BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, March 23, 1824

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Nephew Karl is at his uncle’s residence and notes that dinner might be macaroni, considered one of Ludwig’s favourite dishes. The washerwoman from yesterday involves get her cost of 1 florin 30 kreutzers for doing the laundry.

The relative quiet of yesterday disappears, because the live performance planners lastly take a severe have a look at the calendar. Violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh comes within the late morning or early afternoon to go to Beethoven, and sees that the copying of elements is much not on time. “We are going to most likely not be completed by April 8 [the projected date of the Akademie concert.]” Schuppanzigh tells Beethoven he ought to ship unpaid assistant Anton Schindler to see him, so Schuppanzigh can communicate with him about this matter. Schuppanzigh might be house till 3:30.

Beethoven sends phrase to Schindler to go to Schuppanzigh, maybe utilizing Karl as his courier. Schuppanzigh tells Schindler of the upcoming catastrophe with the uncopied elements, and has him spherical up extra copyists. Whereas Beethoven has his macaroni with Karl, Schindler goes to the Theater within the Josephstadt the place he’s concertmaster. He will get the theater’s copyist, Peter Gläser, and brings him to satisfy with Beethoven. Gläser will take the mandatory work on, and he’ll be accountable for getting it performed promptly. [Beethoven’s or Schindler’s instructions appear to put Gläser in charge of extracting and duplicating the parts for the concert, and Maschek and his assistants are left to finish the fair copy of the Ninth.]

Copyist Peter Gläser asks whether or not he can take a part of the music with him to work on it at his house. Beethoven doesn’t like that concept, once more fearing that the composition might be pirated earlier than he can promote it. Gläser offers his assurances that he won’t make any improper use of it, and notes that he’s with Schindler day by day. He’ll first copy the elements for the 4 string voices [unlikely the first movement of the Ninth Symphony, and more probably the string parts for the Missa Solemnis that have finally been proofread by Beethoven.]. Beethoven seems to say that Schindler had advised Gläser take over as copyist after Wenzel Schlemmer’s loss of life, however he wished to deal with Schlemmer’s widow, who had continued her husband’s music copying enterprise. Gläser assures Beethoven that he understands, and he didn’t wish to offend the widow lady, in any other case he would have utilized to tackle Wenzel Schlemmer’s place as Court docket copyist.

Gläser leaves to begin his copying work within the late afternoon or early night. Schindler stays with Beethoven. Schindler says Gläser had by no means been right here earlier than, so he requested Schindler to accompany him. Suspending the live performance from April 8 for 4 or 5 days to get the copying performed can be high-quality, besides Holy Week falls in between, they usually can’t maintain the Akademie live performance throughout that week. So, it must be after Easter (April 18.)

Schindler begins inventorying what work has been completed by copyist Paul Maschek and his group. The entire choral elements are there, however there’s nonetheless a lot to do on the Mass. He’ll discuss to Gläser once more at this time, and see if he’ll tackle the orchestral elements of the Mass which can be nonetheless lacking. The Finale of the Ninth Symphony must be copied earlier than anything, although, due to the vocal elements. [The choral parts will need to be lithographed or copied, and both the chorus and the soloists will need time to prepare.] Schindler says he’ll advise Maschek that Gläser has taken on this work, “after which he can stay restfully at house.” However Schindler can’t go to Maschek at this time, as a result of he has no time. He nonetheless must proofread the quartet of the Kyrie [it is unclear whether he means the solo voices, or the basic set of strings.] Schindler says he’ll name on Maschek tomorrow, and leaves.

Dialog E book 60, 17r-18v.

Editor Theodore Albrecht concludes from the dialogue that Paul Maschek was dismissed as a copyist at this time. We don’t suppose that’s essentially the case, as the necessity for copyists is dire and Beethoven can ailing afford to lose somebody as quick as Maschek at this level. Moreover, he was warning Beethoven ten days in the past that the copying work couldn’t be accomplished in time until Beethoven began to proofread extra rapidly. He had advised that they make all the copies, after which right them based mostly on a proofread exemplar, however Beethoven rejected that concept, and right here they’re. Though as seen by Beethoven’s letter to Maschek mentioned yesterday, Maschek seems to have disregarded that instruction, which actually doesn’t assist Beethoven’s mood.

As Beethoven identified in his letter to Maschek, there are additionally severe issues aside from velocity. Whereas Gläser handles the copying of elements, Maschek and his most dependable assistant (who stays anonymous) will proceed to work as quickly as they’ll to complete the honest copy of the Ninth Symphony, and they’re going to ship it inside a matter of days. The third motion is delivered not less than by the twenty sixth, when Schindler asks whether or not he may give it to Gläser; at that time Beethoven appears to be in the course of proofreading the string elements. Gläser is to extract the remaining elements from this “honest copy.”

That replicate is named supply C by Jonathan del Mar in his important commentary to his version of the symphony, and is now housed at Juilliard. As Del Mar observes at 16, “it will likely be abundantly clear that there’s a mass of corrections in Beethoven’s hand. These are nearly all in ink, often in a blunt, considerably arduous pencil.”

Del Mar continues, “On a number of pages even the vast majority of the slurs, staccato and dynamics had been entered by Beethoven himself (e.g. IV 777-812), so {that a} first look on the unique copy will need to have thrown him in despair; that it generally really did so is obvious from remarks furiously entered into the margin: “wieder nicht intestine” [again not good] (III 55 4.Cor): “du verfluchter Kerl” [you damned knave] (IV 291 Trs, Pk) and “asinoccio” [donkey, in Italian] (IV 389 Perc on a web page later changed by one other copyist previous to publication), normally in locations the place the wretched – or ‘cursed‘ – copyist had but once more saved himself, and value Beethoven, a invaluable minute by marking a bar [slash with two dots, signifying the same as the previous bar] which was not, the truth is, fairly the identical because the earlier one.”

Hooked up is web page 165 of the honest copy of the Finale, exhibiting bars 783-787, with Beethoven’s corrections of added slurs, dynamic markings “cresc. poco a poco“, “8va” within the flute, staccato markings, and so forth., courtesy of the Juilliard Manuscript Assortment.



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