Pablo Massa wrote, responding to me:

>Maynard Solomon (in his biography of Beethoven) detailed the financial
>state of the composer at the moment of his death, and it was far from
>being bad.

As I already wrote, that's true.  But it's a fact that his income was not
as good as some years earlier and Beethoven himself began to fear for the
future.  Marek writes in his biography that it looks as if old Beethoven
had written on the walls of his house: I AM POOR!  And this was an error,
objectively spoken.

>He had good money in his account...

Yes.

>...  and some financial investments at the Bank of England (if I don't
>remember bad).

He possessed some bank shares, though, as far as I know not at the Bank
of England.  However, he didn't want to spend them.  He ardently wished
to keep them as an inheritance for his beloved nephew.

>A question: It's true that he left his inheritance to his nephew Karl
>and to his sister-in-law Johanna (the formerly hated "Queen of Night")?.

Only to his nephew.  But it's a fact that the words he chose when he wrote
down his last will, left room for his hated sister-in-law to become his
heir, since he used the word "natural heirs", instead of "legal heirs."
Suppose Karl would have died without having married, without children.
Suppose Johanna had still been alive at that moment.  In that case she
would have become Beethoven's heir.  If we may believe Solomon, this was
Beethoven's way to try to reconcile with Johanna, whom he actually had
loved and wanted as his wife.  Speculations, Mr. Solomon, speculations...
See, for instance, Ms. Tellenbach's very different view on the last will.
Her explanation: it was Beethoven's attempt to appoint his illegitimate
daughter Minona Stackelberg to one of his heirs, in case Karl would have
died without off-spring.  Speculations, Ms. Tellenbach, speculations...

Greetings,
Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven