The absence of Ries’s name in these negotiations is explained by the fact that he was no longer in London. He had purchased an estate in Godesberg, near Bonn, and removed thither in 1824. He had invited Beethoven to be his guest there and it would seem that he was advised about the English situation. At least in a letter, presumably written early in 1825, Beethoven deems it incumbent to inform Ries that the present efforts to dispose of the Ninth Symphony were tentative and that the period during which the Philharmonic Society was to hold the work would be scrupulously respected. It had never been sent to Bremen or to Paris as had been reported. The occasion for this letter was one from Ries requesting metronome marks for “Christus am Ölberg,” and for the score of the Ninth Symphony for the approaching Lower Rhenish Music Festival, which he had been engaged to conduct. These _Niederrheinische Musikfeste_ had come into existence in 1817. The seventh meeting was to be held at Aix-la-Chapelle. Reports of the Vienna performance had been spread and it was desired to make the Symphony a feature of the festival scheme. In January, Schott and Sons were asked if the score would be in print by May and replied in the negative. Thereupon Ries was asked to write to Beethoven for a manuscript copy. Ries did not favor the production of the Symphony[122] but wrote for the music nevertheless, and Beethoven sent him the score of the purely instrumental movements and the parts of the finale. This was about March 12; a week later, on March 19 (two days, by the way, before the first performance in London), he sent the chorusmaster’s score of the finale and suggested that the instrumental score might be written out and appended. In the earlier letter in which Beethoven had promised to send the Symphony and in which he enclosed the metronome marks for the “Christus am Ölberg,” Beethoven offered to send also the Mass in D, an overture which he had written “for the Philharmonic Society,” and some smaller things for orchestra and chorus, which would enable the festival managers to give two or three concerts instead of one. He suggested that 40 Carolines would, perhaps, not be too much as a fee. Beethoven explained to Ries that he had only one copy of the score of the Ninth Symphony, and as there was a concert in prospect he could not send it; so Ries had a score made of the finale for the festival performance. Beethoven had also sent the “Opferlied,” the Overture in C (Op. 115, of course), the _Kyrie_ and _Gloria_ of the Mass and an Italian duet. He was still to send a grand march and chorus (from “The Ruins of Athens”), and might add an overture which was as yet unknown outside of Vienna, but thought he had sent enough. The Symphony and “Christus am Ölberg” were performed on the second day of the festival. The time was too short for the difficult music thoroughly to be learned and at the performance portions of the slow movement and Scherzo of