LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1756
December 8, Wednesday: The Emperor’s son Maximilian Franz, the Archduke who in 1784 would become the patron of the young Ludwig van Beethoven, was born on the Emperor’s own birthday. Christoph Willibald Gluck’s dramma per musica Il rè pastore to words of Metastasio was being performed for the initial time, in the Burgtheater, Vienna, in celebration of the Emperor’s birthday.
ONE COULD BE ELSEWHERE, AS ELSEWHERE DOES EXIST. ONE CANNOT BE ELSEWHEN SINCE ELSEWHEN DOES NOT.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1770
December 16, Sunday: This is the day on which we presume that Ludwig van Beethoven was born.1
December 17, Monday: Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized at the Parish of St. Remigius in Bonn, Germany, the 2d and eldest surviving of 7 children born to Johann van Beethoven, tenor and music teacher, and Maria Magdalena Keverich (widow of M. Leym), daughter of the chief kitchen overseer for the Elector of Trier. Given the practices of the day, it is presumed that the infant had been born on the previous day.
NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE DECEMBER 17TH, 1770 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST).
1. Q: How come Austrians have the rep of being so smart? A: They’ve managed somehow to create the impression that Beethoven, born in Germany, was Austrian, while Hitler, born in Austria, was German! HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1778
March 26, Thursday: In the Academy Room on the Sternengasse of Cologne, Ludwig van Beethoven appeared in concert for the initial time, with his father and another child-student of his father.
THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1781
February 15, Thursday: Christian Gottlob Neefe was appointed court organist in Bonn, Germany. While there he will be composition instructor to an aspiring young musician, Ludwig van Beethoven.
“HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1783
March 2, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven received his initial public notice in a letter from his teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, to Cramer’s Magazin der Musik.
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
October 14, Tuesday: The three piano sonatas of the “Kurfürstensonaten” by Ludwig van Beethoven were published in Speyer.
Governor George Clinton expressed impatience with delays in the final treaty.
November 23, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven appeared in performance at the court of Prince Willem V of Orange- Nassau at The Hague, probably playing his Piano Concerto in E-Flat.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1784
April 15, Thursday: Maximilian Friedrich, Elector-Archbishop of Cologne, and employer of Ludwig van Beethoven, died and was succeeded by Maximilian Franz, Archduke of Austria.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
June 27, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven was hired as 2d organist by the new Elector of Cologne (he would be under the direction of 1st organist Christian Gottlob Neefe).
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1787
March 20, Tuesday: On approximately this day Ludwig van Beethoven left Bonn to study with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Vienna.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
April 1, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven reached München on his way from Bonn to Vienna.
April 7, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna from Bonn. He would be in the city for a couple of weeks, receiving instruction from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Publication of Three String Quintets B.274-276 by Ignaz Pleyel was announced in the Frankfurter Ristretto.
April 20, Friday: On approximately this day Ludwig van Beethoven left Vienna to return to Bonn.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1789
May 14, Thursday: Ludwig van Beethoven matriculated at the University of Bonn, to study philosophy.
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
November 20, Friday: In response to a petition from Ludwig van Beethoven, motivated apparently by his father’s increasing alcoholism and inability to perform his duties, the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne banished the father to a country village and specified that half his salary was to be disbursed to his son.
New Jersey became the 1st state to ratify the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution, even before North Carolina had signed the Constitution itself.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1790
December 25, Saturday: With the death of Maria-Theresa, Duchess of Massa and Princess of Carrara, the throne was taken jointly by Maria Beatrice Ricciarda III and Ercole III.
On his way to London, Franz Joseph Haydn spent Christmas in Bonn, where one of his masses was performed. He invited several musicians to dinner, including a quite young one named Ludwig van Beethoven.
NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1791
March 6, Sunday: The Ritterballet by Ludwig van Beethoven to a scenario by Count Waldstein was performed for the initial time, in Bonn. This was a ballet produced by Beethoven’s aristocratic friend Count Ferdinand Waldstein. The name of this composer was not revealed.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1792
July 24, Tuesday: Franz Joseph Haydn arrived back in Vienna from England. Along the way he had stopped in Bonn where for the first time he had encountered Ludwig van Beethoven (it had been agreed that this Bonn musician would study with him in Vienna, and accompany him to England in 1793).
Prussia declared war on France.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
October 22, Monday: In the face of the French invasion of the Rhineland the electoral court departed from Bonn. This left Ludwig van Beethoven with nothing to do.
October 29, Monday: In Bonn, Count Ferdinand Waldstein scribbled fatuously in Ludwig van Beethoven’s farewell book: You were now going to Vienna in fulfilment of your long frustrated wishes. Mozart’s Genius was still mourning and lamenting the death of its pupil. She found a refuge in the inexhaustible Haydn, but no occupation; through him she still wishes to be united with someone else. Through uninterrupted diligence you will receive: Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.
November 2, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven departed for Vienna, to study with Franz Joseph Haydn. He would never return to Bonn.
November 10, Saturday: It seems likely that on about this date, the stagecoach conveying Ludwig van Beethoven from Bonn arrived in Vienna.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 18, Tuesday: When, a month after Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Vienna, he learned that his father had died in Bonn, he made no attempt to return home.
William Howitt was born in Nottingham, England in a Quaker family.
In London, Thomas Paine was convicted in absentia of violating the June proclamation against seditious writings. Associated with this trial were hangings and burnings of effigies of this author in the streets, and prosecutions by the English government of both printers and sellers of RIGHTS OF MAN. READ THE FULL TEXT
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1793
May 3, Friday: The Cologne Privy Council agreed to continue to subsidize Ludwig van Beethoven, as they had during the lifetime of his father.
YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS, LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION.
November 23, Saturday: West Bridge, in London, was opened for traffic.
Franz Joseph Haydn wrote to Maximilian Franz, Elector-Archbishop of Cologne, sending along some of Ludwig van Beethoven’s compositions and averring that “Beethoven will in time become one of the great musical artists of Europe, and I shall be proud to call myself his teacher.” He requested that the Elector increase Beethoven’s stipend.
December 23, Monday: Maximilian Franz, Elector-Archbishop of Cologne, wrote to Joseph Haydn that all the pieces of music by Ludwig van Beethoven that he had submitted on November 23d, save one, had been written before the young man had left Bonn and could not therefore count as progress. His Eminence strongly suggested that Beethoven has had been wasting his time and His Eminence’s money, and should return to Bonn. He refused to increase Beethoven’s allowance — which it seems likely is one good reason why Beethoven would decide that his future lay in Vienna.
At Savenay, the counter-revolutionary army of the Vendee was defeated by republican troops.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1794
January 19, Sunday: In a travelling coach loaned by Baron van Swieten, Franz Joseph Haydn left Vienna for his 2d journey to London. In Haydn’s absence, Ludwig van Beethoven would seek instruction from Johann Georg Albrechtsberger.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
October 3, Friday: Elector Maximilian Franz fled from Cologne as the French advanced. Ludwig van Beethoven would infer from this that it would be better for him remain in Vienna.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1795
March 2, Monday: In London, Symphony no.103 “Drumroll” by Franz Joseph Haydn was performed for the initial time.
Ludwig van Beethoven made his Vienna debut, at the palace of Prince Lobkowitz.
FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.
March 29, Sunday: In Ludwig van Beethoven’s public debut in Vienna, he performed his Piano Concerto no.2 op.19 in the Burgtheater of Vienna. This was the initial performance of the music, finished only a couple of days earlier.
March 31, Tuesday: Ludwig van Beethoven performed a Mozart piano concerto at a production of La Clemenza di Tito, to benefit Mozart’s widow Constanze.
Étienne Lasne was posted as the guard over little Louis-Charles in his prison cell. (There are all sorts of stories about the treatment of the former Dauphin in prison –most of them presumably invented– but it is abundantly clear that no-one was striving officiously to keep this unpleasant and inconvenient child alive.)
May 9, Saturday: Publication of three Piano Trios op.1 by Ludwig van Beethoven was advertised in the Wiener Zeitung.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
November 22, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven's Twelve Minuets and Twelve German Dances were performed for the initial time, at a masked ball in the Vienna Redoutensaal attended by Joseph Haydn.
Captain William Henry Harrison, future president, married Anna Symmes, daughter of Judge John Cleves Symmes, a speculator with a patent for a vast acreage of Ohio land.2 The judge apparently withheld his blessing, claiming later that his daughter had “made rather a run away match of it.” The young captain, the judge complained, “can neither bleed, plead, nor preach, and if he could plow I should be satisfied.” Over the next 19 years the couple would have ten children, one of whom, John Scott Harrison, would be the father of Benjamin Harrison, our 23d president.
2. With the assistance and “inside work” of Congressman John Dayton, Judge John Cleves Symmes had persuaded the Continental Congress to sell him 1,000,000 acres of this land for $82,000, and to accept, as part of the payment, at full face value a bunch of Continental Army warrants that actually were being traded, on the open market for such “promissory” pieces of paper, for only about 10% of their ostensive value. As his share of the operation, Congressman Dayton received four townships of land, one of which is now Dayton, Ohio. Andro Linklater, in Measuring America (Walker & Company, 2002), asserts that in economic terms, the federal government’s passing along of 1,000,000,000 acres from national to individual ownership during this period “represented the greatest orderly transfer of public resources to the private sector in history.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 18, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven performed his Piano Concerto no.1 op.15 for the initial time before an audience, at a concert arranged by Franz Joseph Haydn in the Redoutensaal of Vienna. Haydn also introduced three of his London symphonies to the Viennese public.
THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, A PRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO INSTANT HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1796
March 9, Wednesday: Publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three piano sonatas op.2 was advertised in the Wiener Zeitung.
General Napoléon Bonaparte got married with Josephine Tascher de Beauharnais, widow of a general, before leaving Paris to take up his command in Italy.
BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.
March 11, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven gave a performance in Prague.
April 29, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven played before Elector Friedrich August III of Saxony at Dresden.
November 21, Monday: Ah! Perfido for soprano and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven to words of Metastasio was performed for the initial time, in Leipzig.
November 23, Wednesday: Ludwig van Beethoven performed in Pressburg (Bratislava).
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 15, Thursday: 43 French ships carrying 15,000 fighting men departed from Brest for an invasion of Ireland. To avoid the British blockade, they would sail south that night. At the Pointe du Raz one of the ships of the line would founder on rocks, with the loss of almost all aboard. The ships would become scattered and by the morning light, only 17 of the 43 would remain together.
In a letter to Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger mentioned a conversation on the previous day with Franz Joseph Haydn, about a big oratorio that the composer was going to call “The Creation” — Hayden had even played a little of it for him.
ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE, IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1797
April 6, Thursday: John Stewart, who had robbed the home of Captain Rust on Prince Street in Boston and hidden the loot in a tomb on Copp’s Hill, was hanged on Boston Common.
The Quintet for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn op.16 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.
Birth of Harriet Webster, 3d child of Rebecca Greenleaf Webster with Noah Webster, Jr. (she would marry William Chauncey Fowler).
ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL; ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT: ALL TRUTH IS SPECIFIC, PARTICULAR.
October 7, Saturday: Publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op.7 and Serenade for string trio op.8 was announced in the Wiener Zeitung, along with Three Grandes Sonates for piano with violin and cello accompaniment by Ignaz Pleyel.
December 23, Saturday: Duke Friedrich Eugen of Wurttemberg died and was succeeded by his son Friedrich II.
The Variations on La ci darem la mano for two oboes and english horn by Ludwig van Beethoven were performed for the initial time, in Vienna.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1798
July 21, Saturday: Publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 3 string trios op.9 was announced in the Wiener Zeitung.
Across the Nile River from Cairo, within sight of the Pyramids, the forces of Napoléon Bonaparte attacked and scattered the Mamelukes.
NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE JULY 21ST, 1798 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST).
September 22, Saturday: Publication of the Variations on Ein Madchen oder Weibchen for cello and piano op.66 by Ludwig van Beethoven appeared in the Wiener Zeitung.
September 26, Wednesday: Publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three piano sonatas op.10 was announced in the Wiener Zeitung.
October 3, Wednesday: Publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Trio for clarinet, cello and piano op.11 was announced in the Wiener Zeitung.
The 1st issue of the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung appeared.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
November 3, Saturday: In the year of the XYZ Affair, so named after three anonymous French troublemakers, and of the consequent Alien and Sedition Acts, James Mason was born.
During this year, also, the U.S. Marine Corps was beginning its policy of denying enlistment to non-whites, and Ludwig van Beethoven was beginning to be troubled by a ringing in his ears.
YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT EITHER THE REALITY OF TIME OVER THAT OF CHANGE, OR CHANGE OVER TIME — IT’S PARMENIDES, OR HERACLITUS. I HAVE GONE WITH HERACLITUS.
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1799
January 3, Thursday: Falstaff, ossia Le tre burle, a dramma giocoso by Antonio Salieri to words of Defranceschi after Shakespeare, was performed for the initial time, in the Karntnertortheater, Vienna. Almost immediately Ludwig van Beethoven would begin writing a set of variations on the duet “La stessa, la stessissima.”
HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN A HISTORIAN WRITES THAT ALMOST IMMEDIATELY LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN “WOULD” BEGIN WRITING A SET OF VARIATIONS ON A DUET, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT THERE IS AN ABSENCE OF SOME ESSENTIAL CHRONOLOGY HERE, AND WHAT IS BEING RESORTED TO IN THE ABSENCE OF INFORMATION IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM. THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT THE FUTURE HASN’T EVER HAPPENED, YET.
January 12, Saturday: The Wiener Zeitung announced publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s three violin sonatas op.12.
Hugh Cargill, an Irishman who had come to the Bay Colony in connection with the British army and made his stake trading in Boston, died in Concord at the age of 60 and left a goodly property to the town for use as an Alms House and Poor Farm. Here is his grave marker:
HERE LYES INTERRED THE REMAINS OF MR. HUGH CARGILL, LATE OF BOSTON, WHO DIED IN CONCORD JANUARY 12, 1799, IN THE 60TH YEAR OF HIS AGE. MR. CARGILL WAS BORN IN BELLYSHANNON IN IRELAND, CAME TO THIS COUNTRY IN THE YEAR 1774, DESTITUTE OF THE COMFORTS OF LIFE; BUT BY HIS INDUSTRY AND GOOD ECONOMY HE ACQUIRED A GOOD ESTATE; AND, HAVING NO CHILDREN, HE AT HIS DEATH DEVISED HIS ESTATE TO HIS WIFE, MRS. REBECCA CARGILL, AND TO A NUMBER OF HIS FRIENDS AND RELATIONS BY MARRIAGE, AND ESPECIALLY A LARGE AND GENEROUS DONATION TO THE TOWN OF CONCORD FOR BENEVOLENT AND CHARITABLE PURPOSES. HOW STRANGE, O GOD, WHO REIGNS ON HIGH, THAT I SHOULD COME SO FAR TO DIE; AND LEAVE MY FRIENDS, WHERE I WAS BRED, TO LAY MY BONES WITH STRANGERS DEAD. BUT I HAVE HOPES WHEN I ARISE TO DWELL WITH THEE IN YONDER SKIES. Mr. Hugh Cargill bequeathed to the town the “Stratton Farm,” so called, which was valued, in 1800, at $1,360, “to be improved Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
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as a poor-house, and the land to be improved by, and for the benefit of the poor, and to be under the special direction of the town of Concord, for the time being, for the purpose aforesaid for ever.” This is now [1835] used for the pauper establishment. He also gave several other parcels of real estate, valued at $372, the income of which, “to be solely applied for the support of the poor.”3
June 25, Tuesday: As Ludwig van Beethoven’s buddy Karl Amenda was leaving Vienna to return to his native Courland (Latvia), the composer gave him a copy of a string quartet “as a small memorial of our friendship” (this would be published as the first of the op.18).
December 21, Saturday: The Wiener Zeitung announces publication of Ludwig van Beethoven’s two piano sonatas op.14.
The Charleston Water Works, the city’s 1st public utility, began to supply the water of Goose Creek.
3. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1800
By this point the typical flute found in an orchestra had not only keys but also a lengthened foot joint to C, all together amounting to 6 keys. Some transverse flutes had 8 keys (B-flat lever for the 1st finger of the right hand, and left-hand lever added). Ludwig van Beethoven began to add this instrument to his symphonic compositions.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
April 2, Wednesday: In Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven’s 1st Piano Concerto and Symphony No. 1 in C Major.
This public performance was at the Burgtheater and for its benefit, and included the Septet op.20 and improvisations by Beethoven. The program included also a Mozart symphony and an aria and duet from Haydn’s The Creation. The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung would characterize it as “the most interesting concert in a long time.”
April 18, Friday: Sonata for french horn and piano op.17 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in the Hofburgtheater, Vienna, with the composer himself at the keyboard (applause was so persistence that the ensemble performed the entire work a 2d time).
Ludwig van Beethoven “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
September 9, Tuesday: Sieber announced the publication of Sonate a quatre mains pour le clavecin ou fortepiano, oeuvre VI par Louis Vanbee-Thoven (this seems to have been the initial mention of Ludwig van Beethoven in the French press).
October 8, Wednesday: Abigail (Abigail = “Father’s Joy,” Abby or her “baby name,” Abba) May (Alcott) was born in Boston, daughter of Colonel Joseph May and Dorothy Sewall, just in time for the nation’s 2d census. THE ALCOTT FAMILY
This infant would be baptized at the King’s Chapel.
Ludwig van Beethoven received 200 florins from Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz for the String Quartets op.18/4-6.
During this year a young woman with cancer, named Abigail May, traveled to Ballston Springs, New York to try the mineral water baths there, in search of relief from the pain of her illness. At first she was nervous at the sight of the douche hoses but, making sure she had her laudanum handy, she took the plunge into the soothing waters:
I felt finely for two hours after bathing.
OPIUM HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1801
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in C Sharp Minor, the “Moonlight” Sonata.
March 28, Saturday: The Peace of Florence was signed between France and Naples. Naples agreed to bar British ships from its ports, and Piombino was attached to the Kingdom of Etruria.
When a British invasion force landed on the Danish island of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, the Danes were obliged to surrender.
The Creatures of Prometheus, a ballet by Ludwig van Beethoven, was performed for the initial time, in the Hofburgtheater, Vienna. An approving Joseph Haydn was in the audience.
Mary Brooks Merriam of Concord gave birth to twins, Marshall Merriam and Rufus Merriam.
June 29, Monday: In a letter to Franz Gerhard Wegeler in Berlin, Ludwig van Beethoven first mentioned his deafness. “...if someone speaks in a low voice, I can barely understand; I hear the sounds but not the words. If anyone shouts it was unbearable. What was to become of me, heaven only knows...I have cursed my fate many times already...I shall, if it was at all possible, challenge my fate, although there will be moments when I shall be God’s most unhappy creature.”
June 30, Tuesday: Livonia, Estonia, and Courland were formally joined into one province (styled the “Baltic Sea Provinces”) under a single governor at Riga. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
July 26, Sunday: Maximilian Franz, Elector of Cologne, officially Ludwig von Beethoven’s employer, died in exile in Vienna.
October 28, Wednesday: Publication of three string quartets op.18/4-6 and two violin sonatas opp.23&24 by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1802
A lithographic process was patented in France, primarily for the printing of music.
Nicolò Paganini offered several public concerts in Livorno, and the merchant Livron awarded him a highly- prized violin. Some claim this to have been the instrument he called “Cannone” that he would use throughout his career. The famous instrument had been fashioned by Giuseppe Antonio Guarneri del Gesù (1698-1744) of Cremona and is still on display, under glass, in Genoa (to maintain its tone they play this violin once a year at the Town Hall).
(However, there are other claims to the effect that Paganini’s initial violin was an Amati that he lost in 1832 by gambling. Some claim that he was given the Guarneri by the painter Pasini in Parma, and some claim it to have been a later gift from General Domenico Pino. All we know for sure is based on records of repair work performed under his supervision: in 1828 he had the tailpiece and fret board replaced by the violin maker Savicki; in 1833, during his concert tour of Great Britain, a coachman dropped the instrument and it was damaged. The Cannone was rebuilt by Parisian violin-maker Vuillaume, who made a copy of it that Paganini would later sell to Camillo Sivori for 500 francs; in 1894 that copied instrument would be donated to the Municipality of Genoa, where it is now on display alongside the Cannone.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Discouraged by growing deafness, Ludwig van Beethoven considered becoming a decomposer.
March 3, Wednesday: Publication of the piano sonatas opp.26&27 by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
August 14, Saturday: Publication of the piano sonata op.28 by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
October 6, Wednesday: Timothy Flint was ordained at the Congregational Church in the Lunenburg portion of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. There would be a considerable amount of difficulty in collecting from the town his promised salary, in part because the health of the Reverend would prevent him from delivering more than one sermon of a Sunday.4
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote to his brother from Heiligenstadt, a town in the country to which he has gone on the advice of his doctor. The composer mentioned his growing deafness and the emotion he felt inside at its onset, even amounting to thoughts of suicide. The letter apparently would never be sent, and would be found among his effects after his death.
The opening of a new singing school led by Andrew Law was advertised in the Boston Columbian Centinel.
4. Perhaps I am being too critical but –in reviewing this life trajectory– have arrived at a suspicion that the health of this person was always too delicate to allow him to do anything he wasn’t inclined to do but seldom so delicate as to make it impossible for him to do anything he really wanted to do. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1803
January 22, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven placed an announcement in the Wiener Zeitung denouncing the publishing firm of Artaria and Mollo. They had published his String Quartet op.29 in Vienna after Beethoven’s authorized publication by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig (Artaria had received the manuscript from the dedicatee, Count Moritz von Fries).
February 14, Monday: Vienna publishers Artaria and Co. filed a petition in the High Police Court, Vienna in an effort to force a retraction from Ludwig van Beethoven of his published statement of January 22d.
February 17, Thursday: In the case against Ludwig van Beethoven, Artaria filed a subjoined declaration, signed by Count Moritz von Fries, that he had allowed them to publish the String Quartet op.29 if they held off until after the Breitkopf and Härtel edition appeared in Vienna.
April 5, Tuesday: Three new works by Ludwig van Beethoven were performed for the initial time, at the Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna: the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives to words of Huber, the Symphony no.2, and the Third Piano Concerto, all on a program with the composer’s First Symphony. The composer was soloist in the concerto. Critics were mixed, but the concert was a great financial success.
May 24, Tuesday: Charles-Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte was born, a son of Lucien Bonaparte and Alexandrine de Bleschamp and therefore a nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte. He would grow up in Italy, where he would be known as “Carlo.” Before being forced out of Italy by politics he would discover a warbler new to science, the “Moustached Warbler.”5
The Sonata for violin and piano op.47 dedicated to Rudolf Kreutzer by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in Vienna, with the composer at the keyboard.
5. That’s one hell of a lot more than his more recognized uncle ever accomplished.
underachiever HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
May 28, Saturday: Publication of the violin sonatas op.30 and Bagatelles op.33 by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
August 6, Saturday, 1803 Parisian piano maker Sebastien Erard gave a new grand piano to Ludwig van Beethoven (this would arrive in Vienna sometime in October).
September 26, Tuesday: In the matter of Artaria and Ludwig van Beethoven, the High Police Court of Vienna ruled for Artaria. Beethoven was ordered to publish a retraction.
December 4, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven was brought to court because he had not yet published his retraction, as required by the court finding of September 26th (in fact he never would). HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1804
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in F Minor, the “Appassionata” Sonata, plus his Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, the “Eroica.”
March 31, Saturday: Josiah Clark Nott was born in Columbia, South Carolina, a son of Federalist congressman and attorney Abraham Nott (February 5, 1768-June 19, 1830).
Ludwig van Beethoven published something that virtually amounted to a retraction in the Wiener Zeitung, acknowledging that Artaria and Co. had not been involved in any way with the publication of his quintet.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: Seventh day afternoon 31 3rd M 1804 No life. the day spent as usual in my occupation ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1805
Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Fidelio.”
March 8, Thursday: The High Police Court of Vienna issued a further finding in the case of Ludwig van Beethoven versus Artaria and Co. The composer would need to publish a retraction of his offending announcement of January 22d, 1803.
April 7, Sunday: Fleeing debts, Lorenzo da Ponte boarded a ship in London bound for America.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no.3 “Eroica” was performed publicly for the initial time, in the Theater- an-der-Wien, Vienna (it had been performed privately during the previous summer at the residence of the dedicatee, Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz). The work left the critics confused.
After wintering at Fort Mandan in what has become North Dakota, the Lewis and Clark expedition sent about a dozen men back to civilization with a cargo of various natural, agricultural, and anthropological artifacts. The remainder of the exploring expedition headed west into the Rockies.
May 15, Wednesday: Publication of the Romance op.50 and Piano Sonata “Waldstein” op.53 by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
November 20, Wednesday: Leonore (Fidelio), an opera by Ludwig van Beethoven to words of Sonnleithner after Bouilly, was performed for the initial time, in the Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna, along with the Leonore Overture no.2. One interested audience member was Luigi Cherubini. The audience included some French officers. Those few who reviewed the work were unimpressed. Many Viennese aristocrats, traditional supporters of the composer, had fled the city. In result, the work was not a success and would enjoy only two more performances. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 6, Friday: An armistice was concluded between France and Austria.
December 7, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven wrote in a testimonial for his student Carl Czerny that “he has made such extraordinary progress on the pianoforte, exceeding his age of 14 years; in view of this fact, and also because of his admirable memory, he is deemed worthy of all possible assistance.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1806
February 25, Tuesday: Faniska, an opéra comique by Luigi Cherubini to words of Sonnleithner after Pixérécourt, was performed for the initial time, in the Kärntnertortheater, Vienna, and was directed by the composer. The audience included the Emperor Franz and the royal family, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven. The piece was a great success and would receive a total of 28 performances.
