To:Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig
Vienna, August 3, 1809

   
     Laugh at my anxiety as a composer.  Just imagine, I discovered yesterday that when correcting the mistakes in the violoncello sonata [Opus 69] I myself had made some fresh ones – Well now, in the Scherzo Allegro Molto this ff should be left at the beginning, as was indicated, and similary in the other places (I mean, as it was inserted at first, that is where it should be).  But in the 9th bar piano should be inserted before the first note and likewise at the 9th bar on the other occasions where the

                                                                   

are converted into

                                              

-- So much for that point – From this you will gather that I am really in such a state that all I can say is ‘Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’
 
       By the next mail coach you will receive one or perhaps two songs [WoO 136 and ‘Das Lied aus der Ferne’] an a sextet for wind-instruments as a future compensation for the opera benevolentiæ which I am inflicting on you for my benefit –

      Be sure not to forget the name of the poet who has rendered Euripides into German for us so very beautifully –

      I am making haste, for we have to hand in the letters to the post office before five o’clock, and it is already half past four; and I am living ‘in the Klepperstall in the Teinfaltstrasse on the third floor, c/o the lawyer Gostischa’.

                                                        All good wishes.
                                                                                    Wholly your
                                                                                                        Beethoven