The year which witnessed the last of Beethoven’s completed labors, and saw what by general consent might be set down as the greatest of his string quartets, that in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, beheld also the culmination of the grief and pain caused by the conduct of his nephew. The year 1826 was a year of awful happenings and great achievements; a year of startling contradictions, in which the most grievous blows which an inscrutable Providence dealt the composer as if utterly to crush him to earth, were met by a display of creative energy which was amazing not only in its puissance but also in its exposition of transfigured emotion and imagination. The history of the year can best be followed if it be told in two sections, for which reason we have chosen to group the incidents connected with the nephew in a chapter by themselves and review first the artistic activities of the composer. After the history of the year has been set forth there will remain to be told only the story of the gathering of the gloom which early in the next year shut down over his mortal eyes forever. The figure which stands out in highest relief throughout the year beside that of the composer is that of Holz, whose concern for his welfare goes into the smallest detail of his unfortunate domestic life and includes also the major part of the labors and responsibilities caused by the tragical outcome of the nephew’s waywardness—his attempt at self-destruction. Schindler appears at intervals, but with jealous reserve, chary of advice, waiting to be asked for his opinion and pettishly protesting that after it once has been given it will not be acted upon. Stephan von Breuning appears in all the nobility of his nature; and in the attitude and acts of Brother Johann, though they have been severely faulted and, we fear, maligned, there is evidence of something as near affectionate sympathy and interest as Beethoven’s paradoxical conduct and nature invited of him. Among the other persons whom the Conversation Books disclose as his occasional associates are Schuppanzigh, Kuffner, Grillparzer, AbbÉ Stadler and Mathias Artaria, whose talk is chiefly about affairs in which they are concerned, though Kuffner at one time entertains Beethoven with a discourse on things ancient and modern which must have fascinated the artist whose mind ever delighted to dwell on matters of large moment. Beethoven was troubled with a spell of sickness which began near the end of January and lasted till into March. Dr. Braunhofer was called and we read the familiar injunctions in the Conversation Book. The composer has pains in the bowels, gouty twinges, and finds locomotion difficult. He is advised to abstain from wine for a few days and also from coffee, which he is told is injurious because of its stimulating effect on the nerves. The patient is advised to eat freely of soups, and small doses of quinine are prescribed. There are postponed obligations of duty—the oratorio, the opera, a Requiem—upon the composer which occupy him somewhat, but his friends and advisers more. His thoughts are not with such things but in the congenial region of the Quartets; for the little community of stringed instruments is become more than ever his colporteur, confidant, comforter and oracle. Kuffner tells him through Holz that he has read Bernard’s oratorio book but cannot find in it even the semblance of an oratorio, much less half-good execution. Perhaps there is something of personal equation in this judgment, for Kuffner is ready to write not only one but even two oratorio texts if Beethoven will but undertake their composition. He presents the plan of a work to be called “The Four Elements,” in which man is to be brought into relationship with the imposing phenomena of nature, but Beethoven has been inspired by a study of Handel’s “Saul” with a desire to undertake that subject and Kuffner submits specimens of his poetical handiwork to him. He had become interested in the ancient modes (as his Song of Thanksgiving in the Lydian mode in the A minor quartet had already witnessed) and was now eager to read up on the ancient Hebrews. He sends Holz to get him books on the subject and to a visitor, who to us is a stranger (so far as the handwriting in the C. B. is concerned), he expresses a desire to get Luther’s translation of the Bible. He is also interested in religious questions, as a long talk with his nephew shows. Kuffner intended in his treatment of the story of Saul to make it a representation of the triumph of the nobler impulses of man over untamed desire, and said that he would be ready to deliver the book in six weeks. Holz shows Beethoven some of the specimen sheets and points out a place in which Beethoven might indulge in an excursion into antique art. “Here you might introduce a chorus in the Lydian mode,” he says. He also explains that Kuffner intended to treat the chorus as an effective agent in the action, for which purpose it was to be divided into two sections, like the dramatic chorus of the Greek tragedians. Kuffner was sufficiently encouraged to write the book and Holz says that Beethoven finished the music of the first part “In his head”; if so, it staid there, so far as the sketchbooks bear testimony.

Grillparzer still hopes that the breath of musical life will be breathed into “Melusine”; Duport, having secured the Court Opera, asks for it, and Brother Johann and Karl urge that an opera is the most remunerative enterprise to which he can now apply himself. Schlesinger, in Berlin, had told Count von BrÜhl that Beethoven was disposed to write an opera for the Royal Opera at the Prussian capital and BrÜhl had written to the composer that he would be glad to have an opera from him and expressed a desire that he collaborate with Grillparzer in its making; but he did not want “Melusine,” because of the resemblance between its subject and that of de la Motte-FouquÉ’s “Undine.” An adaptation to operatic uses of Goethe’s “Claudine von Villa Bella” was discussed, apparently with favor, but Kanne, who was designated to take the adaptation in hand, was afraid to meddle with the great poet’s drama. So nothing came of the Berlin project or of “Melusine,” though Grillparzer talked it over again with Beethoven and told Holz that though he was not inclined to attach too great importance to it, he yet thought it would be hard to find an opera text better adapted to its purpose than it, from a musical and scenic point of view. To Schindler, Beethoven once held out a prospect that “something would come” of the idea of music for “Faust” which Rochlitz had implanted in Beethoven’s mind; but it shared the fate of opera and oratorio. His friends also urged him to compose a Requiem mass and such a composition belongs in the category with the oratorio as a work which he had been paid to undertake. Among the ardent admirers of Beethoven and most zealous patrons of the Schuppanzigh Quartets was Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer, a much respected cloth merchant. One of the methods chosen by Wolfmayer to show his appreciation of the composer was occasionally to have a new coat made for him which he would bring to Beethoven’s lodgings, place upon a chair and then see to it that an old one disappeared from his wardrobe. We have already heard a similar story from Mayseder. It is said that Wolfmayer sometimes had difficulty in getting the composer’s consent to the exchange, but always managed to do it. Early in the second decade of the century Wolfmayer commissioned Beethoven to write a Requiem for him and paid him 1,000 florins as an advance on the honorarium. Beethoven promised, but never set to work: though Holz says that he was firmly resolved to do so and, in talking about it, said that he was better satisfied with Cherubini’s setting of the text of the Mass for the Dead than with Mozart’s. A Requiem, he said, should be a sorrowful memorial of the dead and have nothing in it of the noises of the last trump and the day of judgment.

