[i]

THE LIFE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
VOLUME II

[ii]

BEETHOVEN

After Mähler's Portrait of 1804
From the copy in possession of Mrs. Jabez Fox

[iii]

The Life of
Ludwig van Beethoven

By Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Edited, revised and amended from the original English manuscript and the German editions of Hermann Deiters and Hugo Riemann, concluded, and all the documents newly translated

By
Henry Edward Krehbiel

Volume II

Published by
The Beethoven Association
New York

[iv]

SECOND PRINTING

Copyright, 1921.
By Henry Edward Krehbiel

From the press of G. Schirmer, Inc., New York
Printed in the U. S. A.

[v]

Contents of Volume II

[1]

Chapter I

Kotzebue, after a year of activity in Vienna as Alxinger’s successor in the direction, under the banker Baron von Braun, of the Court Theatre, then a year of exile in Siberia (1800), whence he was recalled by that semi-maniac Paul, who was moved thereto by the delight which the little drama “Der Leibkutscher Peters III.” had given him—then a short time in Jena, where his antagonism to Goethe broke out into an open quarrel, established himself in Berlin. There he began, with Garlieb Merkel (1802), the publication of a polemical literary journal called the “Freymüthige,” Goethe, the Schlegels and their party being the objects of their polemics. Spazier’s “Zeitung für die Elegante Welt” (Leipsic) was its leading opponent, until the establishment of a new literary journal at Jena.

At the beginning of 1803, Kotzebue was again in Vienna on his way to Italy. Some citations from the “Freymüthige” of this time have an especial value, as coming, beyond a doubt, from his pen. His position in society, his knowledge from experience of theatrical affairs in Vienna, his personal acquaintance with Beethoven and the other persons mentioned, all combine to enable him to speak with authority. An article in No. 58 (April 12) on the “Amusements of the Viennese after Carnival,” gives a peep into the salon-life of the capital, and introduces to us divers matters of so much interest, as to excuse the want of novelty in certain parts.

A few words may be added to this picture from other sources. Salieri’s duties being now confined to the sacred music of the Imperial Chapel, Süssmayr being far gone in the consumption of which he died on Sept. 16 (of this year—1803), Conti retaining but the name of orchestral director (he too died the next year), Liechtenstein and Weigl were now the conductors of the Imperial Opera; Henneberg and Seyfried held the same position under Schikaneder, as in the old house, so now in the new.

Schuppanzigh’s summer concerts in the Augarten, and Salieri’s Widows and Orphans concerts at Christmas and in Holy Week, were still the only regular public ones. Vogler had come from Prague in December, and Paër, who had removed to Dresden at Easter, 1802, was again in Vienna to produce his cantata “Das Heilige Grab,” at the Widows and Orphans Concert. It was a period of dearth at Vienna in operatic composition. At the Court Theatre Liechtenstein had failed disastrously; Weigl had not been able to follow up the success of his “Corsär,” and several years more elapsed before he obtained a permanent name in musical annals by his “Schweizerfamilie.” Salieri’s style had become too familiar to all Vienna[3] longer to possess the charms of freshness and novelty. In the Theater-an-der-Wien, Teyber, Henneberg, Seyfried and others composed to order and executed their work satisfactorily enough—indeed, sometimes with decided, though fleeting, success. But no new work, for some time past, composed to the order of either of these theatres, had possessed such qualities as to secure a brilliant and prolonged existence. From another source, however, a new, fresh and powerful musical sensation had been experienced during the past year at both: and in this wise:

Schikaneder produced, on the 23rd of March, a new opera which had been very favorably received at Paris, called “Lodoiska,” the music composed “by a certain Cherubini.” The applause gained by this opera induced the Court Theatre to send for the score of another opera by the same composer, and prepare it for production on the 14th of August, under the title “Die Tage der Gefahr.” Schikaneder, with his usual shrewdness, meantime was secretly rehearsing the same work, of which Seyfried in the beginning of July had made the then long journey to Munich to obtain a copy, and on the 13th—one day in advance of the rival stage—the musical public was surprised and amused to see “announced on the bill-board of the Wiener Theater the new opera ‘Graf Armand, oder Die zwei unvergessliche Tage.’” In the adaptation and performance of the work, each house had its points of superiority and of inferiority; on the whole, there was little to choose between them; the result in both was splendid. The rivalry between the two stages became very spirited. The Court Theatre selected from the new composer’s other works the “Medea,” and brought it out November 6. Schikaneder followed, December 18, with “Der Bernardsberg” (“Elise”), “sadly mutilated.” Twenty years later Beethoven attested the ineffaceable impression which Cherubini’s music had made upon him. While the music of the new master was thus attracting and delighting crowded audiences at both theatres, the wealthy and enterprising Baron Braun went to Paris and entered into negotiations with Cherubini, which resulted in his engagement to compose one or more operas for the Vienna stage. Besides this “a large number of new theatrical representations from Paris” were expected (in August, 1802) upon the Court stage. “Baron Braun, who is expected to return from Paris, is bringing the most excellent ballets and operas with him, all of which will be performed here most carefully according to the taste of the French.” Thus the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung.”

[4]

These facts bring us to the most valuable and interesting notice contained in the article from the “Freymüthige”—the earliest record of Beethoven’s engagement as composer for the Theater-an-der-Wien.

Zitterbarth, the merchant with whose money the new edifice had been built and put in successful operation, “who had no knowledge of theatrical matters outside of the spoken drama,” left the stage direction entirely in the hands of Schikaneder. In the department of opera that director had a most valuable assistant in Sebastian Meier—the second husband of Mozart’s sister-in-law, Mme. Hofer, the original Queen of Night—a man described by Castelli as a moderately gifted bass singer, but a very good actor, and of the noblest and most refined taste in vocal music, opera as well as oratorio; to whom the praise is due of having induced Schikaneder to bring out so many of the finest new French works, those of Cherubini included. It is probable, therefore, that, just now, when Baron von Braun was reported to have secured Cherubini for his theatre, and it became necessary to discover some new means of keeping up a successful competition, Meier’s advice may have had no small weight with Schikaneder. Defeat was certain unless the operas, attractive mainly from their scenery and grotesque humor, founded upon the “Thousand and One Nights” and their thousand and one imitations, and set to trivial and commonplace tunes, should give place to others of a higher order, quickened by music more serious, dignified and significant.

Whether Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler was really a great and profound musician, as C. M. von Weber, Gänsbacher and Meyerbeer held him to be, or a charlatan, was a matter much disputed in those days, as the same question in relation to certain living composers is in ours. Whatever the truth was, by his polemical writings, his extraordinary self-laudation, his high tone at the courts whither he had been called, his monster concerts, and his almost unperformable works, he had made himself an object of profound curiosity, to say the least. Moreover, his music for the drama “Hermann von Staufen, oder das Vehmgericht,” performed October 3, 1801, at the Theater-an-der-Wien (if the same as in “Hermann von Unna,” as it doubtless was), was well fitted to awaken confidence in his talents. His appearance in Vienna just now was, therefore, a piece of good fortune for Schikaneder, who immediately engaged him for his theatre.

Whether Beethoven had talents for operatic composition, no one could yet know; but his works had already spread to[5] Paris, London, Edinburgh, and had gained him the fame of being the greatest living instrumental composer—Father Haydn of course excepted—and this much might be accepted as certain: viz., that his name alone, like Vogler’s, would secure the theatre from pecuniary loss in the production of one work; and, perhaps—who could foretell?—he might develop powers in this new field which would raise him to the level of even Cherubini! He was personally known to Schikaneder, having played in the old theatre, and his “Prometheus” music was a success at the Court Theatre. So he, too, was engaged. The correspondent of the “Zeitung für die Elegante Welt” positively states, under date of June 29th: “Beethoven is composing an opera by Schikaneder.” There is nothing very improbable in this, though circumstances intervened which prevented the execution of such a project. Still the fact remains, that Schikaneder—that strange compound of wit and absurdity; of poetic instinct and grotesque humor; of shrewd and profitable enterprise and lavish prodigality; who lived like a prince and died like a pauper—has connected his name honorably with both Mozart and Beethoven.

These plain and obvious facts have been so misrepresented as to make it appear that this engagement of Beethoven was a grand stroke of policy conceived and executed by Baron von Braun, who, at the Theater-an-der-Wien (“newly built and to be opened in 1804”), had suddenly become aware of a genius and talent, to which, notwithstanding the “Prometheus” music, at the Imperial Opera, he had been oblivious during the preceding ten years! The date of the transaction is a sufficient confutation of this; as also of the notion that the success of the “Christus am Ölberg” led to his engagement. On the contrary, it was his engagement that enabled Beethoven to obtain the use of the Theater-an-der-Wien to produce that work in a concert to which we now come.

The “Wiener Zeitung” of Saturday, March 26 and Wednesday, March 30, 1803, contained the following

Notice

Beethoven must have felt no small confidence in the power of his name to awaken the curiosity and interest of the musical public, for he doubled the prices of the first chairs, tripled those[6] of the reserved and demanded 12 ducats (instead of 4 florins) for each box. But it was his first public appearance as a dramatic vocal composer, and on his posters he had several days before announced with much pomp that all the works would be of his composition. The result, however, answered his expectations, “for the concert yielded him 1800 florins.”

The works actually performed were the first and second Symphonies, the Pianoforte Concerto in C minor and “Christus am Ölberg”; some others, according to Ries, were intended, but, owing to the length of the concert, which began at the early hour of six, were omitted in the performance. As no copy of the printed programme has been discovered, there is no means of deciding what these pieces were; but the “Adelaide,” the Scena et Aria “Ah, perfido!” and the trio “Tremate, empj, tremate,” suggest themselves, as vocal pieces well fitted to break the monotony of such a mass of orchestral music. It seems strange—knowing as we do Beethoven’s vast talent for improvisation—that no extempore performance is reported.

“The symphonies and concertos,” says Seyfried, “which Beethoven produced for the first time (1803 and 1808) for his benefit at the Theater-an-der-Wien, the oratorio, and the opera, I rehearsed according to his instructions with the singers, conducted all the orchestral rehearsals and personally conducted the performance.”[2]

The final general rehearsal was held in the theatre on the day of performance, Tuesday, April 5. On that morning, as was often the case when Beethoven needed assistance in his labors, young Ries was called to him early—about 5 o’clock. “I found him in bed,” says Ries, “writing on separate sheets of paper. To my question what it was he answered, ‘Trombones.’ At the concert the trombone parts were played from these sheets. Had the copyist forgotten to copy these parts? Were they an afterthought? I was too young at the time to observe the artistic interest of the incident; but probably the trombones were an afterthought, as Beethoven might as easily have had the uncopied parts as the copied.” The correspondent of the “Zeitung für die Elegante Welt” renders a probable solution of Ries’s doubt easy. He found the music to the “Christus” to be “on the whole good, and there are a few admirable passages, an air of the Seraph with trombone accompaniment in particular being of admirable effect.” Beethoven had probably found the aria “Erzittre, Erde” to fail of its intended effect,[7] and added the trombone on the morning of the final rehearsal, to be retained or not as should prove advisable upon trial.[3] Ries continues:

Seyfried in the article above quoted gives a reminiscence of this concert:

The impression made on reading the few contemporary notices of this concert is that the new works produced were, on the whole, coldly received. The short report (by Kotzebue?) in the “Freymüthige” said:

[8]

The writer in the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” alone speaks of the “Christus” as having been received with “extraordinary approval.” Three months afterwards another correspondent flatly contradicts this: “In the interest of truth,” he writes, “I am obliged to contradict a report in the ‘Musikalische Zeitung’; Beethoven’s cantata did not please.” To this Schindler remarks: “Even the composer agreed with this to this extent—that in later years he unhesitatingly declared that it had been a mistake to treat the part of Christ in the modern vocal style. The abandonment of the work after the first performance, as well as its tardy appearance in print (about 1810), permit us to conclude that the author was not particularly satisfied with the manner in which he had solved the problem, and that he probably made material changes in the music.” The “Wiener Zeitung” of July 30, 1803, gives all the comment necessary on the “abandonment” and probable changes in the work, by announcing that “the favorable reception” of the oratorio had induced the Society of Amateur Concerts to resolve to repeat it on August 4. Moreover, Sebastian Meier’s concert of March 27, 1804, opened with the second Symphony of Beethoven and closed with “Christus am Ölberg,” being its fourth performance in one year.[5]

A few days after this public appearance we have a sight of Beethoven again in private life. Dr. Joh. Th. Helm, the famous physician and professor in Prague, then a young man just of the composer’s age (he was born December 11, 1770), accompanied Count Prichnowsky on a visit to Vienna. On the morning of the 16th of April these two gentlemen met Beethoven in the street, who, knowing the Count, invited them to Schuppanzigh’s, “where some of his pianoforte sonatas which Kleinhals had transcribed as string quartets were to be rehearsed. We met,” writes Held, in his manuscript autobiography (the citations were communicated to this work by Dr. Edmund Schebek of Prague)

The “Bridgethauer,” mentioned by Held—whose incorrect writing of the name conveys to the German its correct pronunciation—was the “American ship captain who associated much with Beethoven” mentioned by Schindler and his copyists.

George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower—a bright mulatto then 24 years old, son of an African father and German or Polish mother, an applauded public violinist in London at the age of ten years, and long in the service, as musician, of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV—was never in America and knew as much probably of a ship and the science of navigation as ordinary shipmasters do of the violin and the mysteries of musical counterpoint. In 1802 he obtained leave of absence to visit his mother in Dresden and to use the waters of Teplitz and Carlsbad, which leave was prolonged that he might spend a few months in Vienna. His playing in public and private at Dresden had secured him such favorable letters of introduction as gained him a most brilliant reception in the highest musical circles of the Austrian capital, where he arrived a few days before Held met him at Schuppanzigh’s. Beethoven, to whom he was introduced by Prince Lichnowsky, readily gave him aid in a public concert. The date of the concert has not been determined precisely; it was probably on May 24th. It has an interest on account of Beethoven’s connection with it; for the day of the concert was the date of the completion and performance of the “Kreutzer” Sonata.

Bridgetower was thoughtful enough to leave in his copy of the Sonata a note upon that first performance of it, as follows:

Relative to Beethoven’s Op. 47.

When I accompanied him in this Sonata-Concertante at Wien, at the repetition of the first part of the Presto, I imitated the flight, at the 18th bar, of the pianoforte of this movement thus:

1^ma volta
2^da volta

He jumped up, embraced me, saying: “Noch einmal, mein lieber Bursch!” (“Once again, my dear boy!”) Then he held the open pedal during this flight, the chord of C as at the ninth bar.

Beethoven’s expression in the Andante was so chaste, which always characterized the performance of all his slow movements, that it was unanimously hailed to be repeated twice.

George Polgreen Bridgetower.

Bridgetower was mentioned in a letter from Beethoven to Baron von Wetzlar, in this language, under date May 18:

[11]

Bridgetower, when advanced in years, talking with Mr. Thirlwall about Beethoven, told him that at the time the Sonata, Op. 47, was composed, he and the composer were constant companions, and that the first copy bore a dedication to him; but before he departed from Vienna they had a quarrel about a girl, and Beethoven then dedicated the work to Rudolph Kreutzer.[8]

[12]

When Beethoven removed from the house “am Peter” to the theatre building, he took his brother Karl (Kaspar) to live[13] with him,[9] as twenty years later he gave a room to his factotum Schindler. This change of lodgings took place, according to Seyfried, before the concert of April 5—which is confirmed by the brother’s new address being contained in the “Staats-Schematismus” for 1803—that annual publication being usually ready for distribution in April.[10] At the beginning of the warm season Beethoven, as was his annual custom, appears to have passed some weeks in Baden to refresh himself and revive his energies after the irregular, exciting and fatiguing city life of the winter, before retiring to the summer lodgings, whose position he describes in a note to Ries (“Notizen,” p. 128) as “in Oberdöbling No. 4, the street to the left where you go down the mountain to Heiligenstadt.”

The Herrengasse is still “die Strasse links” at the extremity of the village, as it was then; but the multiplication of houses and the change in their numbers render it uncertain which in those days bore the number 4. At all events it had, in 1803, gardens, vineyards or green fields both in front and rear. True, it was half an hour’s walk farther than from Heiligenstadt to the scenes in which he had composed the second Symphony, the preceding summer; but, to compensate for this, it was so much nearer the city—was in the more immediate vicinity of that arm of the Danube called the “Canal”—and almost under its windows was the gorge of the Krottenbach, which separates Döbling from Heiligenstadt, and which, as it extends inland from the river, spreads into a fine vale, then very solitary and still very beautiful. This was the house, this the summer, and these the scenes, in which the composer wrought out the[14] conceptions that during the past five years had been assuming form and consistency in his mind, to which Bernadotte may have given the original impulse, and which we know as the “Heroic Symphony.”[11]

Let us turn to Stephan von Breuning and a new friend or two. Archduke Karl, by a commission dated January 9, 1801, had been made Chief of the “Staats- und Konferenzial-Departement für das Kriegs- und Marine-Wesen,” and retained the position still, notwithstanding his assumption of the functions of Hoch- und Deutsch-Meister. He undertook to introduce a wide-reaching reform at the War Department, which demanded an increase in the number of Secretaries and scriveners. Stephan von Breuning is the second in the list of five appointed in 1804, Ignatz von Gleichenstein the fifth. It is believed, that the Archduke had discovered the fine business talents, the zeal in the discharge of duty and the perfect trustworthiness of Breuning at the Teutonic House, and that at his special invitation the young man this year exchanged the service of the Order for that of the State. There is abundant evidence, that the young Rhinelanders then in Vienna were bound to each other by more than the usual ties: most of them were fugitives from French tyranny, and liable to conscription if found in the places of their birth, though this was not the case with Breuning. There was, in addition to the ordinary feeling of nationality, a common sense of exile to unite them. Between Breuning and Gleichenstein therefore—two amiable and talented young men thus thrown into daily intercourse—an immediate and warm friendship would naturally spring up; and an introduction of the latter to Breuning’s friend Beethoven would inevitably follow, in case they had not known each other in the old Bonn days.

Another young Rhinelander, to whom Beethoven became much attached, and who returned the kindness with warm affection for him personally and a boundless admiration for his genius, became known to the composer also just at this time. Willibrord Joseph Mähler, a native of Coblentz—who died in 1860, at the age of 82 years, as pensioned Court Secretary—was a man of remarkably varied artistic talents, by which, however, since he cultivated them only as a dilettante and without[15] confining himself to any one art, he achieved no great distinction. He wrote respectable poetry and set it to correct and not unpleasing music; sang well enough to be recorded in Boeckh’s “Merkwürdigkeiten der Haupt- und Residenz-Stadt Wien” (1823) as “amateur singer,” and painted sufficiently well to be named, on another page of Boeckh, “amateur portrait painter.” He painted that portrait of the composer, about 1804-5, which is still in possession of the Beethoven family, and a second 1814-15—(Mr. Mähler could not recall the precise date)—once owned by Prof. Karajan. Several of the portraits now in possession of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna are from his pencil; but two or three of the very best specimens of his skill have been sold to a gentleman in Boston, U.S.A.[12]

Soon after Beethoven returned from his summer lodgings to his apartment in the theatre building, Mähler, who had then recently arrived in Vienna, was taken by Breuning thither to be introduced. They found him busily at work finishing the “Heroic Symphony.” After some conversation, at the desire of Mähler to hear him play, Beethoven, instead of beginning an extempore performance, gave his visitors the finale of the new Symphony; but at its close, without a pause, he continued in free fantasia for two hours, “during all which time,” said Mr. Mähler to the present writer, “there was not a measure which was faulty, or which did not sound original.” He added, that one circumstance attracted his particular notice; viz.: “that Beethoven played with his hands so very still; wonderful as his execution was, there was no tossing of them to and fro, up and down; they seemed to glide right and left over the keys, the fingers alone doing the work.” To Mr. Mähler, as to most others who have recorded their impressions of Beethoven’s improvisations, they were the non plus ultra of the art.

There was, however, be it noted in passing, a class of good musicians, small in number and exceptional in taste, who, precisely at this time, had discovered a rival to Beethoven, in this his own special field. Thus Gänsbacher writes, as cited by Frölich in his “Biographie Voglers”:

An undated note of Beethoven, to Mähler, which belongs to a somewhat later period—since its date is not ascertainable nor of much importance—may be inserted here, as an introduction to Mr. Mähler’s remarks upon the portrait to which it refers:

To the question what picture is here referred to, Mr. Mähler replied in substance: “It was a portrait, which I painted soon after coming to Vienna, in which Beethoven is represented, at nearly full length, sitting; the left hand rests upon a lyre, the right is extended, as if, in a moment of musical enthusiasm, he was beating time; in the background is a temple of Apollo. Oh! If I could but know what became of the picture!”

