The Solemn Mass in D--A Royal Subscription--More Negotiations with England--Opera Projects--Grillparzer’s “Melusine”--The Diabelli Variations--Summer Visitors--An Englishman’s Account--Weber and Julius Benedict--Ries and the Ninth Symphony--Franz Liszt and Beethoven’s Kiss--The Year 1823. When the year 1823 opens, the Mass in D is supposedly finished and negotiations for its publication have been carried on in a manner the contemplation of which must affect even the casual reader grievously. The work had been originally intended for the functions attending the installation of Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz--not merely as a personal tribute to the imperial, archepiscopal pupil, but for actual performance at the ceremony of inthronization--a fact which ought to be borne in mind during its study, for it throws light upon Beethoven’s attitude towards the Catholic Church (at least so far as that church’s rubrics are concerned) as well as towards religion in general and art as its handmaiden and mistress. Archduke Rudolph had been chosen Cardinal on April 24, 1819, and Archbishop on June 4 of the same year; he was installed as head of the see of Olmütz on March 20, 1820; but the fact of his selection for the dignities was known in Vienna amongst his friends as early as the middle of 1818. When the story of the year 1823 opens, therefore, Beethoven’s plan is nearly five years old and Archduke Rudolph has been archbishop nearly a year. We first hear of the Mass this year in a letter dated February 27, when Beethoven apologizes to his august pupil for not having waited upon him. He had delayed his visit, he said, because he wanted to send him a copy of the Mass; but this had been held back by corrections and other circumstances. Accompanying the letter were the copies of the overture to “The Consecration of the House” and the “Gratulatory Minuet.” Finally, on March 19, 1823, on the very eve of the first anniversary of the installation, Beethoven placed a manuscript copy of the Mass in the Archduke’s hands. In the catalogue of the Rudolphinian Collection, now preserved by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, it is entered thus: “_Missa Solemnis_. Partitur. MS. This beautifully written MS. was delivered by the composer himself on March 19, 1823.”