The sketchbooks bear witness, though not voluminously, to two other works of magnitude which were in Beethoven’s thoughts in this year but never saw completion. These were a symphony and a string quintet. In a book used towards the end of 1825, containing sketches for the last movement of the Quartet in B-flat, there is a memorandum of a Presto in C minor, 3-4 time, and of a short movement in A-flat, Andante, which Schindler marked as belonging to “the tenth symphony.” There are also some much longer sketches for an overture on B-a-c-h, in the midst of which Beethoven has written: “This overture together with the new symphony and we shall have a new concert (Akademie) in the KÄrnthnerthor.” Schindler published the sketches of the symphony in Hirschbach’s “Musikalisch-kritisches Repertorium” of January, 1844, and started the story of an uncompleted tenth symphony. Nottebohm, in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 12), scouts the idea that Beethoven occupied himself seriously with the composition of such a work. “It is not necessary,” he says, “to turn over many leaves of the sketchbooks to prove the untenableness of the view that if Beethoven had written a Tenth Symphony it would have been on the basis of these sketches. We see in them only such momentary conceits as came to Beethoven by the thousand and which were as much destined to be left undeveloped as the multitude of other abandoned sketches in the other books. To be big with a symphony argues persevering application to it. Of such application there can be no talk in this case. The sketches in question were never continued; there is not a vestige of them in the books which follow. If Beethoven had written as many symphonies as he began we should have at least fifty.” Nottebohm’s argument does not dispose of the matter, though we shall presently find occasion to think well of it. Lenz says that Holz wrote to him that Beethoven had played “the whole of the Tenth Symphony” for him on the pianoforte, that it was finished in all of its movements in the sketches, but that nobody but Beethoven could decipher them. Holz, however, made no such broad statement to Otto Jahn, a much more conscientious reporter than Lenz. To Jahn he said that there was an introduction in E-flat major, a soft piece, and then a powerful Allegro in C minor, which were complete in Beethoven’s head and which he had played to him (Holz) on the pianoforte. This is very different from an entire symphony. But in the letter to Moscheles which Schindler says Beethoven dictated to him on March 18, 1827, bearing a message of thanks to the Philharmonic Society of London, Beethoven says: “An entire sketched symphony lies in my desk, also a new overture and other things”; and a few days later Schindler writes to Moscheles: “Three days after receiving your letter he was greatly excited and demanded the sketches of the Tenth Symphony, concerning the plan of which he told me a great deal. He has now definitely decided that it shall go to the Philharmonic Society.” The reader is familiar with Beethoven’s habit of speaking of works as finished though not a note of them had been put on paper (as in the case of the additional movements for the Mass in D, for instance), and if there were sketches for a finished symphony in Beethoven’s desk when he died, it is passing strange that Schindler did not produce them when he started the world to talking about its loss of a successor to the Ninth. What Nottebohm saw in the books deposited by Schindler in the Royal Library in Berlin seems to justify what he said, at least. Moreover, Schindler says that the sketches for the Symphony dated back to 1824, and the incorrectness of this statement can be shown beyond all peradventure by Nottebohm’s study of the sketchbooks. Of the other works which play a part in the story of 1826, something will be said hereafter.

Opera, oratorio, the mass for the dead, symphony, beckoned to him, but his affections were fixed in the higher and purer regions of chamber music, the form which represents chaste ideals, lofty imagination, profound learning; which exacts a mutual sympathy between composer, performer and listener and binds them in something like that angelic wedlock which Weber said to PlanchÉ ought to unite librettist and composer. When the year 1826 opened, Beethoven was looking forward with no little eagerness to the first performance of the Quartet in B-flat—his “Liebquartett” it is once called in the Conversation Books. Schuppanzigh and his fellows had taken it in hand. They found the concluding fugue extremely troublesome, but the Cavatina entranced them at once; Schuppanzigh entered a record against any change in it. The performance took place on March 21. The second and fourth movements had to be repeated, but the fugue proved a crux as, no doubt, the players had expected it would. Some of Beethoven’s friends argued that it had not been understood and that this objection would vanish with repeated hearings; others, plainly a majority, asked that a new movement be written to take its place. Johann van Beethoven told the composer that “the whole city” was delighted with the work. Schindler says that the Danza alla tedesca, one of the movements which were demanded a second time, was originally intended for another quartet, presumably that in A minor. Lenz objects to the theory on critical grounds, but Nottebohm points out that the first sketches appear in A before the sketches for the B-flat Quartet and assigns them to the A minor Quartet without qualification of any kind. Dr. Deiters suggests that the movement was written for the A minor Quartet and put aside when the Song of Thanksgiving presented itself to Beethoven’s mind. There is another reason for believing that Nottebohm is right and Lenz, as he so frequently is, is wrong. As has been mentioned, Beethoven recurred to one of his old German dances, written for the Ridotto balls, in the first movement of the A minor Quartet; what more likely than that, thinking over the old German dance, he should have conceived the idea of a Danza tedesca? Schuppanzigh’s high opinion of the Cavatina was shared by many and also by Beethoven himself. Holz said that it cost the composer tears in the writing and brought out the confession that nothing that he had written had so moved him; in fact, that merely to revive it afterwards in his thoughts and feelings brought forth renewed tributes of tears.

The doubts about the effectiveness of the fugue felt by Beethoven’s friends found an echo in the opinions of the critics. Mathias Artaria, the publisher, who seems in this year to have entered the circle of the composer’s intimate associates, presented the matter to him in a practicable light. He had purchased the publishing rights of the Quartet and after the performance he went to Beethoven with the suggestion that he write a new finale and that the fugue be published as an independent piece, for which he would remunerate him separately. Beethoven listened to the protests unwillingly, but, “vowing he would ne’er consent, consented” and requested the pianist Anton Halm, who had played in the B-flat Trio at the concert, to make the pianoforte arrangements for which there had already been inquiries at Artaria’s shop. Halm accepted the commission and made the arrangement, with which Beethoven was not satisfied; “You have divided the parts too much between prim and second,” he remarked to Halm,[147] referring to a device which the arranger had adopted to avoid crossing of hands—giving passages to the right hand which should logically have been given to the left, the effect being the same to the ear but not to the eye. Nevertheless, Halm presented a claim for 40 florins to Artaria for the work, and was paid. Beethoven then made an arrangement and sent it to Artaria, also demanding a fee. To this Artaria demurred and asked Beethoven for Halm’s manuscript. Beethoven sent it by a messenger (probably Holz) with instructions to get his arrangement in return for it, but at the same time told Artaria, that while he did not ask that Artaria publish his work, he was under no obligations to give it to him; he might have it for twelve ducats. Artaria reconciled himself to the matter and paid Beethoven his fee on September 5. Schindler incorrectly states that the arrangement which Artaria announced on March 10, 1827, as Op. 134 (the original score being advertised at the same time as Op. 133), was Halm’s.

Other performances of the Quartet were planned, but it does not appear that any took place. Schuppanzigh was indisposed to venture upon a repetition, but BÖhm and Mayseder were eager to play it. The latter with his companions gave quartet parties at the house of Dembscher, an agent of the Austrian War Department, and wanted to produce the Quartet there. But Dembscher had neglected to subscribe for Schuppanzigh’s concert and had said that he would have it played at his house, since it was easy for him to get manuscripts from Beethoven for that purpose. He applied to Beethoven for the Quartet, but the latter refused to let him have it, and Holz, as he related to Beethoven, told Dembscher in the presence of other persons that Beethoven would not let him have any more music because he had not attended Schuppanzigh’s concert. Dembscher stammered in confusion and begged Holz to find some means to restore him to Beethoven’s good graces. Holz said that the first step should be to send Schuppanzigh 50 florins, the price of the subscription. Dembscher laughingly asked, “Must it be?” (Muss es sein?). When Holz related the incident to Beethoven he too laughed and instantly wrote down a canon on the words: “It must be! Yes, yes, yes, it must be. Out with the purse!”[148]

Out of this joke in the late fall of the year grew the finale of the last of the last five quartets, that in F major. Op. 135, to which Beethoven gave the superscription: “The difficult resolution” (Der schwergefasste Entschluss). The story, almost universally current and still repeated, that the phrases: Muss es sein? Es muss sein, and Der schwergefasste Entschluss had their origin in

a scene frequently repeated when Beethoven’s housekeeper came to him of a Saturday for the weekly house-money, was spread by Schindler, who was familiar in a way with the Dembscher incident but assigned it to the Quartet in E-flat. Holz was an actor in the scene and is the better witness, being confirmed, moreover, by the Conversation Book. Schindler probably took his clue from a page in the Conversation Book used in December, 1826, in which Beethoven writes the phrases “Must it be?” and “It must be,” and Schindler, after a conversation in which Schuppanzigh takes part, concludes with: “It must be. The old woman is again in need of her weekly money.” The joke played a part in the conversations with Beethoven for some time.

Holz says that when once he remarked to Beethoven that the one in B-flat was the greatest of his Quartets the composer replied: “Each in its way. Art demands of us that we shall not stand still. You will find a new manner of voice treatment (part writing) and, thank God! there is less lack of fancy than ever before.” Afterward he declared the C-sharp minor Quartet to be his greatest. The first form of the fugue-theme in this work, as has been noted, was written down in a Conversation Book in the last days of December, 1825. The theme of the variations, in a form afterwards altered, was also noted amid the records of conversations before the end of January, 1826. It is likely that a goodly portion of the work was written within a month and ready for the copyist, for Schuppanzigh once in January suggests that something from the work in hand be tried. Whether or not it was ever played in the lifetime of the composer can not be said with certainty. Schindler says positively that it was not. It was ready for the publisher in July and Schott and Sons, who had bought it for 80 ducats payable in two installments, sent the drafts early to accommodate Beethoven, who spoke of being on the eve of a short journey—of which nothing is known save that he did not make it. The score was turned over to Schott’s agent in Vienna on August 7. On the copy Beethoven had written “Put together from pilferings from one thing and another” (Zusammengestohlen aus Verschiedenem diesem und Jenem). This alarmed the publishers, who wrote to Beethoven about it and in reply received a letter stating: “You wrote me that the quartet must be an original one. As a joke I wrote on the copy ‘Put together, etc....’; but it is brand new.” It was published by Schott and Sons very shortly after Beethoven’s death in April, 1827, under the opus number 129. Beethoven originally intended to dedicate it to Wolfmayer but out of gratitude to Baron von Stutterheim, Lieutenant Fieldmarshal, who had made a place for Nephew Karl in his regiment, placed his name upon the title-page.

With the Quartet in B-flat, Beethoven had completed the three works of its kind which he had been commissioned to compose by Prince Nicolas Galitzin. He had taken three years to perform the task, but in the end the patience of his patron had been nobly rewarded—rewarded, indeed, in a manner which insured him as large a share of immortality as falls to the lot of a man—and meanwhile he had been privileged to shine in the musical circles of St. Petersburg as one who stood peculiarly close to the greatest of living composers. During the delay Prince Galitzin’s conduct was in the highest degree honorable. In his letters he was most generous in his offers of assistance, practically giving Beethoven carte blanche to draw on his bankers in case of need. He organized a performance of the Missa solemnis (the first given of the work or any portion of it), and presented his copy of the written score to the Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg. He was so proud of his collection of Beethoven’s music that he applied to the composer himself to help him make it complete. Too eager to wait for the publishers, he commissioned Beethoven to have copies made of new works, like the Ninth Symphony and the overture to “The Consecration of the House,” at his expense. He entertained the idea of repeating in St. Petersburg the concert which Beethoven had given in Vienna, at which the Symphony had received its first performance. For a while he contemplated a repetition of the Mass. Beethoven had dedicated the overture to him and he had written that he would requite the act with a gift of 25 ducats. All this before he received the Quartets. Then a strange and unaccountable change came over his attitude towards the composer. Beethoven sent the first Quartet to him in January, 1825; the second and third sometime in February, 1826. He had followed up his commission in 1823 with an order to his bankers, Henikstein and Co. in Vienna, to pay Beethoven 50 ducats, the fee agreed upon, for each Quartet. The money was paid over in October, 1823, but with his express consent, at Beethoven’s request, was applied to the payment of his subscription for the Mass. If there could be any doubt on this point it would be dissipated by the letter in which Henikstein and Co., forwarded Beethoven’s receipt. This letter was written on October 15, 1823, and stated that the sum had been paid comme honoraire de la messe que nous expediÉe par l’entremise de la haute chancellerie de l’État. On December 5, 1824, let us say six weeks or two months before he received the first Quartet, he sent another 50 ducats, which it is fair to assume was the fee for that work and took the place of the sum diverted to the payment for the Mass. These facts must be carefully noted and borne in mind, for the question of Galitzin’s indebtedness to Beethoven became the subject of a scandalous controversy a long time after the composer’s death; it endured down to 1838 and might be opened again were there a disposition in any quarter to do so. For the present the story of the Quartets during Beethoven’s lifetime may be pursued as it is disclosed by records in the Conversation Books and so much of the correspondence as has been preserved.

In February, 1826, one of the Quartets, perhaps both of them, had been sent to St. Petersburg by special courier. (“Everything written by Beethoven ought to be sent to its destination by special courier,” is one of Schuppanzigh’s magnificent remarks when the question of sending the Quartet to the Prince is under discussion.) The money did not come and Beethoven grew impatient and anxious. Karl tried to reassure him. The Prince had written Je vais, he remarks in the Conversation Book, plainly referring to a letter dated January 14, 1826, in which Prince Galitzin had said: “Je vais faire remettre À M. Stieglitz (his banker) la valeur de 75 ducats pour vous Être remis par M. Fries; 50 pour le quatuor et 25 pour l’ouverture qui est magnifique et que je vous remercie beaucoup de m’avoir dÉdiÉe.” Still the money did not come. In the middle of May Holz reports to Beethoven that a letter had been received from the courier, whose name was Lipscher. He had called on Prince Galitzin, who had begged to be excused; “he had not time—call another day.” He had repeated the visit five or six times, but each time was denied an audience on one pretext or another. Finally, he had bribed a domestic with five florins and found his way to the Prince, who seemed greatly embarrassed, fumbled amongst his scores for a time and then asked him to come again before his departure and he would give him the money. The courier had added that he considered it a “Russian trick” but that he was not to be disposed of so easily. Lipscher would be back in Vienna in four or five days, Holz added, and advised Beethoven to await his coming before writing to him. Schindler, a short time after, gives his views in a style characteristic of his attitude toward Beethoven during the period of Holz’s factotumship: “The matter of the Prince Galitzin is getting critical and I wish you a happy outcome. If you had obeyed me he would have had only one quartet and with that basta. You never permitted yourself to be deceived by flattery as you have by this princely braggart.” Again: “Voila, the letter to Count Lebzeltern (Russian Ambassador) and the banker Stieglitz. They can go to-day as it is great postday. What more is there to be considered? Wait, and wait—and no results. Breuning is agreed. If Prince Galitzin could act in such contradiction to his letters nothing good is to be expected of him.” At a later date there came another letter from the courier. He had tried seven times to see the Prince, but all in vain. Later (it was now July) he had gone again; the Prince had been polite, but denied him admittance. Still later in the same month Karl tells his uncle that he wants to write to Stieglitz, the Prince’s banker, upon whom Beethoven had been told to draw in case he needed money. Karl does not use general terms as to the sum involved, but specifically says “the 125 ducats.” On August 2 Beethoven wrote to Stieglitz and Co., from whom he received a letter dated August 13 saying that the Prince was absent, but his attention should be directed to the matter. Evidently the bankers kept their word, for on November 10-22, Prince Galitzin wrote to Beethoven saying that he had received the two Quartets but had been the victim of great losses and other misfortunes; he was now obliged to go to the wars in Persia, but before going would pay the “125 ducats” which he owed, thus admitting the debt in specific terms. On January 10, 1827, Beethoven, already on his deathbed, dictated a letter of inquiry to Stieglitz and Co., and the bankers again answered promptly: they were still waiting for an answer from the Prince. Five days before his death Beethoven made his last appeal to Stieglitz and Co., reviewing the recent correspondence and Galitzin’s promise and asking the bankers, if the money had been received, to forward it to Arnstein and Eskeles, as he was greatly in need of it because of his protracted sickness. Beethoven dictated the letter, but signed it himself and endorsed the draft: “To Prince Galitzin, concerning 125 ducats, March 21, 1827.” He died on March 26.

Thus stands the record at the time of Beethoven’s death. Prince Galitzin was back from the wars, but sent no money. On March 20, 1829, Hotschevar as guardian of Karl van Beethoven appealed to the Imperial Chancellary to ask the Embassy at St. Petersburg to collect the debt of 125 ducats from the Prince. Galitzin demanded an explanation, but after repeated requests from Karl agreed to pay 50 ducats in two installments of 20 and 30 ducats each. The sums were paid, the latter, as Karl’s receipt shows, on November 9, 1832. Karl continued to make representations to the Prince touching a balance of 75 ducats still due and on June 2-14, 1835, Galitzin promised to pay the sum, not as a balance due on his business transactions with Beethoven, but as a memorial pour honorer sa mÉmoire, que m’est chÈre. Even now the money was not paid, but after a controversy had broken out between Schindler and the Prince over the former’s charge that Beethoven had never been paid for the Quartets, Galitzin sent the 75 ducats, and Karl complaisantly acquiesced in the Prince’s request and signed a receipt for the money, not as in payment of the debt, but as a voluntary tribute to the dead composer.[149]

Schott was ready with the Ninth Symphony in July, 1826, but Beethoven asked him to delay the despatch of the printed score to the King of Prussia, to whom it was dedicated, until he had had an opportunity to send the monarch a manuscript copy, which, he said, would have no value after the publication. The reward which he was looking forward to in return was a decoration. The Conversation Books have considerable to say about the dedication, but if the London Philharmonic Society ever entered Beethoven’s mind in connection with it, the record has been lost. He wanted an Order, and had he received one in time for the concert, its insignia would, in great likelihood, have graced his breast on that occasion. He had repeatedly expressed contempt for the outward signs of royal condescension, but the medal sent by the King of France had evidently caused a change of heart in this regard. He was eager to see a description and illustration of the medallion in the newspapers; and that he thought of hanging it about his neck, appears from a remark to him made by Karl before the concert, telling him that it was too heavy to wear and would pull down his collar. Visitors called to see it and he permitted his intimate friends to show it about, until Holz cautioned him to do so no more, as it was showing marks of damage from a fall. In one conversation, Johann suggests that the Symphony be dedicated to the Czar of Russia and from a remark in one of Prince Galitzin’s letters telling him that, by a recent decree, all foreigners who wished to dedicate works of art to the Czar would have to obtain permission to do so from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it would appear that Johann’s suggestion, or approval, had also received his sanction. Ferdinand Ries was also a candidate for the distinction (Beethoven had promised him the dedication in a letter), his claim being put forward, without particular urgency, by Franz Christian Kirchhoffer, a bookkeeper with whom Beethoven was acquainted and through whom Ries carried on his correspondence with the composer. On April 8, 1824, Karl wrote in a Conversation Book: “As soon as the Symphony has been sent to England it must be copied again handsomely on vellum paper and sent with an inscription to the King of France.” On the same day, apparently, Schindler asks: “Who has the preference in the matter of the dedication of the Symphony—Ries or the King of Prussia?—It ought to be offered as a proof of your gratitude, in these words.—There could be no better opportunity than just now for this purpose.” It is obvious that Schindler favors the King of France, for a day or two later he writes: “Schwaebl sends his compliments and is highly delighted that you are pleased with the gift. As regards the you-know-what he wants you to write to the Duke de la ChÂrtre [d’Âchats] yourself, but for the present nothing about the dedication—leave the reference till later.” The advice is repeated and the subject concluded with: “Good, then you will stick to France.”