March 29, Saturday: The 2d version of Ludwig van Beethoven’s opera Leonore (Fidelio) to words of Sonnleithner after Bouilly, with the Leonore Overture no.3, was performed for the initial time in the Theater- an-der-Wien, Vienna. This version received a much better reception with critics and public than the original had.
April 9, Wednesday: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, only son of a French civil engineer, Sir Marc Brunel, was born in Portsmouth. He would be educated at Hove near Brighton, and at the Henri Quatre in Paris.
Reuss-Schleiz und Gera was created a principality.
Publication of Piano Sonata op.54 by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
November 12, Wednesday: Edward Horatio Faucon was born in Boston, the son of Catherine Dawes Waters and a French instructor at Harvard College, Nicolas Michel Faucon.
Muzio Clementi arrived in Vienna from St. Petersburg. He would meet Ludwig van Beethoven and purchase the rights to some of his works.
French troops occupied Hildesheim.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4 day 12 of 11 M / Since my return from Quarterly Meeting I have had to labor under much discoragement feeling at seasons borne down with the weight of my sins & manyfold trangressions insomuch that I have not dared to write in my journal. Oh the grievous death which the mind is brought into by unwatchfulness or a want of care to dwell at all times in the vally of humility. May I more and more come down & be humble, may all that is yet opposed to the powerful workings of truth be done away. Often when I view my self & see how little of the right thing has grown & florished within me tho’ often watered & norished, I am ready to blush at not furnishing a better example than I do. ——————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 23, Tuesday: The US House of Representatives considered adding, to its bill under discussion that would outlaw the further importation of slaves, a proviso no person might be sold as a slave in the process of the federal implementation of this policy. Such a proposed addition was rejected.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Concerto for violin and orchestra op.61 was performed for the initial time, in the Theater-an-der-Wien, Vienna. The music hadn’t been ready until the last minute and the soloist, Franz Clement, was able to do only minimal preparation. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1807
February 21, Saturday: Publication of the Piano Sonata “Appassionata” op.57 by Ludwig von Beethoven was announced.
April 20, Monday: Ludwig van Beethoven signed a contract with Muzio Clementi in Vienna giving Clementi sole printing rights in Britain for the Rassumovsky Quartets, the Symphony no.4, the Coriolanus Overture, the Piano Concerto no.4, and the Violin Concerto.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2 day 20 of 4 M / This eveng called at a couple of friends houses, at the first our conversation turned on the subject of simplicity, & my mind was pretty zealously engaged to inforce the necessity of our keeping to planess in our furniture & apparrel, believing that many who begin pretty well & feel that their peace depends much on their dwelling low, after they have lived a little while & their outward circumstances beginning to grow more easy, They begin to query why, such a little thing may not be got, & another & another till at length, our houses & persons can hardly be distinguished from those who never did profess plainess, & am often impressed with the danger there is in gratifying our inclinations with what may be called little nonessencials, & feel an ardent desire that I & my brethren may be preserved in the pure Simplicity, when we are first called to bear testimony to truth the mind is generally in a little humble frame, & we grow scrupulous of many little things in dress & address, which wounds our tender feelings & are willing to bear the cross in renouncing them. but by & by, the cross of them is taken away, & here the enemy takes the advantage, & suggests this little thing & another till we become calous & forget the days of our espousals, the days when we were humble & low, & were willing to be led out of the Wilderness as by the hand of our God, on whose arm Alone was our only dependance. That I may ever keep in humble rmemberance those precious & blessed days is at times the most anxious breathing desires of my soul ——————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1808
Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphonies number 5 and 6.
January 9, Saturday: Publication of the Razumovsky String Quartets and the Coriolan Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7 day 9 of 1 M / I remain a poor thing - passed the evening at Thos Robinsons very pleasantly & trust to a degree of proffit- RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
March 27, Sunday, 1808: Franz Joseph Haydn made his final public appearance at a performance of The Creation conducted by Antonio Salieri, in an auditorium of the University of Vienna. The performance was attended by several notables, including Prince Lobkowitz, Princess Esterházy, and Ludwig van Beethoven. In fact, the crowd was so large that police were brought in. Haydn was carried into the hall on a litter. At the words “and there was light,” the assembled multitude bursts into applause. The emotion of the day becoming too much for him, doctors had the composer carried out just as the 2d part was about to begin.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 27th of 3rd M 1808 / In the forenoon our friends Anne Greene & D Buffum were very lively in testimony. Cousin Anne’s testimony in particular was a very precious one to me, in the afternoon we were silent but quiet & solid - It had been a day of deep feeling to me & Oh saith my soul may I dwell under the exercise that now impresses my mind —-Spent the eveng as usual with my dear H —— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 22, Thursday: Ludwig van Beethoven conducted a night of his works at the unheated Theater-an- der-Wien, Vienna. The program included premiere performances of the Symphony no.5, Symphony no.6, and Choral Fantasy op.80., and the Fourth Piano concerto. Also performed were the scene and aria Ah! Perfido and portions of the Mass in C. The musicians were not at their best. Beethoven needed to stop the Choral Fantasia in the middle due to confusion in the orchestra. In all, the music required four hours to perform. Prince Lobkowitz was in the audience with a guest, Johann Friedrich Reichardt.
Jan Ladislav Dussek’s Notturno Concertante op.68 C.233 was performed in Paris by the composer, possibly for the initial time.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 22 of 12 M / It was a good meeting to me tho’ in the fore part of it the mind ran upon a circumstance which stired up a zeal of a burning kind but after a time all seem’d to get quiet & a season ensued in which I felt better than for some time — I also was in a more livly frame in the preparative Meeting than common for me — Brother Caleb is very low his disolution I think may be daily expected RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1809
January 7, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven accepted the offer of King Jerome Bonaparte of Westphalia to be Kapellmeister at Kassel.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th of the week, M & year 1809 / We took tea at our own hired house having again commenced house keepers - Since brother Calebs decease My H hath been at her fathers, but this afternoon returned home, & home looks pleasant to us tho’ the occasion that hath for a few day kept us from it, been painful RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
March 1, Wednesday: After learning that Ludwig van Beethoven had accepted an offer in Kassel, three young Viennese aristocrats, Prince Joseph Lobkowitz, Prince Ferdinand Johann Nepomuk Kinsky, and Archduke Rudolph, agreed to pay the composer an annuity for life if he would promise to remain in Vienna.
Three days before he left office, US President Thomas Jefferson signed the Non-Intercourse Act limiting the embargo to trade with Great Britain and France and repealing the Embargo Acts of 1807 and 1808 (which hadn’t been working).
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st of 3rd M 1809 4th day of the week / A Day of but little life, yet something of it has been experienced - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
March 5, Sunday: The Cello Sonata op.69 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed publicly for the initial time, in Vienna.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 5 of 3 M / We were favor’d with good meetings the life seem’d to circulate a little more than common in both. Our friend D. Buffum in the forenoon was uncommonly lively & authoratative in his gift - he told us that in order to finish a worl it must be begun & persevered in or we should not have the Answer of Well done in the end he pointed out the Wiles & Stratagems of the enemy in obstructing our progress in the works of religion & recommended watchfulness &c in the Afternoon we were silent in the evening I finished the first volume of Clarksons History of the Abolition of the Slave TRade - I love Clarkson, he is a wonderful man & appears to me to be specially raised for the HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
work in which he has devoted his whole life, as much a G Fox was to gather the Society of Quakers into a body RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
May 12, Friday: At 9PM, French forces outside Vienna began to bombard the city. This went on all night. Directly in the line of fire was the house of Ludwig van Beethoven. Fortunately, the composer escaped the shelling, either to the house of his brother Caspar Carl or that of the poet Ignaz Franz Castelli. Four shells exploded near the home of Franz Joseph Haydn, one blowing open the door to his bedroom. He was shocked but physically unhurt. The building housing the Imperial and Royal City Seminary was hit by a shell. Fortunately, none of the students, including Franz Schubert, were injured. Also in the line of fire was Maria Anna Lager, who in two years would become the mother of Franz Liszt.
French defenders of Oporto were defeated by the British and Portuguese, forcing them to retreat north to Léon.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 12 of 5 Mo // My dear H hath been much unwell today which has been the cause of much anxiety — much better this Afternoon & spent the eveng Sociably O Williams & wife being with us, also brother David. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1810
January 30, Tuesday: With Archduke Rudolph returning to Vienna, for the occasion Ludwig van Beethoven presented the 3d movement of his Piano Sonata op.81a “Les Adieux,” entitled “Das Wiedersehen.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 30 of 1 Mo// Again the day has passed with but little variation from the usual rounds — Friends that are going to Providence to attend the Quarterly meeting will have a cold suffering time my mind has been with them several times today but my present situation is such that my body must be where it is. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
June 15, Friday: Incidental music for Goethe’s play Egmont was performed for the initial time, in the Hofburg Theater, Vienna (the play had been produced on May 24th but Ludwig van Beethoven had not yet have the music ready).
Zur Feier des 15ten Juni for solo voice, chorus and piano by Giacomo Meyerbeer to words of Carl Maria von Weber was performed for the initial time, in Darmstadt (the work was in celebration of the birthday of their teacher Georg Joseph Vogler).
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 15 of 6 M 1810// Yearly Meeting has passed, & Alass who of us that are now living will live to see another is very uncertain. I desire for my own part to improve from the favor of attending the past, & leave the event of another, to Him who best knows what is best for us — We have had the company of many friends who we love, & been able to entertain them satisfactorily for which among the rest of my blessings I desire to be thankful. & altho I have been incumbered with many Cares both previous & at the time of the Meeting with respect to the boarding houses, Yet it has been a season of favor to my Mind tho’ not as much of the flowing in of the precious Spirit as at some seasons, Yet not that empty & barran feeling which is so often my lot. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Our national birthday, Wednesday the 4th of July:6 Steele White of Georgia marveled at the skill with which Thomas Jefferson’s “illumined mind could pen a ‘Declaration of Independence’.”7 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
An entertainment headlined as “Columbias Independence” was presented at the Washington Theatre in Washington City.
After a delay in Albany, New York for the proper celebration of our Independence Day, DeWitte Clinton’s party departed at 4 PM, getting precisely as far as Willard’s Tavern in the city’s 3rd ward.
In Connecticut, New Haven’s citizens had a “plowing match.” CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY
Reviewing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no.5 for the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote that Beethoven’s instrumental music “opens up to us the kingdom of the gigantic and the immeasurable. Glowing beams shoot through this kingdom’s deep night, and we become aware of gigantic shadows that surge up and down, enclosing us more and more narrowly and annihilating everything within us, leaving only the pain of that interminable longing, in which every pleasure that had quickly arisen with sounds of rejoicing sinks away and founders, and we live on, rapturously beholding the spirits themselves, only in this pain, which, consuming love, hope, and joy within itself, seeks to burst our breast asunder with a full voiced consonance of all the passions.” He sure had enjoyed the heck out of the performance! Don’t you wish you could have been there?
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 4th of 7th Mo// It has been a day of much noise & parade about streets, being what is called Independance but no accident has happened that I have heard off from any of the Military exercises - A little boy fell from a Chamber Window (Gilbert Chases Son) but was not very much hurt - My H spent the day out at Jonathon Dennis’s with Sister Joanna, I took tea with them. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
6. This was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, or Hathorne’s, 6th birthday. 7. AN ORATION, COMMEMORATIVE OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, DELIVERED ON THIS FOURTH OF JULY, 1810 (Savannah GA) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
August 9, Wednesday: British troops captured Flushing but did not advance on Antwerp.
Ludwig van Beethoven was nominated as a member of the Gesellschaft der Schönen Künste und Wissenschaften in Amsterdam.
With the British disavowal of the Erskine-Smith agreement becoming known, US President Madison ordered a resumption of the embargo against Britain.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 9th of 8 Mo// Called at O Williams this morning to see our friends E Griffin & H Field who lodged there last night & proceed from there this morning in their daily labor, tho’ the time was short that I spent with them being nearly ready to go out, as I with D Buffum went in yet it was very sweet, occasioning something to arise in the mind that I allways love to feel — Our abovementioned friends, accompanied by Gideon Seman & Abigail Robinson made us a visit this Afternoon. H Field began first, by observing that it was very comfortable to see a young pair coming up together speaking the same language & striving to be helpful one to another & in society & spoke very encoring [encouragingly] that we might hold on our way. E Griffin spoke next to the same effect - then A Robinsons had considerable to say desiring that we might be helpful in raising the standard of truth from its low condition among us & Said considerable about the Will of the creature which I thought she ment for me. E Griffin & H Field both subjoined considerable & it was a favord time, particularly to my dear H They seem like very devoted women & I hope they will do much good among us. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
August 24, Friday: Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Massachusetts. The youngest of 11 children, he was the son of a proud farmer and the proud grandson of the Captain Parker who had commanded the Lexington minutemen.
Two works for wind band by Ludwig van Beethoven were performed for the initial time, in Vienna: “Marsch für böhmische Landwehr” and “Marsch für Erzherzog Anton.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 24th of 8th M 1810// Aunt Martha Stanton is about going to NYork having heard of her husbands arrival which seems to occasion some stir in the family, to get her things prepared, but the Wind continues the wrong way — Edward Wanton of Richmond Virg. in [is] a son of Gideon Wanton late of this town Deceased, spent most of the Afternoon with me in the Shop. — My mind is much in the usual mood, except feeling a little more depressed than common ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1811
February 20, Wednesday: Austria declared state bankruptcy and was forced to devalue its currency at a rate of five to one. This would cause Ludwig van Beethoven to request that his annuity from his three wealthy benefactors be continued at the same value as before the devaluation. Archduke Rudolph would agree.
Prince Lobkowitz was in serious financial difficulties and his fortune was in the hands of a financial manager. He was forced to suspend payment for four years. Prince Kinsky agreed, but would be killed in a riding accident in the following year.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 20 of 2 Mo// The day passed as usual. in the eveng I took some tools from the Shop & Sat very pleasantly at home & heard E Smith read — Sister E is still with us ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
April 12, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe for the initial time.
Colonists from New York landed at Cape Disappointment (Washington) after a voyage around Cape Horn. This would be the first white settlement in the Pacific northwest.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 12th of 4th Mo// The weather was so very stormy & Snowy last evening that We lodged at my fathers which is the first time I have lodged there Since I was married —- We have also spent the day there as the weather has been inclement ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 28, Thursday: Piano Concerto no.5 “Emperor” by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed, probably for the initial time, in the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 27 [sic] of 11 Mo// Our Moy [Monthly] Meeting was this day held in town The first meeting was much favor’d Anne Greene Ministered to us in a very lively manner: C Rodman then spake a little to my satisfaction then D Buffum appear’d in as lively a testimony as I think I ever heard from him — Our last meeting was much in the quiet & I thought favor’d beyond what is common HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
- My mind I may thankfully acd [acknowledge?] was quickened & refreshed - Since meeting I have rec’d a very acceptable letter from my much loved friend & brother Micajah Collins dated 14th inst at Gooses Creek Virginia ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1812
February 9, Sunday: Incidental music for Kotzebue’s plays The Ruins of Athens and King Stephen by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, at the opening of the Pest Theater.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 9 of 2 Mo// C Rodman spake in our forenoon meeting & according to my judgement a good evidence attended his communication - The Afternoon Meeting was Silent - It has been a day of exercise to my Spirit, which I hope may prove proffitable —- Set the eveng at home with my H. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
February 11, Tuesday: The initial Vienna performance of the Piano Concerto no.5 “Emperor” by Ludwig van Beethoven, with Carl Czerny at the keyboard.
June 8, Monday: Prince Ferdinand Johann Nepomuk Kinsky agreed to pay Ludwig van Beethoven’s stipend at the same value as before the revaluation of Austrian currency.
The New York/Vermont border was finalized along a line run by New York surveyors Robert Yates, Robert R. Livingston, John Lansing, Jr., Gulian C. Verplanck, Simeon De Witt, Egbert Benson, Richard Sill and Melancthon Smith in conjunction with Vermont surveyors Isaac Tichenor, Stephen R. Bradley, Nathaniel Chipman, Elijah Paine, Ira Allen, Stephen Jacob, and Israel Smith.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 8 of 6 Mo// Matthew Franklin & Willet Hicks of N York arrived this Afternoon to attend our Yearly Meeting. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
July 2, Thursday: While in Prague, Ludwig van Beethoven visited Prince Kinsky and was assured that his stipend at the new value will be coming soon. He received an advance of 60 ducats.
William Monroe, a young cabinetmaker of Concord whose business was not doing well due to the war, working in a shop which previously had been used by Andrew Edwards for the manufacture of organs, had the inspiration to develop a technique for the manufacture of pencil bodies. He had cut Eastern red cedarwood into slabs, had planed the slabs to a uniform 8th-inch thickness, and had made 6 grooves at a time in the slabs with a water-powered grinder. Into the grooves he had rubbed a pasty mixture of ground graphite and fillers. He did not fire his paste, but allow it to dry. Gluing another slab on top of this had created a block of 4 to 10 pencils which could be sawed apart with other water-powered machinery. These were the 1st pencils manufactured in America, and were 3/8th inch thick, and came in either octagonal or hexagonal cross-section. According to Albert Lane’s CONCORD AUTHORS AT HOME, on this date William was able to take his 1st sample of about 30 pencils of local manufacture into Boston and wholesale them to a hardware dealer on Union Street, Benjamin Andrews, and make a contract with this merchant to accept all he could manufacture for a given period of time. For Monroe, the perfection of this pencil-making machinery would be the labor of a decade. At one point during his childhood Henry Thoreau would labor in this Monroe factory, which would be manufacturing pencils until like 1833.
[T]here was a school for young ladies ... in Medford, and one of the pupils ... from Concord ... learned to utilize the bits and ends of Borrowdale lead used in drawing, by pounding them fine and mixing a solution of gum arabic or glue. The cases were made from twigs of elder, the pith being removed with a knitting needle.... [T]he writer [Horace Rice Hosmer], then [circa 1840] a boy of ten years, helped the same lady to make similar pencils from plumbago and English red chalk.... H. David Hubbard, living in the north part of Concord, made the first cedar wood pencils for the New England trade; but they were of little value, and but few of them were manufactured. In 1812 William Monroe, a cabinet maker by trade, pounded some plumbago with a hammer, mixed it in a spoon with some adhesive substance, and filled the compound into some cedar wood cases. Some of these pencils were shown to Benjamin Andrews of Boston, who was ready to buy, and encouraged Munroe to make more of them. Twelve days after he carried five gross, which were readily taken and paid for, and a new industry was fairly started. Munroe ... made the “water cement” or paste lead which was filled into the grooves in a soft state, and after remaining a week or more the surface of the pencil slab was planed to remove the composition which adhered to it, and to leave a clean surface for gluing on a veneer of cedar. The pencil slab was about 1/4 inch thick, and the veneer 1/8 inch and of varying widths from 4 to 10 pencils wide.... Eben Wood of Acton worked with Munroe in Concord, when all the work was done by hand. The logs of cedar were cut into slabs and veneers with a “two-handed saw,” by two men; planed by hand to a thickness, grooved with the spur plane or plough, one groove at a time, and so on through all the different processes.... Eben Wood ... saw a tool for cutting the points of shoe pegs, and by applying the principle of the circular saw soon had a grooving machine which would cut six grooves at a time.... A moulding and trimming machine soon followed; then a wedge glue press, holding 12 gross pencils took the place of the hand screws which Munroe HDT WHAT? INDEX
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used.... His machine for trimming the ends of pencils ... is in use at the time of writing this article [circa 1880].... He made the hexagon and octagon shape cases, halving them together, with similar shaped grooves for the dame.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 7th M 2nd / At Meeting few words were spoken by C R - when I first took my seat I anticipated a season of favor but roving soon took place & I could not or did not get settled again untill a few minutes before the meeting concluded — My Mother came home this morng from cousin Z Chases where she has been a week —This Afternoon I have heard a report which has given me much pain for a young man, a dear young lad, only about 20 years of Age, has had a child laid to him — Oh the trouble this will make for his father & family, & Society. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
July 5, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Teplitz (Teplice) via Prague to take the cure.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 7M 5 / Father R was concer’d in both meetings in a few words to the people. — After Meeting in the Afternoon went with D R to J Dennis’s & took tea. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
July 6, Monday: Ludwig van Beethoven, in Teplitz, penned a letter to his “Immortal Beloved” (now believed to be Antonie Brentano, a Viennese lady married to a Frankfurt businessman).
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 7 M 6 / Yesterday Josiah C Shaws son Philander In the [-] year of his age was drowned at Perrys Wharf. This melancholy occurrence, warning us of the uncertainty of time & the promised pleasure of any pleasing prospect. — Had conversation with J W... on the subject of his late difficulty, gave him such advice as I was capapble of & was glad to find him deeply sensible of the error he had fallen into. — Brother D R set the eveng with us. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
July 19, Sunday: While taking the cure at Teplitz (Teplice), Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe met for the initial time. Beethoven will would on August 9th, “Goethe delights far too much in the court atmosphere. Far more than was becoming a poet.” Goethe would write on September 2d, “His talent amazed me; unfortunately he was an utterly untamed personality, who was not altogether in the wrong in holding the world to be detestable but surely does not make it any the more enjoyable for himself or others by his attitude.”
At Sackets Harbor on the New York shore of Lake Ontario, the Canadian Provincial Marine Fleet attempted to recover its schooner Lord Nelson but was driven off.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 7 M 19th / Silent meetings, the forenoon was a pretty good one to me — between meetings Meribeth Easton was buried, She was the Widow of Walter Easton, tho’ she retaind a right of membership, her memory is very precious
July 27, Monday: Ludwig van Beethoven left Teplitz (Teplice) and would never seen Johann Wolfgang von Goethe again.
August 6, Thursday: The allied (Great Britain/Portugal) army began its march from Valladolid to Madrid.
Ludwig van Beethoven performed a concert, along with Giovanni Battista Polledro, in Karlsbad (Karoly Vary) to benefit the victims of the fire in Baden of July 26th.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 8th M 6th 1812 / My dear H could not leave the little boy to go to Portsmouth to attend the Quarterly Meeting held there this day, so Sister Ruth went with me in A Chaise The first meeting was Solid & but little Preaching soon after it was settled J Greene had a few words to communicate, which I thought sound & not unsavory. Then a long pause of more than an hour ensued, in which I thought our dear friend J Casey might (from the exercise he appeard under) have communicated something that would have benefited the meeting — The next after J Greene was Hannah Dennis, who was very Sweet & savory. The next was A... C... a friend from S Kingston who I believe is generally well aapproved in his own meeting, but made a most miserable & feeble fight in the Quarterly Meeting but I hope did not much hurt. —the meeting ended — In the last we had much buisness. The Queries & answers drew forth many pertinent & seasonable remarks especially That concerning our testimony respecting War - Matthew Franklin had much to say & much of it very agreeable to my feelings — Moses Brown very feelingly made a remark to this effect speaking of the beauty of our principles. he said Methinks the contrast between a similar number of Wariours to the number present would be very Striking, one sitting in solemnity & in peaceable spirit, the other all in jar & confusion, which may be seen in HDT WHAT? INDEX
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all who are in the spirit of it & traced down the the councils that declare it — I have not done the remark justice, but that is the substance of it. — The certificates of Anne Greene & Hannah Dennis were endorsed & they set at liberty to proceed on their journey After Meeting we dined at Anna Anthonys & then rode home RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
October 5, Monday: The Emperor Napoléon sent out emissaries, searching for someone with whom he might conclude an armistice or peace. –My goodness, Mon General, are you suddenly interested in declaring peace?
Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in Linz to try and break up an affair between his brother Johann and the sister- in-law of Johann’s tenant, Therese Obermayer. The dispute would result in a physical brawl between the two brothers.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 5 of 10 M / The day has passed pretty much with the usual rounds — Aunt Patty Gould dined with us. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 2, Monday: Near Prague, Prince Ferdinand Johann Nepomuk Kinsky, an important patron of Ludwig van Beethoven, fell off his horse — he would soon die.
Martin Van Buren was sworn in as a New York State Senator.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 2 of 11M / I have some exercises to pass through which are indeed painful to flesh & blood, & I find no way so safe as to turn the mind inward & pray secretly in the ability afforded for help preservation & forgiveness, which has been my experience this morning. which I desire to render thanksgiving to Him who thus helpeth. — Went this evening to see Dorcas Easton & Abigail Lee to advise with about their affairs. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 8, Sunday: Incensed by the behavior of his brother Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann van Beethoven got married with Therese Obermayer (whereupon Ludwig returned to Vienna). HDT WHAT? INDEX
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December 29: At this point during the 1812-1815 war with Great Britain, the USS Constitution captured the British frigate HMS Java and five smaller vessels off the coast of Brazil. In the process they took into custody Lieutenant-General Thomas Hislop, governor of India.
The Violin Sonata op.96 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, at the home of Prince Lobkowitz in Vienna. The performers were the violinist Jacques Pierre Joseph Rode and Archduke Rudolph.
December 30, Wednesday: Russian troops surrounded Prussian forces who were among the allies evacuating Riga. The Prussians, in the “Convention of Tauroggen,” declared themselves neutral. Even though the act was unknown to King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, it signaled a change of heart among Germans.
Ludwig van Beethoven petitioned the estate of Prince Kinsky that he be paid his stipend at the revalued rate to which the Prince had agreed (before being thrown by his horse and dying).
