Beethoven's patron Lobkowitz

The prince

Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz was born on 8 December 1772 in Vienna and died on 16 December 1816 in Třeboň, in South Bohemia, aged 44. He was a Bohemian aristocrat of the House of Lobkowicz. In 1786 Emperor Joseph II made him Duke of Roudnice, and in 1792 he married Maria Karolina von Schwarzenberg; they had twelve children. Wikipedia describes him as an amateur musician who played violin and cello and sang bass. The German spelling Lobkowitz is the usual one in music history, which is why this guide uses both.

What Beethoven dedicated to him

Beethoven dedicated to the prince his Symphonies Nos. 3, 5 and 6, the String Quartets Op. 18 and Op. 74, the Triple Concerto and the song cycle An die ferne Geliebte, Wikipedia lists. Few patrons have their name on that many central works. The prince was also a member of the society that sponsored the 1798 premiere of Haydn's The Creation, and in 1799 he commissioned six string quartets from Haydn, of which Haydn finished only two, published as Op. 77.

The Third Symphony

Beethoven first dedicated the Third Symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, then withdrew the dedication after Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor on 14 May 1804, and re-dedicated it to Prince Lobkowitz. The first rehearsals and performances were private, in the prince's Vienna palace. A payment record dated 9 June 1804 shows he hired 22 extra musicians for two rehearsals, and Wikipedia gives the same date for Beethoven's first private performance as conductor. The first public performance followed on 7 April 1805 at the Theater an der Wien.

The stipend

In 1808 Lobkowitz, Archduke Rudolph and Prince Kinsky persuaded Beethoven to stay in Vienna by offering a yearly pension of 4,000 florins, which freed him from relying on commissions or teaching. In 1811 Lobkowitz, in financial difficulty, stopped paying his share, but he later resumed, and payments continued after his death until Beethoven died in 1827. For his birthday in 1816 Beethoven wrote a Birthday Cantata for Prince Lobkowitz, although he was seriously ill and the prince died a few days after the birthday.

The archive in Prague

The palace's site says the Lobkowicz Music Archive, assembled over three centuries by principal members of the family, holds approximately 5,000 items, including 18th-century lute tablatures, oratorios, operas in manuscript, scores and performing parts for symphonies and quartets, and hand-annotated manuscripts by Mozart and Beethoven. Wikipedia says the Nazis confiscated the archive in 1941, that it was returned in October 1998 and that it was moved to Nelahozeves. It adds that the Prague palace displays an 1806 first edition of the Third Symphony and the account record of the 1804 rehearsals, and that since 1993 more than 200 works from the collection have been lent to institutions in the Czech Republic and abroad.

What this means for the concert

The midday concert is not a Beethoven concert. The published programmes name a Beethoven concert piece for piano among Baroque and Czech works, and the programme changes from day to day. What the Beethoven connection gives you is context: a collection in the museum and a family whose house you are sitting in. If you want to hear the Third Symphony, book an orchestral concert. If you want the story behind it, the museum is where it is told. The same prince, Wikipedia notes, commissioned the palace's 1791 exterior reconstruction, so one man shaped both the building and the family's place in music history.

Read next: Lobkowicz Palace concert tickets