These facts belong chronologically to the history of 1824, but they have been made pertinent by the discussion of the dedication and presentation of the Ninth Symphony to the King of Prussia, which took place in 1826. They are also valuable to correct a misapprehension which has prevailed ever since the publication of Hogarth’s history of the London Philharmonic Society and was no doubt current before then. Hogarth says that the directors of the society resolved to offer Beethoven £50 for a manuscript symphony on November 10, 1822, and adds, “the money was immediately advanced.” In a note to his translation of one of Beethoven’s letters (Kalischer-Shedlock, Vol. II, p. 448) Mr. Shedlock calls attention to the fact that there is a document in the British Museum, acknowledging receipt of £50 for a symphony composed for the society, dated April 27, 1824. This document proves the date on which Beethoven received the remuneration for the Symphony to have been that indicated in the receipt beyond peradventure. On April 26 or 27 Karl writes, in the Conversation Book from which we have been quoting:

When finally, in 1826, Beethoven decided that the Symphony should be dedicated to the King of Prussia, he obtained permission of Prince Hatzfeld, the Prussian Ambassador, to do so. Dr. Spicker, the King’s librarian, was in Vienna at the time and arrangements were made to transmit a copy of the score to Berlin through him. Holz had a talk with him and he advised him concerning the preparation of the presentation copy and also discussed the possibility of a decoration. Spicker told Holz to have Beethoven copy the title of the printed work on the title-page in his natural and habitual handwriting without any attempt at beautification. This would enhance the value of the score in the eyes of the King and he would put it in his private library. To get the order would be an easy matter, for the King was predisposed in Beethoven’s favor. Spicker also visited Beethoven, being presented by Haslinger, but, unfortunately, the pages of the book which must have recorded the conversation have not been preserved; or, if preserved, not been made known. Beethoven wrote the title-page, the score was handsomely bound by Steiner and Co. and placed in the hands of Dr. Spicker with the following letter:

The King’s acknowledgment was as follows:

Schindler says that when the case containing the King’s gift was opened it was found to contain, not a diamond ring as the letter had described it, but one set with a stone of a “reddish” hue which the court jeweller to whom it was shown appraised at 300 florins, paper money. Beethoven was very indignant and was with difficulty dissuaded from sending it back to the Prussian Ambassador; eventually he sold it to the jeweler at the value which he had set upon it. Whether or not the ring was the one really sent from Berlin or one which had been substituted for it (as was suspected in some quarters), has never been determined.

Despite the cordial relations between Beethoven and Haslinger, which endured to the end of the composer’s life, there was continual friction between him and the Steiner firm, for which it would seem that Holz was at this time responsible in a considerable degree; and it may have been he who put the notion into Beethoven’s head that it would be a stroke of business to buy back all of his manuscripts which Steiner had acquired but had not yet published. Dissatisfaction with the policy of publishers, however, was in Beethoven a confirmed mood; we have heard him rail against the men who wanted to withhold his works till he was dead, so as to profit from the public curiosity which would follow. Beethoven made the proposition in a jocular letter to Haslinger offering to pay the same “shameful” price for all his unpublished manuscripts which the firm had paid him. The transaction was not consummated; if it had been there can be no doubt but that it would have been highly advantageous to him, since both Schott and Artaria were now eager to have his works.

Among Beethoven’s intimate friends was AbbÉ Stadler, an old man and an old-fashioned musician, the horizon of whose Æsthetic appreciation was marked by the death-date of his friend Mozart. Castelli says that he used to call Beethoven’s music “pure nonsense”; certain it is that he used to leave the concert-room whenever a composition by Beethoven was to be played. Schuppanzigh offered as an excuse for him that he had a long way home, and it does not appear that Beethoven ever took umbrage at his conduct. Holz, telling Beethoven in February, 1825, that as usual he had left the room when an overture by Beethoven was about to be played, added: “He is too old. He always says when Mozart is reached, ‘More I cannot understand.’” But once he staid and not only listened to a Beethoven piece but praised it. It was the Trio for Strings, Op. 9, which had been composed nearly a generation before! Holz becomes sarcastic: “One might say A. B. C. D. (AbbÉ cÉdait).” Stadler now had occasion to court Beethoven’s favor, or at least to betray the fact that even if he could not appreciate his music he yet had had a vast respect for his genius and reputation. In 1825, Gottfried Weber had written an essay, which was published in the “CÄcilia” journal, attacking the authenticity of Mozart’s “Requiem.” The article angered Beethoven, as is evidenced by his marginal glosses on the copy of the journal which he read, now in the possession of Dr. Prieger in Bonn. The glosses are two in number: “Oh, you arch ass!” and “Double ass!” Such a disposition of an attack on the artistic honor of his friend did not suffice Stadler. He published a defence of Mozart (“Vertheidigung der Echtheit des Mozartschen Requiems”) and sent a copy to Beethoven, who acknowledged it thus:

The concluding supplication recalls an anecdote related by Castelli in his memoirs: Beethoven and AbbÉ Stadler once met at Steiner’s. About to depart, Beethoven kneeled before the AbbÉ and said: “Reverend Sir, give me your blessing.” Stadler, not at all embarrassed, made the sign of the cross over the kneeling man and, as if mumbling a prayer, said: “Hilft’s nix, schadt’s nix” (“If it does no good, ’twill do no harm”). Beethoven thereupon kissed his hand amid the laughter of the bystanders. Jahn heard the same story from Fischoff.[152]

A remark in a Conversation Book of 1826 indicates that Stadler had urged Beethoven to write a mass. Holz says: “If Stadler tells you to write a mass it is certain that something will be done for it. He knows best of anybody which way the wind blows.—He has Dietrichstein and Eybler in his pocket.—You are well cared for if Stadler favors it.” The conversations of Holz also provide a fleeting glimpse of Schubert in this year. Holz tells Beethoven that he had seen the young composer with either Artaria or Mosel (the allusion is vague) and that the two were reading a Handel score together. “He (Schubert) was very amiable and thanked me for the pleasure which Mylord’s [Schuppanzigh’s] Quartets gave him; he was always present.—He has a great gift for songs.—Do you know the ‘Erlking’? He spoke very mystically, always.”