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 30 of 12 M / With this Day I finish my 31 Year of my life. I feel most sensibly feel that time with me is passing away very swiftly & that I Shall soon come to a conclusion & Oh that I may be prepared RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1813
February 12, Friday: Meyer Beer (Giacomo Meyerbeer) learned that he had been appointed court composer to Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt. The post had been secured for him by Georg Joseph Vogler.
James Dwight Dana was born to the merchant James Dana and Harriet Dwight Dana in Utica, New York.
Ludwig van Beethoven petitioned the estate of Prince Kinsky for a 2d time, to be paid his stipend at the revalued rate the Prince had agreed to before he died.
March 26, Friday: A Triumphal March for Kuffner’s play Tarpeja by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time.
April 12, Sunday: Caspar Carl Beethoven, seriously ill with tuberculosis, signed a document appointing his brother Ludwig van Beethoven guardian over his son Karl in the event of his death.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 12th of 4th M 1813 / Our Meeting the forenoon was well attended C R had a short communication & D B a lengthy one & very lively. In the Afternoon it was again well attended & silent -This eveng I visited Thos Robinson & went into the chamber to see his Wife who is sick & sat a little while with her very agreeably. Abigail read an interesting letter from her Sister Morton to me from David Sands — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
June 21, Monday: British forces under Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Wellington defeated a French force at Vitoria southeast of Bilbao, forcing them into a retreat in disarray over the Pyrenees. The battle would inspire Ludwig van Beethoven to compose the symphony “Wellington’s Victory.”
October 12, Tuesday: By the Treaty of Gulistan, Russia acquired northern Azerbaijan from Persia.
In Berlin, a setting of Psalm 23, Gott ist mein Hirt, for solo voices and chorus by Meyer Beer (Giacomo Meyerbeer) was performed for the initial time.
October 13, Wednesday: In the Wiener Vaterländische Blätter, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel’s invention of a new “chronometer” was announced. The device, an early metronome, was being endorsed by several composers, including Ludwig van Beethoven.
December 8, Wednesday: A benefit for wounded Austrian and Bavarian soldiers at the University of Vienna featured the initial performances of two works by Ludwig van Beethoven: the Symphony no.7, and Wellington’s Victory. The works created ecstatic applause and critical raves. The concert was so successful it would need to be repeated on December 12th. Wellingtons’s Victory was directed by Beethoven with the assistance of Ignaz Moscheles and Antonio Salieri. The violins included Louis Spohr, Ignaz Schuppanzigh, and Joseph Mayseder. Playing bass drum were Giacomo Meyerbeer and Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Besides the works by Beethoven the concerts also included two marches, one by Jan Ladislav Dussek and the other by Ignace Joseph Pleyel — as performed by Mälzel’s Mechanical Trumpeter with orchestral accompaniment. A good time was had by all. DUKE OF WELLINGTON HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1814
Ludwig van Beethoven’s opera “Fidelio.”
February 27, Sunday: British forces defeated French forces at Orthez, opening up southwestern France to invasion.
Symphony No. 8 in F Major, Op. 93 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in the Redoutensaal, Vienna. Audience response was warm but not uproarious. One musician in the violin section was Louis Spohr.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 27 of 2 M 1814 / My much beloved friend Philip Dunham spent last eveng with us & was at our Meeting today. he dined with us & went aftermeeting to D Buffums & to J Dennis to lodge - Philip gave us evidences in both meetings of his Authhority in the Gospel - I love him much & hope he will be preserved & deepen in the Truth — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
April 11, Monday: The hull of the Saratoga was launched at Vergennes. Building the vessel had taken only 40 days from start to finish. The vessel had not yet been fitted out as the roads were impassable for the heavy wagons which would need to bring up the naval stores from Troy. This vessel was to become Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough’s flagship on the inland waters.
In the Palace of Fontainebleau, the Emperor Napoléon signed the instrument of abdication renouncing the throne of France in the name of all his family and descendants. The island of Elba was made a separate jurisdiction and he was to have sovereignty over it. The Duchies of Parma and Piacenza were restored by Austria. The former Empress Marie-Louise of France would henceforward be known as Duchess Maria Luigia.
Louis Stanislas Xavier, who had been in exile in Prussia, the United Kingdom, and Russia since 1791, would be henceforward not only de jure king but also de facto king of France, although a constitutional rather than an absolute monarch, and would take the name Louis XVIII.
The Piano Trio “Archduke” op.97 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in the Saal des Hotels zum Römischen Kaiser, Vienna, with the composer himself at the keyboard.
Germania, the finale of a pasticcio called Die gute Nachricht, by Beethoven, was performed for the initial time. The overture, a quartet, duet, and trio, were by Johann Nepomuk Hummel.
April 15, Friday: Elizabeth Medora Leigh was born.8
The Spanish National Guard, a citizen army, was created.
Prince Karl von Lichnowsky, Ludwig van Beethoven’s initial Vienna patron, died.
Des Teutschen Vaterland for male voices and winds by Meyer Beer (Giacomo Meyerbeer) to words of Arndt was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.
May 23, Monday: The 3d version of the opera Fidelio oder Die eheliche Liebe, an opera by Ludwig van Beethoven to words of Sonnleithner, reworked by Treitschke, was performed for the initial time, at the Kärntnertortheater, Vienna. The overture used was from Beethoven’s music for The Ruins of Athens. The Fidelio overture would not be used until May 26th. This time the opera was a success. Franz Schubert was in the audience.
June 24, Friday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 24th of 6 M / Every day, the War in which this Country is engaged assumes a more & more terific aspect, a very considerable Alarm exists in New Bedford for the safty of town & especially the Shipping, but I was comforted with the account of a man direct from there this morng. he arrived in the Stage 8. Medora may have been the product of an affair between George Gordon, Lord Byron and his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. Medora herself would allege as much in her autobiography MEDORA LEIGH: A HISTORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY. If the story has any truth to it, it transforms Medora from the sort of person in whom no-one would take any interest, into the sort of person in whom some would have some slight interest. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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this afternoon & said things were not as bad there as had been represented. no skirmish between the Militia British barges had taken place as we had heard & that there was no foundation for the report of a number of Friends of the younger class having departed from their principles by offering their Services to repell invasion. — Hitherto the people of this [town] have been mercifully preserved from alarms, but how soon something serious may take place is uncertain I desire however whetever may take place friends may be consistent. - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
Un lieto brindisi, a cantata campestre by Ludwig van Beethoven to words of Bondi, was performed for the initial time, in Vienna, to honor the nameday of Giovanni Malfatti.
The American peace negotiator, John Quincy Adams the son of President John Adams, arrived in Ghent, accompanied by his slave Nelson. There was some resemblance between Nelson and his namesake, justifying this naming: Nelson, affiliated with a government figure of the United States of America, had lost his liberty, and his namesake, affiliated with the government of Great Britain, had lost a body part in the defense of liberty.9In the Lake Champlain region, Lieutenant-Colonel Forsyth and 70 riflemen ventured RACE POLITICS
into Canadian territory as far as Odeltown but was engaged there by a detachment of 250 British light troops. He returned to Champlain having lost one killed and five wounded.
July 18, Monday: When Austrian Foreign Minister Prince von Metternich returned to Vienna from London, singers and players from the city’s theater performed a cantata beneath his office window, along with the overture to The Creatures of Prometheus by Ludwig van Beethoven.
October 28, Friday: By command of the emperor, Ludwig van Beethoven’s opera Fidelio was performed for delegates to the Congress of Vienna and their wives.
9. Adams, as good a hater as Richard Nixon, with all the political instincts of a junkyard dog, was probably a wise choice to send out on diplomatic duty. He spent a lot of his time drawing up hit lists of men who had “conspired together used up their faculties in base and dirty tricks to thwart my progress in life.” Sick ’em, boy, go on, go away, sick ’em! HDT WHAT? INDEX
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November 29, Tuesday: A concert of music by Ludwig van Beethoven was given for the participants in the Congress of Vienna in the Redoutensaal. This performance featured the Symphony no.7, Wellington’s Victory and the premiere of his cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick to words of Weissenbach. Attenders include Tsar Alyeksandr I of Russia, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, and the Prince of Sicily. Also attending was Jan Vaclav Tomasek and he was particularly displeased with Wellington’s Victory.
A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: At 6 AM John Walter II of The Times walked out onto the printing floor at Printing House Square in London, called the poor printer’s devils together, the men whom previously he had sworn to secrecy, and informed them that from that moment ELECTRIC forward the paper would henceforth be printed by the power of steam. –Which meant of course that the firm WALDEN would forthwith be able to dispense with their services, and thank you very much.
He cautioned them that adequate force was standing by to respond to any violence, or to any attempt on their part to sabotage the new equipment.10 Their wages, he pledged, would be paid for a, shall we say, reasonable period, until hopefully they had found for themselves other employment. The press began publication at the rate of 1,100 sheets per hour, utilizing for this a flat bed of type and a device centering upon two rotating cylinders.11 HISTORY OF THE PRESS
“Among all the manufactures which –for the mental and mechanical skill required in their prosecution, the remarkable steps by which they have attained their present rank, and the influence which they exert on society generally– claim our attention and admiration, none perhaps is more striking than the manufacture of a book.” — George Dodd’s DAYS AT THE FACTORIES
HISTORY OF THE BOOK
December 31, Saturday: George Gordon, Lord Byron and Annabella signed their marriage contract.
When the Vienna palace of Russian ambassador Count Andrei Kyrillovich Razumovsky was consumed by fire, hundreds of art works meticulously collected by him were forever lost. Two people who attempted to salvage embassy documents were killed. The count would return to Russia, depriving Ludwig van Beethoven of one of his most important patrons.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 31 of 12 M 1814 / Here ends the Year - It has been to me a day of seriousness & much reflection - Who will see the 10. Try not to let the doorknob hit you in the butt on your way out. 11. Devices in which the type beds would be mounted directly upon a rotating cylinder would come later. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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close of the next is very uncertain — but it is certain that many of us who are now on the stage & probably some who are in Active life Will not. — This evening I was admitted a member of Engine Company N 5 - There are some circumstances which prompted to this measure which I conceive justifyable but from my present feelings I shall not remain a Member Long. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1815
January 18, Wednesday: British forces sailed away from Louisiana.
After three years of accusations, recriminations, and demands, Ludwig van Beethoven reached an agreement with the estate of Prince Kinsky according to which he would be paid part of his promised annuity, plus what had not been paid since the devaluation. He would dedicate the 2d setting of An die Hoffnung op.94 to Princess Kinsky for her graciousness and understanding.
January 19, Thursday: Hannover adhered to the secret alliance of January 3d.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: January 25, Wednesday: Ludwig van Beethoven accompanied vocalist Franz Wild at a concert to celebrate the birthday of the Tsarina at the Congress of Vienna (this would be his final public performance at the piano).
March 26, Easter Sunday: The estate of Prince Kinsky resumed annuity payments to Ludwig van Beethoven.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 26th of 3rd M / In each Meeting we had an offering my judgement suspended — A friend at Meeting Joseph Sharpless travelling with books to sell. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
April 19, Wednesday: Prince Lobkowitz agreed that as Ludwig van Beethoven had demanded, his share of the composer’s annual stipend would be paid at the new rate.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 19th of 4th M 1815 / My mind has been for a considerable time very destitute & barran of good & I am ready to cry out My leaness My leaness. — last eveng was a little renew’d by the reading of the acct of Hans Nelsen Hought a Norwegian who had of late been much persecuted & imprisoned in that country on acct of his religion — his sentiments appear similar to Friends & he appears to have come forth much in the same manner as G Fox did in England. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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June 9, Friday: The Act of the Congress of Vienna was signed by representatives of Austria, France, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, in the Imperial Palace. The Spanish ambassador refused his signature because Parma had been given to Napoléon’s wife (Spain would not accede to this treaty until 1817). Minor countries were invited to accede at some later date.
Announcement of publication of Piano Sonata op.90, by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6 day 9th of 6 M / Had a short [illegible from Wm Burling in my [next three lines nearly illegible] RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
July 15, Saturday: Realizing his situation had become just hopeless, Napoléon Bonaparte had formed a plan to embark on some ship heading toward the United States of America and had rushed to the coast of France. However, when he had arrived at the port of Rochefort he had found the entrance to the bay being blockaded by the “Billy Ruffian” or HMS Bellerophon, a veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar. Finally facing the prospect of capture and execution by French royalists, he surrendered to the captain of that man-of-war.
Es ist vollbracht, the finale of a pasticcio called Die Ehrenpforten, by Ludwig van Beethoven, was performed for the initial time.
November 14, Tuesday: As he lay dying, with the help of his solicitor Caspar Carl van Beethoven drew up a will naming his wife Johanna van Beethoven and his brother Ludwig van Beethoven as co-guardians of his 9- year-old son Karl van Beethoven. (The brother, seeing this, would demand and be promised sole guardianship. However, after his departure the dying man would add a codicil stipulating that nevertheless the boy couldn’t be removed from the care of his mother).
November 15, Wednesday: Caspar Carl van Beethoven died in Vienna of tuberculosis. His will named his brother Ludwig van Beethoven as sole guardian of his 9-year-old son Karl, who couldn’t however be removed from the care of his wife Johanna.
John Banvard was born.
Augusta went to live at 13 Piccadilly Terrace. GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
November 22, Wednesday: The Imperial and Royal Landrechte of Lower Austria (court for the nobility and clergy of Lower Austria) appointed Johanna van Beethoven guardian of her son Karl, with Ludwig van Beethoven as co-guardian.
Muzio Clementi was named treasurer of the London Philharmonic Society.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
4th day 22 of 11 M / This day we had the pleasure of Mother & Uncle Stanton to dine with us - Uncle set most of the Afternoon but went out to tea - Mother Staid to tea & set the evening — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 28, Tuesday: Ludwig van Beethoven petitioned the Imperial and Royal Landrechte of Lower Austria (court for the nobility and clergy of Lower Austria) to take full guardianship of his 9-year-old nephew Karl van Beethoven.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 28th of 11th M 1815 / This morning John Weaver & his family sailed for Troy in N York State where they expect to settle, thus poor Rhode Island is striped of its active & useful members, & where we shall get or to what state we shall be reduced to is hard to be foreseen, tho’ at present I can hardly think the Monthly Meeting is weak, yet I think our streangth is weakening & with the removal or demise of a few more of the Standards, the weighty part will be gone & there does not appear to be any that will be likely to Succeed them with equal usefulnesss - Sister Mary Spent the day & evening with us. - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 25, Monday: Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt, a cantata by Ludwig van Beethoven to words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was performed for the initial time, in the großen Redoutensaal, Vienna along with the premiere of his overture Namensfeier.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 25 of 12 M 1815 / This has been a very pleasant day for the Time called Christmas. The forepart of it was a clear sky & fine wholesome Air - The Afternoon was some cloudy as was the evening & the Air more raw - it is a great favor to the Poor of the Town that Winter thus keeps off - we have had no snow yet, & wood is plenty tho’ at the great price of $8 P Cord —- My H set the Afternoon at Br Davids — Rebecca Sessions set the evening with us — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1816
January 9, Tuesday: Thomas Jefferson wrote to Charles Thomson that
I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrine of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the Gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return to earth, would not recognize one feature.
Sir Humphrey Davy’s safety lamp for miners was successfully tested.
Wilhelm replaced Friedrich Wilhelm as Prince and co-ruler of Nassau.
Ludwig van Beethoven won custody of his nephew Karl van Beethoven, in opposition to the lad’s mother.
At some point in early January, the head and torso of the statue known then as “younger Memnon” was removed from the complex of ruins in ancient Thebes known as the “Memnonium” (it would appear from the condition of the piece that someone had once attempted to detach the head and torso from the base of the statue by the use of explosives).
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 9 of 1st N 1816 / John has been very smart today & yesterday. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
February 2, Friday: George Gordon, Lord Byron was informed by a letter from Sir Ralph Milbanke that Lady Byron sought to be separated from him.
Karl van Beethoven was officially under the guardianship of his uncle Ludwig van Beethoven, who knew what was best. Taken from his mother, he was entered in the private boarding school of Cajeten Giannatasio del Rio.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 2 of 2 M / Our friends have returned from Quarterly Meeting bringing with them a good report — Micajah & several of our Lynn frs were there - Aslo Tristram Russel a Punlic Fr from York State — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
February 21, Wednesday: Ludwig van Beethoven, who knew what was best, obtained a court order forbidding his late brother’s wife Johanna from visiting her son Karl von Beethoven at his new boarding school.
Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar was born as part of Concord’s Royal Family, the son of Squire Samuel Hoar and Madam Sarah Sherman Hoar. He had as a couple of years older, his big sister Elizabeth Sherman Hoar, who quickly learned as a big sister how to make herself a royal pain in the behind: History of Ebenezer R. Hoar, Written by his Sister, ELIZABETH HOAR. Designed for the use of young persons. Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar was born in Concord February 21, 1816, of respectable parents. When he was three years old he could read the BIBLE as correctly as any grown person. He was vary passionate at times when he was offended or disappointed. At the age of about two years he was sent to school to a very pious Instructress, who in a few weeks taught him more than any town schoolmaster would. At four he excelled his older sister in reading and spelling and the pauses. He had a great affection for his Instructress, and as she was poor, when he had any money given him to spend, it was his delight to carry it to her. Sometimes he indulged selfishness, and was unwilling to carry anything to her. I will mention an instance of this kind. One day they had a cherry pie brought upon the table. He had now nearly finished his dinner, and there was a small piece left upon the plate. His mother asked him which he had rather do, carry it to his Instructress or eat it himself? He replied, “I had rather eat it myself”; but he was afterward very sorry that he had eaten it, and the next time he had his choice he requested to carry it to his Instructress. She was sensible to all these proofs of affection, and she often kissed and praised him. His Instructress was accustomed to have a small party the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year. She invited all her scholars, and among the rest my brother. He had a young companion named Gardiner Davis; he got into a little quarrel with him and bit him most severely. But I hope as he increases in years he will do better, but I have lately experienced that, as he grew older, he grew worse.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
4th day 21 of 2 M / I find that the Station of an overseer is a weighty one & that since I have been under the appointment the weight of the concerns of society have increased upon me My mind has much of this day been engaged in looking over the State of Society with no Small degree of concern - The Meeting of Tiverton has been Specially under consideration - The State of it is very low & has been ever since my rememberance - their numbers is Sufficient to hold a preparative Meeting if numbers was all that is wanting, but alass “by whom shall Israel Arise” - they hold but one meeting in a week & that often attended by only two or three members - I feel much on acct of the state of things, but see nothing that I can do for their help. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 15, Sunday: The head and torso of the statue known then as “younger Memnon” arrived in Cairo.
On the eve of his 46th birthday Ludwig van Beethoven suffered the death of one of his most important patrons, Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 15 of 12 M / Our forenoon meeting was pretty well attended In the Afternoon a few words from father. — Jeremiah took tea & set part of the evening with us RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1817
May 10, Saturday: Johann van Beethoven signed an agreement to make large payments to her brother-in-law Ludwig van Beethoven for the support of her son Karl.
November 12, Wednesday: Baha’Ullah (Mirza Husayn Ali), who would found the Baha’i faith, was born.
Within a month of his arrival in Lexington, Kentucky, Anton Philipp Heinrich directed a concert of music by notable composers including Mozart, Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Heinrich also performed solo music for violin.
In Newport, Rhode Island, a Quaker died who had in 1756 at the age of 26 been half owner of a negrero (the sloop Dolphin) that was trading slaves to Barbados. A considerable number of the town’s black citizens attended this funeral to make manifest their respect for this man –Thomas Robinson– who had for so many years been attempting to atone for this error of his youth. Here is the record made by Friend Stephen Wanton Gould: 4th day 12th of 11th M 1817 / This Afternoon attended the funeral Of our Ancient friend Thomas Robinson he Died about 3 OC on 2nd day [Monday] morning the 10th inst In the 87 Year of his Age He has long been a very useful man to the community at large & also in our society - His venreable appearance in his walks in life inspired respect from those who were his enemies, & of those he had many particularly from the zealous & active part which he took in the Abolition of the slave trade & against men concerned in the Slave trade he took a decided & active part so far as they were concerned in that trade, by doing all in his power to relive [relieve] the Suffering of the African race, he was for many Years the strong friend of the Negro a considerable number of whom manifested their respect by attending his funeral He was also a useful & active member of our society as the minutes of the Monthly Meeting for a long number of Years will testify his natural talents were such as renderd his services peculiarly necessary in difficult & intricate cases - I remember once while I was an apprentice, being at his house on an errand, he particularly noticed me & addressed me in a feeling manner with much good & pertinent advice, which I have many times recur’d to & have no doubt it has been a means of preservation - he was a man of midling height with a quick & penetrating eye, his habit very thin being often reduced with the Ashma [asthma] - I have his appearance as he walked the Street full in my minds eye tho’ for a number of Years he has been confind to home by age & infirmity, he wore a old brown Wig, walked slow, & with a measured Step with a cane in his hand. — his house was for Years the principle lodging of most of the Public friends who happened here & at the Yearly Meeting no friend in town entertained more than he did, & tho’ he has been HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
out of circulation for some years past he continued to do acts of Benevolence as long as he lived both in a pecuniary way & by skilfull advice to such as were in difficult circumstances - I have often seen his venerable countenance Strike an Awe on such as were [pert?] & irreverant both in private companies & some public Assemblies. INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE
RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 17, Wednesday: The Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig published Ludwig van Beethoven’s own metronome markings for his eight symphonies.
At Harvard Divinity School, the first Annual Visitation for the reading of dissertations is acclaimed to have taken place on this day.
December 27, Saturday: Broadwood and Sons of London sent a new 6-octave piano to Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna.
Gioachino Rossini’s dramma Adelaide di Borgogna to words of Schmidt was performed for the initial time, in Teatro Argentina, Rome (to almost unanimous disdain).
Samuel J. Jones died in Havana, Cuba at the age of 18 (the body would be brought to the South Burying Place of Concord, Massachusetts). HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1818
January 24, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven took his nephew out of the Del Rio boarding school to put the lad under a private tutor in his own home.
The Wiener Zeitung announced the publication of the 1st music of Franz Schubert to appear in print, the song Erlafsee D.586. This was part of a large collection.
February 14, Saturday: Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka began studies at the Blagorodny Boarding School, part of the Chief Pedagogical Institute, St. Petersburg.
In articles in Vienna journals, Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonio Salieri recommended a new device pioneered by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the metronome.
September 18, Friday: The Austrian Landrechte refused Johanna van Beethoven’s request to remove her son Karl from the guardianship of her brother-in-law Ludwig van Beethoven.
The Theatre Royal in Edinburgh made itself the initial theater in Great Britain to be lit by gas.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 18 of 9 M / Last evening about 1 / 2 past nine OClock cousin Elizabeth Anthony died at the House of cousin Mary Gould in Middletown aged 91 Years & about 5 months. her Mother was sister to my Grandfather Gould, & she was much noticed by my father as a relation & always visited in the family from my earliest recollection.- RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
October 3, Saturday: The Austrian Landrechte refused Johanna van Beethoven’s petition that her son Karl, presently being instructed by a private tutor in the home of Ludwig van Beethoven, be placed in a public school.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 3rd of 10 M 1818 / My Health is better but I do not feel quite well & strong. I desire, & trust I do, feel thankful, that I have been no worse. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
October 4, Sunday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 4th of 10 M / I feel a degree of depression on my mind HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
this morning, which in measure arises from my health which is not very smart. — In the forenoon Meeting we were Silent — In the Afternooon I thought the meeting was remarkably well attended & M Morton much favor’d in testimony RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 3, Thursday: Karl van Beethoven, young nephew and ward of Ludwig van Beethoven, ran away from his uncle and back to his mother. When the composer went to his sister-in-law’s house, she asked to keep him until that evening so Ludwig, being Ludwig, summoned the police and had them extract Karl by force. He then returned the lad to the Del Rio boarding school he had pulled him out of on the previous January 24th.
Giaocchino Rossini’s dramma Ricciardo e Zoraide to words of Berio di Salsa after Forteguerri was performed for the initial time, in the Teatro San Carlo of Naples. It was very successful.
A southern portion of the Illinois Territory was admitted to our federal union as its 21st state, with the balance of this territory being joined into the Michigan Territory to extend it to the west of the Mississippi River divide. (The capital of the new state of Illinois was declared to be Kaskaskia on the Mississippi River. This capital would be transferred to Vandalia as of 1820.)
Like Ohio, Indiana, and Oregon, the new state would incorporate a racist anti-immigration clause into its state constitution. Nobody of color, like the recently deceased “Father of Chicago,” Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, was ever again to be permitted to come here.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 3d of 12th M 1818 / Our Meeting was very crowded with people of various denominations from two causes the first was Osborn Mowry & Eliza Ann Southwick were Married & the second one it is what is denominated Thanksgiving Day which afforded many a lesure opportunity to attend - considering the mixed multitude HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
present it was very solid & quiet David Buffum was largely engaged in testimony to good satisfaction & Anne Dennis appeared in a few words. — 5th day 6th [sic] of 12th M / Last 5th day & today I took my seat in Meeting among the Elders - seemed[?] much like being made a spectacle of Men & Angels, tho’ under indifferent circumstances from Paul, for he fought with beasts at Ephesus & overcame, but I, tho’ a spectacle & brought into a conspicous standing in society have yet to overcome many spiritual enemies that are comparable to beasts, & may my spirit be made willing to endure the conflict & become worthy of my station. - Meetings were low seasons to me tho’ attended with favor, for I consider, to be able to feel low & dependant is a signal in itself of favor. I could but reflect how inferior my state of mind was to the four & twenty Elders we read of. Oh the washing the burning & purification of every kind that I must undergo before I shall be able to cry as they did, “Worthy is the Lord.” — In the forenoon father Rodman delivered a short lively testimony — Afternoon Silent. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 7, Monday: Johanna van Beethoven appealed for a 2d time to the Austrian Landrechte that her son Karl be removed from the care of his uncle Ludwig van Beethoven. What she wanted was that he be placed in the Imperial Royal Seminary.
