The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
Kiss your sister Therese, tell her I fear I shall become great
without the help of a monument reared by her. Send me to-morrow the
quartets--quar-tets--t-e-t-s.
Your friend Beethoven.[50]
If an English publisher could afford to pay so high a price for the
manuscripts of a German composer, why not a French one? So Beethoven
reasoned, and, Bonn being then French, he wrote to Simrock proposing a
contract like that made with Clementi. The letter, which was dictated
and signed by Beethoven but written by another, expresses a desire to
sell six new works to a publishing house in France, one in England and
one in Vienna simultaneously, with the understanding that they are to
appear only after a certain date. They are a symphony, an overture for
Collin’s “Coriolan,” a violin concerto, 3 quartets, 1 concerto for
the pianoforte, the violin concerto arranged for pianoforte “avec des
notes additionelles.” The price, “very cheap,” is to be 1200 florins,
Augsburg current. As regards the day of publication, he thinks he can
fix the first of September of that year for the first three, and the
first of October for the second three.
Simrock answered that owing to unfavorable circumstances due to the
war, all he could offer, in his “lean condition,” was 1600 livres. He
also proposed that in case Beethoven found his offer fair, he should
send the works without delay to Breuning. Simrock would at once pay
Breuning 300 livres in cash and give him a bill of exchange for 1300
livres, payable in two years, provided nobody reprinted any of his
works in France, he taking all measures to protect his property under
the laws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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