Friedrich Wieck, father of Clara Schumann, spent three hours with Beethoven in May, having been presented by Andreas Stein, the pianoforte maker. He told about the visit long afterward in a letter to his second wife which was reprinted in the “Signale” No. 57, in December, 1873, from the “Dresdener Nachrichten.” Beethoven gave his guest wine (to which Wieck was not accustomed), improvised for him over an hour and talked voluminously about

Wieck says the meeting was in Hietzing, and that Beethoven played upon the pianoforte “presented to him by the city of London”—three obvious mistakes, since Beethoven was not in Hietzing in May, but in Vienna, and the Broadwood pianoforte, which was not presented to him by the city of London but by Thomas Broadwood, was in the hands of Graf for repairs in May.

After Karl’s attempt to end his ill-spent life, with its crushing effect upon the composer, the friends, Holz in particular, made many efforts to divert Beethoven’s mind from his disappointment and grief. They accompanied him on brief excursions into the country which he loved so passionately and which had been closed to him, for the customary happy season, by his nephew’s act. Again did his brother offer him a haven at Gneixendorf in August, only to receive the curt answer: “I will not come. Your brother??????!!!! Ludwig.” His nephew was lying in the hospital. He could not leave him then nor did he go until it had become necessary to find an asylum for Karl as well as a resting-place for himself. His brother came to the city late in September; it was necessary that Karl should remain out of Vienna until he could join a regiment of soldiery, and so Beethoven accepted Johann’s renewed invitation to make a sojourn at Gneixendorf. Meanwhile he was far from idle. He had begun a new quartet, in F major, and Schlesinger, pÈre, who had come from Berlin, negotiated with him for its publication. He had the new finale for the B-flat Quartet on his mind and, as will appear later, several other works occupied him. With Schlesinger he talked about the Complete Edition and some military marches which the King of Prussia was to pay for, as they were to be written for the Royal Band. The chief obstacle to Beethoven’s acceptance of his brother’s repeated invitations to visit him at Gneixendorf came from the presence there of the brother’s wife. Her scandalous conduct had begotten an intense hatred in Beethoven’s mind. Urged on by his brother, Johann had once planned to put her away, but there was an obstacle in the shape of a marriage contract, which gave her half of his property, and though she was willing to surrender the contract at one time, she was not content to be turned out upon the world with neither character nor means of subsistence. Besides, Johann was loath to take the drastic methods which alone were open to him. He was inclined, much to the indignation of his brother, to be complaisant; he needed a housekeeper and for that she would serve. “I go my way and let her go hers,” he said, and he told his brother when trying to persuade him to spend his summers, perhaps eventually all his time, at Gneixendorf, that he need pay no heed whatever to his sister-in-law. Much of the ill-feeling was due to the fact that Beethoven wanted to insure his brother’s fortune for Karl. The nephew did eventually become his sole heir and inherited 42,000 florins from him.

On September 28, Beethoven and his nephew left Vienna for Gneixendorf, intending to stay a week. A night was passed at a village en route, and Johann’s estate was reached in the afternoon of the next day—the 29th—but not too late for the composer to walk through the fields with his brother to take a look at the property. The next day the walk was extended to the vineyards on the hill in the forenoon and to Imbach in the afternoon. There Karl pointed out to his uncle some historical monuments: “This is the cloister where Margarethe, Ottocar’s wife, died; the scene occurs in Grillparzer’s piece.” Thus, with other excursions the next day, life at Gneixendorf began. [153] Gneixendorf is a little village on a high plateau of the Danube Valley about an hour’s walk from Krems. It is a mean hamlet, with only one street and that narrow, rough and dirty. The houses are low huts. Wasserhof, as the place is now called, the Beethoven estate, lies opposite the village and is reached by a wagon road which runs a large part of the way along the edge of a ravine, which torrents have cut out of the clayey soil. The plateau is almost treeless but covered with fields and vines. In Beethoven’s time there were two houses on the estate, both large and handsome, each with its garden and surrounding wall. The houses were separated from each other by a road. A generation after Beethoven had been a visitor there the gardens were found neglected and the trees which surrounded the house, a two-storey structure strongly built of stone with a covering of mortar, shut out a view of the surrounding country.[154] Beethoven’s rooms were on the east side, and unless the trees interfered the composer had a magnificent view of the Danubian valley stretching to the distant Styrian mountains. Johann van Beethoven’s possessions compassed nearly 400 acres, most of which he leased to tenants. A lover of hills and forests like Beethoven must have found Wasserhof dreary and monotonous in the extreme, yet the distant view of the Danube seems to have compensated him in a measure, for it reminded him of the Rhine.