“What!” was the answer, to the great satisfaction of the old gentleman, “the picture is hanging at this moment in the home of Madame van Beethoven, widow, in the Josephstadt, and I have a copy of it.”[13]

The extended right hand—though, like the rest of the picture, not very artistically executed—was evidently painted with care. It is rather broad for the length, is muscular and nervous, as the hand of a great pianist necessarily grows through much practice; but, on the whole, is neatly formed and well proportioned. Anatomically, it corresponds so perfectly with all the authentic descriptions of Beethoven’s person, that this alone proves it to have been copied from nature and not drawn after the painter’s fancy. Whoever saw a long, delicate hand with fingers exquisitely tapering, like Mendelssohn’s, joined to the short stout muscular figure of a Beethoven or a Schubert?

A few of Beethoven’s letters belonging to this period must be introduced here. The first, dated September 22, 1803, addressed to Hoffmeister, is as follows:

[17]

In this year began the correspondence with Thomson. George Thomson, a Scotch gentleman (born March 4, 1757, at Limekilns, Dunfermline, died at Leith, February 18, 1851), distinguished himself by tastes and acquirements which led to his appointment, when still a young man, as “Secretary to the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures in Scotland”—a Board established at the time of the Union of the Kingdoms, 1707 (not the Crowns, 1603), of England and Scotland—an office from which he retired upon a full pension after a service of fifty years. He was, especially, a promoter of all good music and an earnest reviver of ancient Scotch melody. As one means of improving the public taste and at the same time of giving currency to Scotch national airs, he had published sonatas with such melodies for themes, composed for him by Pleyel in Paris, and Koželuch in Vienna—-two instrumental composers enjoying then a European reputation now difficult to appreciate. The fame of the new composer at Vienna having now reached Edinburgh, Thomson applied to him for works of a like character. Only the signature of the reply seems to be in Beethoven’s hand:

Mr. Thomson’s endorsement of this letter is this:

The sonatas were never composed. Not long afterwards, on October 22, Beethoven, enraged at efforts to reprint his works, issued the following characteristic fulmination in large type, filling an entire page of the journal:

[19]

Alexander Macco, the painter, after executing a portrait of the Queen of Prussia, in 1801, which caused much discussion in the public press but secured to him a pension of 100 thalers, went from Berlin to Dresden, Prague, and, in the summer of 1802, to Vienna. Here he became a great admirer of Beethoven, both as man and artist, and claimed and enjoyed so much of his society as the state of his mind and body would allow him to grant to any stranger. Macco remained but a few months here and then returned to Prague, whence he wrote the next year offering to Beethoven for composition an oratorio text by Prof. A. G. Meissner—a name just then well known in musical circles because of the publication of the first volume of the biography of Kapellmeister Naumann. If Meissner had not removed from Prague to Fulda in 1805, and if Europe had remained at peace, perhaps Beethoven might, two or three years later, have availed himself of the offer; just now he felt bound to decline it, which he did in a letter dated November 2, 1803. In it he said:

Was, then, the correspondent of the “Zeitung für die Elegante Welt” right? Had Beethoven really received one of Schikaneder’s heroic texts? This much is certain: that in the words “because I am just beginning my opera,” no reference is made to the “Leonore” (“Fidelio”). They may only express his expectation of beginning such a work immediately; or they may refer to one already begun, of which a fragment has been preserved. In Rubric II of the sale catalogue of Beethoven’s manuscripts and music, No. 67, is a “vocal piece with orchestra,[20] complete, but not entirely orchestrated.” It is an operatic trio[15]; the dramatis personæ are Porus, Volivia, Sartagones; the handwriting is that of this part of the composer’s life; and the music is the basis of the subsequent grand duet in “Fidelio,” “O namenlose Freude.” The temptation is strong to believe that Schikaneder had given Beethoven another “Alexander,” the scenes laid in India—a supplement to that with which his new theatre had been opened two years before. However this was, circumstances occurred, which prevented its completion, or indeed the composition by Beethoven of any text prepared by Schikaneder.

The compositions which may safely be dated 1803, are few in comparison with those of 1802. The works published in the course of the year were the two Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 31, Nos. 1 and 2 (in Nägeli’s “Répertoire des Clavecinistes”); the three Violin Sonatas, Op. 30 (Industrie-Comptoir); the two sets of Variations, Op. 34 and 35 (Breitkopf and Härtel); the seven Bagatelles, Op. 33 (Industrie-Comptoir); the Romanza in G for Violin, Op. 40 (Hoffmeister and Kühnel); the arrangement for Pianoforte and Flute (or Violin) Op. 41 of the Serenade (Op. 25), which was not made by Beethoven but examined by him and “corrected in parts” (Hoffmeister and Kühnel); the two Preludes for Pianoforte, Op. 39 (Hoffmeister and Kühnel); two songs, “La Partenza” and “Ich liebe dich” (Traeg); a song, “Das Glück der Freundschaft,” Op. 88 (Löschenkerl in Vienna and Simrock in Bonn), of which Nottebohm found a sketch amongst the sketches for the “Eroica” Symphony in the book used in 1803 and which, therefore, though it may have been an early work, was probably rewritten in 1803; and the six Sacred Songs by Gellert, dedicated to Count Browne (Artaria). The two great works of the year were the “Kreutzer” Sonata for Violin and the “Sinfonia Eroica.” The title of the former, “Sonata per il Pianoforte ed un Violino obligato in uno stilo (stile) molto concertante quasi come d’un Concerto,” is found on the inner side of the last sheet of the sketchbook of 1803 described by Nottebohm. Beethoven wrote the word “brillante” after “stilo” but scratched it out. It is obvious that he wished to emphasize the difference between this Sonata and its predecessors. Simrock’s tardiness in publishing the Sonata annoyed Beethoven. He became impatient and wrote to the publisher as follows, under date of October 4, 1804:

[21]

As a proof of the growing appreciation of Beethoven in foreign lands it may be remarked here that in the summer of 1803 he received an Erard pianoforte as a gift from the celebrated Parisian maker. The instrument belongs to the museum at Linz and used to bear an inscription, on the authority of Beethoven’s brother Johann, that it was given to the composer by the city of Paris in 1804. The archives of the Erard firm show, however, that on the 18th of Thermidor, in the XIth year of the Republic (1803), Sébastien Erard made a present of “un piano forme clavecin” to Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna.

[22]

Chapter II

During the winter 1803-04 negotiations were in progress the result of which put an end for the present to Beethoven’s operatic aspirations. Let Treitschke, a personal actor in the scenes, explain:[17]

Zitterbarth had, some months before, purchased of Schikaneder all his rights in the property, paying him 100,000 florins for the privilegium alone; and, therefore, being absolute master, “had permitted a dicker down to the sum of 1,060,000 florins Vienna standard.... The contract was signed on February[23] 11th and on the 16th the Theater-an-der-Wien under the new arrangement was opened with Méhul’s opera ‘Ariodante.’”[18]

Zitterbarth had retained Schikaneder as director; but now Baron Braun dismissed him, and the Secretary of the Court Theatres, Joseph von Sonnleithner, for the present acted in that capacity.

The sale of the theatre made void the contracts with Vogler and Beethoven, except as to the first of Vogler’s three operas, “Samori” (text by Huber), which being ready was put in rehearsal and produced May 7th.

It was no time for Baron Braun, with three theatres on his hands, to make new contracts with composers, until the reins were fairly in his grasp, and the affairs of the new purchase brought into order and in condition to work smoothly; nor was there any necessity of haste; the repertory was so well supplied, that the list of new pieces for the year reached the number of forty-three, of which eighteen were operas or Singspiele. So Beethoven, who had already occupied the free lodgings in the theatre building for the year which his contract with Zitterbarth and Schikaneder granted him, was compelled to move. Stephan von Breuning even then lived in the house in which in 1827 he died. It was the large pile of building belonging to the Esterhazy estates, known as “das rothe Haus,” which stood at a right angle to the Schwarzspanier house and church, and fronted upon the open space where now stands the new Votiv-Kirche. Here also Beethoven now took apartments.[19]

It is worth noting, that this was the year—October, 1803 to October, 1804—of C. M. von Weber’s first visit to Vienna, and of his studies under Vogler. He was then but eighteen years old and “the delicate little man” made no very favorable impression upon Beethoven. But at a later period, when Weber’s noble dramatic talent became developed and known, no former prejudice prevented the great symphonist’s due appreciation and hearty acknowledgment of it.

Among the noted strangers who came to Vienna this spring was Clementi.

“He sent word to Beethoven that he would like to see him.” “Clementi will wait a long time before Beethoven goes to him,” was the reply. Thus Czerny.

Early in the Spring a fair copy of the “Sinfonia Eroica” had been made to be forwarded to Paris through the French embassy, as Moritz Lichnowsky informed Schindler.

There can be no mistake in this; for Count Moritz Lichnowsky, who happened to be with Beethoven when Ries brought the offensive news, described the scene to Schindler years before the publication of the “Notizen,”

The Acts of the French Tribunate and Senate, which elevated the First Consul to the dignity of Emperor, are dated May 3, 4, and 17. Napoleon’s assumption of the crown occurred on the 18th and the solemn proclamation was issued on the 20th. Even in those days, news of so important an event would not have required ten days to reach Vienna. At the very latest, then, a fair copy of the “Sinfonia Eroica,” was complete early in May, 1804. That it was a copy, the two credible witnesses, Ries and Lichnowsky, attest. Beethoven’s own score—purchased at the sale in 1827, for 3 fl. 10 kr., Vienna standard (less than 3½ francs), by the Vienna composer Hr. Joseph Dessauer—could not have been the one referred to above. It is,[25] from beginning to end, disfigured by erasures and corrections, and the title-page could never have answered to Ries’ description. It is this:

A note to the funeral march, is evidently a direction to the copyist, as are the remarks on the title-page:

One of the two words erased from the title was “Bonaparte”; and just under his own name Beethoven wrote with a lead pencil in large letters, nearly obliterated but still legible, “Composed on Bonaparte.”

It is confidently submitted, therefore, that all the traditions derived from Czerny, Dr. Bertolini and whomsoever, that the opening Allegro is a description of a naval battle, and that the Marcia funebre was written in commemoration of Nelson or Gen. Abercrombie,[20] are mistakes, and that Schindler is correct; and again, that the date “804 im August,” is not that of the composition of the Symphony. It is written with a different ink, darker than the rest of the title, and may have been inserted long afterwards, Beethoven’s memory playing him false. The two “violin adagios with orchestral accompaniment” offered by Kaspar van Beethoven to André in November, 1802,[26] cannot well be anything but the two Romances, yet that in G, Op. 40, bears the date 1803. Perhaps Kaspar wrote before it was complete. But what can be said to this? It is perfectly well known that Op. 124 was performed on October 3, 1822; yet the copy sent to Stumpff in London bore this title: “Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed for the opening of the Josephstadt Theatre, towards the end of September, 1823, and performed for the first time on October 3, 1824, Op. 124.” That the “804 im August” may be an error, is at all events possible, if not established as such. “Afterwards,” continues Ries, “Prince Lobkowitz bought this composition for several years’ [?] use, and it was performed several times in his palace.”

There is “an anecdote told by a person who enjoyed Beethoven’s society,”[21] in Schmidt’s “Wiener Musik-Zeitung” (1843, p. 28), according to which, as may readily be believed, this work, then so difficult, new, original, strange in its effects and of such unusual length, did not please. Some time after this humiliating failure Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia paid a visit to the same cavalier (Lobkowitz) in his countryseat.... To give him a surprise, the new and, of course, to him utterly unknown symphony, was played to the Prince, who “listened to it with tense attention which grew with every movement.” At the close he proved his admiration by requesting the favor of an immediate repetition; and, after an hour’s pause, as his stay was too limited to admit of another concert, a second. “The impression made by the music was general and its lofty contents were now recognized.”

To those who have had occasion to study the character of Louis Ferdinand as a man and a musician, and who know that at the precise time here indicated he was really upon a journey that took him near certain estates of Prince Lobkowitz, there is nothing improbable in the anecdote. If it be true, and the occurrence really took place at Raudnitz or some other “countryseat” of the Prince’s, the rehearsals and first performances of the Symphony at Vienna had occurred, weeks, perhaps months, before “804 im August.” However this be, Ries was present at the first rehearsal and incurred the danger of receiving a box on the ear from his master.

It was bad economy for two young, single men, each to have and pay for a complete suite of apartments in the same house, especially for two who were connected by so many ties of friendship as Breuning and Beethoven. Either lodging contained ample room for both; and Beethoven therefore very soon gave up his and moved into the other. Breuning had his own housekeeper and cook and they also usually dined together at home. This arrangement had hardly been effected when Beethoven was seized with a severe sickness, which when conquered still left him the victim of an obstinate intermittent fever.

Every language has its proverbs to the effect that he who serves not himself is ill served. So Beethoven discovered, when it was too late, that due notice had not been given to the agent of Esterhazy, and that he was bound for the rent of the apartments previously occupied. The question, who was in fault, came up one day at dinner in the beginning of July, and ended in a sudden quarrel in which Beethoven became so angry as to leave the table and the house and retire to Baden with the determination to sacrifice the rent here and pay for another lodging, rather than remain under the same roof with Breuning. “Breuning,” says Ries, “a hot-head like Beethoven, grew so enraged at Beethoven’s conduct because the incident occurred in the presence of his brother.” It is clear, however, that he soon became cool and instantly did his best to prevent the momentary breach from becoming permanent, by writing—as may be gathered from Beethoven’s allusions to it—a manly, sensible and friendly invitation to forgive and forget. But Beethoven, worn with illness, his nerves unstrung, made restless, unhappy, petulant by his increasing deafness, was for a time obstinate. His wrath must run its course. It found vent in the following letters to Ries, and then the paroxysm soon passed.

The first of the letters was written in the beginning of 1804,

Not long thereafter there followed a second letter, which Ries gives as follows:

[29]

From a third letter, dated “Baden, July 24, 1804,” Ries prints the following excerpt:

The reader knows too well the character of Breuning to be prejudiced against him by all these harsh expressions written by Beethoven in a fit of choler of which he heartily repented and “brought forth fruits meet for repentance.” But, as Ries says, “these letters together with their consequences are too beautiful a testimony to Beethoven’s character to be omitted here,” the more so as they introduce, by the allusions in them, certain matters of more or less interest from the “Notizen” of Ries. Thus Ries writes:

The rehearsal at Schuppanzigh’s on “Wednesday” (18th) mentioned in the letter of July 14th, was for the benefit of Ries, who was to play in the first of the second series of the regular Augarten Thursday concerts which took place the next day (19th) or, perhaps, the 26th. Ries says on page 113 of the “Notizen”:

A little farther on in his book Ries writes (p. 115):

This confirms Seyfried, as quoted on a preceding page.

“Not on my life would I have believed that I could be so lazy as I am here. If it is followed by an outburst of industry,[31] something worth while may be accomplished,” Beethoven wrote at the end of his letter of July 24. He was right. His brother Johann secured for him the lodging at Döbling where he passed the rest of the summer, and where the two Sonatas Op. 53 and 54, certainly “something worth while,” were composed. In one of the long walks, previously described by Ries,

The Sonata in question was that in F minor, Op. 57. Ries had in the meantime fulfilled Beethoven’s wish for a new lodging on the ramparts, by engaging for him one on the Mölkerbastei three or four houses only from Prince Lichnowsky in the Pasqualati house—“from the fourth storey of which there was a beautiful view,” namely, over the broad Glacis, the northwestern suburb of the city and the mountains in the distance. “He moved out of this several times,” says Ries, “but always returned to it, so that, as I afterwards heard, Baron Pasqualati was good-natured enough to say: ‘The lodging will not be rented; Beethoven will come back.’” To what extent Ries was correctly informed in this we will not now conjecture. The lessons of Förster’s little boy had been interrupted so long as his teacher dwelt in the distant theatre buildings; they were now renewed, the first being particularly impressed upon his memory by a severe reproof from Beethoven for ascending the four lofty flights of stairs too rapidly, and entering out of breath: “Youngster, you will ruin your lungs if you are not more careful,” said he in substance.

The two new Sonatas were finished and were now made known to Beethoven’s intimates. In the one in C major, Op. 53, there was a long Andante. A friend of Beethoven’s said to him that the Sonata was too long, for which he was terribly taken to task by the composer. But after quiet reflection Beethoven was convinced of the correctness of the criticism. The Andante was therefore excluded and its place supplied by the interesting Introduction to the Rondo which it now has. A year after the publication of the Sonata it also appeared separately. In these particulars Ries is confirmed by Czerny, who[32] adds: “Because of its popularity (for Beethoven played it frequently in society) he gave it the title ‘Andante favori.’ I am the more sure of this since Beethoven sent me the proof together with the manuscript for revision.” The arrangement for string quartet may have been made much later, probably by Ries (?).

Prince Louis Ferdinand, now on his way into Italy, made a short stay at Vienna, renewing his acquaintance with Beethoven; but of their intercourse few particulars are known. Ries relates (“Notizen,” p. 111), that an old countess gave a little musical entertainment “to which, naturally, Beethoven was invited. When the company sat down to supper, plates for the high nobility only were placed at the Prince’s table—none for Beethoven. He flew into a rage, made a few ugly remarks, took his hat and went away. A few days later Prince Louis gave a dinner to which some members of the first company, including the old countess, were invited. When they sat down to table the old countess was placed on one side of the Prince, Beethoven on the other, a mark of distinction which Beethoven always referred to with pleasure.”

The Pianoforte Concerto in C minor was then in the hands of the engraver; upon its publication in November, Prince Louis Ferdinand’s name appeared upon the title. Concerning the compositions of the Prince, Beethoven remarked: “Now and then there are pretty bits in them”—so said Czerny. Before this time Beethoven and Breuning “met each other by accident and a complete reconciliation took place and every inimical resolve of Beethoven’s, despite their vigorous expression in the two letters, was wholly forgotten.”—(Ries.) And not this alone; he “laid his peace offering on the altar of reconciliation.” It was the best picture of himself which exists from those years,[33] a beautiful miniature painted upon ivory by Hornemann, still in the possession of Breuning’s heirs. With it he sent the following letter:

Nor was the reconciliation on Breuning’s part less perfect. On the 13th of November he writes to Wegeler and, to excuse his long silence, says:

Not a word about the quarrel! Not a word to intimate that Beethoven had not occupied his rooms with him until at the usual time for changing lodgings he had crossed the Glacis to Pasqualati’s house; not a word of complaint—nothing but deepest pity and heartiest sympathy.

In December the famous Munich oboist Ramm was in Vienna and took part with Beethoven in one of Prince Lobkowitz’s private concerts. Beethoven directed the performance of the “Sinfonia Eroica” and in the second part of the first Allegro, “where the music is pursued for so many measures in half-notes[34] against the beat,” he, as Ries says, threw the orchestra into such confusion that a new beginning had to be made.

Turn we again to the Theater-an-der-Wien, for a new contract has been made with Beethoven, by which his operatic aspirations and hopes are again awakened, with a better prospect of their gratification. At the end of August Sonnleithner retired from the direction and Baron Braun took the extraordinary step of reinstating his former rival and enemy, Schikaneder—a remarkable proof of the Baron’s high opinion of his tact and skill in the difficult business of management.

When one calls to mind the extraordinary praises which have been bestowed upon Baron Braun for his supposed patronage of Beethoven, it is worth noting, as a coincidence if nothing more, that now when Schikaneder finds himself in a strait for novelty and new attractions for his stage, the project of appealing to Beethoven’s genius is revived.

Before proceeding, a word upon Sonnleithner and Treitschke may be permitted.

The eldest son, born 1765, of Christoph Sonnleithner, Doctor of Laws and Dean of the Juridical Faculty at Vienna, Joseph Ferdinand by name, was educated to his father’s profession, and early rose to the positions of Circuit Commissioner and Royal Imperial Court Scrivener (Kreis-Kommissär und K. K. Hof-Concipist). All the Sonnleithners, from Dr. Christoph down to the excellent and beloved representative of the family, Leopold, his grandson who died in 1878, have stood in the front ranks of musical dilettanti, as composers, singers, instrumental performers and writers on topics pertaining to the art. Joseph Ferdinand was no exception. He gave his attention particularly to musical and theatrical literature, edited the Court Theatre Calendars, 1794-5, so highly lauded by Gerber, and prepared himself by appropriate studies to carry out Forkel’s plan of a “History of Music in Examples,” which was to reach the great extent of 50 volumes, folio. To this end he spent[35] nearly three years, 1798-1802, in an extensive tour through northern Europe making collections of rare, old music. Upon his return to Vienna, resigning this project again into the hands of Forkel, he became one of the earliest partners, if not one of the founders, of the publishing house known as the “Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir” (Bureau d’Arts et d’Industrie), of which Schreyvogel was the recognized head. The latter had been appointed Secretary of the Court Theatre in 1802, but resigned, and, on February 14, 1804, Sonnleithner “was appointed, and on this account was most honorably retired from his former post as Court Scrivener.” On what grounds he has been called an “actor” (Schauspieler) is unknown.

