This called out a
sarcastic letter from Beethoven to Schindler, in which he refers to
Diabelli as an arch-churl (_Erzflegel_), and threatens him (Diabelli),
if he is not more amenable.
"I have passed the forenoon to-day, and all yesterday afternoon in
correcting these two pieces and am actually hoarse with stamping and
swearing," he wrote the copyist in reference to the A minor Quartet.
Elsewhere he complains about the carelessness of the publishers of his
earlier quartets, which are "full of mistakes and errata great and
small. They swarm like fish in the sea, innumerable."
When referring to the testimonial concert, allusion was made to the
enormous labor involved in copying out all the parts required for the
occasion, in which over one hundred persons participated. To examine and
correct each copy before placing it in the hands of the performers was
in itself no slight task. The labor of making the seven subscription
copies of the Mass, was probably a still greater one. In these days of
cheap publications, one can hardly form an estimate of what it really
meant.
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