Gerhard von Breuning gives a distressful account of Beethoven’s reception and treatment at Gneixendorf. It is, indeed, too distressful to be implicitly accepted as true, nor are all his accusations against Johann borne out by the evidence of the Conversation Books and other indubitable facts. If the account in Breuning’s book “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause” were literally true, we should have to picture to ourselves Beethoven, arrived at his brother’s place, being assigned rooms which were unfit for occupation in the cold, wet November weather which ensued, denied facilities for proper heating, having fire-wood stingily doled out to him, compelled to eat miserable food and forced to be content with too little even of that, and three days after his arrival informed that he would be expected to pay for his board and lodging. One would think while reading the account that Johann van Beethoven, who had been offering hospitalities to his brother for years, had done so only to make money out of him and had at last succeeded in his design by taking advantage of the overwhelming sorrow which had come upon him.[155] Beethoven is said to have made complaints in the nature of von Breuning’s accusations in a letter written from Gneixendorf to Stephan von Breuning, and also to have given expression to his feelings at being obliged to submit to the repulsive companionship of his brother’s wife and step-daughter. The letter is lost and was not printed by Breuning’s son in proof of the charges; but if it had been it would not be conclusive in the minds of dispassionate judges. Against it there would lie the evidences of the brother’s numerous acts of helpfulness, the many instances of Beethoven’s unreasonable suspicion and unjust judgment and, above all, the testimony of the Conversation Books. As to the matter of an insufficient supply of fire-wood, there is a remark of Karl’s, made after a return to Vienna is already in contemplation: “As regards expenses, wood is so cheap that it is inconceivable that your brother should be at any considerable cost, for you can heat a long time with a cord and he is already overpaid.” Long before when Johann had been trying in vain to induce him to come to Gneixendorf for the summer he rebukes him for his unwillingness to accept his hospitality gratis. Once during the sojourn he says explicitly: “You do not need money here”; and at another time: “If you want to live with us you can have everything for 40 florins Convention money a month, which makes only 500 florins for a whole year,” and again: “You will need only half of your pension” and “I will charge nothing for the first fortnight; I would do more if I were not so hard-pressed with taxes.” Beethoven had planned at the outset to stay only a week, just long enough for the scar on Karl’s head to disappear sufficiently to make him presentable to his commanding officer. Instead, the visit lasted two months and Johann was short of money. He had still two payments to make on the purchase-money for the estate, and collections were not good.

Beethoven was sick when he went to Gneixendorf. He had not recovered from his illness of the early months of the year when Karl attempted to kill himself, and this was not calculated to improve the physical or mental condition of so nervous and irritable a being as he. On October 7, eight days after his arrival in Gneixendorf, he wrote a letter from a sickbed and Breuning, to whom it was sent, who knew his physical condition well, remarked that he was in danger of becoming seriously ill, possibly dropsical. Nothing was more natural than that his letters should be full of complaints, some of which might well be measurably founded on fact without convicting his brother of inhumanity. He had never been a comfortable or considerate guest or tenant at the best, and his adaptability to circumstances was certainly not promoted by the repugnance which he felt towards his sister-in-law and his want of honest affection for his brother.

Concerning his life in Gneixendorf, a number of interesting details were told in an article entitled “Beethoven in Gneixendorf,” published in the “Deutsche Musikzeitung” in 1862,[156] some of which are worth reciting again. One day Johann went to Langenfeld and Beethoven and other people from Gneixendorf went with him. The purpose was to visit a surgeon named Karrer, a friend of the brother. The surgeon was absent on a sick-call, but his wife, flattered by a visit from the landowner, entertained him lavishly. Noticing a man who held himself aloof from the company, sitting silently on the bench behind the stove, and taking him for one of her guest’s servants, she filled a little jug with native wine and handed it to him with the remark: “He shall also have a drink.” When the surgeon returned home late at night and heard an account of the incident he exclaimed: “My dear wife, what have you done? The greatest composer of the century was in our house to-day and you treated him with such disrespect!”

Johann had occasion to visit the syndic Sterz in Langenlois on a matter of business. Beethoven accompanied him. The conference lasted a considerable time, during all of which Beethoven stood motionless at the door of the official’s office. At the leavetaking Sterz bowed often and low to the stranger, and after he was gone asked his clerk, named Fux, an enthusiastic lover of music, especially of Beethoven’s; “Who do you think the man was who stood by the door?” Fux replied: “Considering that you, Mr. Syndic, treated him with such politeness, his may be an exceptional case; otherwise I should take him for an imbecile (Trottel).” The consternation of the clerk may be imagined when told the name of the man whom he had taken for an idiot.

Johann’s wife had assigned Michael Krenn, son of one of her husband’s vinedressers, to look after Beethoven’s wants. At first the cook had to make up Beethoven’s bed. One day, while the woman was thus occupied, Beethoven sat at a table gesticulating with his hands, beating time with his feet, muttering and singing. The woman burst into a laugh, which Beethoven observed. He drove her out of the room instanter. Krenn tried to follow her, but Beethoven drew him back, gave him three 20-kreutzer pieces, told him not to be afraid, and said that hereafter he should make the bed and clean the floor every day. Krenn said that he was told to come to the room early, but generally had to knock a long time before Beethoven opened the door. It was Beethoven’s custom to get up at half-past 5 o’clock, seat himself at a table and write while he beat time with hands and feet and sang. This frequently stirred Krenn’s risibles, and when he could no longer restrain his laughter he used to leave the room. Gradually he grew accustomed to it. The family breakfast was eaten at half-past 7 o’clock, after which Beethoven hurried out into the open air, rambled across the fields shouting and waving his arms, sometimes walking very rapidly, sometimes very slowly and stopping at times to write in a sort of pocketbook. This book he once lost and said: “Michael, run about and hunt my writings; I must have them again at any cost.” Michael luckily found them. At half-past 12 Beethoven would come home for dinner, after which he went to his room until about 3 o’clock; then he roamed over the fields until shortly before sunset, after which he never went out of doors. Supper was at half-past 7, and after eating he went to his room, wrote till 10 o’clock and then went to bed. Occasionally Beethoven played the pianoforte, which did not stand in his room but in the salon. Nobody was permitted to enter his rooms except Michael, who had to put them in order while Beethoven was out walking. In doing so he several times found money on the floor, and when he carried it to its owner, Beethoven made him show him where he had picked it up and then gave it to him. This happened three or four times, after which no more money was found. In the evening Michael had to sit with Beethoven and write down answers to questions which he asked. Generally Beethoven wanted to know what had been said about him at dinner and supper.

One day the wife of the landowner sent Michael to Stein with 5 florins to buy wine and a fish; but Michael was careless and lost the money. He came back to Gneixendorf in consternation. As soon as Madame van Beethoven saw him she asked for the fish, and when he told her of the loss she discharged him from her service. When Beethoven came into dinner he asked at once for his servant and the lady told him what had happened. Beethoven grew fearfully excited, gave her 5 florins, and angrily demanded that Michael be called back at once. After that he never went to table any more but had his dinner and supper brought to his rooms, where Michael had to prepare breakfast for him. Even before this occurrence Beethoven scarcely ever spoke to his sister-in-law and seldom to his brother. Beethoven wanted to take Michael with him to Vienna, but when a cook came to call for the composer the plan was abandoned.

