A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Holz, Karl
HOLZ, Karl, Austrian official, able violinist, and devoted lover of music, born at Vienna, 1798. In 1824 he became one of Schuppanzigh's quartet party, and an active member of the direction of Gebauer's 'Spirituel Concerte,' in which he led the first violins. A jovial, pleasant fellow, devoted heart and soul to Beethoven, who dubbed <refLetter of Aug. 29, 1824.></ref>him 'Mahagoni-Holz,' and often invited him to dinner, where he took more than his share of his entertainer's wine—'a hard drinker, between ourselves,' says [1]Beethoven. Possibly drink was not his only failing, if we may so interpret the 'Monsieur terrible amoureux' of another letter of Beethoven's.[2]
In 1826 Beethoven informed him by letter[3] that he had chosen him for his biographer, in the confidence that whatever information might be given him for that purpose would be accurately communicated to the world. According to Schindler, Beethoven afterwards repented of this arrangement. In 1843 Holz made over his rights to Gassner of Carlsruhe, but nothing has been done. Holz died at Vienna, Nov. 9, 1858.
One of the last times that Beethoven's pen touched the paper before he took to his death-bed was to add his signature and a line of music (in a strange scale) to a note of his dictation to Holz, 'Dec. 1826' (Nohl, 'Letters,' 385):—
Wie immer Ihr Freund Beethoven.
[ C. F. P. ]