Mary Brunton died in Edinburgh, Scotland at the age of nearly 40 while giving birth to a stillborn infant.
December 10, Thursday: String Quartet op.104 by Ludwig van Beethoven, an arrangement of his Piano Trio op.1 no.3, was performed for the initial time, in Vienna.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 10th of 12th M 1818 / Our meeting was silent & to me rather a dull time - several committees meet this afternoon on some very exercising concerns. I sympathise with them but see no way to be useful. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 11, Friday: While giving testimony in the ongoing custody battle over his nephew Karl between himself and his sister-in-law Johanna, Ludwig van Beethoven let slip that, actually, despite that “van,” neither he nor his nephew happened to be of noble birth. Oops! This took the case entirely out of the jurisdiction of the Landrechte; it would need to be begun anew, in commoners’ court.
Fort Dumpling, also known as Fort Louis or Fort Brown, in Jamestown on Conanicut Island in Narragansett Bay, a round wall about 50 feet in diameter and about 20 feet high, was listed as armed at this point with ten cannon. In all likelihood these were leftovers from the War of 1812. The fortification never had occasion to fire a shot in anger — indeed it is unlikely that it was ever manned. This is how the ruins of this fort impressed the people of Rhode Island as of 1851:
In Concord, Mrs. Woodward’s store took fire and was extinguished with great difficulty.12 Provision Against Fire. — The Fire Society was organized May 5, 1794, and holds its annual meetings on the 2d Monday in January. The Presidents have been, Jonathan Fay, Esq., Dr. Joseph Hunt Tilly Merrick, Esq., Dr. Isaac Hurd, Deacon Francis Jarvis, Hon. Samuel Hoar, and Joseph Barrett, Esq. The Engine Company was formed, and the first engine procured, in 1794. A new engine was obtained in 1818. A Volunteer Engine Company was organized in 1827, who procured by subscription a new engine in 1831.13
12. Although we know that during this year the Concord Fire Society obtained a new fire engine to replace or supplement the one it had had since 1794, we do not know whether that new engine was in place prior to this fire and contributed to its extinguishment, or whether, on the other hand, the fires of this year prompted the purchase of the new equipment. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1819
January 11, Monday: A hearing was held in the Magistrat (commoners’ court) of Vienna concerning the guardianship of Karl van Beethoven. The court will rule that his uncle Ludwig van Beethoven should no longer be his guardian, and that the boy needed to be under the care of his mother until another guardian could be found.
Ein Mädchen ging die Wies’ entlang, a lied by Carl Maria von Weber, was performed for the initial time, as part of Der Abend am Waldbrunnen, a play by Kind, in the Dresden Hoftheater.
February 6, Saturday: Thomas Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with the Sultan of Johore providing for an annual payment in return for the right of the East India Company to establish a trading settlement at Singapore, and the creation of fortifications.
British merchant captain William Smith arrived at a furthest south point, at 62°17'S and 60°12'W, and there discovered Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands.
A Hochzeitslied “Auf Freunde, singt dem Gott der Ehen” by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time.
March 26, Friday: John Stetson Barry was born in Massachusetts. He and his five older brothers would be growing up, however, in Alton, an Illinois suburb of St. Louis.
The Magistrat (commoners’ court) of Vienna appointed Councillor Mathias von Tuscher as guardian over Ludwig van Beethoven’s nephew Karl.
June 4, Friday: Archduke Rudolph, patron of Ludwig van Beethoven, was created Archbishop of Olmütz (Olomouc) in Moravia.
June 22, Tuesday: Karl van Beethoven, nephew of Ludwig van Beethoven, was admitted to a residential school directed by Joseph Blöchlinger.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 3rd day 22nd of 6 M / This morning Our friend D Buffum, came to my Shop & requested me to go to the Court House with him, my reply was, my complyance depends on what the buisness is that we are going upon, on which he informed me, that Elizabeth Walker
13. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston MA: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy, 1835 (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
requested that the Govorner, Senate & House of Representatives be invited to attend her meeting tomorrow, & that the ground of her concern was to see them at meeting. — This involved my feelings in no small measure of weight, but on being a little retired in my mind, & the first shock going off, I felt unity with the prospect & a willingness to go with David to the Court House, he having previously obtained the liberty of the Govoner & Speaker. — on going into the upper House we were invited to take chairs, but We introduced our buisness, in a few words, which appeard to be propperly noticed & a seeming willingness manifested to attend. -We then went into the House of representatives, where we were also noticed by the speaker & invited to seats. after setting a moment D Buffum communicated Elizabeths message & there also, a willingness was manifested to attend, particularly by some of the Members, who said they should attend the meeting whether the House would adjourn or not. — This undertaking was one of no small magnitude to my feelings, but by a biding under the weight of it I found myself qualified with strength & had occasion required could have spoken myself, before the House RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
September 17, Friday: William Aspinwall Tappan was born to Lewis Tappan and Susan Aspinwall Tappan.
A Vienna court accepted the resignation as guardian over Karl van Beethoven of Councillor Mathias von Tuscher and ruled that Ludwig van Beethoven’s nephew be placed with his mother and a court-appointed guardian, Leopold Nussböck (a city official).
The 1st whaling ship arrived in the Hawaiian Islands.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 17th of 9th M / This morning Br Isaac with Uncle & Aunt Stanton arrived from N York. Our hearts are glad to see them & thankful we are in the enjoyment of health so as to be able to receive them, but the Hand of the Lord is upon us. There is much sickness prevailing both of fever & the Disentary, which casts a gloom over poor Newport RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
October 31, Sunday: Ludwig van Beethoven appealed the ruling of the Vienna court of September 17th that his nephew Karl be cared for by his mother under a court-appointed guardian.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 31st of 10th M 1819 / Being unwell with a complaint which rendered sitting exceedingly painful, was unable to attend our Meetings today. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
November 4, Thursday: An Austrian magistrate denies the appeal by Ludwig van Beethoven against the order of September 17th that his nephew Karl be cared for by his mother under a court-appointed guardian.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 4th of 11th M / Father Rodman was twice engaged in testimony at Meeting, but Alass for me I sat in so much pain that I had but little enjoyment of the opportunity, tho’ faoved with a little spark of life - a number of our friends are gone to attend Quarterly Meeting at Swansey & our gathering small This day Benjamin Gardiner of Middletown departed this life at the house of the late Silas Casey in Boston Neck. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 20, Monday: Birth of John Geary, who would be the 1st Postmaster of San Francisco, California, and then become the city’s 1st Mayor on May 1, 1850.
An Austrian magistrate denied a 2d appeal by Ludwig van Beethoven against the order of September 17th that his nephew Karl be cared for by his mother under a court-appointed guardian. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1820
January 7, Friday: Documentation of the international slave trade, per W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: “Letter from the Secretary of the Navy, transmitting information in relation to the Introduction of Slaves into the United States.” –HOUSE DOCUMENT, 16 Cong. 1 sess. III, No. 36.
Ludwig van Beethoven appealed to the Imperial Royal Court of Appeal of Lower Austria to reverse the decision of the lower court of September 17, 1819, that his nephew Karl be cared for by his mother under a court-appointed guardian.
In the diary of Thomas Nuttall we find: “We again arrived at the lower end of the Eagle’s-nest bend, from whence commenced the uninhabited tract of 60 or 70 miles.”
February 8, Tuesday: William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio. As an adult he would report that his middle name had come from his father having “caught a fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, ‘Tecumseh’” (his family would always refer to him as “Cump”).
Ludwig van Beethoven dated a memorandum as part of his appeal of the ruling of the previous September 17th that his nephew Karl be cared for by his mother under a court-appointed guardian. His memorandum was 48 pages in length.
March 9, Thursday: One of Ludwig van Beethoven’s most loyal patrons, Archduke Rudolf, was installed as a cardinal in Olmütz (the composer intended his Missa Solemnis for the occasion, but had not finished it).
The government of the Philippines began a campaign to purge the island chain of foreigners (the death toll would reach about 125 by the 11th of the month).
In the Executive Mansion in Washington DC, President James Monroe’s daughter Maria had her wedding ceremony.
On the island of St. Helena, Napoléon Bonaparte was observed by the English watchers for the Plantation House to undress at 6AM in his garden and plunge himself into its stone reservoir. Count Montholon was with him, as were 2 servants who dried the General and assisted him in dressing.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 9th of 3 M / Ruth Spencer was at meeting & had much to communicate her father Daniel Anthony also had two short testimonys. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
March 29, Wednesday: A hearing was held in the appellate court in Vienna in the case of the guardianship of Karl van Beethoven. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
April 8, Saturday: Day Eight of Scotland’s “Radical War”: while some arrests were made and some people being carted off to jail. The Port Glasgow Militia, escorting prisoners from Paisley to Greenock jail, were attacked by local people and fighting in the streets was augmented by stones from windows and doorways. After the prisoners were confined in their new lodgings at 5PM, the militiamen found they needed to fight their way out again. Opening fire, they killed eight (including an 8-year-old child) and wounding ten. After they were gone the local people stormed the jail, freeing their prisoners.
Death of Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk.
The Imperial Royal Court of Appeal of Lower Austria overturned the lower court’s decision and ruled that Karl van Beethoven be taken from the care of his mother and placed under the joint guardianship of his uncle Ludwig van Beethoven and Karl Peters.
A statue of Aphrodite (now known as Venus de Milo) was discovered on the Aegean island of Milos.
July 24, Monday: After 4½ years of litigation, the case of Karl van Beethoven was declared closed by the court. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1821
October 25, Thursday: The Kyrie and Gloria from the Missa Solemnis by Ludwig van Beethoven were performed for the initial time, in the Landstandischer Saal, Vienna.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 25 of 10th M / Last evening Uncle Stanton sent his Waggon in & with My H & John went to Portsmouth & lodged at his House - This forenoon we went to Meeting - In the first, father Rodman spoke a little which to me was Savory, & it was a pretty good meeting - In the last which was our Moy [Monthly] Meeting we had considerable buisness, attended with exercise, but Truth rose over all & had dominion over all wrong things — John A Wadsworth was recd into membeership, & Holder C Weeden & Abby Anthony proposed their intentions of Marriage — After Meeting which held pretty late in consequence of considerable buisness -we Rode back to Uncle Stantons & again lodged, as there was not time for the Carriage to come to Town & return — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1822
April 13, Saturday: A performance of Zelmira began a Rossini festival at the Karntnertortheater, Vienna. The festival would include six different Rossini operas and continue from April into July.
In The Euterpeiad or Musical Intelligencer, John Rowe Parker first termed Anthony Philipp Heinrich the “Beethoven of America” — it was a name the composer would adopt.
The Great Lakes steamboat Walk-in-the-Water was refloated, beating the May 1st deadline.
The Orleans County town of Oak Orchard (later Carlton) was formed from Gaines and Ridgeway.
May 21, Tuesday: At some point subsequent to the 20th, Percy Bysshe Shelley authored “The Triumph of Life.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe received, courtesy of the composer, a copy of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Meeresstille un gluckliche Fahrt, a cantata composed to Goethe’s words.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day [sic] 21st of 5 M 1822 / Our Meetings were both Silent & to me pretty good seasons in comparrison with some meeting that I have sat in of late. — & my heart was in measure thankful for the favour. — After tea walked with Sister Ruth out to David Buffum Jr to see their little son Benjamin who is very ill with the Quincy or Putrid sore throat — Sister Ruth staid to Watch - with John & his cousin Richard I walked to Tomany Hill & then returned RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
October 3, Thursday: A new overture and a chorus, Wo sich die Pulse, by Ludwig van Beethoven were performed for the initial time, for the opening of the Josephstadttheater, Vienna, conducted by the composer. They were attached to Beethoven’s Die Ruinen von Athen which has been adapted by Carl Meisl as Die Weihe des Hauses.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 3rd of 10th M 1822 / Our Meeting today was small & I apprehend not that flow of life which is at seasons experienced, it was however a pretty solid Sitting. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
November 3, Sunday: Giacomo Costantino Beltrami sailed from Liverpool for the United States on a vessel that would encounter great difficulties, requiring more than two months for the crossing.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Gratulations-Menuet was performed for the initial time, in Vienna for the nameday of Carl Friedrich Hensler, new director of the theater in Josephstadt.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould became one of the overseers of the bequest of Friend Obadiah M. Brown: 1st day 5th [error, 3d] of 11th M 1822 / Meetings nearly Silent & not very lively, tho’ I thought the Afternoon was more favoured. — Rec’d between Meetings a letter from our Ancient frd Moses Brown inclosing a copy of part of his son Obadiahs Will, by which I was informed that I was appointed a Trustee with twelve others to receive an Annuity of twelve Hundred Dollars to be distributed according to our discretion in Such benevolent purposes as might occur, particularly by recommending the printing of Such religious Books as May tend to the promulgation of our religious principles where they are but little known. — This Trust humbled my mind & desires were raised that we might be favoured to conduct according to the Will of the Donor & Honour of the Great Cause — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 10, Sunday: At a meeting of the Philharmonic Society of London, the members vote to offer £50 to Ludwig van Beethoven for a new symphony.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 10th of 11th M 1822 / Yesterday towards night with my H HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
& John Rode with Uncle Stanton to his House & lodged - This Morng we went to Portsmouth Meeting, which to me was a rather poor one —. returned to dinner & in the afternoon left My Wife & John [at] Uncle Stantons to stay & make them a Visit of a few days — walked home. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 22, Sunday: Grindall Reynolds was born in Franconia, New Hampshire.
Ludwig van Beethoven was elected an honorary member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, Stockholm.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day [sic] 22nd of 12 M 1822 / A pleasant Day & Meeting well Attended, & five testimonies delivered - some of them had a reaching effect on my Mind — but on the whole it was a season of leanness to me Silent in the Afternoon, well attended & a little more life in my mind than in the morning RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 23, Monday: Opferlied op.121b by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in Pressburg (Bratislava).
To hear him relate the story in a decades-later timeframe, the Reverend Clement Clarke Moore was on this day going by sleigh to the Washington Market of New-York to purchase his family’s Christmas turkey, when he got the idea for the poem that, a year later, would be sprung anonymously on the US public as “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” (In this story, the part to be credited is that yes, Virginia, there is such a place as New-York, and that there on this day the Reverend did in fact proceed, and by sleigh, to the Washington Market — where he did in fact purchase a turkey.) Most fundamentally, Christmas was an occasion when the social hierarchy itself was symbolically turned upside down, in a gesture that inverted designated roles of gender, age, and class. During the Christmas season those near the bottom of the social order acted high and mighty. Men might dress like women, and women might dress (and act) like men. Young people might imitate and mock their elders... A peasant or an apprentice might become ‘Lord of Misrule’ and mimic the authority of a real ‘gentleman.’ ...At other times of the year it was the poor who owed goods, labor, and deference to the rich. But on this occasion the tables were turned — literally. The poor –most often bands of boys and young men– claimed the right to march to the houses of the well-to-do, enter their halls, and receive gifts of food, drink, and sometimes money as well. And the rich had to let them in... In return, the peasants offered something of true value in a paternalistic society — their goodwill (Nissenbaum 1997:8-9; emphasis his). What these practices boiled down to was that a group of male teens would pound on the door HDT WHAT? INDEX
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of their wealthier neighbors, demand the best food and liquor in the house (or threaten to wreak havoc for the rest of the year if they did not) and move on to the next house, getting louder and rowdier as they collected more youths and became drunk. When indulged, these young men were essentially committing themselves to another year of toil for their upper class neighbors. This late-night, loud-mouthed revelry was called ‘wassailing,’ and lasted well into the nineteenth century. Christmas celebrations looked much the same throughout British North America. In Philadelphia, for example, In the first half of the nineteenth century Christmas comprised a week of amusements and celebrations such as horse races, pig chases, pigeon shoots, ox roasts, and hunting and skating parties. The thriving theatre district counted on heavy attendance at harlequinades and minstrel shows. Militia troops and clubs held balls and concerts, church women gave fairs, fire companies paraded new equipment, set fires, and brawled. Hundreds of pubs, groggeries, and cookshops treated patrons to the specialities of the season with extra liberality (Davis 1982:186-7). In addition to the gaming, revelers shot their guns into the air, advertising their parties to people for miles around, and dressed up in costumes and masks, roving the streets. These bands of young men, no longer restraining their boisterous activities to their home neighborhoods, were termed ‘callithumpians,’ and made charivari-like rough music, taking the conventions of marching bands and fife and drum corps and turning them inside out. Dressed in burlesque, they mocked real music with cracked pots, cowbells, kitchen utensils, bent horns, cow horns, fake trumpets, and the whole folk repertoire of homemade and pretend instruments (Davis 1982:188). Such activities were an extension of the earlier practices of wassailing, and took place to greater and lesser degrees in the cities and towns of early America. Upper and middle class American families understandably became very uncomfortable with the rowdy and downright dangerous behavior of these lower class bachelors. There were two reactions to their fear. First, police forces were formed as a night watch for the time from mid- December until just after the New Year (Davis 1982, Nissenbaum 1997). Crowds were disbanded, rowdies arrested, streets quieted, and ‘respectable’ neighborhoods kept safe. The second reaction was more subtle, but succeeded in drastically changing the nature of the holiday. Two publications occurred in the early nineteenth century that were creative works offering a new possibility for the celebration of Christmas. One was a poem written by the Episcopal minister Clement Clarke Moore, which he titled “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” and which is now often known as “The Night Before Christmas.” Harry Smith, the narrator of a History Channel special on the history of Christmas, stated: In 1822, Moore wrote a poem for his children about a good natured saint who came down the chimney on Christmas Eve. Moore dreamed up Dasher, Dancer, and the HDT WHAT? INDEX
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rest of the reindeer, along with Santa’s entrance through the chimney. But at first he was embarrassed by the poem — the worried it was too frivolous for a man of the church (Guss 1997). His poem was first published without his permission by the editor friend of a visitor who heard him recite it. “He was initially annoyed, feeling that the verse was too simple to match with his more erudite writings. However, when he came to realize that thousands of children were enjoying his poem, he was delighted” (Templeman 1989:444). “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” was published every year in an ever-increasing number of almanacs (Nissenbaum 1997). It acted to shift the focus of Christmas activity from callithumpian bands and annoyed wealthy citizens to well-behaved children and comfortable home life.14
14. Baker, Lisa B. CHRISTIANITY, SECULARIZATION, AND CHRISTMAS IN THE UNITED STATES 1850 AND TODAY. Religious Studies/Sociology Senior Thesis for Professors Gary Herion and Ed Ambrose, May 1999 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1823
Ludwig van Beethoven composed his 9th Symphony.
January 1, Wednesday: Ludwig van Beethoven applied for the position of Imperial Court Composer.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 1st of 1st M 1823 / Began this Year with a sense of good covering my mind in a precious degree But Oh the Adversary how ready to devour all that is good & a season of conflict ensued, but at last felt a rising above the evil, so that the day closed more comfortably than I expected ——15
In Maryland, upon the death of the owner of John Thompson, Mrs. Wagar, her slaves had been divided among her children and grandchildren. At the turn of the year, with John having reached approximately 14 years of age, the slaves were taken to their new lives, the lot of John’s family being to fall under the ownership of one George Thomas, a white man of local unsavory reputation: New Year’s, that sorrowful day for us, at length arrived. Each one weeping while they went round, taking leave of parents or children, for some children and parents were separated, as were also husbands and wives. Our meetings were now broken up, and our separation accomplished.... John Wagar claimed me by promise, as he said my grandmother gave me to him; and, consequently, bade me keep out of sight, when they came for my father’s family. This I did by hiding myself until the rest were all gone. I did this willingly, as I did not want to go to Mr. Thomas. Indeed, I had rather forego the pleasure of being with 15. Stephen Wanton Gould Diary, 1815-1823: The Gould family papers are stored under control number 2033 at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections of Cornell University Library, Box 7 Folder 12 for August 24, 1815-September 25, 1823; Box 8 Folder 13: October 2, 1823-March 6, 1829; also on microfilm, see Series 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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my parents than live with him. So I remained behind. I had lived securely upon the old plantation about three months, when one day I was sent on an errand, two or three miles from home. There I met Mr. Thomas, who said to me, “where are you going?” I answered his question, when he said, “You belong to me; come, go home with me.” I told him I wished to return with my errand, but he said “No; go right home to my house, where your father and mother are. Don’t you want to see your mother?” I replied that I did, for I was afraid to answer any other way. This Mr. George Thomas had married my old Mistress’s daughter, and we fell to him in right of his wife. I went home with him with a heavy heart. When John Wagar heard of this event, he said I belonged to him and should come back; but he could not accomplish his purpose in this, for being left to Mrs. Thomas, he could not hold me. He then tried to buy me, but my new master would not sell me, to him. Soon after my arrival in the family, Mr. Thomas let me to one of his sons, named Henry, who was a doctor, to attend his horse. This son was unmarried, lived a bachelor, and kept a cook and waiter. The cook belonged neither to him nor his father, but was hired. She was a good looking mulatto, and was married to a right smart, intelligent man, who belonged to the doctor’s uncle. One night, coming home in haste, and wishing to see his wife, he sent me up stairs, to request her to come down. Upon going up, I found she was in a room with the doctor, the door of which was fast. This I thoughtlessly told her husband, who, upon her coming down a moment after, upbraided her for it. She denied it, and afterwards told the doctor, but not till I had gone to my mother, sick, up to the old man’s plantation. The doctor was a very intemperate man. As soon as his cook told him her story, he came to his father with the complaint, that I had left him without his consent; upon which his father told him to flog me. He ordered me out to the barn, when I was scarcely able to hold up my head, and had to be led by my brother. Without saying what he wanted of me, he stripped off my clothes and then whipped me, beating me over the head until I became senseless, and life was nearly extinct. I was carried to my mother’s quarters, where I lay five weeks, unable to move without assistance. When I finally recovered, I did not return to him, as he did not wish it, but remained with my mother four years. My father was a very pious man, never complaining, but bearing every thing patiently, and praying for grace and fortitude to help him to overcome his trials, which he believed would one day be ended. He was a good servant and an affectionate parent. But new trials and sorrows soon broke upon this quiet family. My sister, whose name I must not mention, as she is now in the North, and like myself, not out of danger, was old Mistress’s house maid. She possessed both grace and beauty, and to-day, thank God, is a living monument in his temple. She was given to Mrs. Thomas as her maid, and was much prized, because a gift HDT WHAT? INDEX
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from her mother; but especially because she knew her to be a virtuous girl. She had found it impossible to long keep a maid of this stamp, for none could escape the licentious passions of her husband, who was the father of about one-fourth of the slaves on his plantation, by his slave women. Mrs. Thomas strove every way to shield my sister from this monster, but he was determined to accomplish his brutal designs. One day during his wife’s absence on a visit to her friends, being, as he thought, a good opportunity, he tried to force my sister to submit to his wishes. This she defeated by a resistance so obstinate, that he, becoming enraged, ordered two of his men to take her to the barn, where he generally whipped his slaves; there to strip off her clothes and whip her, which was done, until the blood stood in puddles under her feet. Upon his wife’s return, Mr. Thomas told her that my sister had been whipped for neglect of duty. Of this Mrs. Thomas did not complain, as she had no objection to necessary floggings. But similar scenes occuring quite often, our Mistress began to suspect that sister was not in fault, especially as in her presence she never neglected her business, and these complaints only came during her absence. Besides, she knew well her husband’s former practices, and at last began to suspect that these and my sister’s pretended faults, were in some way connected. Accordingly, she began to question her maid concerning her offences, who, fearing to tell her plainly, knowing it would be certain death to her, answered in low and trembling terms, “I must not tell you, but you may know what it is all for. If I have done anything, Madam, contrary to your wishes, and do not suit you, please sell me, but do not kill me without cause. Old Mistress, your mother, who is dead, and I trust in heaven, took great pains to bring me up a virtuous girl, and I will die before I will depart from her dying counsel, given, as you well know, while we were standing by her dying bed.” These words so affected Mrs. Thomas, that she fainted and was carried to her bed, to which she was confined by sickness five or six weeks. Her husband’s conduct still persisted in, finally caused her death, which occurred four years after. Mistress told sister that she had best get married, and that if she would, she would give her a wedding. Soon after, a very respectable young man, belonging to Mr. Bowman, a wealthy planter, and reputed to be a good master, began to court my sister. This very much pleased Mistress, who wished to hasten the marriage. She determined that her maid should be married, not as slaves usually are, but that with the usual matrimonial ceremonies should be tied the knot to be broken only by death. The Sabbath was appointed for the marriage, which was to take place at the Episcopal Church. I must here state that no slave can be married lawfully, without a line from his or her owner. Mistress and all the family, except the old man, went to church to witness the marriage ceremony, which was to be performed by HDT WHAT? INDEX
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their minister, parson Reynolds. The master of Josiah, my sister’s destined husband, was also at the wedding, for he thought a great deal of his man. Mistress returned delighted from the wedding, for she thought she had accomplished a great piece of work. But the whole affair only enraged her unfeeling husband, who, to be revenged upon the maid, proposed to sell her. To this his wife refused consent. Although Mrs. T. had never told him her suspicions, or what nay sister had said, yet he suspected the truth, and determined to be revenged. Accordingly, during another absence of Mistress, he again cruelly whipped my sister. A continued repetition of these things finally killed our Mistress, who the doctor said, died of a broken heart. After the death of this friend, sister ran away, leaving behind her husband and one child, and finally found her way to the North. None of our family ever heard from her afterwards, until I accidentally met her in the streets in Philadelphia. My readers can imagine what a meeting ours must have been. She is again married and in prosperity.
