I devoted my afternoon today to the study of Herr van Beethoven’s symphony, but the instruments are now a clamorous crowd in my head. The beauty is there on the page, I am certain, but, like his orchestra in December, I have yet to realise it with any confidence. I wonder who will be left alive in Vienna to play it, once this war is past us and the roads open to bring us food again.

17th May, 1809

I began today by resuming work with Doctor Haydn. Well fortified with his breakfast, he treated me to three performances of his own Emperor’s Hymn on the fortepiano, each time with increasing gusto. It is a marvellous anthem and, to my thinking, far superior to our own ‘God Save the King’, which inspired the writing of it. I have told Doctor Haydn so, and believe my view uncomplicated by my affection for him.

For the third rendition, I picked up a violoncello and played along. With only the pure thought of music in my head, I was taken aback to hear Frau Meyer and Fraulein Kremnitzer running to us up the stairs, and then to see them dashing about the music room, banging the shutters closed as Doctor Haydn laughed defiantly. He had sung not a word of it but all Austria knows the music, and France does too. The hymn speaks of a love for the Kaiser, but it was also written to stir the Austrian heart to rally against the French in earlier years of these interminable wars. The French were far away then; now they are in the city, the Kaiser is gone, and the realm is surely in peril.

There are rules against gathering mobs and inciting riots, and that piece of music could do either, or at least be seen to, and the sanctity of our house would be no more. It was, though, a wonderful rebellion, as long as it lasted.

With his three performances done, there was nothing left in Doctor Haydn, and Frau Meyer and I lifted him back to his bed. His time is short; we all know it.

I suggested he rest a while but he would have none of it, and asked me to give my report into the first movement of Herr van Beethoven’s symphony, which I did. I set up his breakfast table across his counterpane and placed the manuscript upon it, with my notes beside me. There is much to say about the movement. The four-note motif that initiates it is striking in the way it rushes and stops; the way it sets a pace and then subverts it in an instant, and declares itself to be something else. I explained to him that the movement was in his own sonata form, which pleased him, as he has spoken of teaching this form to Herr van Beethoven. We identified the second theme of the piece, which is in E flat major, and more lyrical than the first. We discussed the use of antiphonal chords for the strings and woodwinds, and the surprising encounters that resulted with the four-note motif.