Chapter 5 - Rehearsals and Confusion

Summary

Monday, May 3, 1824—Tabbing the Scherzo

On Monday, May 3, copyist Peter Gläser (possibly accompanied by a member of his staff) arrived at Beethoven's apartment in the Ungargasse by 10 o’clock in the morning. Schindler had presumably arrived prior to that time to set up the assembly line for pasting tabs into the orchestral parts for the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony to facilitate page turning. Beethoven probably indicated where they should be placed; Gläser tipped them in; and Beethoven double-checked their placement.

Assuming two players per stand in the strings, this would have entailed work on at least 6 first violin parts, 6 seconds, 5 violas, and a total of at least 6 violoncello/contrabass parts; plus 2 flute parts, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trombones, 2 trumpets, and 1 timpani part, for a total of at least 41 orchestral parts. The project probably took several hours.

There are no conversation book entries from this session. Probably Beethoven was busy checking the work, possibly because there were plenty of cut or leftover slips of paper to use in writing questions, but more likely they simply spoke loudly among themselves when they needed to. Schindler presumably worked along with the others but evidently took some time out in the afternoon to run various errands, including going to the Kärntnertor Theater to remind stage director Gottdank and manager Duport to call the orchestra for a rehearsal the next morning.

With the orchestral parts for the Scherzo tied up in revisions, it would have been difficult to hold an orchestral rehearsal during this period. It is also questionable whether Beethoven would have been able to get away long enough to walk the ca. 35 minutes to the Kärntnertor Theater, where Dirzka's choral rehearsal was being held in the afternoon.

In any case, nephew Karl attended that choral rehearsal, returned home, and reported, “For a first time, it went very well. The basses got going like blazes. It will be splendid when all the participants are present for the whole thing. I’m going to the general rehearsal on Thursday [May 6] in any case.”