One of his colleagues in the various offices of the Court Theatres was Georg Friedrich Treitschke, born in 1776, a native of Leipsic, who came to the Court Theatre in 1800 as an actor, but whose talents and fine character raised him in the course of the next two years to the position of poet and stage-manager of the German Court Opera, a post which he still and for many years continued to hold. He was therefore now (1804) in close business relations with Baron Braun and Sonnleithner; and, until some proof be adduced of lapse of memory—for his known probity forbids all suspicion of intentional or careless misrepresentation—his statements in regard to them may be accepted with perfect confidence.

Treitschke wrote thus in the “Orpheus” of 1841 (p. 258):

[36]

Such is Treitschke’s simple and compendious statement of the facts; a statement which has been affirmed to contain “manifold errors,” yet, in truth, not a single point in it can be controverted.

In Paris, at the close of the 18th century, Shakespeare’s “being taken by the insolent foe and redemption thence” was by far the most popular subject for the stage. Doubtless so many facts stranger than fiction in recent narratives of escape from dungeon and guillotine, rendered doubly fascinating by beautiful exhibitions of disinterested affection, exalted generosity and heroic self-sacrifice, were not without their effect upon public taste. Certain it is that no other class of subjects is so numerously represented in the French drama of that precise period as this. “Les deux Journées” by J. N. Bouilly stands confessedly at its head. In Beethoven’s opinion in 1823, this and “La Vestale” were the two best texts then ever written. Two years before the “Deux Journées”—that is, on February 19th, 1798—the same poet had produced another of that class of texts, which, if less abounding in pleasing and exciting scenes, still contained one supreme moment that cannot readily find its like. This was “Léonore, ou l’Amour conjugal”; the seventeenth and last in Fétis’ list of Pierre Gaveaux’s thirty-five operas and operettas.

Gaveaux was a singer at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris—a man of no great musical science, but gifted with a natural talent for melody and for pleasing though not always correct instrumentation, which secured the suffrages of the Feydeau audience for nearly all the long list of his productions. These were mostly short pieces in one act, in which he wrote the principal tenor part for himself. His “Le petit Matelot” (1794), as “Der kleine Matrose,” became immediately popular throughout Germany; Rellstab at Berlin published a pianoforte arrangement of it in 1798; and it so endured the fluctuations in public[37] taste as still to be performed at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1846. This was followed by his “L’Amour filial,” and others, so that, in short, whatever faults the critics found in his music, he was one of those French composers, to whose productions the managers of German opera houses ever had an eye. As the “Léonore” was published in score soon after its production, the names of its authors, Bouilly and Gaveaux, as well as its success at the Théâtre Feydeau, ensured its becoming known in Germany, and, but for the use of its subject by Paër, it might perhaps have been simply translated and performed with the original music. Rewritten in Italian, it was one of the first texts put into Paër’s hands after his removal to Dresden, and was produced on the 3d of October, as the opening piece of the winter season 1804-5.

The first performance was another triumph for Paër, who, satisfied with it, departed for Vienna next day on his way to Italy. It requires no great sagacity to perceive, on the one hand, that the Directors of the Imperial Italian Opera—on whose stage at the least eleven of Paër’s works had been given, several of them originally written for it—would not fail to secure a copy of the new composition; and, on the other, that the composer would seek the fame and profit of its reproduction there.[25] Jahn in his preface to Beethoven’s “Leonore” has discussed the great inferiority of the Dresden Italian text to the original; its defects would be equally apparent to Sonnleithner; and this consideration, with perhaps later news from Dresden, would convince him that the performance of Paër’s composition at Vienna would be at best a doubtful venture.[26]

At this point, when the first of the solo sonatas written for the enlarged pianoforte (Op. 53) is ready for the press; when the Pianoforte Concerto in C minor has just been published; the “Sinfonia Eroica,” with its daring novelties of ideas and construction is awaiting public performance, and the composer has entered the lists to compete with Cherubini in another form of the art—here seems to be the fitting place for a few notes upon the degree of popularity, and the extent of circulation, to which his previous compositions had already attained.

[38]

We have not written very lucidly, if it be not sufficiently clear that, at Vienna, the works of no other of the younger generation of composers had so ready and extensive a sale as Beethoven’s, notwithstanding their most attractive qualities to many, were repellent to others. That was a question of taste. But in these last weeks of 1804, a proof of their general popularity was in preparation by Schreyvogel and Rizzi, which, so far as the present writer has examined the German periodical press from 1790 to 1830, is without a parallel. It was a complete classified catalogue of the “Works of Herrn Ludwig van Beethoven,” published as an advertisement, January 30, 1805, in the “Wiener Zeitung,” announcing them as “to be had at the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir at Vienna in the Kohlmarkt, No. 269.”

At the end of 1796—a few sets of Variations excepted—only the first three of Beethoven’s opera had appeared. Four years afterwards the first publishing houses of Leipsic contend with those of Vienna for his manuscripts, notwithstanding the worse than contemptuous treatment of his works by the newly founded musical journal.

In January, 1801, at Breslau “the pianoforte players gladly venture upon Beethoven and spare neither time nor pains to conquer his difficulties.” In June, Beethoven has “more commissions, almost, than it was possible to fill” from the publishers—he “demands and they pay.” In 1802, Nägeli of Zürich, passing all the older composers by, applies to him for sonatas with which to introduce to the public his costly enterprise of the “Répertoire des Clavecinistes.” In 1803, although Simrock, of Bonn, had a branch house at Paris, and printed editions of his townsman’s more important works for circulation in France, Zulehner of Mayence finds the demand for them sufficient to warrant the announcement of a complete and uniform edition of the “Works for Pianoforte and String Instruments.” In May of the same year the “Correspondence des Amateurs-Musiciens” informs us that at Paris a part of the pianoforte virtuosos play only Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and spite of the difficulties offered by their works there are “quelquefois des Amateurs qui croient les jouer”; and, soon after this, an application comes to Beethoven from distant Scotland for half a dozen sonatas, on Scotch themes.[27]

[39]

The first two Concertos for Pianoforte and Orchestra, published in 1801, are reported to have been played in public within two years at Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main; the third, advertised in November, 1804, was produced the next month at Berlin. The first Symphony had hardly left Hoffmeister’s press, when it was added to the repertory of the Gewandhaus Concert, at Leipsic, and during the three following years was repeatedly performed at Berlin, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Dresden, Brunswick and Munich; the second, advertised in March, 1804, was the opening symphony of Schick and Bohrer’s (Berlin) concerts in the Autumn. The “Prometheus” overture was played in the same concerts, December 2, 1803—ten days earlier than the oldest discovered advertisement of its publication. The instant popularity of the Septet in all its forms is well known.

A public performance of the Horn Sonata, March 20, 1803, at the concert of Dulon, the blind flute player, is worth noting, because the pianist was “young Bär”—Meyerbeer.

In our day and generation, to offer so meagre a list of public productions as a proof of popularity in the case of a new author of orchestral works, would be ridiculous. In the multiplication of musical journals and the greatly extended interest taken in musical news wherever an orchestra exists equal to the performance of a symphony, there is also someone to report its doings. This is as it should be. Then, except in the larger capitals, this was rarely so. Hence the few notes above, compiled from the correspondence of the single musical journal of the time, are more than suggestive—they are proof—of many an unrecorded production of the works they name. But more noteworthy than the statistics given by the various correspondents, is this: that, whatever praises they bestow upon the concertos and symphonies of others, they rank Beethoven alone with Haydn and Mozart; and this they do, even before the publication of the third Concerto and the Second Symphony.

Beethoven, then, though almost unknown personally beyond the limits of a few Austrian cities—unaided by apostles to preach his gospel, owing nothing to journalist or pamphleteer, disdaining, in fact, all the arts by which dazzling but mediocre talent pushes itself into notoriety—had, in the short space of eight years, by simple force of his genius as manifested in his published works, placed himself at the head of all writers for the pianoforte, and in public estimation risen to the level of the two greatest of orchestral composers. The unknown student that entered Vienna in 1792, is now in 1804 a recognized member[40] of the great triumvirate, to whose names in 1870, in spite of all the polemics of preachers of a new gospel, the world still persists in giving the place of highest honor in the roll of instrumental composers. Then, as now—now, as then—they are Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

The lists of the ascertained compositions and publications for the year 1804 are surprisingly short; but as no really sufficient reason for the fact can be given, none shall be attempted.[28] The former are only the two Sonatas, Op. 53 and Op. 54, and the “Andante favori”; but the final revision of the “Sinfonia Eroica” probably was made at the beginning of the year.

The publications were these:

[41]

Chapter III

The life of an author or composer, when absorbed in the study of a great work, falls into a routine of daily labor that presents few salient points to the biographer. Thus it was with Beethoven during the first two-thirds of the year 1805. What has been preserved of his correspondence is very little in quantity and of slight value. Ries was away with Lichnowsky in Silesia during all the warm season, and, very soon after his return, was forced to depart again from Vienna for Bonn; hence the “Notizen” fail us in perhaps the most interesting period of the young man’s four years of pupilage under Beethoven—that of the composition of “Leonore,” or “Fidelio.” The history of the year is, in the main, the history of that work; and unfortunately a very unsatisfactory one. Not to break the thread of the story hereafter, the few events of the first half of the year unconnected with it, shall first be disposed of.

Schuppanzigh had discovered and taught a boy of great genius for the violin, Joseph Mayseder by name (born October 16, 1789), who was already, in his sixteenth year, the subject of eulogistic notices in the public press. With this youth as second, Schreiber, “in the service of Prince Lobkowitz,” for the viola, and the elder Kraft, violoncellist, Schuppanzigh during the winter 1804-5 gave quartets “in a private house in the Heiligenkreuzerhof, the listeners paying five florins in advance for four performances.” Up to the end of April the quartets given were by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Eberl, Romberg, with “occasionally larger pieces. Of the latter great pleasure was given by the beautiful Beethoven Sextet in E-flat, a composition which shines resplendent by reason of its lively melodies, unconstrained harmonies, and a wealth of new and surprising ideas.” So it[42] is reported in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.,” VII, 535, of the Sextet for wind-instruments, which afterwards received the opus number 71, but was composed “in 1796 at the latest,” says Nottebohm, and, not improbably in its original form, in Bonn.

It was to the discredit of Vienna, where instrumental performers of rare ability so abounded, that for several years regular public orchestral concerts, save those at the Augarten in summer, had been abandoned. Sensible of this, the bankers Würth and Fellner during the winter of 1803-4 “had gathered together on all Sunday mornings a select company (nearly all dilettanti) for concerts restricted for the greater part to pieces for full orchestra, such as symphonies (among them Beethoven’s First and Second), overtures, concertos, which they played in really admirable style.” There were also “some overtures by a certain Count Gallenberg” who “imitated, or rather copied, Mozart and Cherubini so slavishly, following them even in the details of keys and modulations so faithfully, that it was easy to tell the titles of the overtures over whose lasts his had been made with the greatest certainty.” Thus the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” (VI, 467). In these concerts Clement of the Theater-an-der-Wien was director.

They were renewed the present winter, and new performances of Beethoven’s first two Symphonies, and the Concerto in C minor (Op. 37)—pianoforte part by Ries[29]—prepare the way for the production of “an entirely new symphony”—“a long composition extremely difficult of performance, in reality, a tremendously expanded, daring and wild fantasia”; wanting “nothing in the way of startling and beautiful passages, in which the energetic and talented composer must be recognized; but often it loses itself in lawlessness”; the writer “belongs to Herr van Beethoven’s sincerest admirers, but in this composition he must confess that he finds too much that is glaring and bizarre, which makes a survey too difficult; and the principle of unity is almost wholly lost sight of.” It was the “Sinfonia Eroica”—its first semi-public production. Its first really public performance was in the Theater-an-der-Wien, on Sunday evening, April 7th, where it began the second part of a concert given for his own benefit by Clement. The programme announces it thus: “A new grand symphony in D-sharp by Herrn Ludwig van Beethoven, dedicated to his Serene Highness Prince Lobkowitz. The composer has kindly consented to conduct the work.”

[43]

Czerny remembered, and told Jahn, that on this occasion “somebody in the gallery cried out: ‘I’ll give another kreutzer if the thing will but stop!’” This is the key-note to the strain in which the Symphony was criticized in communications to the press, that are now among the curiosities of musical literature. The correspondent of the “Freymüthige” divided the audience into three parties.

This clear, compendious and valuable statement of the conflicting opinions of the first auditors of the “Eroica” renders farther citations superfluous; but a story—characteristic enough to be true—may be added: that Beethoven, in reply to the complaints of too great length, said, in substance: “If I write a symphony an hour long it will be found short enough!” He refused positively to make any change in the work, but deferred to public opinion so far, as, upon its publication, to affix to the title of the Symphony a note to the effect, that on account of its great[44] length it should be played near the beginning of a concert, before the audience was become weary.

Beethoven, though choleric and violent in his anger, was placable. The theft of the Quintet in C dedicated to Count Fries, as related by Ries, and Beethoven’s warning against the pirated edition, will be remembered. Nottebohm has sufficiently established the fact that the engraved plates were not destroyed, as supposed by Ries, but afterwards again used with the composer’s consent and even his corrections. A short letter to the offending publisher (June 1) shows that his wrath was already appeased, and seems to indicate a purpose to grant him the copyright of a new quintet—a purpose which, under the pressure of his opera, and the subsequent invasion of the French, remained unexecuted.

Ignatz Pleyel, born in 1757, the twenty-fourth child of a schoolmaster at Ruppersthal, a village a few miles from Vienna, a favorite pupil of Haydn and just now the most widely known and popular living instrumental composer except his master, came from Paris this season to revisit, after many years’ absence, the scenes of his youth. He brought with him his last new quartets, “which,” writes Czerny,

Beethoven’s abandonment (if there really was one) of the rooms in the theatre in the spring of 1804, and his subsequent relinquishment of the apartments in “das Rothe Haus” to share those of Breuning, compelled his brother Kaspar to seek a lodging of his own, which he found for the present on the Hohen Markt. But the new contract, with Baron Braun, gave the composer again a right to the apartments in the theatre building, which he improved, at the same time retaining the dwelling in the Pasqualati house. The city directory for 1805 gives his[45] address at the theatre, and there he received visitors; at the Pasqualati house he was accustomed to seclude himself for work, forbidding his servant to admit any person whatever. In the summer he retired to Hetzendorf, and wrought out his opera, sitting in the same crotched oak in the Schönbrunn Garden where, four years before, he had composed the “Christus am Ölberg.” Thus again he had three lodgings at the same time, as in the preceding summer; with this difference, that now one was no expense to him. The thousand times repeated story of Ries, that in 1804 he had four dwellings at once, is a mistake.

Before his migration to Hetzendorf—say about the middle of June—Beethoven had completely sketched the music of his opera. This is made sufficiently certain by one of those whimsical remarks that he was in the habit of making on the blank spaces of whatever manuscript he happened to have before him. In this case he writes: “June 2d Finale always simpler. All pianoforte music also. God knows why my pianoforte music always makes the worst impression, especially when it is badly played.” This is in the midst of sketches to the final chorus of the opera, and is written upon the upper outer corner of page 291 of the “Leonore” sketchbook which became the property of Mr. Paul Mendelssohn, of Berlin. The principal value of this manuscript lies of course in the insight which it gives the musician into the master’s methods of composition;[30] but for the biographer the volume is by no means without its value. Its striking confirmation of the previously formed opinion, that two current notions in relation to the composition of the opera are erroneous, well repays the toil of studying it through. First: A misinterpreted sentence in Jahn’s article on “Leonore, oder Fidelio,” has originated and given currency to the idea that Beethoven’s “daring enthusiasm for the welfare of men and their rights” led him to begin his sketches for the opera with the “second finale, with its hymn-like character.” But the sketchbook, if it proves anything, proves this: that Beethoven began at the beginning and took up all the principal numbers in order, as they stood in Sonnleithner’s text; that the final choruses were the last to be sketched; and that this sketchbook happens to begin in the midst of the chorus of prisoners (originally the second finale) because the previous studies are wanting.

[46]

This volume contains the first sketches of Nos. 11, 18, 15a, 17a and 18a (appendix) of Jahn’s edition; Nos. 1 and 5 occur, but not in the original studies; Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are either entirely wanting or only come up in mere fragmentary afterthoughts, as No. 9, on page 51, where Beethoven has written at the top of the page: “in the duet between P. and R.” and just below: “dann schleich ich,” with a hint (4 bars of music unisono) for the accompaniment. Afterthoughts for the duet “Um in die Ehe”—Fidelio and Marcelline—occur also on pages 23, 344, and possibly one or two others, but not more. The studies for Fidelio’s recitative “Ach brich noch nicht” and aria “Komm Hoffnung” (No. 11), which are found near the end of the volume, seem to form a marked exception to the rule; but if these are really the first sketches, their appearance after the final scenes is explained by two remarks in Beethoven’s hand on page 344: “Duetto with Müller (Marcelline) and Fidelio aside,” and “Aria for Fidelio, another text which agrees with her.” These notes clearly indicate a change of plan in connection with the duet, and that the beautiful air, “Komm Hoffnung,” did not stand in Sonnleithner’s original text.

The other current error thoroughly exploded by the sketchbook is this, namely, that the noblest passages in the opera are a sort of spontaneous outpouring in music of feelings and sentiments awakened, or rendered intense and vivid, by the unfortunate love-affairs of the composer. Now, there is nothing from the first page to the last of this manuscript that conveys the impression of any such spontaneity. Every number, as it now stands complete in the score, was the tardy result of persevering labor—of the most painstaking study.

Where Jahn says: “I have not had an opportunity to study many of Beethoven’s sketchbooks, but I have found no instance in which one was not compelled to recognize that the material chosen was not the best, or to deplore that the material which he rejected had not been used,” he might have added, with truth, that some of the first ideas noted to passages, now among the gems of the opera, are commonplace and trivial to such a degree, that one can hardly attribute them to Beethoven. Yet, there they are in his own hand. Jahn’s compendious general description of the contents of this manuscript cannot be improved, except in a single passage, in which, probably trusting his memory a little too much, he conveys the mistaken (as we think) impression, that the aria of Marcelline is here first sketched.

[47]

This is rather too strongly expressed, unless Jahn had in mind the arias of Rocco and Marcelline.

In the notices of the “Leonore” sketchbook, made for use in this work, are copied eighteen different beginnings to Florestan’s air, “In des Lebens Frühlingstagen,” and ten to the chorus, “Wer ein holdes Weib”; others being omitted, because illegible or little more than repetitions. The studies for that wondrous outburst of joy, “O namenlose Freude,” are numerous; but the first bars of the duet are the same in all of them, having been taken by Beethoven from an “old opera.”

It certainly seems a little like cold-blooded cruelty thus ruthlessly to demolish the structure of romance which has been rising for thirty years on the sandy foundation laid by Schindler in his story of the Countess Guicciardi, and of which, through some fancied connection, the opera “Leonore” has become an imposing part. But facts are stubborn things, and here they are irreconcilable with the romance.

Inborn genius for musical composition, untiring industry, and the ambition to rival Cherubini in his own field, sufficiently explain the extraordinary merits of this work of Beethoven; want of practice and experience in operatic writing, its defects.

Beethoven’s seclusion at Hetzendorf from June to September (probably) and his labor of reducing the chaos of the sketch[48]book into the order and beauty of the score of “Leonore”—on which, as he told Schindler, he wrought in the bright summer days, sitting in the shades of Schönbrunn—are unbroken for us except by his first meeting with Cherubini. Some time in July—for that master arrived in Vienna after the 5th of that month, and Vogler was in Salzburg before the 28th—“Cherubini, Beethoven and Vogler were gathered together at Sonnleithner’s; everybody played, Vogler first, and without ceasing, so that the company meanwhile sat down to table. Beethoven was full of attention and respect toward Cherubini.” Such is Jahn’s note of a communication to him by Grillparzer; and Czerny told him: “B. did not give Cherubini a friendly reception in 1805, as the latter complained to Czerny later.”

At the end of the summer season Beethoven returned to town with his opera ready to be put in rehearsal. Here Ries found him. “He was really fond of me,” says he, “and gave me a comical proof of the fact in one of his fits of absentmindedness”; and Ries goes on to relate in the “Notizen”:

With all his kindness to Ries, Beethoven had neither forgotten nor forgiven the affair of the “Andante favori”:

It so happened, that Ries thus lost his only opportunity ever to hear the “Leonore-Fidelio” music in its original form; but this Beethoven could not anticipate, as he could have no suspicion that they were so soon to be parted. Bonn, being now[49] under French rule, Ries was liable to conscription, and notice came that he was among the first drawn. “He was therefore,” says the ‘Harmonicon,’ “obliged to return home immediately, for his disobedience would have exposed his father and family to the risk of ruin.” Before Ries’ departure from Vienna, Beethoven, himself unable to afford him pecuniary assistance, again proved his kindly feelings towards his pupil by giving him a letter commending him to the benevolence of Princess Liechtenstein.

