The letter is located in Krakow at the Biblioteka Książąt Czartoryskich in an album of letters by various authors. Another copy is likely held at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. The autograph carries the text: “Canon a due voci, scritto al 2 do junio 1824 per il Signore Soliva come sovvenire dal suo amico Luigi van Beethoven”.  An atypical canon for Beethoven: the resolution of this canon in fact results in a motion in two parts spaced a fifth apart.

Carlo Evasio Soliva, composer, musician, and pedagogue of Swiss-Italian descent, was born on 27th November 1791 in Casale Monferrato and died in Paris on 20th December 1853. He studied piano with Francesco Pollini, harmony and counterpoint with Bonifazio Asioli and Vincenzo Federici at the newly established conservatory in Milan. After completing his musical studies in 1815, he began his career as an opera composer with the tragicomic opera La testa di bronzo o sia La capanna solitaria, based on a libretto by the young Felice Romani, commissioned by the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The opera was a great success, and the poet Carlo Porta wrote: «la musica del sig.r Soliva è divina, ed il pubblico ha lui resa quella giustizia che gli era dovuta avendolo chiamato e richiamato sulla scena, quante volte si è trovato inebbriato di squisito piacere» (6th September 1816, in Le lettere di Carlo Porta…, 1967, p. 214). He later composed other works, but La testa di bronzo remained his greatest success. He was a much-appreciated musician. Raimondo Boucheron wrote: «il Soliva seppe tenersi lontano dalla servile imitazione di Rossini, e nutrito com’era nello studio di Mozart, seppe aprirsi una via propria, e formarsi uno stile, che al suo prediletto modello s’accosta, non tanto gli rassomiglia da poterlo dire imitazione di quello» (Gazzetta musicale di Milano, XII, no. 16, 16th April 1854, p. 122).

From 1821, he was a vocal teacher in Warsaw, where he made valuable contributions to Polish musical culture and where he met Fryderyk Chopin. As a singing teacher, he was harshly criticized by Elsner and other colleagues but was fully appreciated by Chopin. From 1827 to 1830, he held the position of Director of the Warsaw Conservatory. During his time in Warsaw, he was involved in composition and orchestral conducting, and it was he who conducted Chopin’s first piano concerto with orchestra. Chopin wrote: “He knew how to guide us all in such a way that, I assure you, I had never before played so calmly with the orchestra” (letter of 12th October 1830 to Tytus Woyciechowski, in Vita di Chopin attraverso le lettere, ByV. Rossella, Turin 2003, p. 84). Soliva also composed for piano and small instrumental ensembles. His Grand Trio Concertant pour piano, harpe ou deux pianos et alto (Milan, Artaria) was dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven, who thanked him with a letter on 9th February 1821 (Soliva replied with deference on 1st March). (Score owned by the Centro Ricerche Musicali, article in preparation).

Three years later, after a first stay in Poland and while travelling to Milan, Soliva met Beethoven in Vienna. His voice is recorded in Beethoven’s conversation books; on 9th June 1824, he is said to have remarked: «Aujourd’hui nous n’avons que de Cabalettes. On n’entend plus un Morceau de déclamation […] La masse du public est partout presque la même. Il y a très peu de vrais conaisseurs» (Konversationshefte, 1974, pp. 261 s.). Beethoven dedicated this canon to him, using a quotation from Metastasio’s oratorio La Betulia liberata, the sacred action that even the fifteen-year-old Mozart had set to music: “Te solo io adoro, spirito infinito, origine della vita, della verità.”

In October 1831, following the suppression of the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire, the Warsaw Conservatory was dismantled, and from 1832, Soliva took up various positions in St. Petersburg. He became the teacher of Princess Aleksandra Nikolaevna, to whom he dedicated a Ballade et Chansonnette (1840-41), and frequented the salon of the brothers Mateusz and Michał Wielhorski. Soliva’s aim was to reform the country’s music education, but his projects were rejected. On 10th August 1841, he was dismissed and returned to Italy, and in 1844, he settled in Paris, where he met and was highly regarded by George Sand and her circle. He passed away at the age of 62. Like Chopin, he is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery, opposite the tomb of Vincenzo Bellini.