[64] Or the beginning of 1794, since Haydn left Vienna on January 19, of that year.
[65] The excerpt from Schenk’s autobiography which follows was communicated to Thayer by Otto Jahn and included in the appendix to Vol. II of the original edition of this biography. The present editor has followed Dr. Deiters in his presentation of the case in Vol. I of the revised edition.
[66] Haydn, according to Wurzbach, returned to Vienna on July 24, 1792.
[67] Schenk is in error as to both dates. He means, of course, 1793 and 1794.
[68] The investigations of Nottebohm, in “Beethoven’s Studien” and “Beethoveniana,” have been relied on in the compilation of the story of the study under Albrechtsberger, which takes the place of the original narrative by Thayer.
[69] Once Beethoven writes an unprepared seventh-chord with a suspension on the margin of an exercise and adds the query: “Is it allowed?”
[70] Though Thayer fixed the date of this letter in May or June, 1794, Dr. Deiters believed that it was of a much earlier date; and may, indeed, have been written before Beethoven went to Vienna. For his theory Dr. Deiters found a plausible argument in the spelling of the name with a “w” instead of a “v,” and the reiterated references to a misunderstanding which had long been made right. The letter has no date or superscription and Wegeler assumed that it was the continuation of one whose first page had been lost. If the letter was written in Bonn it would prove that the Rondo (probably that in G for Pianoforte and Violin, B. and H. Series XII, No. 102) was composed before the beginning of the Viennese period; which might well be. The Sonata is probably the unfinished one in C, dedicated to Eleonore von Breuning.
[71] This was done by Wegeler’s grandson, Carl Wegeler, in an essay published in the “Coblenz Zeitung” on May 20, 1890.
[72] An early example of Beethoven’s fondness for punning. Stechen means many things in German—among them to sting, stab, tilt in a tournament, take a trick at cards—as well as to engrave, or cut in metal.
[73] The son of Artaria told Nohl that his father had told him that he got the money to pay Beethoven without the composer’s knowledge from Prince Lichnowsky.