“To Beethoven’s rage,” says Ries, “the letter was not delivered, but I kept the original, written on an unevenly cut quarto sheet, as a proof of Beethoven’s friendship and love for me.” Three years will elapse before we meet Ries again in Vienna—the greater part of which period he passed at Paris in such discouraging circumstances, that he thought seriously of abandoning his profession.

At the Theater-an-der-Wien none of the new operas produced this season had long kept the stage; although two of them—Schikaneder’s “Swetard’s Zaubergürtel,” music by Fischer, and his “Vesta’s Feuer,” music by J. Weigl—were brought out “with very extraordinary splendor of decorations and costumes.” It was now Autumn and the receipts did not cover the expenses of the theatre. “From the distance,” says Treitschke,

Anna Milder (born December 13, 1785), now just completing her twentieth year, was that pupil of Neukomm to whom Haydn had said half a dozen years before: “My dear child! You have a voice like a house!” Schikaneder gave her her first engagement and she began her theatrical career April 9, 1803, in the part of Juno in Süssmayr’s “Spiegel von Arkadien,” with a new grand aria composed for her by him. Beethoven had now written the part of Fidelio for her. In later years it was one of her grand performances; though, judging from the contemporary criticisms, it was now somewhat defective, simply from lack of stage experience. Louise Müller, the Marcelline, “had already (in April, 1805) developed in a few years into a tasteful and honest singer, although she did not have the help of a voice of especial volume.” She became, in the opinion of Castelli, “a most amiable actress and good singer, particularly in the comic genre.”

[50]

Demmer, “trained in Cologne,” is reported in 1799, when singing at Frankfort-on-the-Main, as having “a firm, enduring voice with a high range; he played semi-comic rôles admirably. He was best in airs in which there was little agility and more sustained declamation.” Castelli praises him; but all contemporary accounts agree that he was not equal to the part of Florestan, for which he was now selected.

Sebastian Meier, brother-in-law to Mozart (the musical reformer of this theatre), “was insignificant as a singer, but a valiant actor,” says Castelli, who knew him most intimately. Schindler has an anecdote of him as Pizarro, apparently derived from Beethoven, to the effect that he had a high opinion of his own powers; that he used to swear by Mozart and confidently undertake everything. In view of this Beethoven resolved to cure him of his weakness, and to this end wrote the passage in Pizarro’s air:

Pizarro
Bass

Bald wird sein Blut verrinnen
Bald krümmet sich der Wurm

Weinkopf (Don Fernando) had “a pure and expressive bass voice,” but his part was too meagre and unimportant to affect the success or failure of the opera.

[51]

Caché (Jaquino), according to Castelli, was a good actor,

Rothe (Rocco) was so inferior both as actor and singer, that his name is not to be found in any of the ordinary sources of Vienna theatrical history.

One can well believe that very considerable difficulties attended the performance, as Treitschke states. His words, in a passage above cited, as well as certain expressions of Beethoven’s a few months later, indicate that the opera was hurriedly put upon the stage, and the inadequacy of the singers thus increased by the lack of sufficient rehearsals. Seyfried says, “I directed the study of the parts with all the singers according to his suggestions, also all the orchestral rehearsals, and personally conducted the performance.” In 1805 Seyfried was young, talented, ambitious, zealous, and nothing was wanting on his part to insure success.

Speaking of the rehearsals recalls to mind one of those bursts of puerile wrath, which were passed over with a smile by some of Beethoven’s friends, but gave serious offense to others. Mähler remembered that at one of the general rehearsals the third bassoon was absent; at which Beethoven fretted and fumed. Lobkowitz, who was present, made light of the matter: two of the bassoons were present, said he, and the absence of the third could make no great difference. This so enraged the composer, that, as he passed the Lobkowitz Place, on his way home, he could not restrain the impulse to turn aside and shout in at the great door of the palace: “Lobkowitzian ass!”

There were various stumbling-blocks in the vocal score of “Leonore.” Schindler on this point has some judicious remarks (in his third edition), and they are borne out by his record of conversations with Cherubini and Anna Milder. During his years of frequent intercourse with Beethoven and subsequently, “Leonore” was a work upon whose origin and failure he took much pains to inform himself, and its history as finally drawn up by him is much more satisfactory and correct than others of greater pretensions.

Outside the narrow circle of the playhouse, weightier matters than a new opera now occupied and agitated the minds of the Viennese. On the 20th October, Ulm fell. On the 30th Bernadotte entered Salzburg, on his way to and down the Danube. Vienna was defenceless. The nobility, the great bankers and[52] merchants—all whose wealth enabled and whose vocations permitted it—precisely those classes of society in which Beethoven moved, which knew how to appreciate his music, and of whose suffrages his opera was assured, fled from the capital. On November 9th the Empress departed. On the 10th the French armies had reached and occupied the villages a few miles west of the city. On November 13th, about 11 o’clock in the forenoon, the vanguard of the enemy, Murat and Lannes at the head, 15,000 strong, representing all branches of the service, entered Vienna in order of battle, flags flying and music sounding.

On the 15th, Bonaparte issued his proclamation from Schönbrunn, which he made his headquarters. Murat quartered himself in the palace of Archduke Albert; General Hulin, in that of Prince Lobkowitz. It was just at this most unlucky of all possible periods that Beethoven’s opera was produced; on November 20, 21 and 22.

Beethoven’s friend, Stephan von Breuning, prepared a pretty surprise for him by printing a short complimentary poem and having it distributed in the theatre at the second performance. It is preserved in the “Notizen” (p. 34).[32] Beethoven[53] desired to retain the original title of the opera, “Leonore,” and the directors of the theatre have been severely censured from that day to this for persisting in giving and retaining the title “Fidelio”; but unjustly; for, considering the relations in which Paër stood to Baron Braun, it was surely enough to have taken his subject, without stealing his title.

A young man, educated at the University of Munich, had for some time past been private secretary to the Bavarian Chargé des Affaires at Salzburg. The approach of the French armies after the fall of Ulm made his position and prospects very uncertain. It was just then that an agent of Baron Braun came thither in search of a young, fresh tenor to succeed Demmer, whose powers were fast yielding to time. The engagement was offered him and thus it came about, that J. A. Röckel, in the Autumn of 1805, became first tenor in the Theater-an-der-Wien. After appearing in divers characters with much success, considering his inexperience, he was offered the part of Florestan in the contemplated revival of “Fidelio.” A conversation with the singer at Bath in April, 1861, is authority for these particulars, and a letter from him dated February 26 of the same year adds more. Röckel wrote:

A question has been raised as to the accuracy of Röckel’s memory in his statement of the numbers cancelled on this occasion; to which it may be remarked, that the particulars of this first and extraordinary meeting with Beethoven would naturally impress themselves very deeply upon the memory of the young singer; that the numbers to be condemned had been previously agreed upon by the parties opposed to the composer in the transaction, and doubtless made known to Röckel; that Röckel’s relations to Meyer were such as to render it in the highest degree improbable, that he should confound Rocco’s gold aria with either of the Pizarro airs with chorus belonging to Meyer’s part; that both of these belong to the first and second original acts—i. e., to the first act of the opera as Röckel knew it; that he (Röckel) in his letter to the writer is not reporting upon the pieces actually omitted in the subsequent performance three or four months later, but upon those which, at this meeting, Beethoven was with great difficulty persuaded to omit: that the objections made to them were not to the music, but because they retarded the action; and, therefore, that the decision now[55] reached was by no means final, provided the end desired could be attained in some other way. Perhaps it may yet appear that Beethoven, now cunningly giving way, succeeded in winning the game, and retaining all three of the pieces condemned.

Outside theatrical circles we catch also a glimpse or two of Beethoven in these months. Pierre Baillot, the violinist, was in Vienna just before the French invasion on his way to Moscow, and was taken by Anton Reicha to see Beethoven.

Schindler closes his account of these last five years in Beethoven’s life with great propriety and elegance by quoting a passage copied by the master from Christian Sturm’s “Betrachtungen.” It is made up of scattered sentences which may be found on page 197 of the ninth edition (Reutlingen, 1827):

The publications for the year 1805 were the Two Easy Sonatas, G minor and G major, Op. 49, advertised by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir, on January 23; Trio (arranged from the Septet) for Pf., Violin (or Clarinet) and Violoncello, E-flat, Op. 38, advertised by the same institution on the same date; Prelude for the Pf., F minor, advertised by the same on January 30; Romance for Violin and Orchestra, F major, Op. 50, advertised by the same on May 15; Sonata in C major for Pf., Op. 53, dedicated to Count Waldstein, advertised with the Romance; song, “An die Hoffnung,” Op. 32, advertised by the same on September 18; Six Variations for Pf. four hands, on “Ich denke[56] Dein,” advertised by the same on January 23; Minuet in E-flat for Pf., advertised by same on January 30; Scene and Air, “Ah, perfido! spergiuro,” in pianoforte score, published by Hoffmann and Kühnel.

The compositions which were completed were the opera “Leonore” (“Fidelio”) in its first form; the Concerto for Pf. and Orchestra, G major, Op. 58 (this on the authority of Nottebohm); the Pf. Sonata in F major. Op. 54; perhaps also may be added the Concerto for Pf., Violin and Violoncello, C major. Op. 56. It was sketched at the beginning of the year and was written, as Schindler states, for Archduke Rudolph, Seidler, violin, and Kraft, violoncello; it may well have been completed so as to be played by the winter of 1805-1806.

[57]

Chapter IV

Excerpts from a letter written on June 2, 1806, by Stephan von Breuning to his sister and brother-in-law, make a fair opening for the story of the year 1806. In it he reports on “Fidelio.” The letter, though written in the middle of the year, has reference to the period between the original performance late in 1805 and the repetition in the spring of 1806, a period in which it would seem, from the absence of all epistolary writings, Beethoven was in no mood, or too much occupied otherwise, for correspondence. Von Breuning writes:

The words “Fidelio” and “Leonore” are here misplaced, interchanged, whether by Breuning or his copyist is not known.[58] The letter is a reflection of Beethoven’s disappointment and indignation at fancied injuries; it was written in ignorance of divers material facts, and contains inaccuracies, which—since its publication by Wegeler in 1838—have colored many attempts to write the early history of the opera.

It is a circumstance, noteworthy and not easily to be explained, that Breuning, instead of Sonnleithner, revised the text and made the new disposition of the scenes. For the alterations and suppressions, both in the text and the music, made at this time, the reader is referred to the edition of “Leonore” prepared by Otto Jahn, and published by Breitkopf and Härtel in 1852, and the preface to the edition of the “Fidelio” of 1805 published by Erich Prieger.

At the performances in November, the effect of the overture had been ruined by a passage in the Allegro, which was too difficult for the wood-wind instruments. “Instead of simply removing this obstacle (31 measures),” says Schindler, “Beethoven thought it advisable to rewrite the whole, inasmuch as he was already engaged upon a revision of other parts of the work. He retains the motivi of the Introduction as well as the Allegro, has the motivo of the latter played by violoncellos and violins simultaneously for the sake of greater sonority, and on the existing foundation rears a new structure, including several new thoughts.”[35]

[59]

And thus for Beethoven the winter passed. To compete with successful new works which Schikaneder offered the Vienna audiences of 1806, was no light matter; and it is easy to imagine,[60] that Beethoven felt this, and determined, at all events in his own field of instrumental composition, to leave no doubt who was master. Hence, that monumental work, the great overture to “Leonore” in its second form. He was, as usual, dilatory in meeting his engagements. January and February passed and March drew to its close, and the overture was not ready. This was too much for Baron Braun’s patience. He, therefore, selected the best night of the season—Saturday, March 29, the last before the closing of the theatre for Holy Week and Easter—and gave Beethoven distinctly to understand, that if the opera was not performed on that evening, it should not be given at all. This was effectual and the new score was sent in; but so late, as Röckel well remembered, as to allow but two or three rehearsals with pianoforte and one only with orchestra; and these were directed by Seyfried—the composer appearing at neither.

Beethoven and Breuning supposed that a change of title from “Fidelio” to “Leonore” had been agreed to by the directors, and indeed the new text-book and Breuning’s poem on the occasion were so printed; but it was determined otherwise. By the new arrangement of the scenes, the number of acts was reduced to two. The new playbill therefore substitutes “Opera in two Acts” for “three”; excepting this, the change of date, and of Röckel’s[61] for Demmer’s name as Florestan, it is a facsimile of the previous ones, and announces: “Fidelio oder die Eheliche Liebe.” For this determination the directors may well have urged, not only a proper regard for the composer of “Sargino” and the (Italian) “Leonore,” but the manifest impropriety of misleading the public by giving a new title to a work which remained essentially unchanged. As on the original production, Breuning wrote a poem: “To Herr Ludwig van Beethoven, on the occasion of the reproduction of the opera composed by him and first performed on November 20, 1805, now given under the new title ‘Leonore.’”

The correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.,” under date of April 2, writes: “Beethoven has again produced his opera ‘Fidelio’ on the stage with many alterations and abbreviations. An entire act has been omitted, but the piece has benefited and pleased better.” On Thursday, the 10th, it was given again. The following letters from Beethoven to Sebastian Meier, referring to this performance, complain of “many blunders” in the choruses, ask for new rehearsals, and say:

Seyfried’s autograph record of all performances in the Theater-an-der-Wien, through a long series of years, gives “Sargino” instead of “Fidelio,” for Saturday the 12th—and “Agnes Bernauer” for the Sunday and Monday following. That this old, well-known drama was so repeated affords a strong presumption that an opera—we think “Fidelio”—was withdrawn “because obstacles had suddenly appeared” after it was too late to supply its place with another. At all events, the production of “Fidelio” on Thursday, April 10th, was the last; for which fact, two explanations are given—that in Breuning’s letter, and one by Röckel in his letter to the author. Breuning attributes it to the composer’s enemies—to a cabal, to “several persons whom Beethoven had offended, especially at the second representation”; Röckel, to Beethoven’s own imprudence and folly.

Breuning, a Secretary in the War Office, could have had little leisure for theatrical matters in those melancholy days during the French occupation and immediately after; it is a cause of[62] surprise, that he found time for the revision of the “Fidelio” text; his record, therefore, could hardly have been made except upon the representations of his friend—the last man to admit that he was in fault. But Röckel was behind the scenes in a double sense: he sang the part of Florestan and while Beethoven’s “friends were, most of them, married men, not able to walk and dine out with him (as he writes) like myself, another bachelor, to whom he took a fancy—I could call upon him in the morning and in fine weather stroll and dine with him in the country.” Breuning and Röckel are alike men of unimpeachable veracity; but the latter speaks from personal knowledge and observation.

Breuning’s statement is improbable. Who were Beethoven’s enemies? Who formed the cabal? Baron Braun, Schikaneder, Seyfried, the Stage-manager Meier, Director Clement, the solo singers (Mlle. Milder, Weinkopf, Röckel), were all his friends; and, for anything now known, so were Mlle. Müller, Rothe and Caché. As to orchestra and chorus, they might refuse to play under Beethoven as conductor—nothing more; and, as he had already conducted four if not five times, this would create no great difficulty, as the baton would necessarily pass into the hands of Seyfried at the first or second subsequent performance. Moreover, now that the opera was fairly upon the stage and making its way, it was for the interest of all parties, from Baron Braun down to the scene-shifters, to continue it so long as it would draw an audience. That it was making its way is proved not only by all the contemporary accounts, but by this: that notwithstanding the necessarily empty houses in November, Beethoven’s percentage of the receipts finally amounted to nearly 200 florins.

In the second of the notes to Meier, Beethoven is guilty of monstrous injustice. A moment’s reflection shows this. The orchestra and chorus had duly rehearsed and three times publicly performed “Fidelio” as first written. Since then (see Jahn’s edition) most of the numbers, perhaps every one, had been more or less changed. Now every musician knows that it is easier to play a piece of new music correctly at sight, than a well-known composition in which material alterations have been made. And yet, because some forty men—playing on a dozen different instruments, and after a single rehearsal at which the composer was not present to explain his intentions—did not effect the impossibility of reading the music correctly and at the same time note all the marks of expression, Beethoven writes: “I cannot think otherwise than that is done purposely!”

[63]

All things considered, there can be no hesitation in preferring the testimony of the singer of Florestan, to that of the Court War Councillor.

In truth, Beethoven had overshot the mark. The overture was too novel in form and grand in substance to be immediately understood; and, in 1806, there was not an audience in Europe able to find, in the fire and expression of the principal vocal numbers, an adequate compensation for the superficial graces and melodic beauties of the favorite operas of the time, and which seemed to them to be wanting in “Fidelio.” Even Cherubini, who was all this time in Vienna, failed to comprehend fully a work which, though a first and only experiment, was destined to[64] an ever-increasing popularity, when nearly all his own then universally admired operas had disappeared from the stage. Schindler records that he “told the musicians of Paris concerning the overture that because of its confusion of modulations he was unable to recognize the principal key.” And farther, that he (Cherubini), in listening to “Fidelio,” had come to the conclusion that till then Beethoven had paid too little heed to the art of singing, for which Salieri was not to blame.

In 1836, Schindler conversed with the Fidelio of 1805-06, Madame Milder-Hauptmann, on the subject: “She said, among other things, that she, too, had had severe struggles with the master chiefly about the unbeautiful, unsingable passages, unsuited to her voice, in the Adagio of the air in E major—but all in vain, until, in 1814, she declared that she would never sing the air again in its then shape. That worked.”

Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who became a pupil of Salieri a dozen years later, wrote in a letter to Ferdinand Luib, under date February 21, 1858: “Speaking of Beethoven Salieri told me the composer had submitted ‘Fidelio’ to him for an opinion: he had taken exception to many things and advised Beethoven to make certain changes; but Beethoven had ‘Fidelio’ performed just as he had written it—and never visited Salieri again.” These last words are too strong; Beethoven’s pique against his old master was in time forgotten; for Moscheles (also in a letter to Luib) writes on February 28, 1858: “I cannot recall seeing Schubert at Salieri’s, but I do remember the interesting circumstance that once I saw a sheet of paper lying at Salieri’s on which in great letters written by Beethoven were the words: ‘The pupil Beethoven was here!’”

A letter by Beethoven to Baron von Braun refers to the incidents just described and asks permission to get from the theatre orchestral parts, as follows:

There were other reasons why Beethoven desired to render his score perfect. Whether the opera was performed in the Lobkowitz palace is not recorded; but Breuning ends his letter of June 2nd thus: “I will not write you the news that Prince Lichnowsky has now sent the opera to the Queen of Prussia, and that I hope[65] the performances in Berlin will show the Viennese what they have at home.”

Breuning’s hope was vain; the opera was not given in Berlin.

The order of time requires a passing notice of a family event which proved in the end a cause of infinite trouble and vexation to Beethoven and all connected with him by the ties of kindred or friendship. Whether his brother Kaspar’s salary was increased above 250 florins, before his appointment in 1809 as Liquidators’-Adjunct with 1000 florins and 160 fl. for lodgings, does not appear; beyond a doubt it had been. But, be this as it may, he now found himself in a position to marry, and on the 25th of May “a marriage contract was closed between Carl Caspar v. Beethoven, R. I. Officer of the Revenue, and of this city (Vienna) and Theresia Reiss, daughter of Anton Reiss, civilian, upholsterer.” Their only child, a son, was born—according to the baptismal certificate—on September 4th, 1806.

Reiss was a man of considerable wealth, for one in his sphere of life, and able, it is said, to give his daughter a marriage portion of 2000 florins; it appears, too, that the valuable house in the Alservorstadt, owned by Karl at the time of his death, was an inheritance of his wife from her father’s estate; indeed, half the right to the property was legally secured to her. So much has been wantonly and falsely written upon this marriage and its consequences, as to render it proper to add here: Karl van Beethoven’s character and temperament were not fitted to render a wife permanently happy; on the other hand his wife, before her husband’s death, dishonored him by an intrigue with a medical student; but there is no reason whatever to believe that the marriage, at the time it took place, was not considered a good one for, and by, all parties concerned.

The notices of Beethoven’s own movements during this year are scanty. “Fidelio” and studies to instrumental works employed him during the winter (1805-6), but not to the exclusion of the claims of social intercourse, as one of his characteristic memoranda indicates. It is written with lead pencil on a page of the new quartet sketches: “Just as you are now plunging into the whirlpool of society—just so possible is it to compose operas in spite of social obstacles. Let your deafness no longer be a secret—even in art.”

