on a much larger scale, and only wrote it because I promised it to you and I needed money; you can decipher how difficult it was for me from the “E s m u s s s e i n….” [It must be; a reference to the fourth movement with the notation “Muß es sein? Es muß sein!”] But now on top of that, I wanted to send it to you in parts for the sake of clarity for the engraving, and in all of Mödling I can’t find a copyist, so I had to copy it myself. That was quite a job! It is done. Amen.”

Brandenburg Letter 2224; Anderson Letter 1538. According to Schlesinger, the original was burned. The transcript is from Schlesinger’s memory, as dictated to Adolph Bernhard Marx, and published in Ludwig van Beethoven: Leben und Schaffen,vol 2 Berlin 1863 at 336. The reference to Mödling rather than Gneixendorf is probably an error in Schlesinger’s recollections.

Another version, also from Schlesinger’s recollections years later, was published in the Baden-Baden Badeblatt of June 22, 1867 at 284. “Here, my dear friend is my last quartet. It will be the last, but it gave me trouble; I couldn’t bring myself to write the last movement. But since your letters urged me to do so, I finally decided to write it, and that is why I wrote the motto: The hard-won decision — Must it be? — It must be, it must be!”

“I am an unfortunate fellow; I couldn’t even find a copyist here to transcribe the score into parts, which seemed necessary for printing, and therefore I had to transcribe it myself. That is why I am enclosing it to you, in parts written in my own hand, hoping that the engraver can read my scribbling, and please provide me with proofs, etc.” The second version, with its ominous portents of Beethoven’s own death is almost certainly a romanticized forgery; the more prosaic first version seems likely to be closer to what Beethoven actually wrote, though the text is certainly not free from doubt. The parts are held by the Bonn Beethovenhaus, H.C. Bodmer Collection BMh 6/46, and bears today’s date on the right side in pencil in Beethoven’s hand: “Newest quartet by L. v. Beethoven, Gneixendorf, October 30, 1826.” The parts are presented at this link:

https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/5328396112363520/scan/0

The score is also at the Beethovenhaus, H.C. Bodmer Collection BMh 7/47, and can be seen here:

https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/4871521885487104/scan/0

Johann delivers the score and parts to booksellers Tendler & Manstein as agents for Maurice Schlesinger, but is unable to collect the 80 ducats, which will not be available for about a week. He stays in Vienna for the night, planning to return to Gneixendorf in the morning.

Later in the day, Ludwig asks Nephew Karl to find out when Johann will come back with the money. Karl assures him that his wife Therese is expecting him tomorrow; it cannot take him longer than that.

Conversation Book 123, 6v.