Beethoven at 'The Wild Man'

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

In September of 1825, Englishman Sir George Smart came to Vienna, hoping to meet Beethoven. Smart had conducted the British premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and wanted, as he put it in his journal, “to ascertain from Beethoven himself the exact tempos of the movements of his sinfonia.”

By luck, Smart arrived in time to attend the first reading of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, which occurred on today’s date that year in a private room at the Viennese Tavern Zum Wilden Mann.

Smart recalled: “… we took ourselves to the Wilden Mann … as there was an assembly to hear Beethoven’s new manuscript quartet. It is most chromatic and there is a slow movement entitled ‘Praise for the recovery of an invalid.’ Beethoven intended it to allude to himself, I suppose, for he was very ill during the early part of this year. Beethoven directed the performers, and took off his coat, the room being warm and crowded. A staccato passage not being expressed to the satisfaction of his eye, for alas, he could not hear, he seized the violin and played the passage himself — a quarter of a tone too flat.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): String Quartet No. 15, Emerson Quartet; DG 447 075