Breuning’s report (June 2), that Beethoven “had lost a great deal of his pleasure in and love for work,” had even then ceased to be true. On the 26th of May, the first of the Rasoumowski Quartets had been begun—and with it began a series of works[66] which distinguished the year 1806 as one of astonishing productiveness—but more on this point in due time. It is quite certain that he took no summer lodgings: this and other considerations confirm Schindler’s statement, that, when the revision of a copy of his opera for Berlin had been finished, he went into Hungary to enjoy “a short rest with his friend Count Brunswick.” Thence he journeyed into Silesia to the seat of Prince Lichnowsky near Troppau.

Two documents now come up for consideration which fill a hiatus left by the author in the original edition of this work. They are the letters to which reference was made by the English editor in his comments on Beethoven’s love-affairs (Vol. I, p. 344). Both are addressed to Breitkopf and Härtel, the first dated “Vienna, July 5, 1806,” the second “Grätz, den 3ten Heumonath, 1806”—“Heumonath” meaning July. The inaccuracy of the latter date is too obvious to call for extended comment; Beethoven could not apologize on the third day of the month for tardiness in replying to a letter in answer to one which he had dispatched on the fifth. It is not permissible to play fast and loose with Beethoven’s dates, despite their frequent faultiness; we must accept them when they are upheld by corroborative evidence, but reject them when it is plainly impossible to conceive them as correct. In explanation of the obvious incorrectness of the second date it is suggested that when Beethoven wrote “Heumonath,” i. e., July, he meant to write “Herbstmonath,” i. e., September. Irrespective of their dates, however, the letters furnish evidence of Beethoven’s creative activity during the summer of 1806. The first letter is as follows:

The pianoforte concerto referred to is that in G major, Op. 58; the Quartets, the set Op. 59; the symphony, the “Eroica.” The second letter was written from Prince Lichnowsky’s castle, Grätz, near Troppau in Silesia. Breitkopf and Härtel’s endorsement shows that it was received and answered in September:

Breitkopf and Härtel’s endorsement is as follows: “Resp. (i. e., responsum). Let him propose the honorarium; if acceptable we will send him a contract for three years.” In reply to this Beethoven wrote a letter dated Vienna, Nov. 18, 1806, in which he said:

The negotiations were without result and the compositions mentioned were published by the Industrie-Comptoir. The symphony referred to was doubtless the fourth, in B-flat, and the “gentleman of quality” in all likelihood Count von Oppersdorff, to whom it was dedicated.

In October Breuning wrote to Wegeler: “Beethoven is at present in Silesia with Prince Lichnowsky and will not return till near the end of this month. His circumstances are none of the best at present, since his opera, owing to the cabals of his opponents, was performed but seldom, and therefore yielded him nothing. His spirits are generally low and, to judge by his letters, the sojourn in the country has not cheered him.” This visit to the Prince came to an abrupt termination in a scene which has been a fruitful theme for the silly race of musical novelette writers. The simple truth is related by Seyfried in the appendix to his “Studien” (page 23) and is here copied literally except for a few additional words interspersed, derived by the present writer from a conversation with the daughter of Moritz Lichnowsky:

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To propitiate him for the humiliation which he had suffered, the bust of his patron had to become a sacrifice; he dashed it into pieces from its place on a cabinet to the floor. Alois Fuchs recorded an anecdote which illustrates the feeling which made Beethoven so unwilling to play before the French officers. After the battle at Jena (October 14, 1806) Beethoven met his friend Krumpholz, to whom he was warmly attached, and, as usual, asked him, “What’s the news?” Krumpholz answered that the latest news was the report just received that the great hero Napoleon had won another decisive victory over the Prussians. Greatly angered, Beethoven replied to this: “It’s a pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music, I would conquer him!”

A very natural query arises here: how did Beethoven meet the expenses of these costly journeys? In answer it may be said that there is good reason to believe that he borrowed and used his brother Johann’s scanty savings.

A letter by Beethoven, dated November 1, introduces a new topic. At the time of the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, 1707, a “Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures in Scotland” was established. About 1785 George Thomson became its Secretary. He had some knowledge of musical science, and was an enthusiastic lover of Scottish airs and melodies. His official position brought him into correspondence with educated and influential people in all parts of the kingdom, and afforded him singular facilities for the execution of an early formed project—that of making the most extensive collection possible of the music of Scotland. Many compilations, various in extent and merit, had been published, but all of them, as Thomson justly remarks, “more or less defective and exceptionable.” In one of his prefaces he says:

Doubtless Thomson would have applied sooner to Haydn, had he known that the great master would condescend to such a labor. The appearance of William Napier’s two volumes of “Original Scots Songs, in three parts, the Harmony by Haydn,” removed any doubt on this point. For Napier, Haydn simply added a violin part and a figured bass; for Thomson, a full pianoforte score, parts for violin and violoncello, and an instrumental introduction and coda. A very remarkable feature of the enterprise was, that the composers of the accompaniments had no knowledge of the texts, and the writers of the poetry no knowledge of the accompaniments. The poets, in many cases, had a stanza of the original song as a model for the metre and rhythm; in all others, they and the composers alike received the bare melody, with nothing else to guide them in their work but Italian musical terms: allegro, moderato, andante, etc., etc., affettuoso, espressivo, scherzando, and the like. This is also true of the Welsh and Irish melodies. Beethoven began his labors for Thomson with the last named. In the preface to the first volume, dated “Edinburgh, anno 1814,” after describing his work in collecting Irish airs, Thomson says:

Near the close of his preface, Thomson says: “After the volume was printed and some copies of it had been circulated, an opportunity occurred of sending it to Beethoven, who corrected the few inaccuracies that had escaped the notice of the Editor and his friends; and he trusts it will be found without a single error.”

Following is a translation of the letter to Thomson referred to:

The original of this letter—in possession of the heirs of Mr. Thomson—is in French, the signature only being in Beethoven’s hand. Of its various propositions, that in the postscript alone led to any results.

And now to the compositions of the year. A song translated by Breuning from a French opera, “Le Secret,” was probably the first fruits of the newly awakened “desire and love for work,” which proved so nobly productive during his summer absence from Vienna; it is the one published at different times under the titles “Empfindungen bei Lydiens Untreue,” and “Als die Geliebte sich trennen wollte.” A slight token of gratitude for the recent zealous kindness of Breuning in the matter of the opera, such as this song, would not long be delayed even by Beethoven. But, whether or not this was the first composition after the withdrawal of “Fidelio,” it is certain that, just one week before the date of Breuning’s letter, Beethoven had set himself resolutely to work upon grander themes than Empfindungen bei Lydiens or[73] any other Mädchens Untreue. These are now to be considered. He began the quartets, Op. 59, on May 26. Certain studies to “Fidelio,” not previously mentioned, are contained in a sketchbook of the Landsberger Collection of Autographs, the principal contents of which are sketches for the second, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth Symphonies, and for “Fidelio.” This, at first view, seems to confirm an assertion of Czerny’s—not accepted by Schindler, who in this case is the better authority—namely, that the Ninth Symphony, except its choral Finale, was projected many years before its composition; but the book itself affords a strong argument against it; it being, as the present writer is convinced, not a manuscript in its original form, but one made up of parts of several different books, stitched together subsequently for the better preservation of these various symphonic studies. In it, however, the sketches for the Fourth Symphony are in immediate connection with those for “Fidelio.” The list, then, of important works sketched during the progress of the opera, is this: Triple Concerto, Op. 56; Sonata in F minor, Op. 57; Pf. Concerto in G, Op. 58; Rasoumowsky Quartets, Op. 59; Fourth Symphony, B-flat, Op. 60; Fifth Symphony, C minor, Op. 67; Sixth Symphony, “Pastorale,” Op. 68. Omitting the first as belonging to 1805, and the last two as belonging to 1807-1808, the other four, we conceive, may be dated 1806. They afford a striking example of Beethoven’s habit of working on several compositions at the same time, and, moreover, as we believe, of his practice in such cases of giving the works opus numbers in the order of their completion. In this order we will take them up. “The first work which followed the exertions caused by the opera,” writes Schindler, “was the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57.... The master composed it straightway from beginning to end, during a short period of rest at the house of his friend Count Brunswick, to whom, as is known, the sonata is dedicated.”

Beethoven, journeying into Silesia after his visit to Brunswick, took the manuscript and had it also with him on his return to Vienna per extra post from Troppau after the explosion at Lichnowsky’s. “During his journey,” wrote M. Bigot half a century afterwards on a printed copy belonging to the pianist Mortier de Fontaine,

Czerny says, very justly, of the unauthorized change afterwards made in the title: “In a new edition of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57, which Beethoven himself considered his greatest, the title ‘Appassionata,’ for which it is too great, was added to it. This title would be more fitly applied to the E-flat Sonata, Op. 7, which he composed in a very impassioned mood.”

The Pf. Concerto in G, Op. 58, is dated by Schindler 1804, “according to information given by F. Ries”; the new edition of Breitkopf and Härtel’s thematic catalogue says (p. 197): “The Concerto was finished in the year 1805,” without mentioning its authority. If it had nothing better than Ries’s anecdote to offer in proof, the opinion may still be entertained confidently, that this work remained still unfinished until the approach of the concert season, towards the end of the year 1806.[38]

The Quartets, Op. 59, certainly belong to this year. “Quartetto 1^mo.... Begun on May 26, 1806,” are Beethoven’s own words; and the opus number, the reports of their production during the next winter, and, especially, the date of their publication, making allowance for Rasoumowsky’s right to them for a year, all point to November or December as the latest possible date for their completion. The idea of employing popular airs as themes was by no means new to Beethoven. Without referring to the example set by Haydn, Pleyel, Koželuch, it had been proposed to him by Thomson; and as to Russian melodies, he must have read the “Allg. Musik-Zeitung” very carelessly not to have had his curiosity aroused by the articles on Russian music published in that journal in 1802—a curiosity which, in the constant intercourse between Vienna, Moscow and St. Petersburg, there would be no difficulty in gratifying. Czerny writes, however, “He had pledged himself to weave a Russian melody into every quartet.” But Lenz, himself a Russian and a musician, says: “The Russian themes are confined to the Finale of No. 1 and the third movement of the second Quartet.” This is a case in which Czerny’s authority can scarcely be gainsaid; otherwise, it might be supposed that the composer of his own motion introduced these two[75] themes in compliment to Rasoumowsky. “The Adagio, E major, in the second Rasoumowsky Quartet, occurred to him when contemplating the starry sky and thinking of the music of the spheres,” writes Czerny in Jahn’s notes.

Perhaps no work of Beethoven’s met a more discouraging reception from musicians, than these now famous Quartets. One friendly contemporary voice alone is heard—that of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” Czerny told Jahn, that “when Schuppanzigh first played the Rasoumowsky Quartet in F, they laughed and were convinced that Beethoven was playing a joke and that it was not the quartet which had been promised.” And when Gyrowetz bought these Quartets he said: “Pity to waste the money!” The Allegretto vivace of the first of these quartets was long a rock of offence. “When at the beginning of the year 1812,” says Lenz, “the movement was to be played for the first time in the musical circle of Field Marshal Count Soltikoff in Moscow, Bernhard Romberg trampled under foot as a contemptible mystification the bass part which he was to play. The Quartet was laid aside. When, a few years later, it was played at the house of Privy Councillor Lwoff, father of the famous violinist, in St. Petersburg, the company broke out in laughter when the bass played his solo on one note.—The Quartet was again laid aside.”

Thomas Appleby, father of Samuel Appleby, collector of valuable papers referring to the violinist Bridgetower, was a leader in the musical world of Manchester, England, and a principal director of concerts there. When these quartets came out in London, Clementi sent a copy of them to him. They were opened and thrown upon the pianoforte. Next day Felix Radicati and his wife, Mme. Bertinotti, called and presented letters, they being upon a concert tour. During the conversation the Italian went to the pianoforte, took up the quartets and seeing what they were, exclaimed (in substance): “Have you got these here! Ha! Beethoven, as the world says, and as I believe, is music-mad;—for these are not music. He submitted them to me in manuscript and, at his request, I fingered them for him. I said to him, that he surely did not consider these works to be music?—to which he replied, ‘Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age!’”

Young Appleby believed in them, in spite of Radicati, and after he had studied his part thoroughly, his father invited players of the other instruments to his house and the first in F was tried. The first movement was declared by all except Appleby to be “crazy music.” At the end of the violoncello solo on one note, they all burst out laughing; the next four bars all agreed were[76] beautiful. Ludlow, an organist, who played the bass, found so much to admire and so much to condemn in the half of this second movement, which they succeeded in playing, as to call it “patchwork by a madman.” They gave up the attempt to play it, and not until 1813, in London, did the young man succeed in hearing the three Quartets entire, and finding them, as he had believed, worthy of their author.

The Symphony in B-flat, Op. 60, was the great work of this summer season. Sketches prove that its successor, the fifth in C minor, had been commenced, and was laid aside to give place to this. Nothing more is known of the history of its composition except what is imparted by the author’s inscription on the manuscript: “Sinfonia 4^ta 1806. L. v. Bthvn.”

In singular contrast to these grand works and contemporary with their completion, as if written for amusement and recreation after the fatigue of severer studies, are the thirty-two Variations for Pianoforte in C minor. They belong to this Autumn, and are among the compositions which their author would gladly have seen pass into oblivion. Jahn’s notes contain an anecdote in point. “Beethoven once found Streicher’s daughter practising these Variations. After he had listened for a while he asked her: “By whom is that?” “By you.” “Such nonsense by me? O Beethoven, what an ass you were!””

Although the composer did not succeed in bringing his new Symphony and Concerto to public performance this year, an opportunity offered itself for him to give the general public as fine a taste of his quality as composer for the violin, as he had just given to the frequenters of Rasoumowsky’s quartet parties in the Op. 59, namely, Op. 61, the work superscribed by its author: Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement, primo Violino e Direttore al Theatro a Vienne, dal L. v. Bthvn., 1806;—or, as it stands on Franz Clement’s concert programme of December 23 in the Theater-an-der-Wien: “2. A new Violin Concerto by Hrn. Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Hrn. Clement.” It was preceded by an overture by Méhul, and followed by selections from Mozart, Cherubini and Handel, closing with a fantasia by the concert-giver. When Dr. Bertolini told Jahn that “Beethoven as a rule never finished commissioned works until the last minute,” he named this Concerto as an instance in point; and another contemporary notes that Clement played the solo a vista, without previous rehearsal. The list of publications this year is short:

LI^me Sonata pour le Pianoforte, F major, advertised April 9 in the “Wiener Zeitung” by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir.[77] There is no tradition that Beethoven ever explained why he called this his fifty-first, or the F minor his fifty-fourth Sonata. The best that Czerny could suggest is that “perhaps he sketched that number in manuscript and then destroyed them or used them in another form.” Others have made lists of all the works in sonata-form, including the symphonies; but none has been so probably right as to produce conviction.

Grand Trio pour deux Hautbois et un Cor Anglais, C major, advertised by Artaria and Co., April 12, without opus number. At a later date it was called Op. 87. The same work for two violins and viola, and as a sonata for pianoforte and violin, was advertised at the same time. “Andante” (Favori) in F major, for Pianoforte. This was originally the second movement of the Sonata, Op. 53—according to the anecdote before given from Ries’s “Notizen.”

“Sinfonia eroica,” Op. 55, dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, advertised by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir on October 29.

Besides these works, Johann Traeg advertised on June 18 “6 Grands Trios pour le Pianoforte, violon obligé et violoncello ad lib.,” Op. 60, Nos. 1 and 2. These are arrangements of the Quartets, Op. 18. Also “3 Grands Trios pour le Pianoforte, Violon et Violoncello,” Op. 61, No. 1; arrangements of the Trios, Op. 9. Before February, 1807, the other numbers of the two works had been completed and had left the press. The opus numbers were not recognized by Beethoven, for, as is seen above, 60 and 61 belong to original works of a very different order.

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Chapter V

He who dwells with wife and children in a fixed abode, usually finds himself, as age draws on, one of a small circle of old friends; and hoary heads, surrounded by their descendants, the inheritors of parental friendships, sit at the same tables and make merry where they had gathered in the prime of life. The unmarried man, who can call no spot on earth’s surface his own, who spends his life in hired lodgings, here to-day and there to-morrow, has, as a rule, few friendships of long standing. By divergency in tastes, opinions, habits, increasing with the years, often by the mere interruption of social intercourse, or by a thousand equally insignificant causes, the old ties are sundered. In the memoranda and correspondence of such a man familiar names disappear, even when not removed by death, and strange ones take their places. The mere passing acquaintance of one period becomes the chosen friend of another; while the former friend sinks into the mere acquaintance, or is forgotten. Frequently no cause for the change can be assigned. One can only say—it happened so.

Thus it was with Beethoven, even to a remarkable degree; in part because of his increasing infirmity, in part owing to peculiarities of his character. It was his misfortune, also, that—having no pecuniary resource but the exercise of his talents for musical composition, and being at the same time too proud and too loyal to his ideas of art to write for popular applause—he was all his life long thrown more or less upon the generosity of patrons. But death, misfortune or other causes deprived him of old patrons, as of old friends, and compelled him to seek, or at least accept, the kindness of new ones. A part of this chapter must be devoted to[79] certain new names in both categories, which become prominent in his history in the years immediately before us.

Archduke Rudolph Johann Joseph Rainer, youngest son of Emperor Leopold II, and half-brother of Emperor Franz, was born January 8, 1788, and therefore was, at the end of 1805, just closing his seventeenth year. Like his unfortunate uncle, Elector Maximilian, he was destined to the church, and like him, too, he had much musical taste and capacity. His private tutors were all men of fine culture, and one of them, Joseph Edler von Baumeister, Doctor of Laws, remained in later years in his service and will be met with hereafter. In music he, with the children of the imperial family, was instructed by the R. I. Court Composer, Anton Tayber, and made such good progress that, if tradition may be trusted, he, while still but a boy, played to general satisfaction in the salons of Lobkowitz and others. But an archduke has not much to fear from hostile criticism; a better proof that he really possessed musical talent and taste is afforded by the fact that, so soon as he could emancipate himself from Tayber, and have a voice in the selection of a teacher, he became a pupil of Beethoven. It is largely possible that the old relation of the composer to Maximilian may have had some influence upon the determination of his nephew; and it is very probable that Rudolph’s decision was based upon the great reputation of Beethoven and the respect in which, as he saw, the artist was held by the Schwarzenbergs, Liechtensteins, Kinskys, and their compeers. But whatever weight be allowed to these and like considerations, it must have been something more than a capricious desire to call the great pianist “master,” which made him his pupil, friend and patron until death parted them. One necessarily thinks better of his musical talents for this, just as Maximilian’s musical taste and insight stand higher in our estimation because of his early appreciation of Mozart’s genius.

The precise date of Beethoven’s engagement has eluded the research of even the accurate and indefatigable Köchel. There is so little doubt, however, that he was the immediate successor of Tayber, as to render reasonably certain that it occurred at the end of the young Archduke’s fifteenth year—that is, in the winter of 1803-4. It is perhaps worth remarking, that the “Staats-Schematismus” for 1803 first gives, in the R. I. Household, a separate chamber to the boys, Rainer and Rudolph; three years later “Archduke Rudolph, coadjutor of the Archbishopric of Olmütz,” is given one alone; but before 1806 he certainly was the pupil of Beethoven.

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In Fräulein Giannatasio’s notices from the years 1816-18,[39] she relates:

It must have been a mistake of the young lady’s to make Beethoven speak here in the present tense; for it is incredible that he should have taken such a liberty in 1816-17, when Rudolph was a man of some thirty years; or indeed at any time after the first lessons in his boyhood. The anecdote therefore in some degree supports the conjecture above offered. So also does Schindler’s statement—a point on which he was likely to be well informed by the master himself—that the pianoforte part of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56, was written for the Archduke; for this work was sketched, at the latest, in the spring of 1805, and surely would not have been undertaken until the composer thoroughly knew his pupil’s powers, and that his performance would do the master no discredit. And finally, what Ries relates is in the tone of one who had personal knowledge of the circumstances detailed; and thus determines the date as not later than 1804:

At all events it may be accepted as certain that Beethoven had now, 1805-6, formed those relations with the Archduke, which were strengthened and more advantageous to him with each successive year, until death put an end to them.

Two brothers, differing in age by nineteen years, owed their rise from the condition of singers at the Russian Court into posi[81]tions of great wealth and political importance to their gratification of the lascivious lusts of two imperial princesses, afterwards known in history as the Empresses Elizabeth Petrowna and Catherine II. Thus the two Rasums, born in 1709 and 1728, of half-Cossack parentage, in the obscure Ukraine village of Lemeschi, became the Counts Rasoumowsky, nobles of the Russian Empire. They were men of rare ability, and, like Shakespeare’s Duncan, “bore their faculties so meek,” that none of the monarchs under whom they served, not even those who personally disliked either of them, made him the victim of imperial caprice or ill will. A whimsical proof of the rapidity with which the new name became known throughout Europe is its introduction in 1762 into a farce of the English wit, Samuel Foote.[40] The Empresses provided their paramours with wives from noble families and continued their kindness to the children born of these unions—one of whom came in time to occupy a rather prominent place among the patrons of Beethoven.

