To: the Archduke Rudolph
Vienna, Spring, 1815

Anderson vII pg506 - letter #537


Your Imperial Highness!

                   Please be so gracious has to have the E minor sonata [Opus 90] sent to me. I needed to for proof-reading –– On Monday I will call on Y.I.H. again in person. The recent events [Anderson footnote: “Undoubtedly Napoleon’s escape from Elba at the end of February.”] necessitate the dispatch as quickly as possible of many works of mine which are being engraved and published.   Moreover I am not yet in the best of health –– I  do most earnestly beg Y.I.H. to be so gracious as to let me have a few words about your own state of health.   I am still hoping to hear something more reassuring, nay rather, soon in the very best news about it.

                      Your Imperial Highness’s
                                 most obedient and most faithful servant
                                                                 Ludwig van Beethoven