I
am really a little surprised at the message you sent me through
your business agent in Vienna. I almost feel inclined to be annoyed
with you for thinking me capable of playing such a dirty trick.
It would be a different matter if I had handed over this affair
of mine to greedy tradesmen and, in addition, were speculating
successfully in secret. But writing as artist to artist, it is
really a bit too much to suspect me of such dealings. It seems
to me that either the whole affair has been carefully thought
out in order to test me or is merely a supposition. In any case
I will satisfy your curiosity by informing you that before you
received the septet from me I had sent it to London, to Herr Salomon
(to be performed at his concert, and this I did purely out of
friendship), but with the reminder to make certain that it would
not fall into the hands of strangers, because I intended to have
it engraved in Germany. If you consider it necessary, you yourself
may ask him about this. But in order to give you a further proof
of my rectitude, I give you herewith my written assurance that
I have sold the septet, the concerto, the symphony and the sonata
to nobody else in the world but to yourselves, Herren Hoffmeister
& Kuhnel, and that you may certainly regard those works as
your exclusive property; and on that I stake my honour. In any
case you may make whatever use you like of this assurance -- Let
me add that I am as little inclined to believe that Salomon is
capable of such a dirty trick as that of having the septet engraved
as I am of having sold it to him -- I am so conscientious that
I have refused to give the pianoforte arrangement of the septet
to several publishers who approached me about this. Yet I don't
even know whether you are going to make use of the septet in that
arrangement -- The titles of my works which I promised long ago
to let you have are as follows: --
Concert pour le piano-forte
avec deux violons, viola, basse et violon-celle, une flute, deux
oboes, deux cors, deux fagots, compose et dedie a Monsieur
Charles Nikl noble de Nikelsberg Conseiller Aulique de sa Majeste
Imperiale et Royale
par
Louis van Beethoven
oeuvre
19
_________________________________________
Septette pour un violon, viole violoncelle, contrebasse, un cors,
une clarinette, un fagot
compose
et dedie
a
sa Majeste l'Imperatrice et Reine
par
Louis van Beethoven
oeuvre
20
_________________________________________
Grande simphonie avec deux violons viole violoncell et contre
Basse, deux flute, deux oboe, deux cors, deux fagots, deux clarines
et tymbales
Composee
et dediee
a
son altesse serenissime
Maximilien Francois
Prince
Royal d'hongrie et de Boheme
Electeur
de Cologne, etc.
par
Louis
van Beethoven
oeuvre
21
_________________________________________
Grande
Sonata pour le piano-forte
composee
e dediee
a
Monsieur
le
comte de Browne
Brigadier au service de S.M.I. de
touttes
les Russies
par
Louis
van Beethoven
oeuvre
22
_________________________________________
Much will still have to be altered
or corrected in the titles. I leave that to you -- I am expecting
shortly to receive from you a letter and soon too the works themselves.
I should like to see them engraved, because other works composed
after them and in the same numerical series have already been
or are being published.
I have written to Salomon as well.
But since I am treating your remarks merely as a rumour, which
you picked up a little too credulously, or even as a supposition
which perhaps occurred to you, because you had heard somewhere
or other that I had sent the work to S[alomon], well then to such
credulous friends I cannot help describing myself somewhat coolly
as
your friend
L.
v. Bthvn