Andreas Kyrillovitch (born October 22, 1752), fourth son of the younger Rasoumowsky, was destined for the navy and received the best education possible in those days for his profession, even to serving in what was then the best of all schools, an English man-of-war. He had been elevated to the rank of captain when, at the age of 25, he was transferred to the diplomatic service. He was Ambassador successively at Venice, Naples, Copenhagen and Stockholm; less famous, perhaps, for his diplomacy than notorious for the profuseness of his expenditures, and for his amours with women of the highest rank, the Queen of Naples not excepted.

Rasoumowsky was personally widely known at Vienna, where he had married (November 4, 1788) Elizabeth, Countess Thun, elder sister of the Princess Charles Lichnowsky, and whither he was transferred as Ambassador early in 1792, being officially presented to the Emperor on Friday, May 25, as the “Wiener Zeitung” records. Near the end of Czar Paul’s reign (in March, 1799) he was superseded by Count Kalichev; but on the accession of Alexander was restored, his “presentation audience” taking place October 14, 1801. His dwelling and office had formerly been in the Johannes-Gasse, but now (1805-6) he was in the Wallzeil, but on the point of removing to a new palace built by himself. Schnitzer says: “Rasoumowsky lived in Vienna like a prince, encouraging art and science, surrounded by a luxurious[82] library and other collections and admired and envied by all; what advantages accrued from all this to Russian affairs is another question.” This palace, afterwards nearly destroyed by fire and rebuilt, is now, after various vicissitudes, the seat of the Imperial Geological Institute, Landstrasse, Rasoumowsky-Gasse No. 3.

True to the traditions of his family, the Count was a musician and one of the best connoisseurs and players of Haydn’s quartets, in which he was accustomed to play the second violin. It is affirmed, evidently on good authority, that he had studied these works under that master himself. It would seem a matter of course, that this man, so nearly connected, too, with Lichnowsky, was one of the first to appreciate and encourage the genius of the young Beethoven upon his removal from Rome to Vienna. In fact, this has been affirmed most positively and discoursed upon at great length; and yet the few known data on this point—all of a negative character—are in conflict with that opinion. Neither Wegeler nor Ries mentions Rasoumowsky. Whatever Seyfried and Schindler may conjecture, all the facts given by them belong to the period on which we are now entering. Up to Op. 58, inclusive, not a composition of Beethoven’s is dedicated to Rasoumowsky. Just now (end of 1805), the Count has given the composer an order for quartets with Russian themes, original or imitated; but only once, in all the contemporary printed or manuscript authorities yet discovered, have the two names been brought into connection; namely, in the subscription to the Trios in 1795, where we find the Countess of Thun, her daughters and the Lichnowskys down (in the aggregate) for 32 copies, and “S. E. le Comte Rasoumoffsky, Embassadeur de Russie”—for one.

The Hungarian Count Peter Erdödy married, June 6, 1796, the Countess Anna Marie Niczky (born 1779), then just seventeen years of age. Reichardt describes her, in December, 1808, as a “very beautiful, fine little woman who from her first confinement (1799) was afflicted with an incurable disease which for ten years has kept her in bed for all but two to three months”—in which he greatly exaggerates the evil of her condition—“but nevertheless gave birth to three healthy and dear children who cling to her like burs; whose sole entertainment was found in music; who plays even Beethoven’s pieces right well and limps with still swollen feet from one pianoforte to another, yet is so merry and friendly and good—all this often saddens me during an otherwise joyous meal participated in by six or eight good musical souls.” There is nothing to show how or when the very great intimacy between the Countess and Beethoven began; but for many years she is prom[83]inent among the most useful and valued of his many female friends, and it is not at all improbable that the vicinity of the Erdödy estate at Jedlersee am Marchfelde was one reason for his frequent choice of summer lodgings in the villages on the Danube, north of the city. Their intercourse was at length (about 1820) abruptly terminated by the banishment for life of the Countess beyond the limits of the Austrian Empire—unhappily, for reasons that cannot be impugned. It is a sad and revolting story, over which a veil may be drawn. There is no necessity, arising from Beethoven’s relations to her, to give it now the publicity which was then so carefully and effectually avoided. It is even possible that Beethoven’s heart was never wrung by a knowledge of the particulars.

The Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann, wife of an Austrian officer who was stationed in those years at or near Vienna, studied Beethoven’s compositions with the composer, and became, as all contemporary authorities agree, if not the greatest player of these works at least the greatest of her sex. Reichardt, a most competent judge, heard her repeatedly in the winter of 1808-09 and recorded a highly favorable impression of her.

Well might the master call her his “Dorothea-Cäcilia!” In that delightful letter, in which the young Felix Mendelssohn describes his visit at Milan (1831) to the Ertmanns, “the most agreeable, cultured people conceivable, both in love as if they were a bridal couple, and yet married 34 years,” where he and the lady delighted each other by turns in the performance of Beethoven’s compositions and “the old General, who now appeared in his stately gray commander’s uniform, wearing many orders, was very happy and wept with joy”; and in the intervals he told “the loveliest anecdotes about Beethoven, how, in the evening when she played for him, he used the candle snuffers as a toothpick, etc.” In this letter there is one touching and beautiful reminiscence of the Baroness. “She related,” says Mendelssohn, “that when she lost her last child, Beethoven at first did not want to come into the house; at length he invited her to visit him, and when she came he sat himself down at the pianoforte and said simply: ‘We will now talk to each other in tones,’ and for over an hour played without stopping, and as she remarked: ‘he told me everything, and at last brought me comfort.’”

It was noted in a former chapter, that the leading female pianists also of Vienna were divided into pro and anti Beethovenists. The former party just at this time gained a valuable accession in a young lady who, during her five years’ residence[84] there, became one of the most devoted as well as most highly accomplished players of Beethoven’s compositions—Marie Bigot. From 1809 to her death in 1820 she lived in Paris, where her superiority, first as dilettante, then as professional player and teacher, made her the subject of one of the most pleasing sketches in Fétis’s “Biographie Universelle des Musiciens.” From this we learn that she was born of a family named Kiene on March 3, 1786, at Colmar in Alsatia and married M. Bigot, who took her to Vienna in 1804. In the Austrian capital she became acquainted with Haydn, and formed a friendship also with Beethoven and Salieri. Such associations naturally fired her ardently musical nature, and at 20 years of age she had already developed great skill and originality. The first time that she played in the presence of Haydn, the old gentleman was so moved that he clasped her in his arms and cried: “O, my dear child, I did not write this music—it is you who have composed it!” And upon the printed sheet from which she had played he wrote: “On February 20, 1805, Joseph Haydn was happy.” The melancholy genius of Beethoven found an interpreter in Madame Bigot, whose enthusiasm and depth of feeling added new beauties to those which he had conceived. One day she played a sonata which he had just composed, in such a manner as to draw from him the remark: “That is not exactly the character which I wanted to give this piece; but go right on. If it is not wholly mine it is something better.” (Si ce n’est pas tout à fait moi, c’est mieux que moi.)

Bigot, according to Reichardt, was “an honest, cultivated Berliner, Librarian of Count Rasoumowsky.” As this was precisely in those years when Beethoven was most patronized by that nobleman, the composer and the lady were thus brought often together and very warm, friendly relations resulted. Jahn possessed for many years the copy of a very characteristic letter of Beethoven to the Bigots, which leads one to suspect that his attentions to the young wife had at one time the appearance of being a little too pointed. The letter is undated; but as the precise date happens to be of no importance, and was of course before 1809, it may be inserted here in order to explode at the outset the nonsense which has been published concerning a fancied inordinate passion of the master for the young lady. Perhaps for this very reason Jahn finally sent it to the “Grenzboten” (II, 1867):

[86]

Gleichenstein introduced Beethoven to a family named Malfatti. The culture, refinement, musical taste and high character of the parents, and the uncommon grace and beauty of their two charming children, young girls now of twelve to fourteen years, rendered the house very attractive to the composer. There was less than a year’s difference in the ages of the children; Therese was born January 1st and Anna December 7th of the same year; whether 1792 or 1793, our friendly authority was not certain. Anna became, in due time (1811), the wife of Gleichenstein; and Therese was at one time the object of one of Beethoven’s short-lived, unrequited passions. Her niece writes: “That Beethoven loved my aunt, and wished to marry her, and also that her parents would never have given their consent, is true.”[42] There is nothing to determine conclusively when the master’s fondness assumed this intenser form; but there are good reasons (which may perhaps appear hereafter) for believing, that it was at least five years later than our present date. His attentions to the young lady, at all events, attracted no notice outside the family circle, nor did her rejection of them prevent the continuance of warm, friendly relations between the parties, up to and after her marriage in 1817. Dr. Sonnleithner establishes both these facts:

Through these Malfattis, Beethoven became also known personally to the physician of the same name and “they were great[87] friends for a long time. Towards each other they were like two hard millstones, and they separated. Malfatti used to say of Beethoven: ‘He is a disorderly (konfuser) fellow—but all the same he may be the greatest genius.’” The assistant of Malfatti, Dr. Bertolini, was long the confidential physician of Beethoven; and through him he became personally known to the present head of the great firm of “Miller & Co.,” wholesale merchants in Vienna, who for many years was fond of describing his interviews, in youth, with the “great Beethoven.” Though nothing specially worthy of record took place, Mr. Miller’s recollections are interesting as additional testimony to the activity of the master’s mind and his enjoyment of jocose, witty and improving conversation. Through a caprice of Beethoven, his cordial relations to Dr. Bertolini came to an abrupt end about 1815; but the doctor, though pained and mortified, retained his respect and veneration for his former friend to the last. In 1831, he gave a singular proof of his delicate regard for Beethoven’s reputation; supposing himself to be at the point of death from cholera, and being too feeble to examine his large collection of the composer’s letters and notes to him, he ordered them all to be burned, because a few were not of a nature to be risked in careless hands.

The reader will not have forgotten Marie Anna Stein of Augsburg—pianoforte-maker Stein’s “Mädl,” as Mozart called her. After the death of her father (February 29, 1792), she, being then just 23 years of age, assisted by her brother, Matthäus Andreas, a youth of sixteen years, took charge of and continued his business. The great reputation of the Stein instruments led to the removal of the Steins to Vienna. An imperial patent, issued January 17, 1794, empowered Nanette and Andreas Stein to establish their business “in the Landstrasse 301, zur Rothen Rose,” and in the following July they arrived, accompanied by Johann Andreas Streicher, an “admirable pianist and teacher” of Munich, to whom Nanette was engaged. The business flourished nobly under the firm-name “Geschwister Stein” until 1802, “when they separated and each carried on an independent business.” It is known that Beethoven, immediately upon the arrival of the Steins, renewed his intercourse with them, of which, however, there is but a single record worth quoting, until a period several years later than that before us. Reichardt writes in his letter of February 7, 1809:

This shows us Beethoven in a new character—that of an improver of the pianoforte. The “young Stein” mentioned by Ries, was Nanette’s brother Carl Friedrich, who followed his sister to Vienna in 1804.

One of Beethoven’s characteristic notes to Zmeskall, not dated, but belonging in these years, adds another name to the long list which proves that, however unpopular the composer may have been with his brother musicians, he possessed qualities and tastes that endeared him to the best class of rising young men in the learned professions:

Dr. Johann Zizius, of Bohemia (born January 7, 1772), appears at the early age of 28, in the Staats-Schematismus for 1800, as professor of political science to the R. I. Staff of Guards; three years later he has the same professorship in the Theresianum, which he retained to his death in 1824, filling also in his later years the chair of constitutional law in the University. Dr. Sonnleithner made his acquaintance about 1820. In his very valuable and interesting “Musikalische Skizzen aus Alt-Wien” (“Recensionen,” 1863), he describes Zizius in a way which shows him to have been a man after Beethoven’s own heart until his increasing infirmity excluded him in great measure from mixed society.

The attraction of Beethoven’s personal character for young persons of more than ordinary genius and culture has been already noted. Another illustration of this was Julius Franz Borgias Schneller, born (1777) at Strasburg, educated at Freiberg in the Breisgau, and just now (1805) professor of history in the Lyceum at Linz on the Danube. Driven into exile because of his active resistance to the French, he had made his way to Vienna, where his fine qualities of head and heart made him a welcome guest in literary circles and gained him the affection of the young writers of the capital. In 1803, he received his appointment at Linz,[89] whence, three years later, he was advanced to the same position in the new university at Gratz. Perhaps the most beloved of his friends was Gleichenstein.

We pass to the notices of Ries, Czerny and others, which record divers characteristic anecdotes and personal traits of the master, not susceptible of exact chronological arrangement but which belong to this period. “Of all composers,” says Ries (“Notizen,” p. 84), “Beethoven valued most highly Mozart and Handel, then S. Bach. Whenever I found him with music in his hand or lying on his desk it was surely compositions of these heroes. Haydn seldom escaped without a few sly thrusts.” Compare this with what Jahn heard from Czerny: “Once Beethoven saw at my house the scores of six quartets by Mozart. He opened the fifth, in A, and said: ‘That’s a work! that’s where Mozart said to the world: Behold what I might have done for you if the time were here!‘” And, touching Handel: “Graun’s ‘Tod Jesu’ was unknown to Beethoven. My father brought the score to him, which he played through a vista in a masterly manner. When he came to a place where Graun had written a twofold ending to be left to the choice of the performer, he said: ‘The man must have had the gripes not to be able to say which ending is the better!’ At the end he said that the fugues were passable, the rest ordinary. Then he picked up Handel’s ‘Messiah’ with the words: ‘Here is a different fellow!’ and played the most interesting numbers and called our attention to several resemblances to Haydn’s ‘Creation,’ etc.” “Once,” says Ries (p. 100), “when after a lesson we were talking about fugue themes, I sitting at the pianoforte and he beside me, I played the first fugue theme from Graun’s ‘Tod Jesu’; he began to play it after me with his left hand, then brought in the right and developed it for perhaps half an hour. I am still unable to understand how he could have endured the uncomfortable position so long. His enthusiasm made him insensible to external impressions.” In another place (p. 87) he relates: “During a walk I mentioned to Beethoven two pure fifth progressions which sound striking and beautiful in his C minor Quartet (Op. 18). He did not know them and denied that they were fifths. It being his habit always to carry ruled paper with him, I asked him for a sheet and wrote down the passage in all four voices; seeing that I was right he said: ‘Well, and who has forbidden them?’ Not knowing how to take the question, I had him repeat it several times until I finally answered in amazement: ‘But they are first principles!’ The question was repeated again, whereupon I answered: ‘Marpurg, Kirnberger,[90] Fux, etc., etc., all theoreticians!’—‘And I allow them thus!’ was his answer.”[43]

We quote again from Ries (p. 106):

And now something more on the subject of Beethoven’s improvisations. Says Ries: “This last was certainly the most extraordinary (performance) any one was ever privileged to listen to, especially when he was in good humor or excited. Not a single artist of all that I have heard ever reached the plane in this respect which Beethoven occupied. The wealth of ideas which crowded in upon him, the moods to which he surrendered himself, the variety of treatment, the difficulties which offered themselves or were introduced by him, were inexhaustible.” And Czerny:

Pass we to certain minor characteristic traits which Ries has recorded of his master:

Beethoven felt the loss of Ries very sensibly; but it was in part supplied by young Röckel, to whom he took a great liking. Inviting him to call, he told him he would give special orders to his servant to admit him at all times, even in the morning when busy. It was agreed that, when Röckel was admitted, if he found Beethoven very much occupied he should pass through the room into the bed-chamber beyond—both rooms overlooked the Glacis from the fourth story of the Pasqualati house on the Mölker Bastei—and there await him a reasonable time; if the composer came not,[93] Röckel should quietly pass out again. It happened one morning upon his first visit, that Röckel found at the street door a carriage with a lady in it; and, on reaching the fourth storey, there, at Beethoven’s door, was Prince Lichnowsky in a dispute with the servant about being admitted. The man declared he dared not admit anybody, as his master was busy and had given express orders not to admit any person whatever. Röckel, however, having the entrée, informed Beethoven that Lichnowsky was outside. Though in ill humor, he could no longer refuse to see him. The Prince and his wife had come to take Beethoven out for an airing; and he finally consented, but, as he entered the carriage, Röckel noticed that his face was still cloudy.

That Beethoven and Ignatz von Seyfried were brought much together in these years, the reader already knows. Their acquaintance during thirty years—which, for at least half of the time, was really the “friendly relationship” which Seyfried names it—was, he says, “never weakened, never disturbed by even the smallest quarrel—not that we were both always of a mind, or could be, but we always spoke freely and frankly to each other, without reserve, according to our convictions, without conceitedly trying to force upon one another our opinions as infallible.”

The above is from “Cäcilia,” Vol. IX, 218, 219. In the so-called “Studien” (appendix) are other reminiscences, which form an admirable supplement to it. Those which belong to the years 1800-1805 follow:

[96]

And his hearing—how was it with that?

A question not to be answered to full satisfaction. It is clear that the “Notizen” of Wegeler and Ries, the Biography (first editions) of Schindler, and especially the papers from Beethoven’s own hand printed in those volumes, have given currency to a very exaggerated idea of the progress of his infirmity. On the other hand, Seyfried as evidently errs in the other direction; and yet Carl Czerny, both in his published and manuscripts notices, goes even farther. For instance, he writes to Jahn: “Although he had suffered from pains in his ears and the like ever since 1800, he still heard speech and music perfectly well until nearly 1812,” and adds in confirmation: “As late as the years 1811-1812 I studied things with him and he corrected with great care, as well as ten years before.” This, however, proves nothing, as Beethoven performed feats of this kind still more remarkable down to the last year of his life. Beethoven’s Lamentation, the testament of 1802, is one extreme, the statements of Seyfried and Czerny the other; the truth lies somewhere between.

In June, 1801, Beethoven is “obliged to lean down to the orchestral rail to hear a drama.” The next summer he cannot hear a flute or pipe to which Ries calls his attention. In 1804, as Doležalek tells Jahn, “in the rehearsals to the ‘Eroica’ he did not always hear the wind-instruments distinctly and missed them when they were playing.” The evil was then making, if slow, still sure progress. “In those years,” says Schindler, “there was a priest named Pater Weiss in the Metropolitan Church of St. Stephen who occupied himself with healing the deaf and had accomplished many fortunate cures. He was not a mere empiricist, but was familiar with the physiology of the ear; he effected his cures with simple remedies, and enjoyed a wide fame among the people, and also the respect of medical practitioners. With the consent of his physician our terrified tone-poet had also entrusted his case to the priest.” Precisely when this was, is unknown; it could not, however, have been until after Dr. Schmidt’s treatment had proved hopeless. The so-called Fischoff Manuscript, evidently on the authority of Zmeskall himself, gives a more particular account than Schindler of Pater Weiss’s ex[97]perience with his new patient. “Herr v. Zmeskall with great difficulty persuaded Beethoven to go there with him. At first he followed the advice of the physician; but as he had to go to him every day in order to have a fluid dropped into his ear, this grew unpleasant, the more since, in his impatience, he felt little or no improvement; and he remained away. The physician, questioned by Zmeskall, told him the facts, and Zmeskall begged him to accommodate himself to the self-willed invalid, and consult his convenience. The priest, honestly desirous to help Beethoven, went to his lodgings, but his efforts were in vain, inasmuch as Beethoven in a few days refused him entrance, and thus neglected possible help or at least an amelioration of his condition.”

Probably the evil was of such a nature that, with all the resources of our present medical science, it could hardly have been impeded, much less arrested. This is poor consolation, but the best we have. The sufferer now resigned himself to his fate. On a page of twenty-one leaves of sketches to the Rasoumowsky Quartets, Op. 59, stands written in pencil—if correctly deciphered—these words from his hand:

[98]

Chapter VI

A controversy for the possession of the two Court Theatres and that An-der-Wien involved certain legal questions which, in September, 1806, were decided by the proper tribunal against the old directors, who were thus at the end of the year compelled to retire. Peter, Baron von Braun, closed his twelve years’ administration with a circular letter addressed to his recent subordinates, dated December 28, in which, after bidding them an affectionate adieu, he said: “With imperial consent I have turned over the vice-direction of the Royal Imperial Court Theatre to a company composed of the following cavaliers: the Princes Lobkowitz, Schwarzenberg and Esterhazy and the Counts Esterhazy, Lodron, Ferdinand Palffy, Stephen Zichy and Niklas Esterhazy.”