The sovereign state of Alabama took action to dispose of various slaves who had been, in accordance with federal law, confiscated from their owners due to their having been imported illegally. Since this federal law against the international slave trade was of course not for the benefit of black people, but for the benefit of white people, these victims were of course to be forced to work for free by the state until they could be auctioned by the state to the highest bidder, with the net proceeds from such auctions to be sent of course directly into state coffers. “An Act to carry into effect the laws of the United States prohibiting the slave trade.” § 1. “Be it enacted, ... That the Governor of this state be ... authorized and required to appoint some suitable person, as the agent of the state, to receive all and every slave or slaves or persons of colour, who may have been brought into this state in violation of the laws of the United States, prohibiting the slave trade: Provided, that the authority of the said agent is not to extend to slaves who have been condemned and sold.” § 2. The agent must give bonds. § 3. “And be it further enacted, That the said slaves, when so placed in the possession of the state, as aforesaid, shall be employed on such public work or works, as shall be deemed by the Governor of most value and utility to the public interest.” § 4. A part may be hired out to support those employed in public work. § 5. “And be it further enacted, That in all cases in which a decree of any court having competent authority, shall be in favor of any or claimant or claimants, the said slaves shall be truly and faithfully, by said agent, delivered to such claimant or claimants: but in case of their condemnation, they shall be sold by such agent for cash to the highest bidder, by giving HDT WHAT? INDEX
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sixty days notice,” etc. ACTS OF THE ASSEMBLY OF ALABAMA, 1822 (Cahawba, 1823), page 62. INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE
January 25, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven accepted a commission from Prince Galitsin for “one, two, or three new quartets.”
Leicester, ou Le chateau di Kenilworth, an opera comique by Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber to words of Scribe and Melesville after Scott, was performed for the initial time, in the Theatre Feydeau, Paris.
Edward Jenner died at the age of 74.
April 10, Thursday: Johann Baptist Jenger proposed that his friend Franz Schubert, despite his youth, be accepted as an honorary member of the Styrian Music Society at Graz. The proposal was accepted.
Franz Schubert wrote his publisher Cappi and Diabelli, accusing them of shady practices and severing relations.
Three songs by Franz Schubert were published by Sauer and Leidesdorf, Vienna as his op.20: Sei mir gegrusst to words of Ruckert, Fruhlingsglaube, to words of Uhland, and Hanflings Liebeswerbung to words of Kind.
On approximately this day, Franz Liszt wrote in Ludwig van Beethoven conversation book: I have often expressed the wish to Herr von Schindler to make your lofty acquaintance, and am rejoiced now to be able to do so. As I will give a concert on Sunday the 13th I most humbly beg you to grant me your exalted presence.
(Contrary to Liszt’s own report, Beethoven would not attend — by this point there was no longer anything to gain from attending concerts because he had become almost totally deaf.)
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 10th of 4 M / This was our Select Meeting Day, it was to me a season of solemnity — my spirit was tendered, & brought into a proffitable dispensation of feeling - for which I desire to be thankful. — Oh that I may Keep more on the Watch against the enemy, that I may not suffer So much by his inroads on my heart.- RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
June 16, Monday: King Willem I opened a shipyard, at Rotterdam-Antwerp.
Publication of the Diabelli Variations by Ludwig van Beethoven was announced.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day Our Meeting this morning opened under a solemn [—]ing — HDT WHAT? INDEX
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David Buffum spoke first in a feeling & appropriate manner “Tarry ye at Jerusalem” &c followed by [—]man & Henry Hull, both Meetings were remarkably solid & favoured with solid weight which kept down [a?] loose spirit - & we have abundant cause to [—]t in the Sufficiency of Divine power to carry thro’ all & [—] all — My heart was truly thankful for that favour. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
August 13, Wednesday: Ludwig van Beethoven left the home of Baron von Pronay at Hertzendorf where he has been staying, for Baden.
October 5, Sunday: While in Vienna for the premiere of Euryanthe, Carl Maria von Weber traveled to Baden to visit Ludwig van Beethoven.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 5th of 10 M / Our Morning Meeting was well attended Abigail Robinson was present & was favourd in Testimony to some length. — which is the first time of her appearance in that way for (I think) over two years & but very few times for some years past, her health being very feeble she has seldom been at Meeting. — a few words from Father Rodman in the Afternoon. — Br Jonathon & Sister Elizabeth Nichols took tea with us, being the last time, as they expect to set out for Salem tomorrow Morning. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1824
January 8, Thursday: Ludwig van Beethoven sent a conciliatory letter to his sister-in-law Johanna van Beethoven, offering financial assistance.
There had been considerable controversy but when the Royal Society put the matter to a vote, there was only one vote cast against accepting Michael Faraday as a new member.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 8th of 1st M 1824 / Favoured this morning with the precious arisings of life in my mind, for which I desire to be thankful — Silent Meeting & a good time, being favourd to feel —various subjects of an exercising nature were presented to view. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
February 26, Thursday: Ludwig van Beethoven received a petition by 30 musicians, publishers, and other admirers, requesting a performance of his newest works.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 26 of 2 M / For several days & particularly yesterday I have been quite unwell with a hevy cold, some fever & a rheumatic pain in my knee which was very tedious last night - which prevents my attendance of our Moy [Monthly] Meeting this day held in Portsmouth — My heart is with my friends now assembled there, to transact the weighty & important concerns of the Church. but such was the situation of my health that I could not think it prudent to go. — Yesterday Afternoon we had the company of Wm R Thurston of NYork to tea & a call from him this morning - He is here on buisness expecting to leave for home this Afternoon or tomorrow — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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April 7, Wednesday: In St. Petersburg, Mass in D “Missa Solemnis” for soloists, chorus and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed completely for the initial time.
May 1, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven took a room for the summer in Penzing (he would leave after three weeks because, he said, people on a nearby footbridge were staring at him while he was shaving).
If, while he was working, he did not go out during the forenoon, in order to compose himself, he would stand at the washbasin ... and pour great pitchersful of water over his hands, at the same time howling or, for a change, growling out the whole gamut of the scale, ascending and descending; then, before long, he would pace the room, his eyes rolling or fixed in a stare, jot down a few notes and again return to his water pouring and howling.... Beethoven was everywhere unwelcome as a lodger.
The Eastern Lunatic Asylum (now Eastern State Hospital) opened in Lexington, Kentucky in the Fayette Hospital, a building that had been initiated by charitable citizens on June 30, 1817 and completed after purchase by the state in 1822. Its 1st inmate was Charity, a 21-year-old African American woman.16 PSYCHOLOGY
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 1st of 5 M 1824 / Rode to Portsmouth with Aunt Stanton this PM - lodged & this (1st day [Sunday]) went with her to meeting A precious good one to me, which I felt very thankful for Uncle brought me part of the way home this Afternoon RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
16. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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May 7, Friday: Under the new constitution of Mejico, there was a new state to consist of the areas now encompassed by Texas and by Coahuila. There were already a few thousand Gringos in Tejas, mostly squatters but counting also those who had permission to be with the Austin colony in central Tejas. (Mejico would make no attempt to discourage such emigration of persons out of the USA prior to 1830, at which point the number of these troublesome intrusives ostensively in the process of becoming citizens of Mejico rather than citizens of the USA would exceed 30,000.)
In Vienna’s Karntnertortheater, the Symphony No. 9 in D Minor for soloists, chorus, and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven to words of Schiller, the “Choral” Symphony, was performed for the initial time. The musicians had been instructed to ignore the conducting attempted by the deaf composer. Afterward a violinist would report that on the podium he had thrown himself “back and forth like a madman.” At the conclusion of the work the crowd bursts into uproarious applause, including stamping of feet and waving, and Caroline Unger, the alto soloist, turned the composer around to view the spectacle because he had been unaware of it.
In the audience was a very interested Franz Schubert.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day Rode this morng to the Boarding School in Providence to attend the School committee & spent the day there in the service of society. — at Six oClock we (J Dennis & I) went on board the Steam Boat & arrived home at 10 OClock in the evening finding all as well as when I left tho J Hornsby very ill. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
May 23, Sunday: Shortly after Antonio Salieri cut his throat in a suicide attempt, Calisto Bassi began passing out printed copies of his poem “A Lodovico van Beethoven Ode Alcaica” (it was in this poem that Bassi made the initial assertion that Salieri had poisoned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — the Vienna police quickly confiscated as many copies as they could get their hands on).
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1st day 23 of 5 M / Our morning Meeting well attended, it was Silent & long & tho’ the forepart of it was to me nearly Senseless yet it closed under precious feelings for which I desire to be thankful — Silent again in the Afternoon & not so hard a time as many others. — With John Took tea & set the evening at D Buffums. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 29: Ludwig van Beethoven was elected to honorary membership in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1825
March 6, Sunday: In Vienna, String Quartet op.127 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time (it was not a success).
In the Teatro San Carlo of Naples meanwhile, I voti dei sudditi, an azione pastorale by Gaetano Donizetti to words of Schmidt was being performed for the initial time.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 6th of 3rd M / In the forenoon our fr D Buffum was very lively in testimony - Silent in the Afternoon — both meetings were very good ones to me — particularly in the Afternoon when life rose in my feelings greatly to my comfort. I desire to be thankful for this renewd evidence of grace — In the eveng went with John out to D Buffum (R Rodman in company) & took tea on my return stoped at Cousin Henry Goulds for my wife who went there to visit his son Thomas, who is very sick of a complaint that looks alarming RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
May 10: The remains of Antonio Salieri were placed in Vienna’s Matzleinsdorf Cemetery in a ceremony attended by all court musicians, and many other musical figures (Ludwig van Beethoven was not present because he was in Baden for his health).
September 2, Friday: At a dinner party at the residence of Ludwig van Beethoven in Baden, the composer wrote a canon for Friedrich Kuhlau on the Bach theme “Kuhl, nicht lau.”
September 9, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven’s final performance was the initial presentation of his String Quartet op.132 and was performed before a private audience in Vienna.
October 15: New York Governor De Witt Clinton’s party left Albany, New York on the Erie Canal.
Ludwig van Beethoven moved into his last residence, the Schwarzspanierhaus in Vienna.
November 6, Sunday: In Vienna, String Quartet op.132 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed publicly for the initial time.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 6th of 11th M 1825 / Both Meetings were Silent, but seasons of some favour to me for which I desire to be thankful — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
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November 29, Tuesday: Ludwig van Beethoven was elected an honorary member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde of Vienna.
At the Park Theater in New-York, Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) by Gioachino Rossini was the initial opera to be sung in Italian. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1826
March 21, Tuesday: In Vienna, String Quartet op.130 (with the Grosse Fuge) by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time.
Funding was arranged for enclosure of the European cemetery in Algiers, where the bodies of Europeans were being exposed to insults by the public and damage by the sea. READ THE FULL TEXT
August 6: At the ruins of Rauhenstein near Baden, 19-year-old Karl van Beethoven, nephew and ward of Ludwig van Beethoven, shot twice at his left temple, missing with one shot and inflicting a flesh wound with the other. He was found by a teamster and, by his own request, brought to his mother’s house in Vienna. The young man would survive but his uncle would be emotionally impacted.
August 7: As was customary with suicide attempts, Vienna police removed the wounded Karl van Beethoven from his mother’s house to the city’s General Hospital. He would remain there until September 25th.
September 28, Thursday: Russia declared war on Persia due to Persian involvement in Transcaucasia.
Ludwig van Beethoven, his brother Johann, and their nephew Karl traveled to Johann’s country property at Gneixendorf near Krems. The composer was ill.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 28th of 9 M / Our first Meeting was a solid good time H Dennis was engaged in testimony as was also Father Rodman. — & tho’ it thus appeard - I may confess on my part, much leanness of spirit was my portion. — In the last Meeting we had but little buisness, & it seemed to me, that little was pretty well conducted. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
December 2: Documentation of the international slave trade, per W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: “Report of the Secretary of the Navy.” (Part IV. of Documents accompanying the President’s Message.) –HOUSE DOCUMENT, 19 Cong. 2 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 9, 10, 74-103.
When Ludwig van Beethoven and his nephew Karl arrived back in Vienna from Johann’s place at Gneixendorf near Krems, they summoned a doctor. In transit they had spent the night in a cold inn, and the composer had become quite ill. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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December 5, Tuesday: Dr. Andreas Wawruch visited Ludwig van Beethoven and diagnosed an inflammation of the lungs. The doctor would be visiting the composer daily through December 14th.
On this day and the following one the completed church building of Concord’s Trinitarian Congregationalists, on Walden Street, was dedicated by its initial 16 members, and a sermon by the Reverend Green of Boston, which sermon would then be printed. It had cost about $6,000 to construct the building on the lot donated by Ebenezer Hubbard.
The Reverend Asa Rand would preach until the ordination of the Reverend Daniel Starr Southmayd on April 25, 1827. The Trinitarian meeting-house, built in 1826, is 60 feet long, 58 wide, and 22 high, with a spire of 68 feet. The entrance is at one end, and it has narrow pews facing and descending towards the pulpit, and a gallery at one end. Building committee, Moses Davis, John Vose, and Ebenezer Hubbard; builder, Thomas Benjamin; expense (including a bell weighing 1125 lbs.), between $5,000 and $6,000. It was dedicated December 6, 1826, when the Rev. Mr. Green of Boston preached a sermon, afterwards printed.17
December 12, Tuesday: Dr. Wawruch was much alarmed by Ludwig van Beethoven’s condition and arranged for a surgery, to remove abdominal fluids.
17. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 20, Wednesday: Ludwig van Beethoven underwent a surgery to remove abdominal fluids, the initial of four such operations.
James Melvin was born in Concord to Charles Melvin (1) and Betsy Farrar Melvin. He would get married with Elizabeth Gates. THE MELVINS OF CONCORD
Per the journal of Albert Gallatin’s son James as recorded in THE DIARY OF JAMES GALLATIN: Looked in at White’s. All intent on gambling. While I was there a sum of £8000 changed hands. Had some supper; a thick fog, had to have a link man to show me the way home. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1827
January 2, Tuesday: Karl van Beethoven, nephew of Ludwig van Beethoven, joined the Austrian army as a cadet in the regiment of Field Marshal von Stutterheim.
January 8, Monday: Ludwig van Beethoven underwent a 2d operation to remove excess abdominal fluid.
February 2, Friday: Ludwig van Beethoven underwent a 3d operation to remove excess abdominal fluid.
A cantata for the birthday of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar by Johann Nepomuk Hummel was performed for the initial time.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day Attended the School committee & went into Town & lodged at Wm Jenkins. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
February 20, Tuesday: Two works by Felix Mendelssohn were performed for the initial time in Stettin (Szczecin), conducted by Carl Loewe: Concerto in Ab for two pianos and orchestra, and the Overture “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The composer played one piano in the concerto, the conductor the other (this concerto had maybe been performed earlier, at a family concert in Berlin). His music was a great success but was overshadowed by the second half of the program, the Symphony no. 9 of Ludwig van Beethoven, which was being performed for the initial time in northern Germany. Mendelssohn played first violin.
Argentine forces routed Brazilians at Ituzaingo north of Montevideo, ensuring their rule over Uruguay.
February 27, Tuesday: Ludwig van Beethoven underwent a 4th operation to remove abdominal fluids.
March 8, Thursday: A day after arriving in Vienna on a concert tour, Johann Nepomuk Hummel visited the home of his close friend Ludwig van Beethoven and found him on his deathbed.
Two works by Franz Schubert were performed for the initial time, in the Musikvereinsaal, Vienna: Gott in der Natur D.757, a vocal quartet to words of von Kleist, and Normans Gesang D.846, a song to words of Scott translated by Storck.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 8th of 3 M / Silent but quiet [quite?] solid meeting — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
March 13, Tuesday: Johann Nepomuk Hummel again visited Ludwig van Beethoven on his deathbed, one of four visits by Hummel this month. They shared a glass of wine.
Humphrey Barrett died at the age of 75. His real estate in Concord would be inherited by Abel B. Heywood.
FINANCES.— In the early ages of the town, several lots of land were reserved for the “public good,” and donations were made by individuals for the same purpose. Most of them, however, were disposed of without producing much permanent benefit, or accomplishing the wishes of the donor. Captain Timothy Wheeler,18 in 1687, bequeathed to the Rev. Edward Bulkeley and the Rev. Joseph Estabrook, who were then the ministers of the town, 20s. apiece; and to the town about three acres of land, with a house standing on the same, to be improved, all but half an acre (which was “laid out to the training place” at the northwesterly end of the public common), “for the furtherance of learning and the support of a school in the said town.” This lot was that on which the grammar school-house now [1835] stands, and then embraced nearly all which would be included in a line drawn from the north side of the house recently built by Ephraim Merriam, to the brook and by the brook round to the Middlesex Hotel and the common. These premises were several years leased and the rents applied according to the wishes of the donor; but piece after piece was unfortunately sold, till the school-house lot was contracted to its present [1835] highly inconvenient dimensions. Captain Wheeler also bequeathed to the town 40 acres of woodland, “to be improved from time to time for the use and benefit of the ministers of the said town.” This was the present [1835] ministerial lot; and the people were long accustomed to hold a bee, when a sufficient quantity of wood for the minister’s annual consumption was drawn from this lot to his door. The town directed, April 1, 1811, that the wood on this lot, and on one in Carlisle, should be cut off and sold; and that pews should be erected on some vacant floor in the meeting-house, and also sold; and that the proceeds should be vested in the hands of trustees, as a ministerial fund. Their first report was made November 7, 1814, and shows the following results. Proceeds of sales of wood on the ministerial wood-lot $2,566.13 Proceeds of sales of wood on a lot in Carlisle 364.27 Proceeds of sales of pews in the meeting house 1,365.55 ———————— Total on interest from January 1st, 1814 $4,295.95 The first trustees were John White, Francis Jarvis, and John L. Tuttle; and they and their successors were incorporated by an act passed February 27, 1813, as “The Trustees of the
18. Captain TIMOTHY WHEELER died July 10, 1687 aged 86. He came to Concord in 1638, tradition says from Wales. Besides holding, at different times, most of the important trusts in various town affairs, he was captain of a military company, and represented the town eighteen years in the General Court, between 1653 and 1672. In all stations he appears to have conducted himself with great propriety. At his death he was possessed of a very respectable estate. His will, which is recorded in the Suffolk Probate Records, was dated the 1st of March next before his death. His second wife was Mary, daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks. They had no male issue. One of his daughters, Elizabeth, married Ebenezer Prout, some time clerk of the House of Representatives; and another, Rebecca, married James Minott, Esq., and was the ancestor of many distinguished individuals. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Congregational Ministerial Fund in Concord.” This fund has since been accumulating; and it received the additional legacy of Humphrey Barrett,19 in 1829, of $500. No appropriations were made from it till 1830; and on the first of January, 1831, it amounted to $11,431.45. In 1732, a committee was appointed, consisting of the Rev. Mr. Whiting, James Minott, Jr., John Fox, and Samuel Heywood, to make sale of the common and ministerial land in the town, and vest the proceeds in other real estate. A “ministerial pasture and plow land,” was accordingly bought west of the almshouse and some time used as a “perquisite” lot. During the Rev. Mr. Emerson’s ministry, it was sold for £75, or $250, and the annual interest, $15, applied for the benefit of the minister. In consequence of losses sustained during the revolution, it became reduced to $100 nearly. In 1819, the town voted that the minister should receive $15, the original perquisite; and the balance $9, has been annually raised by a tax.20
March 19, Monday: A group of Viennese music-lovers including Franz Schubert visited the ailing Ludwig van Beethoven on his deathbed (this was the initial and sole meeting of these two composers who had for three full decades shared the same city).
March 20, Tuesday: When Johann Nepomuk Hummel and his wife Elisabeth visited Ludwig van Beethoven on his deathbed, they found that he could only speak in whispers.
March 23, Friday: With great difficulty Ludwig van Beethoven signed a will leaving his entire estate to his nephew Karl. During the final visit of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Beethoven told him that he expected death soon.
March 24, Saturday: Ludwig van Beethoven received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. In the evening he lost consciousness.
19. HUMPHREY BARRETT was the son of Lieutenant Humphrey Barrett, and died without issue, March 13, 1827, aged 75. Abel B. Heywood inherited, and lives on [1835], his real estate. 20. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston MA: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy, 1835 (On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistake buried in the body of the text.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
March 26, Monday: It was a snowy day in Vienna. In the late afternoon Ludwig van Beethoven died at the age of 56 during a thunderstorm, of liver failure caused by cirrhosis. As the corpse would lie in state (this was before Beethoven became a decomposer) the hordes of mourners who filed past would deprive it of most of its hair. Ferdinand Hiller was one of these visitors who went away with a lock, which his son Paul Hiller would frame and identify. The lock is curly, between three and four inches long and about a half an inch in diameter. It is brown with some gray hairs. The plan is to submit the preserved hair now to forensic analysis to determine whether Beethoven was part Negroid (he being so musical!) and whether the hair contains the mercury residues which would indicate that he had been treated for syphilis.21 THE MARKET FOR HUMAN BODY PARTS
That evening at the Paris Opera, Moise et Pharaon, ou Le passage de la Mer rouge, an opera by Gioachino Rossini to words of Balocchi and de Jouy after Tottola, was performed for the initial time, to a wildly enthusiastic reception.
March 27, Tuesday: An autopsy was conducted on the body of Ludwig van Beethoven by Dr. Johann Wagner. He would describe the convolutions in the brain as extraordinarily deep and wide.
March 29, Thursday: There were so many citizens around the Schwarzspanierhaus in Vienna, where the body of Ludwig van Beethoven lay in state attended by nine priests –some 15,000-20,000 in total– that soldiers were called in to provide crowd control. School had been canceled for the day and among the spectators were many children. After a chorale had been sung, at 3:00PM, the procession to the church began. Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Carl Czerny, and Franz Schubert were among the mourners. In the procession was a military band, playing an arrangement of Beethoven’s funeral march from the Piano Sonata op.26. It took the procession an hour and a half to get to the Trinity Church of the Minorities despite the fact that this destination was little more than a block away. From the church a carriage conveyed the coffin to Wahring Cemetery, where a funeral oration by Franz Grillparzer was read by Heinrich Anschutz.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 29th of 3 M / Our Moy [Monthly] Meeting held in Town which was a time of favour - Abigail Robinson twice engaged in testimony in the first Meeting - In the last there were two requests for Membership, but there was also something on the other hand to ballance it. — Isaac Almy & wife dined with us. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
April 5, Thursday: There was a 2d memorial service for Ludwig van Beethoven, in St. Charles’ Church of Vienna, at which the Requiem of Luigi Cherubini was performed.
Vincenzo Bellini departed from Naples, for Milan and the Teatro alla Scala.
Adam and Franz Liszt departed from Paris, for another trip to Britain.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:
21. I suppose the results of these tests must be in by now, but I haven’t bothered to look them up. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
5th day 5th of 4 M / A Good solid Meeting - & my mind favord with the feeling of life, for which I feel thankful — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
April 7, Saturday: At a concert in honor of Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna, Johann Nepomuk Hummel improvised variations on the 2d movement of Symphony no.7.
John Walker, a chemist in Stockton-on-Tees, England, had recently treated sticks with chemicals and let them dry, to create the first friction matches. On this day he made his first sale. Since like 1805 the “Instantaneous Light Box” had been available as a supplement for a flint-and-steel apparatus used in conjunction with a tinderbox full of dry combustibles. This had consisted of a little pocket bottle of sulfuric acid into which one dipped a treated wooden splint. When you pulled this splint out of the bottle you were suddenly standing there with an open flame in one hand and an open bottle of acid in the other — which was not exactly ideal from a safety standpoint. In this matchless year of 1827 the new invention was a friction match. The chemist John Walker sold to a solicitor, John Hixon, a novelty light, a bundle of pasteboard match “sticks” in a round to “pillar-box” container with a piece of folded glass paper (glass paper was a predecessor of sandpaper, which would not be invented until 1834) enclosed. One was to insert the end of the match in the fold of the paper, grip the paper — and tug, thus neatly dispensing with the open bottle of acid.22 He charged one shilling per hundred of these chemically prepared sticks, which were tipped with a mixture of antimony sulfide and potassium chlorate,23 plus two old pennies if the customer lacked a container for them. It seems that Walker had gotten the idea from a local sportsman named Vollum who had from time to time ordered a mixture of chlorate of potash, sulphide of antimony, and gum from him for use as percussion powder in his guns. Soon so many people in the Stockton and Durham area of Sweden would be using Walker’s “friction lights,”24 that he would begin to offer them at one and a half old pennies each in the shop of John Ellis, a local book-binder. Wood strips cut for him by the inmates of a almshouse would replace the pasteboard that had initially been used. Within a year the fame of this local invention would begin to spread. Although Walker would decline to patent his invention and would cease making matches in 1830, when he would die in 1859 he would nevertheless die prosperous, leaving a legacy of three thousand pounds.
April 11, Wednesday: The front page of Berlin’s Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung had a black border and the headline “Beethoven is dead.”25
April 22, Sunday: String Quartet op.130 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time with its new ending, in Vienna.
Nachtgesang im Walde D.913 for male vocal quartet and four horns by Franz Schubert was performed for the initial time, in the Musikvereinsaal, Vienna.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 22nd of 4th M / Meetings both silent - the forenoon was larger - both solid opportunities. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1828
February 7, Thursday: Hasanoanda was born on the Tonawanda Reservation in Indian Falls, New York.
The Leonore Overture no.1 by Ludwig van Beethoven, that had apparently been intended for a Prague production of Fidelio, but coming to light only after the composer’s death, was performed for the initial time.