Two old peasants told the owner of Wasserhof in 1862 stories which confirm Krenn’s account of Beethoven’s unusual behavior in the fields. Because of his unaccountable actions they at first took him for a madman and kept out of his way. When they had become accustomed to his singularities and learned that he was a brother of the landlord they used to greet him politely; but he, always lost in thought, seldom if ever returned their greetings. One of these peasants, a young man at the time, had an adventure with Beethoven of a most comical nature. He was driving a pair of young oxen, scarcely broken to the yoke, from the tile-kiln toward the manor-house when he met Beethoven shouting and waving his arms about in wild gesticulations. The peasant called to him: A bissel stada! (“A little quieter”) but he paid no attention to the request. The oxen took fright, ran down a steep hill and the peasant had great difficulty in bringing them to a stand, turning them and getting them back on the road. Again Beethoven came towards them, still shouting and gesticulating. The yokel called to him a second time, but in vain; and now the oxen rushed towards the house, where they were stopped by one of the men employed there. When the driver came up and asked who the fool was who had scared his oxen the man told him it was the proprietor’s brother. “A pretty brother, that he is!” was the answering comment.

On October 7 Beethoven answered the letter which he had received many months before from Wegeler. He wrote a long letter in the cordial and intimate tone which is to be found only in the correspondence with persons to whom he was bound by ties of affectionate friendship, but made no reference to Karl. On the subject of his paternity he wrote:

He tells with pride of the gift from the King of France, of other distinctions which he had received, and of King Frederick William’s desire to have the autograph of his new Symphony for the Royal Library, and adds: “Something has been said to me in this connection about the order of the Red Eagle, second class.[157] What the outcome will be I do not know; I have never sought for such marks of honor, but at my present age they would not be unwelcome, for several reasons.”

On October 13 he wrote a merry letter to Haslinger, whom he addresses in music as “First of all Tobiasses,” asking him to deliver a quartet (the one in F major published as Op. 135) to Schlesinger’s agent and collect and forward the money, of which he stands in need. On the same day he wrote to Schott and Sons enclosing the metronome marks for the Ninth Symphony which the Conversation Book shows had been dictated to Karl before the departure from Vienna. That he was not as grievously disappointed by his surroundings at Gneixendorf as might have been expected is evidenced by the remark: “The scenes among which I am sojourning remind me somewhat of the Rhine country which I so greatly long to see again, having left them in my youth.”

The Quartet in F was completed at Gneixendorf. Beethoven sent it to Schlesinger’s agent on October 30, and had probably put the finishing touches on it about the time when he wrote to Haslinger about its delivery a fortnight before. Schlesinger had agreed to pay 80 ducats for it. It had been in hand four months at least, for in July he told Holz that he intended to write another quartet and when Holz asked, “In what key?” and was told, he remarked, “But that will be the third in F. There is none in D minor. It is singular that there is none among Haydn’s in A minor.” If there were positive evidence in the “Muss es sein?” incident, a still earlier date would have to be set for its origin, but here we are left to conjecture. There was considerable merry-making over the Dembscher joke, and it is at least probable that the first sketches for the Quartet and the Canon were written about the same time. The point which cannot be definitely determined is whether or not the motif of the Canon was destined from the first for the finale of the Quartet. It may have been in Beethoven’s mind for that purpose and the sudden inspiration on hearing the story of Dembscher’s query “Muss es sein?” may have gone only to the words and the use of them with the music for the Canon. That the Quartet was to be shorter than the others was known before Beethoven left Vienna. Holz once says to Beethoven before the departure that Schlesinger had asked about it and that he had replied that Beethoven was at work upon it, and added: “You will not publish it if it is short. Even if it should have only three movements it would still be a quartet by Beethoven, and it would not cost so much to print it.”[158]

The new finale for the Quartet in B-flat was also completed in Gneixendorf, though it, too, had been worked out almost to a conclusion in Vienna. It was delivered on November 25 to Artaria, who gave him 15 ducats for it. Schuppanzigh gave it a private performance in December and told Beethoven that the company thought it kÖstlich and that Artaria was overjoyed when he heard it. There were other compositions on which Beethoven worked in Gneixendorf when he compelled laughter from the cook and frightened the peasant’s oxen. At Diabelli’s request he had said that he would write a quintet with flute. Sketches for a quintet have been found, showing that the work was in a considerable state of forwardness, but in them there are no signs of a flute. Holz told Jahn that the first movement of a quintet in C for strings which Diabelli had bought for 100 ducats was finished in the composer’s head and the first page written out. In the catalogue of Beethoven’s posthumous effects No. 173 was “Fragment of a new Violin Quintet, of November, 1826, last work of the composer,” which was officially valued at 10 florins. It was bought by Diabelli at the auction sale and published in pianoforte arrangements, two and four hands, with the title: “Ludwig van Beethoven’s last Musical Thought, after the original manuscript of November, 1826,” and the remark: “Sketch of the Quintet which the publishers, A. Diabelli and Co., commissioned Beethoven to write and purchased from his relics with proprietary rights.” The published work is a short movement in C in two divisions, having a broad theme of a festal character, Andante maestoso and Polonaise rhythm. The autograph having disappeared it can not now be said how much of the piece was actually written out by Beethoven. Nottebohm shows (“Zweit. Beeth.,” p. 79 et seq.) that the sketches for the quintet were written after Beethoven had begun to make a fair copy of the last movement of the B-flat Quartet. Lenz, in volume V of his work on Beethoven (p. 219), tells a story derived from Holz to the effect that when Beethoven sent him the last movement of the B-flat Quartet with injunctions to collect 12 ducats from Artaria, he accompanied it with a Canon on the words “Here is the work; get me the money” (Hier ist das Werk, schafft mir das Geld). According to a report circulated in Vienna in 1889, a copy of this Canon was purchased from Holz’s son for the Beethoven Collection in Heiligenstadt. The lines and notes were described as having been written by Beethoven, the words: Hier ist das Werk, sorgt fÜr das Geld—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Dukaten, by Holz to Beethoven’s dictation. The story is not altogether convincing. The movement was completed in Gneixendorf and Artaria received and paid for it in November. He paid 15, not 12, ducats; and it is not patent how Beethoven in Gneixendorf could dictate to Holz in Vienna. He did not return to Vienna till December 2. There are references to other works in the Conversation Books which are not clear. In January Mathias Artaria writes: “I hear of six fugues.—We will empty a bottle of champagne in their honor.” Holz asks: “Is it true that you sold a rondo to Dominik Artaria which he has not yet received? It is said that you took it back and have not returned it.”—It is possible that the Rondo Caprice which was published by Diabelli as Op. 129, the history of which is a blank, is the work alluded to; but there is no evidence on the subject.