Beethoven’s Inaccurate Datings

In the effort to determine when Beethoven wrote in this strain his own inaccurate dates cannot be overlooked, but must be discussed at the outset of the inquiry. If the words “Evening, Monday, July 6,” are to be considered conclusive, the investigation will have to be confined to the years 1807 and 1812, both 1801 and 1818 being out of the question. But if an error of a day be assumed, inquiry may be extended to the following years. In the first three years

180518071808
the 5th of July fell on aSaturdaySundayTuesday
the 6th of July on aSundayMondayWednesday
the 7th of July on aMondayTuesdayThursday

In the three later years

181118121813
July 5th fell on aFridaySaturdayMonday
July 6th on aSaturdayMondayTuesday
July 7th on aSundayTuesdayWednesday

To pass by other reasons, the years 1808 and 1811 are to be excluded because they presuppose an error of two days. There remain, then, the years 1806, 1807, 1812 and 1813, which can be best studied in their reverse order. The year 1813 shows itself at once impossible because of the date of a letter to Varena: “Baden, July 4, 1813,” besides other circumstances which prove that Beethoven spent the months of June and July of this year in Vienna and Baden. In a similar manner 1812 must be rejected because he wrote a letter to Baumeister on June 28 from Vienna and arrived in Teplitz on July 7.

There remain, then, only the years 1806 and 1807. If we are willing to attach too great weight to the improbability of an error in Beethoven’s dates (July 6 and 7) it would certainly be impossible to decide in favor of the year for which other considerations plead with almost convincing force—viz., 1806. There is a letter from Beethoven to Brunswick proposing to visit him in Pesth printed with the date “May 14, 1806” which might be strong evidence in favor of that year; but, unfortunately, the true date is 1807, and so adds to our difficulty. For it is known that on July 22nd, 1807 (and for several days at least before), he was in Baden, and there is nothing thus far to prove that he did not make the proposed visit and return from Hungary in season to have written the love-letter on the 6th and 7th of that month; this is, it is true, a very unsatisfactory assumption. There is a date in a correspondence with Simrock touching the purchase of certain works, which, if it could be established with certainty, would remove all doubt and provide a satisfactory conclusion. If the correspondence took place in 1806 it would be impossible to avoid the unsatisfactory assumption.

The head of the famous house of Simrock once told the author that the letters written to his father by Beethoven had been stolen (they have since been recovered), and that the only possible information on the point might be obtained from the old business books of the house. The author asked that they be examined for him and his request was most courteously complied with, with the result that he was provided with the excerpts from the letters of which he has made use in a later chapter. To his great satisfaction the most important of the letters bears date May 31, 1807. This and the letter following show that Beethoven spent the months of June and July 1807 in Baden.

The result would, then, seem to be irrefutable:—there is an error of one day in Beethoven’s date. The letter was written in the summer which he spent partly in Hungary, partly in Silesia—the summer of 1806. In all the years from 1800 to 1815 there is no other summer in which he might have written the letter within the first ten days of July unless we choose to assume a state of facts which would do violence to probability.