Beethoven naturally saw in this change a most hopeful prospect of an improvement in his own theatrical fortunes, and immediately, acting on a hint from Lobkowitz, addressed to the new directors a petition and proposals for a permanent engagement, with a fixed salary, in their service. The document was as follows:

Neither of these requests was granted directly; one of them only indirectly. Nor is it known that any formal written reply was conveyed to the petitioner. The cause of this has been strangely suggested to lie in an old grudge—the very existence of which is a mere conjecture—cherished against Beethoven by Count Palffy, director of the German Drama. But it is quite needless to go so far for a reason. The composer’s well-known increasing infirmity of hearing, his habits of procrastination, and above all his inability, so often proved, to keep the peace with orchestra and singers—all this was too well known to the new directors, whatever may have been their own personal wishes, to justify the risk of attaching him permanently to an institution for the success of which they were responsible to the Emperor. It is very evident, that they temporized with him. His petition must have been presented at the very beginning of the year; otherwise the grant of a theatre for a concert at the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) would have been useless, for want of time to make the necessary preparations; and an allusion to the “princely rabble” in a letter written in May, proves that no answer had then been given him; and a reference to the matter by the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” near the end of the year shows that at least none had then been made public. So far as is known, the Directors chose to let the matter drop quietly and gave him none; nor did they revive “Fidelio”—for which abundant reasons suggest themselves. But they gave Beethoven ample proof that no motives of personal animosity, no lack of admiration for his talents or appreciation of his genius, governed their decision. Prince Esterhazy ordered the composition of a mass, and immediate preparations were made for the performance of his orchestral works “in a very select circle that contributed a very considerable sum for the benefit of the composer,” as a writer in the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” remarks. These performances took place in March “at the house of Prince L.” according to the “Journal des Luxus.”

Was “Prince L.” Lobkowitz or Lichnowsky? The details above given point decisively to the former. It is true that the paroxysm of wrath, in which Beethoven had so unceremoniously parted from Lichnowsky in the Autumn, had so far subsided[101] that he now granted the Prince the use of his new manuscript overture; but the contemporary notice, from which this fact is derived, is in such terms as of itself to preclude the idea that this performance of it was in one of the two subscription concerts. In these subscription concerts three new works were performed: the Fourth Symphony,[47] in B-flat major, the Fourth Pf. Concerto, in G major, and the “Coriolan” Overture. About the latter something is to be said. The manuscript bears the composer’s own date, 1807. Collin’s tragedy was originally performed November 24, 1802, with “between-acts music” arranged by Abbé Stadler from Mozart’s “Idomeneus.” The next year Lange assumed the leading part with a success of which he justly boasts in his autobiography, and played it so often down to March 5, 1805, as to make the work thoroughly familiar to the theatre-going public. From that date to the end of October, 1809 (how much longer we have no means at hand of knowing), it was played but once—namely, on April 24, 1807. The overture was assuredly not written for that one exceptional performance; for, if so, it would not have been played in March in two different concerts. Nor was it played, April 24th, in the theatre; if it had been, the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung,” writing after its public performance in the Liebhaber Concerts near the end of the year, could not have spoken of it as “a new overture.” It is, therefore, obvious that this work was composed for these subscription concerts. Beethoven had at this time written but[102] three overtures—two to “Fidelio” (one of which was laid aside), and that to “Prometheus,” which had long ceased to be a novelty. He needed a new one. Collin’s tragedy was thoroughly well known and offered a subject splendidly suited to his genius. An overture to it was a compliment to his influential friend, the author, and, if successful, would be a new proof of his talent for dramatic composition—certainly, an important consideration just then, pending his application for a permanent engagement at the theatre. How nobly the character of Coriolanus is mirrored in Beethoven’s music is well enough known; but the admirable adaptation of the overture to the play is duly appreciated by those only, who have read Collin’s almost forgotten work.

The year 1807 was one of the years of Beethoven’s life distinguished by the grandeur and extent of his compositions; and it was probably more to avoid interruption in his labor than on account of ill health, that early in April he removed to Baden. A letter (to Herr von Troxler) in which occur these words: “I am coming to Vienna. I wish very much that you would go with me on Tuesday to Clementi, as I can make myself better understood to foreigners with my notes than by my speech,” seems to introduce a matter of business which called him to the city for a few days.

Clementi, called to Rome by the death of his brother, had arrived in Vienna on his way thither, and embraced the opportunity to acquire the exclusive right of publication in England of various works of Beethoven, whose great reputation, the rapidly growing taste for his music, and the great difficulty of obtaining continental publications in those days of “Napoleonic ideas,” combined to render such a right in that country one of considerable value. Clementi reported the results of the negotiations with Beethoven in a letter to his partner, F. W. Collard, with whom he had been associated in business for five years, which J. S. Shedlock made public in the “Athenæum” of London on August 1, 1902. It runs as follows:

The closing of the contract with Clementi had been preceded by negotiations with Breitkopf and Härtel for the same compositions. On the same day that Clementi wrote to Collard he also wrote a letter to the Leipsic publishers in which he said that he had[104] purchased the right of publication for the British Dominions in consequence of their letter of January 20th, in which they had said that because of the war they had declined Beethoven’s proposition. He also promised to ask Beethoven to treat with them for the German rights. (This fact is already known to the readers from the letters written by Beethoven to Breitkopf and Härtel dated September 3 and November 18, 1806.) Count Gleichenstein witnessed the signing of the contract (which is in French), the substance of which is as follows:

The quartets, in parts, had been lent to Count Franz Brunswick and were still in Hungary, which gave occasion to one of Beethoven’s peculiarly whimsical and humorous epistles:

[105]

To Count Franz von Brunswick:

Dear, dear B! I have only to say to you that I came to a right satisfactory arrangement with Clementi. I shall receive 200 pounds Sterling—and besides I am privileged to sell the same works in Germany and France. He has also offered me other commissions—so that I am enabled to hope through them to achieve the dignity of a true artist while still young. I need, dear B, the Quartets. I have already asked your sister to write to you about them, it takes too long to copy them from my score—therefore make haste and send them direct to me by Letter Post. You shall have them back in 4 or 5 days at the latest. I beg you urgently for them, since otherwise I might lose a great deal.

If you can arrange it that the Hungarians want me to come for a few concerts, do it—you may have me for 200 florins in gold—then I will bring my opera along. I will not get along with the princely rabble.

Whenever WE (several) (amici) drink your wine, we drink you, i. e., we drink your health. Farewell—hurry—hurry—hurry and send me the quartets—otherwise you may embarrass me greatly.

Schuppanzigh has married—it is said with One very like him. What a family????

Kiss your sister Therese, tell her I fear I shall become great without the help of a monument reared by her. Send me to-morrow the quartets—quar-tets—t-e-t-s.

Your friend Beethoven.[50]

If an English publisher could afford to pay so high a price for the manuscripts of a German composer, why not a French one? So Beethoven reasoned, and, Bonn being then French, he wrote to Simrock proposing a contract like that made with Clementi. The letter, which was dictated and signed by Beethoven but written by another, expresses a desire to sell six new works to a publishing house in France, one in England and one in Vienna simultaneously, with the understanding that they are to appear only after a certain date. They are a symphony, an overture for Collin’s “Coriolan,” a violin concerto, 3 quartets, 1 concerto for the pianoforte, the violin concerto arranged for pianoforte “avec des notes additionelles.” The price, “very cheap,” is to be 1200[106] florins, Augsburg current. As regards the day of publication, he thinks he can fix the first of September of that year for the first three, and the first of October for the second three.

Simrock answered that owing to unfavorable circumstances due to the war, all he could offer, in his “lean condition,” was 1600 livres. He also proposed that in case Beethoven found his offer fair, he should send the works without delay to Breuning. Simrock would at once pay Breuning 300 livres in cash and give him a bill of exchange for 1300 livres, payable in two years, provided nobody reprinted any of his works in France, he taking all measures to protect his property under the laws.

A series of letters written from Baden and bearing dates in June and July, addressed to Gleichenstein, are of no special interest or importance except as they, when read together, establish beyond cavil that Beethoven made no journey to any distant watering-place during the time which they cover. By proving this they have a powerful bearing on the vexed question touching the true date of Beethoven’s famous love-letter supposed by Schindler to have been addressed to the young Countess Guicciardi. That it was written in 1806 or 1807 was long since made certain; and it was only in a mistaken deference to Beethoven’s “Evening, Monday, July 6”—which, if correct, would be decisive in favor of the latter year—that the letter was not inserted in its proper place as belonging to the year 1806. That this deference was a mistake, and that Beethoven should have written “July 7,” is made certain by Simrock’s letter, which, by determining the dates of the notes to Gleichenstein, affords positive evidence that the composer passed the months of June and July, 1807, in Baden. A cursory examination of the composer’s correspondence brings to light other similar mistakes. There is a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel with this date, “Wednesday, November 2, 1809”—Wednesday was the 1st; a letter to Countess Erdödy has “29 February, 1815”—in that year February had but 28 days; and a letter to Zmeskall is dated “Wednesday, July 3rd, 1817”—July 3rd that year falling on a Thursday. Referring the reader to what has appeared in a previous chapter, for the letter and a complete discussion of the question of its date, it need only be added here, that it was, beyond a doubt, written from some Hungarian watering-place (as Schindler says), where Beethoven tarried for a time after his visit to Brunswick and before that to Prince Lichnowsky. This fact being established, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that it was not written to Julia Guicciardi—already nearly three years the wife of Gallenberg—nor to Therese Malfatti—then a[107] girl but thirteen or at most fourteen years—nor, in short, to any person whose name has ever been given by biographer or novelist as among the objects of Beethoven’s fleeting passions. Thus we are led to the obvious and rational conclusion, that a mutual appreciation had grown up between the composer and some lady not yet known; that there were obstacles to marriage just now insuperable, but not of such a nature as to forbid the expectation of conquering them in the future; and that—in 1807 as in 1806—they were happy in their love and looking forward with hope.[51]

The following letter to Prince Esterhazy, dated July 26, belongs to the same period and refers to the composition of the Mass in C:

Most Serene, most Gracious Prince!

Having been told that you, my Prince, have asked concerning the mass which you commissioned me to write for you, I take the liberty, my Serene Prince, to inform you that you shall receive the same at the latest by the 20th of the month of August—which will leave plenty of time to have it performed on the name-day of her Serene Highness, the Princess—an extraordinarily favorable offer which I received from London when I had the misfortune to make a failure of my benefit at the theatre, which made me grasp the need with joy, retarded the completion of the mass, much as I wished, Serene Prince, to appear with it before you, and to this was added an illness of the head, which at first permitted me to work not at all and now but little; since everything is so eagerly interpreted against me, I inclose a letter from my physician—may I add that I shall give the mass into your hands with great fear since you, Serene Highness, are accustomed to have the inimitable masterpieces of the great Haydn performed for you.

Composition of the Mass in C

At the end of July, Beethoven removed from Baden to Heiligenstadt, devoting his time there to the C minor Symphony and the Mass in C. One of Czerny’s notes relates to the mass:

Once when he (Beethoven) was walking in the country with the Countess Erdödy and other ladies, they heard some village musicians and laughed at some false notes which they played, especially the violoncellist, who, fumbling for the C major chord, produced something like the following:

Beethoven used this figure for the “Credo” of his first mass, which he chanced to be composing at the time.

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The name-day of Princess Esterhazy, née Princess Marie von Liechtenstein, for which Beethoven promises in the letter above given to have the Mass ready, was the 8th of September. In the years when this date did not fall upon a Sunday it was the custom at Eisenstadt to celebrate it on the first Sunday following. In 1807 the 8th fell on a Tuesday and the first performance of Beethoven’s Mass, therefore, took place on the 13th. Haydn, as Pohl informs us, had written his masses for this day and had gone to Eisenstadt from Vienna to conduct their performance. So Beethoven now; who seems to have had his troubles with the singers here as in Vienna, if one may found such an opinion upon an energetic note of Prince Esterhazy copied and printed by Pohl. In this note, which is dated September 12, 1807, the Prince calls upon his vice-chapelmaster, Johann Fuchs, to explain why the singers in his employ were not always on hand at his musical affairs. He had heard on that day with displeasure that at the rehearsal of Beethoven’s Mass only one of the five contraltos was present, and he stringently commanded all the singers and instrumentalists in his service to be on hand at the performance of the mass on the following day.

Ill Feeling between Beethoven and Hummel

The Mass was produced on the next day—the 13th. “It was the custom at this court,” says Schindler,

that after the religious service the local as well as foreign musical notabilities met in the chambers of the Prince for the purpose of conversing with him about the works which had been performed. When Beethoven entered the room, the Prince turned to him with the question: “But, my dear Beethoven, what is this that you have done again?” The impression made by this singular question, which was probably followed by other critical remarks, was the more painful on our artist because he saw the chapelmaster standing near the Prince laugh. Thinking that he was being ridiculed, nothing could keep him at the place where his work had been so misunderstood and besides, as he thought, where a brother in art had rejoiced over his discomfiture. He left Eisenstadt the same day.

The laughing chapelmaster was J. N. Hummel, who had been called to the post in 1804 in place of Haydn, recently pensioned because of his infirmities, due to old age. Schindler continues:

Thence dates the falling-out with Hummel, between whom and Beethoven there never existed a real intimate friendship. Unfortunately they never came to an explanation which might have disclosed that the unlucky laugh was not directed at Beethoven, but at the singular manner in which the Prince had criticized the mass (in which there is still much that might be complained of). But there were other things which fed the hate of Beethoven. One of these was that the two had an inclination for the same girl; the other, the tendency which Hummel had first[109] introduced not only in pianoforte playing but also composition.... Not until the last days of Beethoven, post tot discrimina rerum, was the cloud which had settled between the two artists dispelled.

In the earlier editions of his book, Schindler gives a still gloomier tinge to the story:

His hatred of Hummel because of this (the laugh after the mass) was so deeply rooted that I know of no second one like it in his entire history. After the lapse of 14 years he told me the story with a bitterness as if it had happened the day before. But this dark cloud was dissipated by the strength of his spirit, and this would have happened much earlier had Hummel approached him in a friendly manner instead of always holding himself aloof.

That Schindler heard Beethoven speak of the occurrence in Eisenstadt, fourteen years thereafter, with “great bitterness” is not to be doubted; but this does not prove the existence of so lasting and deep a hatred towards Hummel as is asserted. That he was dissatisfied with Hummel’s later course as pianist and composer is most probable, and hardly needs Schindler’s testimony; but it is not so with other statements of his; and facts have come to light since his book appeared (1840) which he could not well have known, but which leave little doubt that he was greatly mistaken in his view of the relations between the two men. That something very like an “intimate friendship” had characterized their intercourse, the reader already knows; and that, three or four years later, they were again friendly, if not intimate, will in due time appear. As to the girl whom both loved, but who favored Hummel, if Schindler refers to the sister of Röckel—afterwards the wife of Hummel—it is known from Röckel himself that there is nothing in the story. If, on the other hand, he had in mind a ludicrous anecdote—not quite fit to be printed—the “wife of a citizen,” who plays the third rôle in the comedy, was not of such a character as to cause any lasting ill blood between the rivals for her passing favor.

In short, while we accept the Eisenstadt anecdote, as being originally derived from Beethoven himself, we must view all that Schindler adds in connection with it with a certain amount of distrust and doubt—if not reject it altogether—as a new illustration of his proneness to accept without examination old impressions for established facts.

This year is remarkable not only in Beethoven’s life, but in the history of music, as that in which was completed the C minor Symphony. This wondrous work was no sudden inspiration. Themes for the Allegro, Andante and Scherzo are found in sketchbooks belonging, at the very latest, to the years 1800 and 1801.[110] There are studies also preserved, which show that Beethoven wrought upon it while engaged on “Fidelio” and the Pianoforte Concerto in G—that is, in 1804-6, when, as before noted, he laid it aside for the composition of the fourth, in B-flat major. That is all that is known of the rise and progress of this famous symphony, except that it was completed this year in the composer’s favorite haunts about Heiligenstadt.[52]

In the “Journal des Luxus” of January, 1808, there appeared a letter in which it was stated that “Beethoven’s opera ‘Fidelio,’ which despite all contradictory reports has extraordinary beauties, is to be performed in Prague in the near future with a new overture.” The composer was also said to have “already begun a second mass.” Of this mass we hear nothing more, but there was a foundation of fact in the other item of news. Guardasoni had for some time kept alive the Italian opera in Prague, only because his contract required it. It had sunk so low in the esteem of the public, that performances were actually given to audiences of less than twenty persons in the parterre—the boxes and galleries being empty in proportion. That manager died early in 1806, and the Bohemian States immediately raised Carl Liebich from his position of stage-manager of the German drama to that of General Director, with instructions to dismiss the Italian and engage a German operatic company. Such a change required time; and not until April 24th, 1807, did the Italians make their last appearance, selecting for the occasion Mozart’s “Clemenza di Tito”—originally composed for that stage. On the 2d of May the new German opera opened with Cherubini’s “Faniska.”

Beethoven, in view of his relations to the Bohemian nobles, naturally expected, and seems to have had the promise, that his “Fidelio” should be brought out there as well as its rival, and, as Seyfried expresses it, “planned a new and less difficult overture for the Prague theatre.” This was the composition published in 1832 with the title: “Overture in C, composed in the year 1805, for the opera ‘Leonore’ by Ludwig van Beethoven”—an erroneous[111] date, which continued current and unchallenged for nearly forty years. Schindler’s story—that it was tried at Prince Lichnowsky’s and laid aside as inadequate to the subject—was therefore based on misinformation; but that it was played either at Lichnowsky’s or Lobkowitz’s is very probable, and, if so, it may well have made but a tame and feeble impression on auditors who had heard the glorious “Leonore” Overture the year before. A tragical and lamentable consequence of establishing the true date of Op. 138—of the discovery that the supposed No. I is really No. III of the “Leonore-Fidelio” overtures—is this; that so much eloquent dissertation on the astonishing development of Beethoven’s powers as exhibited in his progress from No. I to No. III, has lost its basis, and all the fine writing on this topic is, at a blow, made ridiculous and absurd! As to the performance of “Fidelio” at Prague, Beethoven was disappointed. It was not given. Another paragraph from the “Journal des Luxus, etc.” (November, 1806) gives the only satisfactory notice, known to us, of the origin of one of Beethoven’s minor but well-known compositions.

“In Questa Tomba Oscura”

A bit of musical pleasantry (says the journal last mentioned) recently gave rise to a competition amongst a number of famous composers. Countess Rzewuska[53] improvised an aria at the pianoforte; the poet Carpani at once improvised a text for it. He imagined a lover who had died of grief because of the indifference of his ladylove; she, repenting of her hard-heartedness, bedews the grave; and now the shade calls to her:

In questa tomba oscura
Lasciami riposar;
Quando viveva, ingrata,
Dovevi a me pensar.

Lascia che l’ombra ignude
Godansi pace almen,
E non bagnar mie ceneri
D’inutile velen.

These words have been set by Paër, Salieri, Weigl, Zingarelli, Cherubini, Asioli and other great masters and amateurs. Zingarelli alone provided ten compositions of them; in all about fifty have been collected and the poet purposes to give them to the public in a volume.

The number of the compositions was increased to sixty-three, and they were published in 1808, the last (No. 63) being by Beethoven. This was by no means considered the best at the time, although it alone now survives.

The Publications of the Year 1807

Though disappointed in December, as he had been in March, in the hope of obtaining the use of a theatre for a concert,[112] Beethoven was not thereby prevented from coming prominently before the public as composer and director. It was on this wise: The want of better opportunities to hear good symphony music well performed, than Schuppanzigh’s Concerts—which were also confined to the summer months—and the occasional hastily arranged “Academies” of composers and virtuosos, afforded, induced a number of music-lovers early in the winter to form an institute under the modest title: “Concert of Music-Lovers” (Liebhaber-Concert). Says the “Wiener Vaterländische Blätter” of May 27, 1808: “An orchestra was organized, whose members were chosen from the best of the local music-lovers (dilettanti). A few wind-instruments only—French horns, trumpets, etc., were drafted from the Vienna theatres.... The audiences were composed exclusively of the nobility of the town and foreigners of note, and among these classes the preference was given to the cognoscenti and amateurs.” The hall “zur Mehlgrube,” which was first engaged, proved to be too small, and the concerts were transferred to the hall of the University, where “in twenty meetings symphonies, overtures, concertos and vocal pieces were performed zealously and affectionately and received with general approval.” “Banker Häring was a director in the earlier concerts but gave way to Clement ‘because of disagreements.’” The works of Beethoven reported as having been performed in these concerts, are the Symphony in D (in the first concert), the overture to “Prometheus” in November, the “Eroica” Symphony and “Coriolan” Overture in December, and about New Year the Fourth Symphony in B-flat, which also on the 15th of November had been played in the Burgtheater at a concert for the public charities. Most, if not all of these works were directed by their composer. The works ascertained as belonging to this year are: (1) The transcription of the Violin Concerto for Pianoforte, made (as Clementi’s letter to Collard says) at Clementi’s request; (2) the overture to “Coriolan”; (3) the Mass in C;[54] (4) the so-called “Leonore” Overture, No. 1, published[113] as Op. 138; (5) the Symphony in C minor; (6) the Arietta, “In questa tomba.” The original publications of the year were few, viz., (1) “LIV^e Sonata” for Pianoforte, Op. 57, dedicated to Count Brunswick, advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” of February 18, by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir; (2) Thirty-two Variations in C minor, advertised by the same firm on April 29; (3) Concerto concertant for Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, Op. 56, dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” on July 1.

