The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
During the preparations for the concerts, thought was also given to
the usual summer sojourn, and various places--Grinzing, Heiligenstadt,
Penzing, Breitensee, Hietzing, Hetzendorf--were canvassed in
consultation with Beethoven by his friends. His brother had again
offered him a home on his estate and it was expected that Count
Brunswick would come for the concert and take Beethoven back with him
to Hungary. In all of the excursions which were made in the vicinity
of Schönbrunn in search of a summer home, Schindler accompanied the
composer to see, to advise, to negotiate. The choice fell upon Penzing,
where an apartment was found in the first storey of the house numbered
43 belonging to a tailor in Vienna named Johann Hörr, who was rejoiced
to have so distinguished a tenant. Beethoven took it for the summer
beginning on May 1, for a rental of 180 florins, C. M. The receipt is
in existence, with a characteristic memorial of Beethoven’s violent
and abrupt change of mind concerning men and things. The lodgings were
in all things adapted to his needs and Beethoven, entirely satisfied,
moved into them soon after the second concert. An old couple lived in
the parterre, but otherwise he was the only tenant of the house. But
the house lay close to a foot-bridge over the little stream called
the Wien Fluss and people crossing it frequently stopped to gaze
into his rooms. He could have saved himself the annoyance by drawing
the curtains, but instead he flew into a rage, quarrelled with his
landlord, against whom he recorded his anger by scrawling the epithet
“Schurke” (rogue, wretch, scoundrel, etc.) under his name on the
receipt, and removing to Baden (Gutenbrunn). He had been in the house
six weeks; in Baden he staid from about the 1st of August till some
time in November; and thus was again paying rent for three lodgings at
the same time.
[Sidenote: TWO NEW OFFERS OF THE MASS IN D]
[Sidenote: Schott and Sons Buy the Mass]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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