[79] In Hetzendorf, while the negotiations with the courts are pending, Count Moritz Lichnowsky writes in a Conversation Book: “Can you not sell the Mass to publishers next year, so that it may become publicly useful?”
[80] “The Philharmonic Society of London,” by George Hogarth, London, 1862, page 31.
[81] Sic. Beethoven of course means the Embassy. The Overture was no doubt that to “The Consecration of the House,” Op. 124.
[82] Bauer was in Beethoven’s company a short time before he went to England, and the incident of the sending of the score of “Wellington’s Victory, or the Battle of Vittoria” came up for conversation between them. We read in a Conversation Book, in Bauer’s hand: “I am of the opinion that the King had it performed, but perhaps nobody reminded him that on that account he ought to answer. I will carry a letter to the King and direct it in a channel which will insure its delivery, since I cannot hand it over in person.” The story of King George’s action, or want of action, has been told in earlier pages of this work. From the opening phrase of the address to the King it is fair to surmise that it was to follow an invitation to subscribe for the Mass in D, and from the letter to Ries that Beethoven subsequently decided to strike the King of England from his list.
[83] In his letter to Zelter, Beethoven says that one of the numbers of the Mass was without accompaniment. There being no a cappella setting of any section of the missal text in the Mass in D, it is likely that Beethoven here, too, had the three additional pieces in mind. For this speculation, however, as well as the hypothesis that the settings originally contemplated for the “second” mass in C-sharp minor were transferred to the scheme of the Missa Solemnis, the present editor is alone responsible. In a Conversation Book of 1823 an unidentified friend answers several questions about the hymn “Tantum ergo” and its introduction in the service.
[84] Schindler bases his statements on alleged testimony of the Archduke’s secretary Baumeister, but there is no word of reproval in any of the letters of the two men which have been found.
[85] Sporchil’s drama bore the title “The Apotheosis in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon.” What it had to do with the new operatic project is not plain to this editor, for it was but a new text to be used to the music of “The Ruins of Athens.” Beethoven once described “The Ruins” as “a little opera” and his abiding and continued interest in it is disclosed by the fact that after he got into touch with Grillparzer he discussed the possibility of its revival with that poet.
[86] Grillparzer’s “Werke,” Vol. XVI, p. 228 et seq.
[87] Thayer saw Grillparzer on July 4, 1860, and got from him a confirmation of both incidents here narrated.
[88] The concluding paragraph of the letter betrays his growing antipathy towards Schindler: “Afternoons you will find me in the coffee-house opposite the ‘Goldene Birne.’ If you want to come, please come alone. This importunate appendix of a Schindler, as you must have noticed in Hetzendorf, has long been extremely objectionable to me—otium est citium.”