Having been told that you, my Prince, have asked concerning the mass which you commissioned me to write for you, I take the liberty, my Serene Prince, to inform you that you shall receive the same at the latest by the 20th of the month of August--which will leave plenty of time to have it performed on the name-day of her Serene Highness, the Princess--an extraordinarily favorable offer which I received from London when I had the misfortune to make a failure of my benefit at the theatre, which made me grasp the need with joy, retarded the completion of the mass, much as I wished, Serene Prince, to appear with it before you, and to this was added an illness of the head, which at first permitted me to work not at all and now but little; since everything is so eagerly interpreted against me, I inclose a letter from my physician--may I add that I shall give the mass into your hands with great fear since you, Serene Highness, are accustomed to have the inimitable masterpieces of the great Haydn performed for you. [Sidenote: COMPOSITION OF THE MASS IN C] At the end of July, Beethoven removed from Baden to Heiligenstadt, devoting his time there to the C minor Symphony and the Mass in C. One of Czerny’s notes relates to the mass: Once when he (Beethoven) was walking in the country with the Countess Erdödy and other ladies, they heard some village musicians and laughed at some false notes which they played, especially the violoncellist, who, fumbling for the C major chord, produced something like the following: [Illustration] Beethoven used this figure for the “Credo” of his first mass, which he chanced to be composing at the time. The name-day of Princess Esterhazy, ~née~ Princess Marie von Liechtenstein, for which Beethoven promises in the letter above given to have the Mass ready, was the 8th of September. In the years when this date did not fall upon a Sunday it was the custom at Eisenstadt to celebrate it on the first Sunday following. In 1807 the 8th fell on a Tuesday and the first performance of Beethoven’s Mass, therefore, took place on the 13th. Haydn, as Pohl informs us, had written his masses for this day and had gone to Eisenstadt from Vienna to conduct their performance. So Beethoven now; who seems to have had his troubles with the singers here as in Vienna, if one may found such an opinion upon an energetic note of Prince Esterhazy copied and printed by Pohl. In this note, which is dated September 12, 1807, the Prince calls upon his vice-chapelmaster, Johann Fuchs, to explain why the singers in his employ were not always on hand at his musical affairs. He had heard on that day with displeasure that at the rehearsal of Beethoven’s Mass only one of the five contraltos was present, and he stringently commanded all the singers and instrumentalists in his service to be on hand at the performance of the mass on the following day.