Charles Baker got married with Joanna Jones of Concord (when they had published their intention to marry “the bands were forbidden by Messrs. Gregory Stone & Daniel Haynes of said Lincoln & after trial before
22. You could also ignite one of these newfangled devices, if you were carrying it in a tight pocket, by bending over too quickly.
According to Dr. Edward Jarvis’s TRADITIONS AND REMINISCENCES OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS 1779-1878, page 71: There were no friction matches in those days, only the flint and steels, tinder box, and sulphur matches. Families kept these. Gun flints were generally used, and an old file or any other piece of steel. Tinder was made by burning cotton or linen rags to a charcoal, and extinguishing the flame before this coal was converted into ashes. This was kept in a tin box made for this purpose. It was so light and combustible that a spark from the flint and steel would kindle it. The matches were of domestic manufacture. They were simply small strips of very dry pine wood, 4, 5, or 6 inches long, with one end coated with sulphur [made] by dipping it in when the sulphur was melted. This end being applied to the burning tinder, the sulphur took fire and kindled the wood and thus the fire was begun. This was a troublesome process, for the heat of the burning tinder was very slight, and it required, sometimes, much patience to kindle the sulphur with it. Most families intended to preserve burning coals through the night, yet sometimes these failed, through necessity or carelessness, and some had neither living coals in the morning nor any means of kindling a fire. They were compelled to send to a neighbor to beg a coal or a brand, and when those neighbors were distant, it was with very great difficulty that the fire could be carried in open air. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Ebenr Hobs, Charles Wheeler, & Elisha Wheeler, Esqr the Certificate given”).
Henry Neele, still a relatively young man, committed suicide by slitting his own throat.
To Despair. I. It was Despair, He roll’d his large red eye around, And laid his wither’d hand upon the lyre; Then woke that strain so wildly terrible, That Madness Ceas’d for awhile her idiot grin, and Fear Call’d Disappointment from his iron cell, To pause and listen while his own pale cheek Grew paler. II. It was Despair: The man of dark imaginings, Who sits sullen on some blasted heath, Which the pale moon-beam saddens, not relieves; There raving, Fashioning shapes huge, strange, and horrible, And starting wild, he points at vacancy, And to the spirits of the night-blast tells His sorrows. III. He asks not aid, Nor does the big sigh heave his breast, Nor does the sorrowful tear suffuse his eyes, For sighs and tears bespeak a spirit worn, Not withered; Bended, not broken: they are like the rains That bless the plains they deluge, when the flow’rs E’en while they bend beneath their weight, are seen
23. Another account says the head of the match was fabricated from potash, sugar, and gum arabic. 24. Initially termed the “Congreve,” the device would become known as “a Lucifer.” 25. One of my sister-in-law PearlPearl’s favorite jokes: Q. “What did Beethoven do after he died?” A. “He became a decomposer.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Reviving. IV. There was a light, That us’d to flit across his path, Lonely, yet lovely, and it cheer’d his soul, And he would cherish it, and call it Hope: That vanish’d— And he must wander now despairingly, Where never taper lends its little ray, Where never moon must soothe, and never sun Shall gladden. V. Despair is Death: And though he come not in the storm That blasts the roses, yet he lurks unseen, Eating their core away, and o’er them sheds His mildew: While of such sad, sad change, the cause and cure Alike unknown, we can but mourn the flow’rs That look less beautiful and count the leaves That wither. VI. Thou Sun of heaven! Tho’ thou art cheerful, and he dull As blackest night, Despair resembles thee; Fierce as thou art, and lasting as thou seem’st, His sorrows Thy setting sees the same pale marble cheeks, Thy rising radiance vainly strove to gild; The same dull eye’s fix’d glare, the same wild steps, Still wand’ring. VII. Yet he can smile With seeming careless jollity, And o’er the goblet gay will join the laugh, And strive to play the courtier deftily. But vainly— The worm that fattens in the dead man’s socket, Looks not less like the life that glitter’d there, Than that faint smile, the heart-exulting mirth It mimics. VIII. O saddest lot! Thus barely doom’d to breathe and be, To wander up and down this care-bound sphere, And only know we live, because we feel Life’s sorrows; And only shrink from death because we fear The grave itself may hold some dream like life, And even that dark slumber may not be Unbroken. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
March 9, Sunday: The initial performance of the new Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire took place at the Paris Conservatory. The group had been formed to promote modern symphonic music, particularly that of Ludwig van Beethoven. This day marked the first performance of the “Eroica” Symphony in France. It would be these performances during this Spring season which would introduce Hector Berlioz to Beethoven –to the expressive power of his music– and solidify for him the symphony as a dramatic form, capable of extra- musical associations.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 9th of 3rd M / In our morning Meeting Anne Dennis said a few words & in the Afternoon Meeting Father Rodman bore a short testimony - In the forepart of the Meeting we were disturbed by a man who appeard to be deranged, he rose up & asked us if we knew Arther Howell or Wm Savery, by which I concluded he knew something about friends & had live in Phila as both those names were familiar to a number present — after a time at the request of Father Rodman & Benj Cornell he withdrew. — Yesterday we had a pleasant letter from John, he appears to be making satisfactory progress in his buisness in Hudson & expects to attend our next Y Meeting in the 6th M —- My Brother James W Gould who had been on a Whaling voyage out of New Bedford came into this harbour last night & on short this morning - he looks better than he did when he was at home in the 6th M 1825. — he went with Isaac to Portsmouth to see Uncle & Aunt Stanton & Mother - & will sail for Bedford in the ship he came in, (called the Persia), tomorrow morning RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
March 23, Sunday: String Quartet op.135 by Ludwig van Beethoven was performed for the initial time, in the Musikvereinsaal of Vienna.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 23rd of 3rd M / In the Morning Meeting David Rodman read the London Epistle for the present year & Father Rodman bore a short testimony - Silent & to me a good meeting in the Afternoon. — I went out & took tea with Our frd David Buffum who has not been at Meeting for several Meeting Days, in consequence of poor health - he seemed bright & pleasant in conversation & not quite as unwell as I expected to find him — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
March 26, Thursday: The first concert consisting entirely of the works of Franz Schubert took place in Vienna. Originally planned for March 21st, it was changed to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven. Songs performed for the initial time were Auf dem Strom D.943 to words of Rellstab, Fischerweise D.881 to words of Schlecht, Der Kreuzzug D.932 to words of Leitner, and Die Sterne to words of Leitner. Other premieres included the Schlachtlied D.912 for double male chorus to words of Klopstock and the first movement of the String Quartet D.887.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 26 of 3 Mo// Wm Almy was at Meeting & was concern’d in public testimony to the edification & comfort of Many minds present.— In the last for discipline there was two requests for membership Vizt Job Watson & [blank] Slocum - Benj Anthony & Catherine Almy published their intentions of Marriage with each other. & a committee appt to treat with E W Lawton. - ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
November 21, Friday: Franz von Schober gave the oration at the funeral service for Franz Peter Schubert in the Church of St. Joseph, Margereten, in the presence of family and some friends. Johann Baptist Gansbacher, director of music at St. Stephen’s, led the small church choir and some wind instrumentalists in some of his own music, along with a piece by Schubert. It was dark and rainy as the remains were placed in Vienna’s Wahring Cemetery near those of Ludwig van Beethoven. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1830
Richard Wagner composed a piano arrangement based on Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS, LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION.
September 16, Thursday: In Vienna, Aloys Fuchs, a collector of musical manuscripts, presented his new friend Felix Mendelssohn with the “Wittgenstein” sketchbook of Ludwig van Beethoven. This contained drafts of the Piano Sonata op.109, the Diabellis Variations, and the Missa Solemnis.26
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 16 of 9 M / Attended Meeting in Town Wm Almy & An old friend from the eastward by the name of Crowell preached - it was however no time of elevation to me, tho’ not so poor as sometimes — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem “Old Ironsides” appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser.
26. In this period Ludwig van Beethoven was beginning to score for the flute in his musical creations. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Aye, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon’s roar; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more! Her decks, once red with heroes’ blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o’er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor’s tread Or know the conquered knee; The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea! Oh, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!27
27. The poet who wrote this grand national chauvinistic stuff, it must be pointed out, was more interested in law-n-order than in abolition. He had the habit of referring to abolitionists as “philo-melanics,” a term which one presumes he meant to be freely translated into the vernacular as “niggerlovers.” He was in favor of the welfare of black Americans of course (at a first approximation everyone wants what’s best for everyone) but their needs had inevitably to be subordinated to the needs of white citizens simply because they were racially inferior beings. At that time, although thankfully no longer, it was considered natural and therefore right that “our sympathies” should be extended primarily toward “our own color first.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1832
February 26, Sunday: Tsar Nikolai I signed an “Organic Statute” establishing direct Russian rule over Poland and abolishing that nation’s constitution.
Frédéric François Chopin gave his initial concert in Paris, in the Salle Pleyel. The performance had been organized by Frederic Kalkbrenner and Camille Pleyel and was praised by Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn. The hall was only a third full and many of the patrons were Polish emigres. The program included Ludwig van Beethoven’s Quintet op.29, Chopin’s F minor piano concerto, and Introduction March and Grand Polonaise for six pianos by Kalkbrenner (Chopin and Kalkbrenner took part). Antoni Orlawski would profess grandly that “All Paris was stupefied!” Chopin had “mopped up the floor with every one of the pianists here.”
In Providence, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 26th of 2 M / Silent in the Morng - In the Afternoon Lydia Breed bore a short testimony - In the eveng with Enoch & Lydia had a long conference in our room relating to the affairs of the Institution which resulted satisfactorily RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1833
November 22, Friday: At his first concert as music director in Dusseldorf, Felix Mendelssohn directed a performance of George Frideric Handel’s “Alexander’s Feast.”
Valentin Alkan played the piano solo in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1835
October 4, Sunday: Felix Mendelssohn conducted his first performance as director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig. The program featured his own Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, and the Fourth Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Richard Henry Dana, Jr. mused upon wage slavery and upon the nature of the Sabbath as a day of rest, on arrival in the port of Santa Barbara, California.
AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT, A REPORT FROM OUR SAILOR: Sunday, Oct. 4th. This was the day of our arrival; and somehow or other, our captain always managed not only to sail, but to come into port, on a Sunday. The main reason for sailing on the Sabbath is not, as many people suppose, because Sunday is thought a lucky day, but because it is a leisure day. During the six days, the crew are employed upon the cargo and other ship’s works, and the Sabbath, being their only day of rest, whatever additional work can be thrown into Sunday, is so much gain to the owners. This is the reason of our coasters, packets, etc., sailing on the Sabbath. They get six good days’ work out of the crew, and then throw all the labor of sailing into the Sabbath. Thus it was with us, nearly all the time we were on the coast, and many of our Sabbaths were lost entirely to us. The Catholics on shore have no trading and make no journeys on Sunday, but the American has no national religion, and likes to show his independence of priestcraft by doing as he chooses on the Lord’s day. Santa Barbara looked very much as it did when I left it five months before: the long sand beach, with the heavy rollers, breaking upon it in a continual roar, and the little town, imbedded on the plain, girt by its amphitheatre of mountains. Day after day, the sun shone clear and bright upon the wide bay and the red roofs of the houses; everything being as still as death, the people really hardly seeming to earn their sun-light. Daylight actually seemed thrown away upon them. We had a few visitors, and collected about a hundred hides, and every night, at sundown, the gig was sent ashore, to wait for the captain, who spent his evenings in the town. We always took our monkey-jackets with us, and flint and steel, and made a fire on the beach with the driftwood and the bushes we pulled from the neighboring thickets, and lay down by it, on the sand. Sometimes we would stray up to the town, if the captain was likely to stay late, and pass the time at some of the houses, in which we were almost always well received by the inhabitants. Sometimes earlier and sometimes later, the captain came down; when, after a good drenching in the surf, we went aboard, changed our clothes, and turned in for the night– yet not for all the night, for there was the anchor watch to stand. This leads me to speak of my watchmate for nine months– and, taking him all in all, the most remarkable man I have ever seen– Tom Harris. An hour, every night, while lying in port, Harris and myself had the deck to ourselves, and walking fore and aft, night after night, for months, I learned his whole character and history, and more about foreign nations, the habits of different people, and especially the secrets of sailors’ lives and hardships, and also of practical seamanship, (in which he was abundantly capable of instructing me,) than I could ever have learned elsewhere. But the most remarkable thing about him, was the power of his mind. His memory was perfect; seeming to form a regular chain, reaching from his earliest childhood up to the time I knew him, without one link wanting. His power of calculation, too, was remarkable. I called myself pretty quick at figures, and had been through a course of mathematical studies; but, working by my head, I was unable to keep within sight of this man, who had never been beyond his arithmetic: so rapid was his calculation. He carried in his head not only a log-book of the whole voyage, in which everything was complete and accurate, and from which no one ever thought of appealing, but also an accurate registry of all the cargo; knowing, precisely, where each thing was, and how many hides we took in at every port. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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One night, he made a rough calculation of the number of hides that could be stowed in the lower hold, between the fore and main masts, taking the depth of hold and breadth of beam, (for he always knew the dimension of every part of the ship, before he had been a month on board,) and the average area and thickness of a hide; he came surprisingly near the number, as it afterwards turned out. The mate frequently came to him to know the capacity of different parts of the vessel, so he could tell the sailmaker very nearly the amount of canvas he would want for each sail in the ship; for he knew the hoist of every mast, and spread of every sail, on the head and foot, in feet and inches. When we were at sea, he kept a running account, in his head, of the ship’s way– the number of knots and the courses; and if the courses did not vary much during the twenty-four hours, by taking the whole progress, and allowing so many eighths southing or northing, to so many easting or westing; he would make up his reckoning just before the captain took the sun at noon, and often came wonderfully near the mark. Calculation of all kinds was his delight. He had, in his chest, several volumes giving accounts of inventions in mechanics, which he read with great pleasure, and made himself master of. I doubt if he ever forgot anything that he read. The only thing in the way of poetry that he ever read was Falconer’s Shipwreck, which he was delighted with, and whole pages of which he could repeat. He knew the name of every sailor that had ever been his shipmate, and also, of every vessel, captain, and officer, and the principal dates of each voyage; and a sailor whom he afterwards fell in with, who had been in a ship with Harris nearly twelve years before, was very much surprised at having Harris tell him things about himself which he had entirely forgotten. His facts, whether dates or events, no one thought of disputing; and his opinions, few of the sailors dared to oppose; for, right or wrong, he always had the best of the argument with them. His reasoning powers were remarkable. I have had harder work maintaining an argument with him in a watch, even when I knew myself to be right, and he was only doubting, than I ever had before; not from his obstinacy, but from his acuteness. Give him only a little knowledge of his subject, and, certainly among all the young men of my acquaintance and standing at college, there was not one whom I had not rather meet, than this man. I never answered a question from him, or advanced an opinion to him, without thinking more than once. With an iron memory, he seemed to have your whole past conversation at command, and if you said a thing now which ill agreed with something said months before, he was sure to have you on the hip. In fact, I always felt, when with him, that I was with no common man. I had a positive respect for his powers of mind, and felt often that if half the pains had been spent upon his education which are thrown away, yearly, in our colleges, he would have been a man of great weight in society. Like most self-taught men, he over-estimated the value of an education; and this, I often told him, though I profited by it myself; for he always treated me with respect, and often unnecessarily gave way to me, from an over-estimate of my knowledge. For the intellectual capacities of all the rest of the crew, captain and all, he had the most sovereign contempt. He was a far better sailor, and probably a better navigator, than the captain, and had more brains than all the after part of the ship put together. The sailors said, “Tom’s got a head as long as the bowsprit,” and if any one got into an argument with him, they would call out– “Ah, Jack! you’d better drop that, as you would a hot potato, for Tom will turn you inside out before you know it.” I recollect his posing me once on the subject of the Corn Laws. I was called to stand my watch, and, coming on deck, found him there before me; and we began, as usual, to walk fore and aft, in the waist. He talked about the Corn Laws; asked me my opinion about them, which I gave him; and my reasons; my small stock of which I set forth to the best advantage, supposing his knowledge on the subject must be less than mine, if, indeed, he had any at all. When I had got through, he took the liberty of differing from me, and, to my surprise, brought arguments and facts connected with the subject which were new to me, to which I was entirely unable to reply. I confessed that I knew almost nothing of the subject, and expressed my surprise at the extent of his information. He said that, a number of years before, while at a boarding-house in Liverpool, he had fallen in with a pamphlet on the subject, and, as it contained calculations, had read it very carefully, and had ever since wished to find some one who could add to his stock of knowledge on the question. Although it was many years since he had seen the book, and it was a subject with which he had no previous acquaintance, yet he had the chain of reasoning, founded upon principles of political economy, perfect in HDT WHAT? INDEX
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his memory; and his facts, so far as I could judge, were correct; at least, he stated them with great precision. The principles of the steam engine, too, he was very familiar with, having been several months on board of a steamboat, and made himself master of its secrets. He knew every lunar star in both hemispheres, and was a perfect master of his quadrant and sextant. Such was the man, who, at forty, was still a dog before the mast, at twelve dollars a month. The reason of this was to be found in his whole past life, as I had it, at different times, from himself. He was an Englishman, by birth, a native of Ilfracomb, in Devonshire. His father was skipper of a small coaster, from Bristol, and dying, left him, when quite young, to the care of his mother, by whose exertions he received a common-school education, passing his winters at school and his summers in the coasting trade, until his seventeenth year, when he left home to go upon foreign voyages. Of his mother, he often spoke with the greatest respect, and said that she was a strong-minded woman, and had the best system of education he had ever known; a system which had made respectable men of his three brothers, and failed only in him, from his own indomitable obstinacy. One thing he often mentioned, in which he said his mother differed from all other mothers that he had ever seen disciplining their children; that was, that when he was out of humor and refused to eat, instead of putting his plate away, as most mothers would, and saying that his hunger would bring him to it, in time, she would stand over him and oblige him to eat it– every mouthful of it. It was no fault of hers that he was what I saw him; and so great was his sense of gratitude for her efforts, though unsuccessful, that he determined, at the close of the voyage, to embark for home with all the wages he should get, to spend with and for his mother, if perchance he should find her alive. After leaving home, he had spent nearly twenty years, sailing upon all sorts of voyages, generally out of the ports of New York and Boston. Twenty years of vice! Every sin that a sailor knows, he had gone to the bottom of. Several times he had been hauled up in the hospitals, and as often, the great strength of his constitution had brought him out again in health. Several times, too, from his known capacity, he had been promoted to the office of chief mate, and as often, his conduct when in port, especially his drunkenness, which neither fear nor ambition could induce him to abandon, put him back into the forecastle. One night, when giving me an account of his life, and lamenting the years of manhood he had thrown away, he said that there, in the forecastle, at the foot of the steps– a chest of old clothes– was the result of twenty-two years of hard labor and exposure– worked like a horse, and treated like a dog. As he grew older, he began to feel the necessity of some provision for his later years, and came gradually to the conviction that rum had been his worst enemy. One night, in Havana, a young shipmate of his was brought aboard drunk, with a dangerous gash in his head, and his money and new clothes stripped from him. Harris had seen and been in hundreds of such scenes as these, but in his then state of mind, it fixed his determination, and he resolved never to taste another drop of strong drink, of any kind. He signed no pledge, and made no vow, but relied on his own strength of purpose. The first thing with him was a reason, and then a resolution, and the thing was done. The date of his resolution he knew, of course, to the very hour. It was three years before I knew him, and during all that time, nothing stronger than cider or coffee had passed his lips. The sailors never thought of enticing Tom to take a glass, any more than they would of talking to the ship’s compass. He was now a temperate man for life, and capable of filling any berth in a ship, and many a high station there is on shore which is held by a meaner man. He understood the management of a ship upon scientific principles, and could give the reason for hauling every rope; and a long experience, added to careful observation at the time, and a perfect memory, gave him a knowledge of the expedients and resorts in times of hazard, which was remarkable, and for which I became much indebted to him, as he took the greatest pleasure in opening his stores of information to me, in return for what I was able to do for him. Stories of tyranny and hardship which had driven men to piracy;– of the incredible ignorance of masters and mates, and of horrid brutality to the sick, dead, and dying; as well as of the secret knavery and impositions practised upon seamen by connivance of the owners, landlords, and officers; all these he had, and I could not but believe them; for men who had known him for fifteen years had never taken him even in an exaggeration, and, as I have said, his statements were never disputed. I HDT WHAT? INDEX
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remember, among other things, his speaking of a captain whom I had known by report, who never handed a thing to a sailor, but put it on deck and kicked it to him; and of another, who was of the best connections in Boston, who absolutely murdered a lad from Boston that went out with him before the mast to Sumatra, by keeping him hard at work while ill of the coast fever, and obliging him to sleep in the close steerage. (The same captain has since died of the same fever on the same coast.) In fact, taking together all that I learned from him of seamanship, of the history of sailors’ lives, of practical wisdom, and of human nature under new circumstances,– a great history from which many are shut out,– I would not part with the hours I spent in the watch with that man for any given hours of my life passed in study and social intercourse. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1838
January 9, Tuesday: The Wiener Zeitschrift published a poem by Grillparzer inspired by a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Appasionata Sonata by Clara Wieck.
Canadian insurrectionists shelled Malden and the town of Amherstburg from aboard the steamer Ann. Canadian militiamen took up positions on the shore while the insurrectionists moved 300 men onto an island opposite the town, Bois Blanc. The militia opened fire hitting several of the Ann’s crewmen and damaging its sails and rigging. It drifted and ran aground and was boarded, and the insurrectionists aboard were taken captive. The remainder of the insurrectionists, among them some wounded, quit Bois Blanc Island for the safety of the American side of the river. A few had been killed and 300 of their muskets, 2 cannon, 10 kegs of gunpowder, and various accoutrements were seized. Upon losing the Ann the Canadian insurrectionists took another steamer, the Little Erie, moving it to Gibraltar.
March 3, Saturday: In Paris, Frédéric François Chopin, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Joseph Zimmermann, and Adolphe Gutmann performed Alkan’s 8-hand arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 7th Symphony.
Henry Thoreau wrote in his journal: HOMER
March 3. Three thousand years and the world so little changed! The Iliad seems like a natural sound which has reverberated to our days. Whatever in it is still freshest in the memories of men was most childlike in the poet. It is the problem of old age, — a second childhood exhibited in the life of the world. Phœbus Apollo went like night, — . This either refers to the gross atmosphere of the plague darkening the sun, or to the crescent of night rising solemn and stately in the east while the sun is setting in the west. Then Agamemnon darkly lowers on Calchas, prophet of evil, — , — such a fire-eyed Agamemnon as you may see at town meetings and elections, as well here as in Troy neighborhood.
December 18, Tuesday: While Hector Berlioz was bedridden due to bronchitis, Achille Paganini entered his room, handed over an envelope, and departed indicating that no response was required. The note in the envelope: “Beethoven being dead, only Berlioz could make him live again; and I, who have enjoyed your divine compositions, worthy of the genius that you are, beg you to accept as token of my homage 20,000 francs, which will be remitted to you by Baron Rothschild on your presenting the enclosed. Ever your affectionate friend Nicolò Paganini.”
Robert Schumann was once again suffering terrible bouts of depression, that would continue on December 19th and December 25th. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1839 HDT WHAT? INDEX
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Lecture Season: The 11th course of lectures offered by the Salem Lyceum consisted of:
The Salem Lyceum — 11th Season Boston Musical Institute of Boston The Oratorio of Joseph and His Brethren Orville Dewey Human Progress Andrew P. Peabody Influence of the BIBLE on the Sciences, Poetry, and the Fine Arts Leonard Withington Phariseeism Convers Francis The Huguenots or French Protestants in America George E. Ellis The Persecution of the Quakers J.S.C. Abbott Russia John L. Hayes Volcanic Activity J. Francis Tuckerman of Salem Life and Genius of Ludwig van Beethoven Oliver Wendell Holmes National Prejudices J.S.C. Abbott Louis Philippe B.B. Thatcher A Reading of the lecture by Governor Everett introductory to the course before the “Lowell Institute” of Boston James W. Thompson of Salem The Conditions of a Healthful Literature Thomas B. Fox Education of the Eye Charles Francis Adams, Sr. The Influence of Domestic Manners on the American Revolution Waldo Emerson of Concord Analysis, the Characteristic of the Present Age Henry Ware, Jr. The Biography of the Globe Henry W. Kinsman The Institution of Chivalry and its Influence on Society Edward Hitchcock The Wonders of Science Compared with the Wonders of Romance Reverend John G. Palfrey The Siege and Capture of Louisburg HDT WHAT? INDEX
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As lectures began, the endowment of The Lowell Institute had reached to nearly $250,000.00. Fees provided to its lecturers would often exceed the salaries of the most highly paid professors in America.
1st Season of the Lowell Institute Honorable Edward Everett, LL.D. Introductory. Memoir of John Lowell, Jr. 2 lectures Professor Benjamin Silliman, LL.D. Geology 24 lectures Reverend John G. Palfrey, D.D. Evidences of Christianity lectures Professor Thomas Nuttall, A.M. Botany 18 lectures
In those early days, the lecture serieses were quite popular: 8,000 to 10,000 people might apply for tickets to a course. For, as the Lowell Institute’s historian would later boast:
Crude theories and plans for moral and political reforms are not to be found in the Lowell lectures. The selection of lectures and lecturers is made from a broad and comprehensive knowledge of the safe thought and intelligent study of the time.
THE LOWELL INSTITUTE
November 19, Tuesday: Franz Liszt gave the first of six recitals in Vienna, this one attended by the dowager empress. He premiered his transcription of Symphony no.6 by Ludwig van Beethoven. The recitals would be very well received.
