Beethoven completed fewer compositions in 1810 than in previous years, partly as a result, perhaps, of his despair when Therese Malfatti turned down his proposal of marriage: ‘Your news has plunged me from the heights of the most sublime ecstasy down into the depths’, he told his friend Ignaz von Gleichenstein, who had been given the unenviable task by the Malfatti family of telling Beethoven that he was no longer welcome at their home, except on musical evenings. ‘For your poor B, no happiness can come from outside. You must create everything for yourself in your own heart; and only in the world of ideals can you find friends.’ As a parting gift he presented Für Elise to Therese Malfatti on 27 April, no doubt with a lump in his throat. Finding friends in ‘the world of ideals’ was not a figment of his imagination, however. ‘Quartets every week’, he noted cheerfully in one of his sketchbooks referring, no doubt, to the many musical gatherings held, among other venues, in Nikolaus Zmeskall's apartment in the Bürgerspital in central Vienna, and attended by members of his inner circle of friends.

Baron Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz

Nikolaus Zmeskall (1759–1833), a lawyer in the Hungarian court chancellery in Vienna, was a gifted and enthusiastic amateur cellist who devoted every spare moment to playing, discussing, promoting and listening to music. His admiration for Beethoven, whom he helped in numerous, often very mundane, ways never faltered. He was one of the original subscribers to the op. 1 piano trios and a founder member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, bequeathing to the Society his music library, which included such valuable manuscripts as Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Wind, k452, discussed in Chapter 8, and over 130 notes and letters written to him by Beethoven.

Zmeskall, a confirmed bachelor, and Beethoven, a most unwilling and frustrated one, often lunched together at the Zum weissen Schwan. Relations between them were generally warm and affectionate in spite of Beethoven's frequent teasing and jokiness.