Three times over: ________________ |: Come soon! :|
Read _violino 2do_--the passage in the first _Allegretto_ in the 1st violin--thus:--
[Music: Treble clef, sixteenth notes.] &c.
So write it in this way; in the first _Allegretto_, mark the signs of expression in all the four parts:
The notes are all right; so do not misunderstand me.
Now, my good friend, as to your mode of writing--_obbligatissimo_; but the signs [Music: piano crescendo decrescendo] &c., are shamefully neglected, and often, very often, in the wrong place, which is no doubt owing to haste. For Heaven's sake impress on Kempel [a copyist] to copy everything just as it stands; look carefully over my present corrections, and you will find all that you have to say to him. When [Music: staccato mark] is put over a note, [Music: staccatissimo mark] is not to take its place, and _vice versa_. It is not the same thing to write [Music: three staccatissimo quarter notes] and [Music: three staccato quarter notes]. The [Music: crescendo] are often purposely placed after the notes. For instance:--[Music: three notes, decrescendo on second note]. The ties to be just as they are now placed. It is not synonymous to write [Music: three notes, slurred] or thus [Music: three notes, slur over first two notes]. Such is our will and pleasure! I have passed no less than the whole forenoon to-day, and yesterday afternoon, in correcting these two pieces, and I am actually quite hoarse from stamping and swearing.
Pray excuse me for to-day, as it is just four o'clock. [The close of this letter has not been deciphered by its possessor, who has traced over the hieroglyphics with a pencil; it reads somewhat to this effect, "to go to Carl at four o'clock. We were much amused," &c.]
[Footnote 1: This letter is evidently written about the same time that the copying of the A minor Quartet (Op. 132) took place, of which the letter treats, and is probably "the enclosure" named in the following note. The corrections, or we ought rather to say revisions, of Beethoven, are all fully and accurately reproduced, at all events in Breitkopf & Härtel's edition.]
Send the enclosed to-morrow morning (Wednesday) to the post; as it refers to corrections, _haste is absolutely necessary_. We must have done with this evil old creature! I have scarcely enough to eat, and am forced also to endure the sauciness and insolence of this most malicious old witch--and with such wages too! I think I must ask my _pseudo_-brother to come, and would be glad to engage again the woman from Winter's, in the Kothgasse, who at least knew how to cook.