Representative John Quincy Adams wrote to the New-York Journal of Commerce: The Africans of the Amistad were cast upon our coast in a condition perhaps as calamitous as could befall human beings, not by their own will - not with any intention hostile or predatory on their part, not even by the act of God as in the case of shipwreck, but by their own ignorance of navigation and the deception of one of their oppressors whom they had overpowered, and whose life they had spared to enable them by his knowledge of navigation to reach their native land. They were victims of the African slave trade, recently imported into the island of Cuba, in gross violation of the laws of the Island and of Spain; and by acts which our own laws have made piracy - punishable with death. They had indicated their natural right to liberty, by conspiracy, insurrection, homicide and capture and they were accused by the two Cuban Spaniards embarked with HDT WHAT? INDEX
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them in the ship, of murder and piracy - and they were claimed by the same two Cuban Spaniards, accessories after the fact to the slave-trade piracy, by which they had been brought from Africa to Cuba, as their property, because they had bought them from slave-trade pirates. They knew nothing of the Constitution, laws or language of the country upon which they were thus thrown, and accused as pirates and murderers, claimed as slaves of the very men who were their captives, they were deprived even of the faculty of speech in their own defense. This condition was sorely calamitous; it claimed from the humanity of a civilized nation compassion;- it claimed from brotherly love of a Christian land sympathy;- it claimed from a Republic professing reverence for the rights of man justice - and what have we done? A naval officer of the United States seizes them, their ship and cargo, with themselves; tramples on the territorial jurisdiction of the state of New York, by seizing, disarming and sending on board their ship, without warrant of arrest, several of them whom he found on shore; releases their captives; admits the claim of the two captives to fifty masters as their slaves; and claims salvage for restoring them to servitude. They are then brought before a court of the United States, at once upon the charge of piracy and murder, upon a claim to them as slaves, and upon a claim against their pretended masters for salvage, by kidnapping them again into slavery. The Circuit Judge decides that the United States do not exercise the right of all other civilized nations to try piracies committed in foreign vessels; that he thereupon cannot try them for piracy or murder, but that the District Court may try whether they are slaves or not; as it is doubtful whether this trial will be held in Connecticut or New York, and it must take time to ascertain in which, they shall in the mean time be held as slaves to abide the issue. Is this compassion? Is it sympathy? Is it justice? But here the case now stands. LA AMISTAD HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1840
March 17, Tuesday: Waldo Emerson lectured at the New-York Mercantile Library, delivering the 3d lecture of his “Philosophy of History” series, “The Literature of the Present Age.” This lecture was to have appeared in the July initial issue of THE DIAL: A MAGAZINE FOR LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION, but would need to wait for the October issue, in which the title would become “Thoughts on Modern Literature.”
Mihailo Obrenovic III became Prince of Serbia, succeeding a regency council.
Friedrich Wieck, who saw Liszt as a friend of Robert Schumann, had been savaging Liszt in the Leipzig newspapers. Clara had taken her father’s side. The Leipzigers were blaming him for raising ticket prices, and for canceling complimentary tickets. After months of great successes in Vienna, Pest, Prague, and Dresden, the Leipzig audience greeted Franz Liszt’s transcription of the 6th Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven with whistles.
August 1, Saturday: In a Leipzig court, Friedrich Wieck was unable to substantiate Robert Schumann’s reputation for drunkenness, and legal consent to his marriage with Clara Wieck was obtained. The father would have ten days to file an appeal.
In Paris, Camille Saint-Saens gave his initial public performance as he accompanied a Ludwig van Beethoven violin sonata before a small drawing-room audience. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1841
April 25, Sunday: In Bonn, when Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt produced an all-Beethoven concert at the Salle du Conservatoire to benefit the Beethoven monument, Liszt played various piano sonatas and the “Emperor” Concerto, conducted by Berlioz, along with the 6th Symphony, and the receipts were barely enough to pay the musicians. The audience required Liszt to play his own Reminiscences on Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable while Berlioz and the orchestra waited. Richard Wagner, reviewing the concert for the Dresden Abendzeitung, would suggest that “Some day, Liszt in heaven will be summoned to play his Fantasy on The Devil before the assembled company of angels.” Jacques Offenbach, an aspiring cellist, joined with Anton Rubinstein, a visiting Russian prodigy, to perform the 2d and 3d movements of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A.
April 25. A momentous silence reigns always in the woods, and their meaning seems just ripening into expression. But alas! they make no haste. The rush sparrow, Nature’s minstrel of serene hours, sings of an immense leisure and duration. When I hear a robin sing at sunset, I cannot help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. We return from the lyceum and caucus with such stir and excitement, as if a crisis were at hand; but no natural scene or sound sympathizes with us, for Nature is always silent and unpretending as at the break of day. She but rubs her eyelids. I am struck with the pleasing friendships and unanimities of nature in the woods, as when the moss on the trees takes the form of their leaves. There is all of civilized life in the woods. Their wildest scenes have an air of domesticity and homeliness, and when the flicker’s cackle is heard in the clearings, the musing hunter is reminded that civilization has imported nothing into them. The ball-room is represented by the catkins of the alder at this season, which hang gracefully like a lady’s ear-drops. All the discoveries of science are equally true in their deepest recesses; nature there, too, obeys the same laws. Fair weather and foul concern the little red bug upon a pine stump; for him the wind goes round the right way and the sun breaks through the clouds. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1842
January 19, Wednesday: Frederick Douglass spoke at the annual meeting of the Norfolk County Anti-Slavery Society, in Dedham. [ANOTHER SOURCE DOES NOT RECORD THIS ON HIS SCHEDULE, DOES NOT HAVE HIM GOING TO DEDHAM UNTIL APRIL 2]
In New-York, the 2d Orestes Augustus Brownson lecture in the series of four sponsored by the brothers of Isaac Hecker on the topic “Civilization and Human Progress.”
An advertisement for a new “Beethoven-Album” for piano by the Vienna music publisher Pietro Mechetti appeared in the Wiener Zeitung. To raise money for a monument in Bonn, Mechetti secured contributions from many of the most important living composers: Nocturne in Eb op.647 by Carl Czerny, L’echo! Scherzo brillant by Frédéric Kalkbrenner, 17 Variations sérieuses op.54 by Felix Mendelssohn, Prélude in C# minor op.45 by Frédéric François Chopin, Marche funèbre de la Symphonie héroique by Franz Liszt, Romance sans paroles op.41/1 by Sigismund Thalberg, Wiegenlied op.13/1 by Adolf von Henselt, and music by Theodor Döhler, Ignaz Moscheles, and Wilhelm Taubert. HDT WHAT? INDEX
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February 5, Saturday: Not having yielded the floor, Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts continued for a 4th day his speech defending himself against the charge that he was overpreoccupied with the dismantling of the institution of human enslavement in the United States of America.
Felix Mendelssohn wrote to Ferdinand David that Franz Liszt, “sacrificed a large part of my esteem by the foolish antics he plays not just with his audience (there is no harm in that) but with the music itself as well. He played Beethoven, Bach, Handel, and Weber with such wretched shortcomings, so untidily and ignorantly, that I had much rather have heard them played by mediocre pianists.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
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1843
November 25, Saturday: Documentation of the international slave trade, per W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: “Report of the Secretary of the Navy.” –HOUSE DOCUMENT, 28 Cong. 1 sess. I. No. 2, pp. 484-5.
After a concert, Margaret Fuller wrote into her journal a fan letter to Herr Ludwig van Beethoven, addressing him as “My only friend.” She told him she wanted a son of her own and asked to be wife, mistress, and daughter to him. Husband, Lover, Father
Wife Mistress Daughter
(We do not know, of course, that she actually posted such a mash letter.) However, could she, perchance, have been unaware that her ideal hero, besides being deaf as a doorknob, had also been, at 5 foot 4 inches, which was two inches shorter than Napoleon, been somewhat height challenged?
If, while he was working, he did not go out during the forenoon, in order to compose himself, he would stand at the washbasin … and pour great pitchersful of water over his hands, at the same time howling or, for a change, growling out the whole gamut of the scale, ascending and descending; then, before long, he would pace the room, his eyes rolling or fixed in a stare, jot down a few notes and again return to his water pouring and howling.... Beethoven was everywhere unwelcome as a lodger.
She would of course be spared hearing from her Viennese gentleman by return post collect, as he had been a practicing decomposer for some 16 years. (Ironically, later, while Waldo Emerson was contemplating Margaret’s sad drowning, one of the things he mused was that “some Beethoven should play her dirge.”)
My only friend, How shall I thank thee for again tonight breaking the chains of HDT WHAT? INDEX
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my Sorrowful slumber. I did not expect it. For months now I have been in a low state of existence. Nothing profited me; nothing budded or blossomed in my garden. I was not sad; the arrow did not rankle in my heart as sometimes it does, but it lay there a cold dull substance whose foreign pressure seemed to prevent pulsation from its harmony, life from its abundance. My eyes are always clear, dear friend. I always see that the universe is rich, if I am poor. I see the insignificance of my sorrows. In my will, I am not a captive, in my intellect not a slave. It is not my fault that the palsy of my affections benumbs my whole life. I would disregard it if I could. And here indeed, my lot is accursed, yes, my friend let me curse it. The curse like the ill is but for the time. I know what the Eternal justice promises. But in this one sphere it is sad. Thou didst say thou hadst no friend but thy art, –but that one is enough– I have no art in which to vent the swell of a soul as deep as thine, Beethoven, and of kindred frame. Thou wilt not think me presumptuous in this saying as another might. I have always known that thou wouldst welcome, wouldst know me, as no other who ever lived upon the earth since its first creation would. Thou wouldst forgive me, Master, that I have not been true to my eventual destiny, and therefore have suffered on every side “the pangs of despised love.” —Thou didst the same But thou didst borrow from those errors the inspiration of thy genius; why is it not thus with me? Is it because as a woman I am bound by a physical law which prevents the soul from manifesting itself. Sometimes the moon seems mockingly to say so, — to say that I too shall not shine, unless I can find a sun. O cold and barren moon, tell a different tale, and give me a son of mine own. But thou, Oh blessed Master, dost answer all my questions, and make it my privilege to be. Like a humble wife to the sage or poet, it is my triumph that I can understand, can receive thee wholly, like a mistress I arm thee for the fight, like a young daughter I tenderly bind thy wounds. Thou art to me beyond compare, for thou art all I want. No heavenly sweetness of Jesus, no many leaved Raphael, no golden Plato, is anything to me, compared with thee. The infinite Shakespeare, the stern Angelo, Dante bitter sweet like thee, are no longer dear in thy presence. And besides these names, there are none others that could vibrate in thy crystal sphere. —Thou hast all of them and that ample surge of life beside that great winged being which they only dreamed of. There is none greater than Shakespeare, for he is a god, but his creations are successive, thy Fiat comprehends them all. Beethoven, my heart beats. I live again, for I feel that I am worthy audience for thee, and that my being would be reason enough for thine. I met thy mood and mine last summer in nature on those wide impassioned plains flower and crag bestrown. There the tide of emotion had rolled over and left the vision of its smiles and sobs as I saw tonight from thee. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Oh, if thou wouldst take me wholly to thyself. I am lost in this world where I sometimes meet angels but of a different star from mine. Forgive me that I love them who cannot love me. Even so does thy spirit call upon, plead with all spirits. But thou dost triumph and bring them all in. My triumphs are but for the moment, thine eternal. Master! I have this summer envied the oriole which had even a swinging nest in the high bough, I have envied the least flower that came to seed, though that seed were strown to the wind. But I envy none when I am with thee. Tonight I had no wish for thee: it was long since we had met. I did not expect to feel again. I was so very cold; tears had fallen; but they were Hamlet tears of speculation. Thy touch made me again all human. O save and give me to myself and thee. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Table of Altitudes
Yoda 2 ' 0 '' Lavinia Warren 2 ' 8 '' Tom Thumb, Jr. 3 ' 4 '' Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) 3 ' 8 '' Hervé Villechaize (“Fantasy Island”) 3 ' 11'' Charles Proteus Steinmetz 4 ' 0 '' Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (1) 4 ' 3 '' Alexander Pope 4 ' 6 '' Benjamin Lay 4 ' 7 '' Dr. Ruth Westheimer 4 ' 7 '' Gary Coleman (“Arnold Jackson”) 4 ' 8 '' Edith Piaf 4 ' 8 '' Queen Victoria with osteoporosis 4 ' 8 '' Linda Hunt 4 ' 9 '' Queen Victoria as adult 4 ' 10 '' Mother Teresa 4 ' 10 '' Margaret Mitchell 4 ' 10 '' length of newer military musket 4 ' 10'' Charlotte Brontë 4 ' 10-11'' Tammy Faye Bakker 4 ' 11'' Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut 4 ' 11'' jockey Willie Shoemaker 4 ' 11'' Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 4 ' 11'' Joan of Arc 4 ' 11'' Bonnie Parker of “Bonnie & Clyde” 4 ' 11'' Harriet Beecher Stowe 4 ' 11'' Laura Ingalls Wilder 4 ' 11'' a rather tall adult Pygmy male 4 ' 11'' Gloria Swanson 4 ' 11''1/2 Clara Barton 5 ' 0 '' Isambard Kingdom Brunel 5 ' 0 '' Andrew Carnegie 5 ' 0 '' Thomas de Quincey 5 ' 0 '' Stephen A. Douglas 5 ' 0 '' Danny DeVito 5 ' 0 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Immanuel Kant 5 ' 0 '' William Wilberforce 5 ' 0 '' Dollie Parton 5 ' 0 '' Mae West 5 ' 0 '' Pia Zadora 5 ' 0 '' Deng Xiaoping 5 ' 0 '' Dred Scott 5 ' 0 '' (±) Captain William Bligh of HMS Bounty 5 ' 0 '' (±) Harriet Tubman 5 ' 0 '' (±) Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (2) 5 ' 0 '' (±) John Brown of Providence, Rhode Island 5 ' 0 '' (+) John Keats 5 ' 3/4 '' Debbie Reynolds (Carrie Fisher’s mother) 5 ' 1 '' Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) 5 ' 1 '' Bette Midler 5 ' 1 '' Dudley Moore 5 ' 2 '' Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel) 5 ' 2 '' Honoré de Balzac 5 ' 2 '' Sally Field 5 ' 2 '' Jemmy Button 5 ' 2 '' Margaret Mead 5 ' 2 '' R. Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller 5 ' 2 '' Yuri Gagarin the astronaut 5 ' 2 '' William Walker 5 ' 2 '' Horatio Alger, Jr. 5 ' 2 '' length of older military musket 5 ' 2 '' 1 the artist formerly known as Prince 5 ' 2 /2'' 1 typical female of Thoreau's period 5 ' 2 /2'' Francis of Assisi 5 ' 3 '' Vol ta i re 5 ' 3 '' Mohandas Gandhi 5 ' 3 '' Sammy Davis, Jr. 5 ' 3 '' Kahlil Gibran 5 ' 3 '' Friend Daniel Ricketson 5 ' 3 '' The Reverend Gilbert White 5 ' 3 '' Nikita Khrushchev 5 ' 3 '' Sammy Davis, Jr. 5 ' 3 '' Truman Capote 5 ' 3 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Kim Jong Il (North Korea) 5 ' 3 '' Stephen A. “Little Giant” Douglas 5 ' 4 '' Francisco Franco 5 ' 4 '' President James Madison 5 ' 4 '' Iosef Vissarionovich Dzugashvili “Stalin” 5 ' 4 '' Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 '' Pablo Picasso 5 ' 4 '' Truman Capote 5 ' 4 '' Queen Elizabeth 5 ' 4 '' Ludwig van Beethoven 5 ' 4 '' Typical Homo Erectus 5 ' 4 '' 1 typical Neanderthal adult male 5 ' 4 /2'' 1 Alan Ladd 5 ' 4 /2'' comte de Buffon 5 ' 5 '' (-) Captain Nathaniel Gordon 5 ' 5 '' Charles Manson 5 ' 5 '' Audie Murphy 5 ' 5 '' Harry Houdini 5 ' 5 '' Hung Hsiu-ch'üan 5 ' 5 '' 1 Marilyn Monroe 5 ' 5 /2'' 1 T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia” 5 ' 5 /2'' average runaway male American slave 5 ' 5-6 '' Charles Dickens 5 ' 6? '' President Benjamin Harrison 5 ' 6 '' President Martin Van Buren 5 ' 6 '' James Smithson 5 ' 6 '' Louisa May Alcott 5 ' 6 '' 1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 5 ' 6 /2'' 1 Napoleon Bonaparte 5 ' 6 /2'' Emily Brontë 5 ' 6-7 '' Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 5 ' ? '' average height, seaman of 1812 5 ' 6.85 '' Oliver Reed Smoot, Jr. 5 ' 7 '' minimum height, British soldier 5 ' 7 '' President John Adams 5 ' 7 '' President John Quincy Adams 5 ' 7 '' President William McKinley 5 ' 7 '' “Charley” Parkhurst (a female) 5 ' 7 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 7 '' Henry Thoreau 5 ' 7 '' 1 the average male of Thoreau's period 5 ' 7 /2 '' Edgar Allan Poe 5 ' 8 '' President Ulysses S. Grant 5 ' 8 '' President William H. Harrison 5 ' 8 '' President James Polk 5 ' 8 '' President Zachary Taylor 5 ' 8 '' average height, soldier of 1812 5 ' 8.35 '' 1 President Rutherford B. Hayes 5 ' 8 /2'' President Millard Fillmore 5 ' 9 '' President Harry S Truman 5 ' 9 '' 1 President Jimmy Carter 5 ' 9 /2'' 3 Herman Melville 5 ' 9 /4'' Calvin Coolidge 5 ' 10'' Andrew Johnson 5 ' 10'' Theodore Roosevelt 5 ' 10'' Thomas Paine 5 ' 10'' Franklin Pierce 5 ' 10'' Abby May Alcott 5 ' 10'' Reverend Henry C. Wright 5 ' 10'' 1 Nathaniel Hawthorne 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 Louis “Deerfoot” Bennett 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 Friend John Greenleaf Whittier 5 ' 10 /2'' 1 President Dwight D. Eisenhower 5 ' 10 /2'' Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots 5 ' 11'' Sojourner Truth 5 ' 11'' President Grover Cleveland 5 ' 11'' President Herbert Hoover 5 ' 11'' President Woodrow Wilson 5 ' 11'' President Jefferson Davis 5 ' 11'' 1 President Richard Milhous Nixon 5 ' 11 /2'' Robert Voorhis the hermit of Rhode Island < 6 ' Frederick Douglass 6 ' (-) Anthony Burns 6 ' 0 '' Waldo Emerson 6 ' 0 '' Joseph Smith, Jr. 6 ' 0 '' David Walker 6 ' 0 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Sarah F. Wakefield 6 ' 0 '' Thomas Wentworth Higginson 6 ' 0 '' President James Buchanan 6 ' 0 '' President Gerald R. Ford 6 ' 0 '' President James Garfield 6 ' 0 '' President Warren Harding 6 ' 0 '' President John F. Kennedy 6 ' 0 '' President James Monroe 6 ' 0 '' President William H. Taft 6 ' 0 '' President John Tyler 6 ' 0 '' John Brown 6 ' 0 (+)'' President Andrew Jackson 6 ' 1'' Alfred Russel Wallace 6 ' 1'' President Ronald Reagan 6 ' 1'' 1 Venture Smith 6 ' 1 /2'' John Camel Heenan 6 ' 2 '' Crispus Attucks 6 ' 2 '' President Chester A. Arthur 6 ' 2 '' President George Bush, Senior 6 ' 2 '' President Franklin D. Roosevelt 6 ' 2 '' President George Washington 6 ' 2 '' Gabriel Prosser 6 ' 2 '' Dangerfield Newby 6 ' 2 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Charles Augustus Lindbergh 6 ' 2 '' 1 President Bill Clinton 6 ' 2 /2'' 1 President Thomas Jefferson 6 ' 2 /2'' President Lyndon B. Johnson 6 ' 3 '' Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 6 ' 3 '' 1 Richard “King Dick” Seaver 6 ' 3 /4'' President Abraham Lincoln 6 ' 4 '' Marion Morrison (AKA John Wayne) 6 ' 4 '' Elisha Reynolds Potter, Senior 6 ' 4 '' Thomas Cholmondeley 6 ' 4 '' (?) William Buckley 6 ' 4-7” Franklin Benjamin Sanborn 6 ' 5 '' Peter the Great of Russia 6 ' 7 '' William “Dwarf Billy” Burley 6 ' 7 '' Giovanni Battista Belzoni 6 ' 7 '' Thomas Jefferson (the statue) 7 ' 6'' Jefferson Davis (the statue) 7 ' 7'' 1 Martin Van Buren Bates 7 ' 11 /2'' M. Bihin, a Belgian exhibited in Boston in 1840 8 ' Anna Haining Swan 8 ' 1'' HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1844
May 27, Monday: At the request of Felix Mendelssohn, the 12-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim made his London debut playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Mendelssohn and the Philharmonic Society — Mendelssohn’s popularity being great enough to overcome that Society’s reluctance to put child prodigies on display.
December 5, Thursday: Clara Schumann plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto in public for the first time, in the Leipzig Gewandhaus. It was “the hardest concerto I know.” It was her last performance there as a citizen of Leipzig. The Schumanns were moving to Dresden. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1845
August 1, Friday: On West Indian Emancipation Day, in nine abolitionist pic nics in nine Massachusetts towns, Charles King Whipple had arranged for circulation of a pledge not to “countenance or aid the United States government in any war which may be occasioned by the annexation of Texas, or in any other war, foreign or domestic, designed to strengthen or perpetuate slavery.” In Worcester, William Lloyd Garrison, the Reverend Adin Ballou, Stephen Symonds Foster, and Frederick Douglass signed this pledge.
At one of these nine pic nics celebrating the anniversary of West Indian emancipation, in Waltham, Massachusetts, Waldo Emerson lectured. His remarks would be printed verbatim in the New-York Tribune by Ruchames.
One day after departing from Dresden for the Ludwig van Beethoven festival in Bonn accompanied by his wife Clara, Robert Schumann suffered an attack of “anxiety and dizziness.” The trip was aborted and they would travel instead to his family in Zwickau.
An abbreviated obituary of the suicide Martha Emmeline Hunt appeared in the Concord Freeman.
August 11, Monday: The first day of a 3-day celebration in Bonn, of the unveiling of its new Ludwig van Beethoven monument. Attending were the King and Queen of Prussia, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert. In the evening, during dinner, a small concert directed by Giacomo Meyerbeer featured Jenny Lind. There were other famous musicians in attendance, such as Louis Spohr, Hector Berlioz, and Franz Liszt.
August 12, Tuesday: After a performance of the Missa Solemnis in the Bonn cathedral, directed by Louis Spohr, the Ludwig van Beethoven Monument was unveiled before royal and musical guests and a multitude of onlookers.
At the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Giuseppe Verdi’s tragedia lirica Alzira to words of Cammarano after Voltaire was performed for the initial time, and enjoyed a moderate success. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
August 13, Wednesday: In Bonn, Festkantate zur Enthüllung des Beethovens-Denkmals in Bonn by Franz Liszt to words of Wolff was performed for the initial time. Then in the evening, during dinner, a small concert directed by Meyerbeer featured Jenny Lind and Franz Liszt.
The family of Felix Mendelssohn moved into 3 Königstrasse in Leipzig, his final residence.
Frederick Douglass lectured at the Town Hall of New Bedford. This was, perhaps, the occasion about which Horace Rice Hosmer would relate, many years later, obviously with a certain degree of exaggeration and substitution of wish-fulfilment fantasy for historical record (this is one of those stories that necessarily improve upon the retelling), that: ... my brother Joseph [Hosmer, Jr.] ... whose wife and all her family were red hot Garrison Abolitionists - Fred Douglass visited them in Bedford and two of the girls walked round the Common with him and the towns people talked of mobbing Fred. One young lout threw a stone which hurt Joseph, and Joe tied him to a tree on the Common and horse whipped him. There was no more Mob after that when Joe was round.... I, and others of the family, felt disgraced by his connection with the despised and hated “Abolitionists.” We got over it in time. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1846
May 6, Wednesday: Camille Saint-Saëns gave his initial evening public performance as pianist at the Salle Pleyel, Paris. He performed, entirely from memory, two concertos, the Mozart K.450 and Ludwig van Beethoven’s third, a Hummel sonata, and a prelude and fugue by Bach and others. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1848
March 11, Saturday: At an assembly of Czechs in Prague, autonomy and constitutional reform were demanded for Bohemia.
In Hamburg, Johannes Brahms heard Joseph Joachim for the first time and was enthralled by his performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1849
April 1, Sunday: As Austrian forces sacked Brescia, they killed an unknown numbers of civilians.
Richard Wagner’s final concert in Dresden included Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Michael Bukunin, being sought as a Russian revolutionary, approached the conductor afterward to say “when everything else is destroyed in the flames of the future, that work of art must be preserved, even at the cost of our lives.”
April 14, Saturday: At Debrecen, Lajos Kossuth issued the Declaration of Independence of Hungary, and the Hungarian Diet declared the throne to be vacant and named him as “governor” of Hungary (Bertalan Szemere replaced him as prime minister).
In Hamburg, Johannes Brahms gave a 2d piano recital playing music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Thalberg, and himself, that earned him his first notices — favorable ones.
August 28, Tuesday: Elizabeth Medora Leigh, Madame Taillefer died.
