My dear Neate!
Since the 15th of October I have been seemingly ill and I am still suffering from the consequences and not quite healed. You know that I must live from my compositions alone, I have been able to compose very little, and therefore to earn almost nothing, all the more welcome would it have been if you had done something for me—meanwhile I suspect that the result of everything has been—nothing.
You have even written complainingly of me to Hering, which was not deserved by my fair dealing with you—meanwhile I must justify in the premises, namely: the opera Fidelio had been written for several years, but the book and text were very faulty; the book had to be thoroughly remodeled, wherefore several pieces of the music had to be extended, others shortened, others newly composed. Thus, for instance, the overture is entirely new, as well as various other numbers, but it is possible that the opera may be found in London, as it was at first, in which case it must have been stolen as is scarcely to be avoided at the theatre. As regards the Symphony in A, as you did not write me a satisfactory reply, I was obliged to publish it, I should as willingly have waited 3 years if you had written me that the Philharmonic Society had accepted it—but on all hands nothing—nothing. Now regarding the Pianoforte Sonatas with Violoncello, for them I give you a month’s time, if after that I have no answer from you I shall publish them in Germany, but having heard as little from you about them as about the other works, I have given them to a German publisher who importuned me for them, but I have bound him in writing (Hering has read the document) not to publish the Sonatas until you have sold them in London, it seems to me that you ought to be able to dispose of these 2 sonatas for 70 or 80 ducats in gold at least, the English publisher may fix the day of publication in London and they will appear on the same day in Germany, it was in this manner Birchall bought and got the Grand Trio and the Violin Sonata from me. I also beg you as a last favor to give me an answer touching the sonatas as soon as possible. Frau v. Jenny swears that you have done everything for me, I too, that is to say I swear that you have done nothing for me, are doing nothing and will do nothing—summa summarum, nothing! nothing! nothing!!!
I assure you of my most perfect respect and hope as a last favor a speedy reply.
The Sonatas had been published three months before this letter was written, by Simrock in Bonn; a fact which Beethoven seems to have assumed was not known in London. The Frau v. Jenny mentioned was the Countess von Genney, through whose aid Beethoven hired a villa in Hetzendorf, from Baron von Pronay in 1823. Beethoven’s irascible outbreak against Neate must be read in the light of the latter’s letter of explanation and apology dated October 29, 1816, and printed in the preceding chapter.
The new lodgings in Georgi were occupied by Beethoven on April 24, 1817, but the contract of rent may have been temporary and conditional, for in July and again in September he wrote to Frau Streicher about lodgings in the Gärtnergasse, and later in the year he changed his lodgings, for which he had little use during the summer because of his sojourn in the country.
Alois Fuchs, now a youth of nearly 18 years, had come to Vienna some months earlier to enter the university, dependent largely upon his musical talents and knowledge for his support. Here he appears to have studied the violin under Beethoven’s old friend, Krumpholz. Whether because the composer remembered him as the solo singer in his mass at Troppau, or through the intervention of Krumpholz, Fuchs has not informed us; but at any rate he had promised a contribution to the youngster’s album. On May 2nd Krumpholz died very suddenly of apoplexy while walking on the Glacis, and Beethoven commemorated the event by writing his “Gesang der Mönche” (from Schiller’s “Tell”) for three male voices in Fuchs’s album with the superscription: “In memory of the sudden and unexpected death of our Krumpholz on May 3rd, 1817.” The date was not intended to record the time of composition, but of the death of the violinist; as such a record it was an error.
Karl’s Mother Made to Share Her Pension
After the composer’s removal to the suburb Landstrasse, his mind was much occupied with a new matter between himself and the widow van Beethoven, namely, her bearing a share of the expenses of her son’s education. This was concluded by a contract signed by both parties on May 10, 1817, binding her to pay at once into court 2,000 florins for the lad’s education and support, and in the future to pay to the same tribunal every quarter at least one-half of the pension which the widow was to receive, as well as other contributions. Reference is had to this agreement in the following entries in the Fischoff “Tagebuch” in January or February of the next year: