I fear you will look on me with displeasure when I tell you that necessity compelled me not only to dispose of the symphony I wrote for you, but to transfer another also to some one else.  Be assured, however, that you shall soon receive the one I intend for you.  I hope that both you and the Countess, to whom I beg my kind regards, have been well since we met.  I am at this moment staying with Countess Erdoedy in the apartments below those of Prince Lichnowsky.  I mention this in case you do me the honor to call on me when you are in Vienna.  My circumstances are improving, without having recourse to the intervention of people who treat their friends insultingly.  I have also the offer of being made Kapellmeister to the King of Westphalia, and it is possible that I may accept the proposal.  Farewell, and sometimes think of your attached friend,

BEETHOVEN.

[Footnote 1:  The fourth Symphony is dedicated to Count Oppersdorf.]

48.[1]

I fear I am too late for to-day, but I have only now been able to get back your memorial from C——­, because H——­ wished to add various items here and there.  I do beg of you to dwell chiefly on the great importance to me of adequate opportunities to exercise my art; by so doing you will write what is most in accordance with my head and my heart.  The preamble must set forth what I am to have in Westphalia—­600 ducats in gold, 150 ducats for travelling expenses; all I have to do in return for this sum being to direct the King’s [Jerome’s] concerts, which are short and few in number.  I am not even bound to direct any opera I may write.  So, thus freed from all care, I shall be able to devote myself entirely to the most important object of my art—­to write great works.  An orchestra is also to be placed at my disposition.

N.B.  As member of a theatrical association, the title need not be insisted on, as it can produce nothing but annoyance.  With regard to the Imperial service, I think that point requires delicate handling, and not less so the solicitation for the title of Imperial Kapellmeister.  It must, however, be made quite clear that I am to receive a sufficient salary from the Court to enable me to renounce the annuity which I at present receive from the gentlemen in question [the Archduke Rudolph, Prince Kinsky, and Prince Lobkowitz], which I think will be most suitably expressed by my stating that it is my hope, and has ever been my most ardent wish, to enter the Imperial service, when I shall be ready to give up as much of the above salary as the sum I am to receive from His Imperial Majesty amounts to.  (N.B.  We must have it to-morrow at twelve o’clock, as we go to Kinsky then.  I hope to see you to-day.)

[Footnote 1:  This note, now first published, refers to the call Beethoven had received, mentioned in the previous No.  The sketch of the memorial that follows is not, however, in Beethoven’s writing, and perhaps not even composed by him [see also No. 46].  It is well known that the Archduke Rudolph, Prince Kinsky, and Prince Lobkowitz had secured to the maestro a salary of 4000 gulden.]