Beethoven answers his publisher, saying that he is quite prepared to receive part of his payment (for opp. 85, 86 and 72) in Viennese currency. He is in a hurry to receive the money as the situation is bad in Vienna on account of the French occupation. (Beethoven had sold the three works for 250 florins C.M. - good silver coins. However, Härtel wanted to pay part of the sum in bank notes, as it was no longer very easy to get hold of silver. He finally paid the whole sum in bank notes, which Beethoven sent back again due to the rapid rate of inflation: he was no longer able to convert them at acceptable conditions).
Beethoven gives the tempo for the Lied WoO 136 as being Allegretto. In addition he asks for the prices of Goethe's, Schiller's and Wielands's works, which were published in Leipzig - "If I must buy them, I would prefer to buy them from there as all of the editions here are ruined and expensive".
Beethoven announces that he will soon be able to deliver the quartets (there are actually corresponding sketches to prove this, although there are no finished works). He would, however, prefer not to write piano sonatas, although he promises to deliver some (in the following year: opp. 78, 79 and 81a).
Finally he adds, amused, that he has become a member of the Gesellschaft schöner Künste und Wissenschaften, "a title after all - haha that makes me laugh".
