Exhibitions

By which ways and means did Beethoven earn his living as a freelance musician without a permanent position? And did you know that Beethoven owned shares?

If he believed that his patrons? "working scholarship" would provide him with a secure financial basis and allow him, freed from all material worries, to concentrate entirely on his art, then indeed the truth soon taught him otherwise. Astronomic inflation and the "State Bankruptcy" of 1811 kept Beethoven's economic situation on an uneven keel. The current special exhibition, compiled in conjunction with the Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien and the Monetary Museum of the National Bank of Austria, gives us an insight.

On display are such important documents as the "Contract of Annuity" of 1809, which promised Beethoven the annual sum of 4,000 gilders, as well as original handwritten sheet music such as the piano sonata op. 81a, to which Beethoven was inspired by the wartime flight from Vienna of one of his most generous patrons, Archduke Rudolph ("Les Adieux"). Extracts from his correspondence with his publishers document their business dealings. Price lists for different kinds of groceries, loaned by the Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, help to create a picture of the circumstances of the time. The exhibits are framed by contemporary silver and gold coins, as well as examples of the many different bank notes, all provided by the Monetary Museum. And the exhibition is further enriched by one of Beethoven?s shares, in which he invested his "only assets".

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