Beethoven’s conversation books. Volume 1, nos. 1 to 8 (February 1818 to March 1820)

426 Pages·2018·53.65 MB·English

Beethoven’s Conversation Books
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Beethoven in 1818.
Engraving by C. Fischer (1843), after a portrait by August Kloeber (1818).
Courtesy Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San José State University.
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Beethoven’s Conversation Books
Volume 1: Nos. 1 to 8
(February 1818 to March 1820)
Edited and translated by
Theodore Albrecht
the boydell press
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Translation and editorial matter © Theodore Albrecht 2018
A licensed edition of Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, Bd. 1
edited by Karl-Heinz Köhler, Grita Herre and Dagmar Beck
© 1972 by Deutscher Verlag für Musik Leipzig
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,
transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2018
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge
ISBN 978 1 78327 150 4
The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA
website: www.boydellandbrewer.com
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
This publication is printed on acid-free paper
Typeset by BBR, Sheffield
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This volume is dedicated to
Anton Felix Schindler (1795–1864),
who saved the conversation books from dispersal and destruction,
and served as their first “editor.”
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Contents
General Introduction to the English Edition ix
Acknowledgements xxiii
Reader’s Guide xxvi
Directionality in Vienna (True and Perceived) xxxviii
Heft 1. (ca. February 26, 1818 – after March 2, 1818) 1
Heft 2. (March 17, 1819 – after May 15/16, 1819) 11
Heft 3. (November 20, 1819 – ca. December 6, 1819) 67
Heft 4. (December 7, 1819 – December 12, 1819) 107
Heft 5. (December 13, 1819 – December 30, 1819) 129
Heft 6. (ca. January 7, 1820 – January 26, 1820) 175
Heft 7. (ca. January 27, 1820 – February 22, 1820) 225
Heft 8. (ca. February 22, 1820 – ca. March 11, 1820) 277

Appendix: Descriptions of the Conversation Books in Volume 1 329

Bibliography 331
Index of Writers of Conversational Entries 347
Index of Beethoven’s Compositions 349
General Index 352
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General Introduction to
the English Edition
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) is recognized the world over as one of the
greatest composers of all time and is especially known for his musical triumphs in
the face of increasing deafness, beginning around 1798.1
In 1801 he confided his early hearing loss to Dr. Franz Wegeler in Bonn and
schoolmaster/violinist Carl Amenda in Latvia, friends who had lived in Vienna but
were now safely far away.2 By the summer of 1802 others were starting to perceive
lapses in his hearing, and his fear and confusion are reflected in the Heiligenstadt
Testament in October of that year.3 With more good days than bad, Beethoven’s
hearing slowly became weaker, although it had not yet interfered with his performing
in public, even with orchestra on the marathon concert of December 22, 1808.4
Between 1812 and 1816 he tried using ear trumpets (made for him by Johann
1 There are many medical accounts of Beethoven’s deafness. Possibly the most complete and
objective in English is by the Australian physician Peter J. Davies, Beethoven in Person: His Deafness,
Illnesses, and Death (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001), pp. 42–65 and 217–218.
2 On June 29, 1801, Beethoven wrote to Franz Gerhard Wegeler: “For the last three years my
hearing has become weaker and weaker.” Two days later, on July 1, he wrote to Amenda: “My most
prized possession, my hearing, has greatly deteriorated. While you were still with me, I already felt the
symptoms, but I said nothing about them.” Amenda had left Vienna shortly after June 25, 1799. See
Emily Anderson, transl. and ed., The Letters of Beethoven, 3 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1961), Nos. 51
and 53; and (for Amenda’s reply) Theodore Albrecht, transl. and ed., Letters to Beethoven and Other
Correspondence, 3 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), No. 31.
3 Ferdinand Ries noted brief lapses while walking with Beethoven in the rural paths around
Heiligenstadt, confirmed in the composer’s so-called “Heiligenstadt Testament.” See Franz Gerhard
Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven Remembered, transl. Frederick Noonan (Arlington, Va.:
Great Ocean Publishers, 1987), pp. 86–87; and Anderson, Vol. 3, Appendix A, pp. 1351–1354 (the
Heiligenstadt Testament, actually close to a fair copy, dated October 6 and 10, 1802).
4 Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1964/67), pp. 446–449. The breakdown in the performance of the Choral Fantasy,
Op. 80, the last item on the program, was probably caused by orchestral fatigue at the tricky
transition between the nocturnal Adagio, ma non troppo in 6/8 and the ensuing Marcia, assai vivace in
2/4 (Gesamtausgabe, p. 22).
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