In Weimar as part of the celebrations of the centennial of Goethe’s birth, Tasso: lamento e trionfo, a symphonic poem, was performed for the initial time, directed by its composer Franz Liszt, along with the Festmarsch zur Goethejubiläumsfeier (Liszt also conducted Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and parts of Robert Schumann’s Faust). HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1850
January 15, Tuesday: Nathaniel Hawthorne sent off his completed sketch for the “Custom House” introduction to THE SCARLET LETTER, along with a still unfinished version of the tale, to James T. Fields. At this point it was uncertain whether the tale was to be a full romance in and of itself, or merely one of a new series of tales to be entitled OLD TIME LEGENDS: TOGETHER WITH SKETCHES, EXPERIMENTAL AND IDEAL. Hawthorne was uncertain that the tale, so dark and wearying and perhaps so disgusting to some, would be palatable as a separate work. “Is it safe, then, to stake the fate of the book entirely on this one chance? A hunter loads his gun with a bullet and several buckshot, and following his sagacious example, it was my purpose to conjoin the one long story with half a dozen shorter ones.” While this discussion was taking place, the as-yet-unpublished volume was being advertised in the Literary World as a “new volume of tales.”
British warships arrived at Piraeus to enforce certain claims that had been brought by two British subjects against the Greek government.
In Zürich, Richard Wagner began guest-conducting the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft with a performance of the Symphony no.7 of Ludwig van Beethoven. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1852
May 12, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson wrote from Concord to Charles List, making two corrections in his speech as it had been reported in the Commonwealth.28
In London’s Exeter Hall, Hector Berlioz conducted the 6th and final performance of the New Philharmonic Society, and his interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony clinched his reputation in England as the greatest living conductor.
In Illinois, Welborn Beeson confided to his diary that “William staid all night with us. I took him to Ottawa today to Mr. George Crows. He is from Missouri about a year. He has been living in Galesburg, Illinois for about six months but some body tried to catch him so he has started to Canada. Great laws are the laws of America that one part of the people should enslave the rest.” UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
28. Stimpert, James. A GUIDE TO THE CORRESPONDENCE IN THE CHARLES WESLEY SLACK MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION: 1848-1885. Kent State University, Special Collections HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1853
January 10, Monday: Jules Massenet was examined once again for entrance to the Paris Conservatoire. His performance of a Beethoven sonata got him admitted to a piano class.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk arrived in New-York from France, in his first visit to the United States since 1842.
January 10th 53: Went a chestnutting this afternoon to Smiths(?) Woodlot near the turnpike. Carried 4 ladies– I raked. We got 6 1/2 quarts – the ground being bare & the leaves not frozen– The 4th remarkably mild day. I found 35 chestnuts in a little pile under the end of a stick under the leaves near within a foot of what I should call a gallery of a meadow mouse– These galleries were quite common as I raked. There was no nest nor apparent cavity about this store. aunt M. found another with 16 in it Many chestnuts are still in the burrs on the ground. Aunt found a twig – which had apparently fallen prematurely with 8 small burrs all within the compass of 5 or 6 inches & all but one full of nuts. The galleries above named were evidently permanent & not made by one trip. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
June 1, Wednesday: Marietta Alboni sailed for France, where she would marry an Italian count. By 1863 she would have abandoned her singing career, except for special appearances at which she would apologize for both her growing obesity and her somewhat diminishing vocal talents by making the smiling comment “I am the shadow of my former self.”
In Pest, two works for piano and orchestra by Franz Liszt were performed for the initial time: Fantasie über Motive aus Beethovens Ruinen von Athen and Fantasie über Ungarische Volksmelodien.
Arthur Buckminster Fuller, pastor of the Unitarian Society in Manchester, New Hampshire, was installed to HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
minister over the New North Church in Boston.
June 1. Walking up this side-hill, I disturbed a nighthawk [Common Nighthawk Chordeiles minor] eight or ten feet from me, which went, half-fluttering, half hopping, the mottled creature, like a winged toad, as Nuttall says the French of Louisiana(?) call them, down the hill as far as I could see. Without moving, I looked about and saw its two eggs on the bare ground, on a slight shelf of the hill, on the dead pine-needles and sand, without any cavity or nest whatever, very obvious when once you had detected them, but not easily detected from their color, a coarse gray formed of white spotted with a bluish or slaty brown, or umber, –a stone – granite-color, like the places it selects. I advanced and put my hand on them, and while I stooped, seeing a shadow on the ground, looked up and saw the bird, which had fluttered down the hill so blind and helpless, circling low and swiftly past over my head, showing the white spot on each wing in true nighthawk fashion. When I had gone a dozen rods, it appeared again higher in the air, with its peculiar flitting, limping kind of flight, all the while noiseless, and suddenly descending, it dashed at me within ten feet of my head, like an imp of darkness, then swept away high over the pond, dashing now to this side, now to that, on different tacks, as if, in pursuit of its prey, it had already forgotten its eggs on the earth. I can see how it might easily come to be regarded with superstitious awe.
June 8, Wednesday: As a present for his 43d birthday, Clara Schumann presented Robert Schumann with the manuscript to her Piano Variations in F# Minor.
Scherzo in Eb minor op.4 for piano solo by Johannes Brahms was performed for the initial time, at the court of Hanover, by the composer from manuscript. King Georg V pronounces him “little Beethoven.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
June 8: P.M. –To Well Meadow. As I stood by this pond, I heard a hawk [Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis] scream, and, looking up, saw a pretty large one circling not far off and incessantly screaming, as I at first supposed to scare and so discover its prey, but its screaming was so incessant and it circled from time to time so near me, as I moved southward, that I began to think it had a nest near by and was angry at my intrusion into its domains. As I moved, the bird still followed and screamed, coming sometimes quite near or within gun-shot, then circling far off or high into the sky. At length, as I was looking up at it, thinking it the only living creature within view, I was singularly startled to behold, as my eye by chance penetrated deeper into the blue, –the abyss of blue above, which I had taken for a solitude,– its mate silently soaring at an immense height and seemingly indifferent to me. We are surprised to discover that there can be an eye on us on that side, and so little suspected, that the heavens are full of eyes, though they look so blue and spotless. Then I knew it was the female that circled and screamed below. At last the latter rose gradually to meet her mate, and they circled together there, as if they could not possibly feel any anxiety on my account. When I drew nearer to the tall trees where I suspected the nest to be, the female descended again, swept by screaming still nearer to me just over the tree-tops and finally, while I was looking for the orchis in the swamp, alighted on a white pine twenty or thirty rods off. (The great fringed orchis just open.) At length I detected the nest about eighty feet from the ground, in a very large white pine by the edge of the swamp. It was about three feet in diameter, of dry sticks, and a young hawk, apparently as big as its mother, stood on the edge of the nest looking down at me, and only moving its head when I moved. In its imperfect plumage and by the slow motion of its head it reminded me strongly of a vulture, so large and gaunt. It appeared a tawny brown on its neck and breast, and dark brown or blackish on wings. The mother was light beneath, and apparently lighter still on rump.
June 8. P.M. –To Well Meadow. Nest of a Maryland yellow-throat [Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas] by Utricularia Pool in a tuft of sedge; made of dry sedge, grass, and a few dry leaves; about four small eggs, a delicate white with reddish-brown spots on larger end; the nest well concealed. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1856
April 14, Monday: Clara Schumann made her London debut playing Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto in the Hanover Square Rooms. “A positive sensation, even among those who were moved with difficulty.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1858
December 17, Friday: In his final appearance as Kapellmeister of Weimar, Franz Liszt conducted an all-Beethoven concert and was awarded a standing ovation. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1859
August 6, Saturday: Richard Wagner completed the full score to Tristan und Isolde in Lucerne. LISTEN TO IT NOW
Hector Berlioz read the poem to his unperformed opera Les Troyens to an invited audience of 20-25 people in a private house in Baden. In the evening, music from the opera was heard publicly for the first time when two duets were performed with piano accompaniment in the Salle Beethoven. On hearing the music, the composer wept. [NO THOREAU JOURNAL ENTRIES FOR 6 AUGUST] HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1860
Anton Schindler published a biography of Ludwig van Beethoven based upon the 400 conversation books which had been created during his deafness. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1861
January 15, Tuesday: The first two of the Twelve Songs and Romances op.44 for unaccompanied chorus by Johannes Brahms were performed for the initial time, in Hamburg: Der Holdseligen sonder Wank, to words of Voss, and Von allen Bergen nieder, to words of Eichendorff. Also premiered were four of Brahms’ songs for female chorus, two horns and harp op.17: Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang, to words of Ruperti, Lied von Shakespeare, Der Gärtner, to words of Eichendorff, and Gesang aus Fingal, to words of Ossian. This was part of a joint concert by Brahms, Joseph Joachim, and Clara Schumann which included Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata and Robert Schumann’s Variations for two pianos op.46.
In the Dianabadsaal of Vienna, Dividenden op.252, a waltz by Johann Strauss, was performed for the initial time.
Jan. 15. More snow last night, and still the first that fell remains on the ground. Rice thinks that it is two feet deep on a level now. We have had no thaw yet. Rice tells me that he baits the “seedees” and the jays and crows to his door nowadays with corn. He thinks he has seen one of these jays stow away somewhere, without swallowing, as many as a dozen grains of corn, for, after picking it up, it will fly up into a tree near by and deposit so many successively in different crevices before it descends. Speaking of Roman wormwood springing up abundantly when a field which has been in grass for twenty years or more is plowed, Rice says that, if you carefully examine such a field before it is plowed, you will find very short and stinted specimens of wormwood and pigweed there, — and remarkably full of seed too! HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1863
November 15, Sunday: King Fredrik VII of Denmark died before signing the constitution of November 13th, and was succeeded by Christian IX, a 1st cousin once removed. With Denmark and Schleswig going to the Schleswig- Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg family, the affiliation of Holstein would become an item of dispute.
The Vienna Singakademie gave its first concert under the direction of Johannes Brahms. The eclectic program included Viennese premieres of the Cantata no.21 of Johann Sebastian Bach, Requiem für Mignon by Robert Schumann, folksong arrangements, and works by Isaac and Ludwig van Beethoven. It was well received. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1869
March 11, Thursday: The funeral in memory of Louis-Hector Berlioz took place at L’Eglise de la Trinité in Paris. The procession to the church was led by Adolphe Sax, who directed the National Guard band in Berlioz’s Symphonie funèbre. The music featured the Hostias from Berlioz’s own Requiem, plus works by Christoph Willibald von Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Luigi Cherubini. Among those present were Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, Ambroise Thomas, and Charles Gounod. The remains were placed in Montmartre next to those of his wives Harriet Smithson and Marie Recio. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1870
May 29, Sunday: Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky departed from Moscow for St. Petersburg, on his way toward Germany and France and a visit his pupil Vladimir Stepanovich Shilovsky.
Zur Säkularfeier Beethovens, a cantata by Franz Liszt to words of Stern and Gregorovius, was performed for the initial time, in Wiemar for the Allgemeiner deutscher Musikverein. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1872
May 18, Saturday: Richard Wagner wrote to his father-in-law Franz Liszt, extending an olive branch by inviting him to the laying of the foundation stone of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
Two songs by Gabriel Faure were performed for the initial time, by the Societe National de Musique: Lydia op.4/2, to words of de Lisle, and Seule! op.3/4 to words of Gautier. COSIMA’S DIARY, ON F. N.
05-18-72 [Bayreuth] in the afternoon arrival of Prof. Nietzsche, Herr v. Gersdorff, and the Ritters. Herr Heckel of Mannheim is also here, is spending the night at the Fantaisie with Richter. Cheerful, companionable atmosphere, we all belong together. Many of the musicians already here. (R. writes to my father and in splendid words invites him here.)
May 20, Monday: Franz Liszt wrote his son-in-law Richard Wagner putting an end to his anger with the life choices made by his headstrong daughter Francesca Gaetana Cosima Liszt von Bülow Wagner.
May 22, Wednesday: An Amnesty Act was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, reinstating the citizenship rights of southerner secessionists with the exception of 500 prominent white leaders.
On his 59th birthday, in a driving rain, Richard Wagner laid the cornerstone for his Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Later, in the town’s opera house, he spoke on how he envisioned the building and conducted a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony no.9, after which a banquet was offered. Friedrich Nietzsche was accompanying Wagner on this occasion, and would write that “Everything that had happened up to now was a preparation for this moment.”
At the Theatre Favart in Paris, Djamileh, an opera comique to words of Gallet, was performed for the initial time. The author, Georges Bizet, sat in the prompter’s box to ensure nothing went wrong, but toward the end commented to a friend, “It’s a complete flop.” Later he would add that “If you want to succeed today, you have to be dead, or German.”
At Cambridge University, Spring Comes Hither op.1/4 for voice and piano by Charles Villiers Stanford was performed for the initial time. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1874
March 28, Saturday: Variations on a Theme of Beethoven op.35 for two pianos by Camille Saint-Saens was performed for the initial time, in Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1877
March 16, Friday: Franz Liszt performs in a concert in Vienna to mark 50 years since the death of Ludwig van Beethoven. He plays the Choral Fantasy and the Emperor Concerto. In the audience was a very excited Gustav Mahler. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1878
Richard Wagner began to compose a series of increasingly reactionary essays on religion and art (it would probably be a good idea not to familiarize yourself with these materials).
Sir George Grove suggested in print that, rather than the canonical polite explanation of his biographers, typhus, Ludwig van Beethoven’s deafness might have been due to “an incurable complaint which has been made worse by incompetent doctors,” syphilis. This was considered “incriminating” because syphilis is transmitted by “immorality.” Imagine this, a musician who was guilty of sexual congress with other human beings!
Congressman
One interesting product of Beethoven’s deafness was the retention of some 400 “conversation books” in which people would write their questions or remarks. In those days before President Richard Milhous Nixon and audiotape, in regard to no person do we have a better constant record of their conversation. (Expletive deleted: we would bear in mind, however, that over a hundred of these conversation books have been destroyed by later editors as containing material unsuitable to his memory.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1882
June 15, Thursday: Eric Satie plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op.26 for his examination in piano at the Paris Conservatoire. His examiners were unimpressed and they dismiss him from the Conservatoire.
June 30, Friday: President James A. Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, was hanged with his last words being “Glory, Glory.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1886
May 19, Wednesday: Symphony no.3 op.78 by Camille Saint-Saëns was performed for the initial time, in St. James’ Hall, London conducted by the composer. In the same program, Saint-Saëns plays the Piano Concerto no.4 by Ludwig van Beethoven conducted by Arthur Sullivan. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1888
June 21, Thursday: When the remains of Ludwig van Beethoven were exhumed from Währinger Cemetery and reinterred in the Zentralfriedhof of Vienna, among those witnessing this repotting was Anton Bruckner.29
29. What does Ludwig van Beethoven have in common with Henry David Thoreau, Saint Nick of Christmas-time, Nicholas Copernicus, and Che Guevara? HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1890
April 20, Sunday: Enrique Granados made his official debut at Barcelona’s Teatre Líric, premiering Arabesca, selections from Danzas españolas, and Serenata española. He also played music by Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. The critics responded well. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1892
May 1, Sunday: The US Quarantine Station opened on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. CALIFORNIA
Béla Bartók made his initial appearance as pianist and composer, at a charity concert for the town of Nagyszöllös (Vinogradov, Ukraine) northeast of Budapest. Bártok played the premiere of his The Course of the Danube as well as the first movement of Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1894
April 15, Sunday: In Turin, Italy, Alfredo Casella made his public debut, playing the keyboard part in a Beethoven piano trio. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1897
March 27, Saturday: On the 70th anniversary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms took to his bed with liver cancer.
When Sergei Rakhmaninov’s Symphony no.1 was performed for the initial time, in the Hall of the Nobility, St. Petersburg, it was conducted by Alyeksandr Glazunov. Rakhmaninov was hiding himself on the stairs to the balcony with his fists pressed to his ears, until finally he was forced by what he was hearing out of the building: “all my hopes, all belief in myself, had been destroyed; abject misery had taken the place of my former arrogance.”
November 9, Tuesday: Enrique Granados appeared with the new Philharmonic Society as pianist at the Sala Estela, Barcelona (he would be making more than 25 appearances with them). He performed the Beethoven Trio op.70/1 with Mathieu Crickboom, violin, and Pablo Casals, cello. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1898
November 6, Sunday: Gustav Mahler conducted his 1st performance with the Vienna Philharmonic, a program of Beethoven and Mozart.
Jules Massenet conducted an all-Massenet program at the Concerts Colonne in the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris. ELECTRIC WALDEN A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: Nicola Tesla patented the first remote control, as a “method of and apparatus for controlling mechanism of moving vessels or vehicles.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1899
July 6, Thursday: The cortege carrying the remains of Johann Strauss traveled from his home in Ingelgasse, past the Theater-an-der-Wien, the Musikverein, and the court opera, to place them in the Zentralfriedhof near those of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. Among the attenders was Gustav Mahler. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1900
January 22, Monday: Elie Tailefer died.
Sergei Rakhmaninov and Fyodor Ivanovich Chaliapin visited the home of Lev Nikolævich Tolstòy to perform some songs including Fate. The writer responded by asking what was the point of the music, declaring that “Beethoven is nonsense. So too is Pushkin and Lermontov.” He deemed Apukhtin’s poem, Fate, “abominable.”
February 22, Thursday: The Hawaiian Islands became a US Territory.
Because Gustav Mahler’s “modification” of Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 had been roundly condemned by some members of the orchestra and all of the critics, the conductor provided the audience at the 2d performance with a lengthy written justification that would prove not to help even a little bit. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1903
February 24, Tuesday: After a funeral at the Votivkirche, the remains of Hugo Wolf were placed in the Vienna Central Cemetery near the remains of Schubert and Beethoven. The mourners included Anton Webern and Alban Berg. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1904
April 10, Sunday: While conducting a Beethoven symphony in the Cirque d’été, Paris, Erik Satie and his arch-enemy the critic Henri “Willy” Gauthier-Villars had words. Satie attacked Willy, who defended himself with his walking stick — and the confrontation wound up with the police escorted the infuriated composer to a nearby police station.
June 19, Sunday: Charles T. Griffes was honored at the end of his first year at Stern Conservatory, Berlin to be selected to play a solo in the year-end concert. He chose to perform Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C Minor.
October 22, Saturday: During the previous night Russian naval vessels on their way to the Far East had fired on British fishing boats in the North Sea supposing them to be Japanese. A trawler sank; three British and two Russians were killed. Russia would wind up paying compensation.
In Paris, a 10-day conference of most of the radical and revolutionary groups of Russia was completed.
In London, Giacomo Puccini wrote an acceptance to a dinner invitation from Sybil Seligman, wife of a wealthy banker. This was the first of 700 letters he would write to her.
Two works for piano-four hands by Max Reger were performed for the initial time, in München: Five Picturesque Pieces op.34, and Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Beethoven op.86. In both works the composer played one of the parts. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1907
October 15, Tuesday: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J.A. Hiller, op.100 for orchestra by Max Reger, was performed for the initial time, in Cologne.
Gustav Mahler opened his final production as music director of the Vienna Opera, Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1916
May 7, Sunday: President Juan Isidro Jiménez of the Dominican Republic, not desiring an office “regained with foreign bullets,” resigned.
A memorial concert for Enrique Granados was given at the Metropolitan Opera House of New York, conducted by Walter Damrosch. The Beethoven Trio in Bb was played by Ignacy Paderewski, Fritz Kreisler, and Pablo Casals. Singers included Maria Barrientos, Julia Culp, and John McCormack.
Granados’ Dolora en la meno for voice and piano was performed for the initial time. Casals would remember that “toward the end of the concert all the lights were turned out. A candle was placed on the piano. Then, with that solitary flame flickering on the stage in the great hall, Paderewski played Chopin’s Funeral March.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1922
April 11, Tuesday: While on a trip to Italy during his European studies, Aaron Copland arrived in Florence from Rome.
A news item relating to the development of ELECTRIC WALDEN technology: The New York Philharmonic made its first recording, for the Victor Company, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture (this was pressed on a couple of 12-inch one-sided discs).
May 29, Monday: Iannis Xenakis was born in Bráila, Romania, eldest of three children born to Clearchos Xenakis, a prosperous shipping agent for a British import-export business, and Photini Pavlou, a pianist and daughter of a mill owner.
Ferruccio Busoni performed in public for the final time when he appeared as soloist in the Emperor Concerto of Beethoven in Berlin.
Mavra, an opera buffa by Igor Stravinsky to words of Kochno after Pushkin, was performed for the initial time, with singers and the composer at the piano, at the Hôtel Continental, Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1938
Hitler’s Birthday: There was a special performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony in honor of Führer Adolf Hitler’s April 20th birthday.
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1958
November 30, Sunday: The 2d round of elections to the 1st National Assembly of the 5th French Republic returned a large majority for Gaullists and Conservatives. Socialists and Communists were reduced to a total of 50 seats out of 546.
Dimitur Ganev Vurbanov replaced Georgi Kulishev Gugov as Chairman of the Presidium of the National Assembly of Bulgaria.
The Cuban government announced that 6 army officers were under arrest for refusing to take part in the war against the rebels.
The television series Lincoln Presents Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic began with a performance of the 9th Symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Rote Rosen, a song for voice and piano by Richard Strauss to words of Stieler, was performed for the initial time, in Carnegie Hall, New York, 75 years after it was composed.
Adagio for flute and string trio by Gunther Schuller was performed for the initial time, in Carl Fischer Hall, New York. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1960
May 9, Monday: As a method of protesting the West German government’s decision to deport him to East Germany, refugee Botha von Steegan set fire to Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthplace in Bonn. The blaze destroyed the furniture and two autograph manuscripts.
The G.D. Searle Company received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to market Enovid as a contraceptive. This would be the first birth control pill.
Two works by Ernst Krenek were performed for the initial time, in New York: Sonatina for oboe and Monologue for clarinet solo. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1970
March 22, Sunday: Memento vitae (homage to Beethoven) for orchestra by Thea Musgrave was performed for the initial time, in Glasgow. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1974
February 14, Thursday: Several articles appeared in China about Ottorino Respighi’s “Pines of Rome,” a piece that had been played by the Philadelphia Orchestra in Beijing during the previous September. This was criticized as a “bourgeois work,” “weird and bizarre” and indicative of “nasty, rotten life and decadent sentiments.” The articles also derogated Beethoven and Schubert. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1977
May 25, Wednesday: In China, the Communist government decided it no longer needed to prevent performance and publication of the plays of William Shakespeare.
In the Netherlands, the Labor Party under Prime Minister Joop den Uyl gained 10 seats in national elections, raising its total to 53. The Christian Democratic Appeal, newly reorganized, won 49 seats.
The premier of George Lucas’s “Star Wars.”
At Uppsala University, “Westerlings for chorus” by Peter Maxwell Davies was performed for the initial time, although in an incomplete state.
In Schwetzingen, String Quartet no.4 and String Quartet no.5 by Hans Werner Henze were performed for the initial time. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
May 26, Thursday: On the 150th anniversary of Beethoven’s death the Chinese government lifted its prohibition against his works.
Over the previous week the rebels in Zaire had recaptured all towns that had been held by the rebels of Katanga. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1989
December 23, Saturday: The Communist Party leader in Prague, Miroslav Stepan, was arrested for having ordered the repression of November 17th.
Rival Shiite Moslem groups began battling again in southern Lebanon.
To celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 in the Kaiser Wilhelm Kirche of West Berlin.
December 24, Sunday: When it became known that General Noriega had sought refuge in the Vatican embassy in Panama City, Panamanian resistance to the US invasion collapsed.
Carol for St. Steven for chorus by Alexander Goehr was performed for the initial time, at King’s College, Cambridge.
To celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 in the Schauspielhaus, East Berlin.
Christmas Vespers for narrator and brass quintet by John Harbison was performed for the initial time, in Rochester, New York. Also premiered was Harbison’s Little Fantasy on the Twelve Days of Christmas for brass quintet, Two Choral Preludes for Advent for brass quintet, and The Three Wise Men for brass quintet and narrator. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
“May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world.” — The Quayle family’s 1989 Christmas card HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
December 25, Monday: General-Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and Romanian Head of State Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were tried and convicted of genocide, abuse of power and theft. They were immediately shot. The bodies were videotaped and broadcast throughout Romania so there will be no doubt that they were dead. This breaks the will of fighting Securitate members.
Videotapes of the Bernstein Beethoven performances of the previous two nights in West and East Berlin were telecast to the world. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1991
A portrait of Bettina Brentano von Arnim appeared on the 5-Deutchemark note. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1994
December: A lock of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair was purchased at an auction in Sotheby’s in London, for $7,300. As the corpse of Beethoven had lain in state in 1827, it lost most of its hair to the hordes of mourners who filed past. Ferdinand Hiller had been one of the visitors who went away with a lock, which his son Paul Hiller had framed and identified. The lock was curly, between three and four inches long and about a half an inch in diameter. It was brown with some gray hairs. The plan is to submit the hair to forensic analysis to determine whether Beethoven was part Negroid and whether the hair contains the mercury residues which would indicate that he had been treated for syphilis. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
1996
October 28, Monday: An article entitled “Singled Out” celebrating the celebrants of a single life appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The article was illustrated with images of Queen Elizabeth and of Henry Thoreau. Some fifteen persons not from Kentucky were identified as lifelong singletons.
Among these personages were: • Joan of Arc • Chopin • Sir Isaac Newton • Marie Arouet de Voltaire • Jane Austen • Queen Elizabeth • Henry David Thoreau • Ludwig van Beethoven • President James Buchanan
We notice that the little hunchbacked Robert Hooke isn’t on this list despite the fact that he was a singleton, because he isn’t famous (note also the fact that he isn’t famous not because he wasn’t great but because the famous Newton so detested him). HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
2002
Evidence came to the fore that Bettina Brentano von Arnim had been the one Ludwig van Beethoven referred to as “Immortal Beloved.”
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: November 14, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
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