The following advertisements are evidence of the great and increasing popularity of Beethoven’s name: On March 21, Traeg announces 12 Écossaises and 12 Waltzes for two violins and bass (2 flutes, 2 horns ad lib.); also for pianoforte; other works are being arranged; on April 20, the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir announces an arrangement of the “Eroica” Symphony for pianoforte, violin, viola and violoncello; on May 27 (Artaria), a Sonata for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 64, transcribed from Op. 3; on June 13 (Traeg), the Symphony in D major arranged by Ries as a Quintet with double-bass, flute, 2 horns ad lib.; on September 12 (the Chemical Printing Works), a Polonaise, Op. 8, for two violins and for violin and guitar.

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Chapter VII

The Year 1808—Beethoven’s Brother Johann—Plans for New Operas—The “Pastoral Symphony” and “Choral Fantasia”—A Call to Cassel—Appreciation in Vienna.

Slanders against Johann van Beethoven

The history of the year 1808 must be preceded by the following letter to Gleichenstein:

Dear good Gleichenstein:

Please be so kind as to give this to the copyist to-morrow—it concerns the symphony as you see—in case he is not through with the quartet to-morrow, take it away and deliver it at the Industriecomptoir.... You may say to my brother that I shall certainly not write to him again. I know the cause, it is this, because he has lent me money and spent some on my account he is already concerned, I know my brothers, since I cannot yet pay it back to him, and the other probably who is filled with the spirit of revenge against me and him too—it were best if I were to collect the whole 1500 florins (from the Industriecomptoir) and pay him with it, then the matter will be at an end—heaven forefend that I should be obliged to receive benefactions from my brothers.[55]

Beethoven.

Of all the known letters of Beethoven, perhaps no one is so much to be regretted as this, written near the end of 1807, just when the contracts with the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir, and Simrock—he had received nothing as yet on the Clementi contract—made his pecuniary resources abundant, doubtless increased by a handsome honorarium out of the receipts of the Liebhaber Concerts. True, the letter was intended for Gleichenstein’s eye alone; still it is sad to know that even in a moment of spleen or anger and in the privacy of intimate friendship, the great master could[115] so far forget his own dignity, and write thus abusively of his brother Johann, whose claim was just and whose future career was dependent upon its payment at this time.

The case, in few words, was this:—Eleonore Ordley, sole heir of her sister, Theresia Tiller, was, in the autumn of 1807, seeking a purchaser for the house and “registered apothecary shop” which, until 1872, still existed directly between the market-place and the bridge at Linz on the Danube, and was willing to dispose of them on such terms of payment, as to render it possible even for Johann van Beethoven with his slender means to become their owner. “I know my brothers,” writes Beethoven. His brothers also knew him; and Johann had every reason to fear that if he did not secure his debt now when his brother’s means were abundant, he might at the crisis of his negotiation find himself penniless. His demand was too just to be resisted and Gleichenstein evidently drew the money from the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir and paid it; for on the 13th of March, 1808, the contract of sale was signed at Vienna. By the terms of the contract which fixed the price at 25,000 florins, the vendee agreed to assume incumbrances on the property amounting to 12,600 florins, pay 10,400 florins in cash and 5% interest on 2,000 florins to the vendor during her life, and to be in Linz and take possession of the property on or before March 20, i. e., within a week after the signing of the contract.

The expenses incurred in the negotiations, in his journey to Linz, and in taking possession, left the indigent purchaser barely funds sufficient to make his first payment and ratify the contract; in fact, he had only 300 florins left. The profits of his shop and the rents of his house were so small, that Johann was almost at his wit’s end how to meet his next engagements. He sold the iron gratings of the windows—but they produced too little to carry him through. It was a comical piece of good luck for him that the jars and pots upon his shelves were of pure, solid English tin—a metal which Napoleon’s non-intercourse decrees fulminated against England had just then raised enormously in price. The cunning apothecary sold his tin, furnished his shop with earthenware, and met his payments with the profits of the transaction. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good; the reverses of the Austrian arms in April, 1809, opened the road for the French armies to Linz, and gave Apothecary Beethoven an opportunity to make large contracts for the supply of medicines to the enemy’s commissariat, which not only relieved him in his present necessities but laid the foundation for his subsequent moderate fortune.

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This concise record of facts effectually disposes of the current errors, which are, first: that about 1802-3 Beethoven established his brother in Linz as apothecary, advancing to him the necessary capital; second: that, through his personal influence, he obtained for Johann profitable contracts with the Austrian Commissariat for medicines—which contracts were the basis of his subsequent prosperity; third: that consequently, in obtaining monies from his brother, Beethoven was only sharing in the profits on capital furnished by himself; and, fourth: that hence, Johann’s urgent request for payment in 1807 was an exhibition of vile selfishness and base ingratitude! All this is the exact reverse of the truth.

No other performances of Beethoven’s works at the Liebhaber Concerts, than those before enumerated, are reported; perhaps none were given, for reasons indicated in a letter from Stephan von Breuning to Wegeler, written in March, 1808: “Beethoven came near losing a finger by a Panaritium [felon], but he is again in good health. He escaped a great misfortune, which, added to his deafness, would have completely ruined his good humor, which, as it is, is of rare occurrence.”

The series of concerts closed with the famous one of March 27th, at which in honor of Haydn, whose 76th birthday fell on the 31st, his “Creation” with Carpani’s Italian text was given. It is pleasant to know that Beethoven was one of those who, “with members of the high nobility,” stood at the door of the hall of the university to receive the venerable guest on his arrival there in Prince Esterhazy’s coach, and who accompanied him as “sitting in an armchair he was carried, lifted high, and on his entrance into the hall was received with the sound of trumpets and drums by the numerous gathering and greeted with joyous shouts of ‘Long live Haydn!’”

Some pains have been taken in other chapters to show that the want of taste and appreciation so often alleged for the works of Beethoven at Vienna is a mistake. On the contrary, generally in the concerts of those years, whenever an orchestra equal to the task was engaged, few as his published orchestral compositions then were, they are as often to be found on the programmes as those of Mozart or even Haydn; none were more likely to fill the house. Thus, immediately after the close of the Liebhaber Concerts, Sebastian Meier’s annual benefit in the Theater-an-der-Wien opened with the “Sinfonia Eroica.” This was on Monday evening, April 11. Two days after (13th) the Charity Institute’s Concert in the Burg Theatre offered a programme of six numbers; No. 1 was Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony in B-flat; No. 5, one of[117] his Pianoforte Concertos, played by Friedrich Stein; and No. 6, the “Coriolan” Overture—all directed by the composer; and, at a benefit concert in May, in the Augartensaal, occurred the first known public performance of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56.

Rust’s Meetings with the Composer

The once famous musical wonder-child, Wilhelm Rust, of Dessau, at the time a young man of some twenty-two years, had come to Vienna in 1807, and was now supporting himself by giving “children instructions in reading and elementary natural science.” In a letter to his “best sister, Jette,” dated Haking (a village near Vienna), July 9, 1808, he wrote of Beethoven.

You want much to hear something about Beethoven; unfortunately I must say first of all that it has not been possible for me to get intimately acquainted with him. What else I know I will tell you now: He is as original and singular as a man as are his compositions. On the other hand he is also very childlike and certainly very sincere. He is a great lover of truth and in this goes too far very often; for he never flatters and therefore makes many enemies. A good fellow played for him, and when he was finished Beethoven said to him: “You will have to play a long time before you will realize that you can do nothing.” I do not know whether you heard that I also played for him. He praised my playing, particularly in the Bach fugue, and said: “You play that well,” which is much for him. Still he could not omit calling my attention to two mistakes. In a Scherzo I had not played the notes crisply enough and at another time I had struck one note twice instead of binding it. He must be unable to endure the French; for once when Prince Lichnowsky had some French guests, he asked Beethoven, who was also with him, to play for them as they had requested; but he refused and said he would not play for Frenchmen. In consequence he and Lichnowsky had a falling out.[56]

Once I met him at a restaurant where he sat with a few acquaintances. He berated Vienna soundly and the decay of its music. In this he is certainly right, and I was glad to hear his judgment, which confirmed mine. Last winter I frequently attended the Liebhaber Concerts, the first of which under Beethoven’s direction were very beautiful; but after he retired they became so poor that there was not one in which something was not bungled....

It is very possible that Beethoven will leave Vienna; at any rate he has frequently spoken of doing so and said: “They are forcing me to it.” He also asked me once how the orchestras were in the North. You wanted to know if any new sonatas by him have been published. His last works were symphonies and he is now writing an opera, which is the reason why I cannot go to him any more. Last year he composed a piece which I have not heard and an overture “Coriolan” which is extraordinarily beautiful. Perhaps you have had an opportunity to hear it in Berlin. The theme and variations in C minor which you refer to I also have; it is very beautiful, etc.

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In December Rust, writing to his brother Carl, was obliged to correct what he had said about Beethoven’s new opera; “All new products which have appeared here are more or less mediocre except those of Beethoven. I think I have written you that he has not yet begun his new opera. I have not yet heard his first opera; it has not been performed since I have been here.” These last sentences of Rust remind us of the once current notion that disgust and disappointment at the (assumed) failure of “Fidelio” prevented Beethoven from ever undertaking the composition of another opera. The error was long since exploded, and, indeed, amply refuted by his proposition to the “princely theatre rabble” for a permanent engagement. It is now universally known how earnestly Beethoven all his life long sought a satisfactory text for an opera or an oratorio; his friends always knew it; and his essays in vocal composition had, in spite of the critics, so favorably impressed them and the dramatic writers of the day, that all were eager to serve him.

Thus Schindler writes to Gleichenstein from Gratz, on March 19, 1807: “Speak at once to our friend Beethoven and particularly with the worthy Breuning, and learn if Beethoven has a mind to set a comic opera to music. I have read it, and found it varied in situation, beautiful in diction.” Nothing came of this.

A somewhat more promising offer came from another quarter, but also without result. The celebrated Orientalist, Hammer-Purgstall, had just returned from the East to Vienna. Although but thirty-three years of age, he was already famous, and his translations and other writings were the talk of the day. An autograph note by Beethoven without address or date, preserved in the Petter Collection, was evidently written to him:

Almost put to shame by your courtesy and kindness in communicating your still unknown literary treasures in manuscript, I thank you heartily while returning the opera texts; overwhelmed in my artistic calling it is impossible for me just now to go into details about the Indian opera particularly, as soon as time permits I shall visit you in order to discuss this subject as well as the oratorio, “The Deluge,” with you.

No oratorio on the subject of the deluge appears in the catalogue of Hammer-Purgstall’s works.[57]

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An Operatic “Macbeth” in Contemplation

The new directors of the theatres began their operatic performances at the Kärnthnerthor January 1 and 2, and at the Burg January 4, 1807, with Gluck’s “Iphigenia in Tauris.” It was new to Collin and awakened in his mind new ideas of the ancient tragedy, which he determined to embody in a text for a musical drama in oratorio form. According to his biographer, Laban, he projected one on the Liberation of Jerusalem, to offer to Beethoven for setting; but it was never finished. Another essay in the field of musical drama was a “Macbeth,” after Shakespeare, also left unfinished in the middle of the second act, “because it threatened to become too gloomy.” He carried to completion a grand opera libretto, “Bradamante,” for which he had an unusual predilection. It also was offered to Beethoven, but “seemed too venturesome” to him in respect of its use of the supernatural; there were probably other reasons why it did not appeal to him. “And so it happened that although at a later period Beethoven wanted to undertake its composition, Collin gave the book to Reichardt, who set it to music during his sojourn in Vienna in 1808.”

A writer in Cotta’s “Morgenblatt” remarks: “The clever Beethoven has a notion to compose Goethe’s ‘Faust’ as soon as he has found somebody who will adapt it for the stage for him.” Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 225 et seq.) says that the first act of Collin’s “Macbeth” was printed in 1809 and must have been written in 1808 at the latest. He also prints a sketch showing that Beethoven had begun its composition. The “Macbeth” project therefore preceded the negotiations about “Bradamante.” Collin’s opera begins, like Shakespeare’s, with the witches’ scene, and the sketch referred to is preceded by the directions: “Overture Macbeth falls immediately into the chorus of witches.”[58]

The consequence of Beethoven’s fastidiousness and indecision was that on removing again to Heiligenstadt for the summer, he had no text for a vocal composition and devoted his time and energies to an instrumental composition—the “Sinfonia Pastorale.”

Those who think programme music for the orchestra is a recent invention, and they who suppose the “Pastoral” Symphony to be an original attempt to portray nature in music, are alike mistaken. It was never so much the ambition of Beethoven to invent new forms of musical works, as to surpass his contemporaries in the use of those already existing. There were few great[120] battles in those stormy years, that were not fought over again by orchestras, military bands, organs and pianofortes; and pages might be filled with a catalogue of programme music, long since dead, buried and forgotten.

A remark of Ries, confirmed by other testimony, as well as by the form and substance of many of his master’s works, if already quoted, will bear repetition: “Beethoven in composing his pieces often thought of a particular thing, although he frequently laughed at musical paintings and scolded particularly about trivialities of this sort. Haydn’s ‘Creation’ and ‘The Seasons’ were frequently ridiculed, though Beethoven never failed to recognize Haydn’s high deserts,” etc. But Beethoven himself did not disdain occasionally to introduce imitations into his works. The difference between him and others in this regard was this: they undertook to give musical imitations of things essentially unmusical—he never.

On a bright, sunny day in April, 1823, Beethoven took Schindler for a long ramble through the scenes in which he had composed his Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Schindler writes:

After we had looked at the bath-house and its adjacent garden at Heiligenstadt and he had given expression to many agreeable recollections touching his creations, we continued our walk towards the Kahlenberg in the direction past Grinzing [?]. Passing through the pleasant meadow-valley between Heiligenstadt and the latter village,[59] which is traversed by a gently murmuring brook which hurries down from a near-by mountain and is bordered with high elms, Beethoven repeatedly stopped and let his glances roam, full of happiness, over the glorious landscape. Then seating himself on the turf and leaning against an elm, Beethoven asked me if there were any yellowhammers to be heard in the trees around us. But all was still. He then said: “Here I composed the ‘Scene by the Brook’ and the yellowhammers up there, the quails, nightingales and cuckoos round about, composed with me.” To my question why he had not also put the yellowhammers into the scene, he drew out his sketchbook and wrote:

“That’s the composer up there,” he remarked, “hasn’t she a more important rôle to play than the others? They are meant only for a joke.”[121] And really the entrance of this figure in G major gives the tone-picture a new charm. Speaking now of the whole work and its parts, Beethoven said that the melody of this variation from the species of the yellowhammers was pretty plainly imitated in the scale written down in Andante rhythm and the same pitch.[60] As a reason for not having mentioned this fellow-composer he said that had he printed the name it would only have served to increase the number of ill-natured interpretations of the movement which has made the introduction of the work difficult not only in Vienna but also in other places. Not infrequently the symphony, because of its second movement, had been declared to be child’s play. In some places it shared the fate of the “Eroica.”

Jokes in the “Pastoral Symphony”

Equally interesting, valuable and grateful is Schindler’s account of the origin of Beethoven’s “Merrymaking of the Countryfolk” in this symphony. Somewhat curtailed it is this:

There are facts to tell us of how particular was the interest which Beethoven took in Austrian dance-music. Until his arrival in Vienna (1792), according to his own statement, he had not become acquainted with any folkmusic except that of the mountains, with its strange and peculiar rhythms. How much attention he afterwards bestowed on dance-music is proved by the catalogue of his works. He even made essays in Austrian dance-music, but the players refused to grant Austrian citizenship to these efforts. The last effort dates from 1819 and, strangely enough, falls in the middle of his work on the “Missa Solemnis.” In the tavern “To the Three Ravens” in the vordern Brühl near Mödling there had played a band of seven men. This band was one of the first that gave the young musician from the Rhine an opportunity to hear the national tunes of his new home in an unadulterated form. Beethoven made the acquaintance of the musicians and composed several sets of Ländler and other dances for them. In the year mentioned (1819), he had again complied with the wishes of the band. I was present when the new opus was handed to the leader of the company. The master in high good humor remarked that he had so arranged the dances that one musician after the other might put down his instrument at intervals and take a rest, or even a nap. After the leader had gone away full of joy because of the present of the famous composer, Beethoven asked me if I had not observed how village musicians often played in their sleep, occasionally letting their instruments fall and remaining entirely quiet, then awaking with a start, throwing in a few vigorous blows or strokes at a venture, but generally in the right key, and then falling asleep again; he had tried to copy these poor people in his “Pastoral” symphony. Now, reader, take up the score and see the arrangement on pages 106, 107, 108 and 109. Note the stereotyped accompaniment figure of the two violins on page 105 and the following; note the sleep-drunken second[122] bassoon[61] with his repetition of a few tones, while contra-bass, violoncello and viola keep quiet; on page 108 we see the viola wake up and apparently awaken the violoncello—and the second horn also sounds three notes, but at once sinks into silence again. At length contra-bass and the two bassoons gather themselves together for a new effort and the clarinet has time to take a rest. Moreover, the Allegro in 2-4 time on page 110 is based in form and character on the old-time Austrian dances. There were dances in which 3-4 time gave way suddenly to 2-4. As late as the third decade of the nineteenth century I myself saw such dances executed in forest villages only a few hours distant from the metropolis—Laab, Kaltenleutgeben and Gaden.

The subject of Beethoven’s imitations, even in play, are therefore musical, not incongruous; and in his “Portrait musical de la Nature” are so suggestive as to aid and intensify the “expression of feelings,” which was his professed aim.

Count Oppersdorff and the Fourth Symphony

Beethoven wrote to Count Oppersdorff on November 1:

You will view me in a false light, but necessity compelled me to sell the symphony which was written for you and also another to someone else—but be assured that you shall soon receive the one intended for you soon.... I live right under Prince Lichnowsky, in case you ever make me a visit in Vienna, at Countess Erdödy’s. My circumstances are improving—without the help of persons who wish to treat their friends with a threshing. I have also been called to be Chapelmaster to the King of Westphalia, and it is easily possible that I shall accept the call.

Such an apology for not having dedicated the promised Symphony to Oppersdorff, and the promise soon to supply its place with another, are ample testimony that the relations between the composer and that nobleman were of a character well worth the trouble of investigation by any one who has the opportunity to make it. Whatever information can be obtained upon this matter will be new.[62]

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The allusion in the above letter to Lichnowsky’s lodging renders it certain that the Prince had made no recent change. Now Carl Czerny writes to Ferdinand Luib (May 28, 1852): “About 1804, he (Beethoven) already lived on the Mölkerbastei in the vicinity of Prince Lichnowsky, who lived in the house (now demolished) over the Schottenthor. In the years 1806-7-8-9, he certainly lived on the Mölkerbastei with Pasqualati, and, as I believe, for a time hard by. It is thus ascertained, that, on returning from Heiligenstadt at the close of the summer, 1808, Beethoven left the rooms which he had now occupied for four years, for others in the house (now demolished) over the Schottenthor.” In his words: “persons who wish to treat their friends with a[124] threshing,” he doubtless refers to Lichnowsky. Now, it is hardly conceivable that he should have taken up his abode in the very house in part occupied by the Prince, unless at the time they had been, ostensibly at least, on amicable terms. It has been seen that the old quarrel of 1806 was so far made up, as to admit of the loan by the composer to Lichnowsky of the “Coriolan” overture in manuscript. There must have been, therefore, some new and very recent outbreak between them. But here again, doubtless through the good offices of the motherly Princess Christine, all difficulties between them were soon adjusted.

The circumstance that the composer’s new apartments were in the lodging of Count Peter Erdödy strongly suggests the probability that his great intimacy with the Countess dates from the time when he became her near neighbor upon his moving into the Pasqualati house four years before.

The close of the letter to Oppersdorff contains the earliest discovered allusion to one of the most singular events in Beethoven’s life. In the autumn of 1807, Jerome Bonaparte, the Corsican lawyer’s youngest son, who had spent his boyhood and youth mostly at sea, and had not yet completed his 23d year, found himself at Cassel, bearing the pompous title of “King of Westphalia.” What could have induced this half-educated, frivolous, prodigal and effeminate young satrap and sybarite to sanction an invitation to his court of the composer most distinguished since Handel for his masculine vigor and manly independence in his art, is one of those small mysteries which seem impenetrable. The precise time when, and by what agency this call was communicated to Beethoven are alike unknown; we only know that before the first of November, 1808, “Beethoven received the same through the High Chamberlain of the King of Westphalia, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, that it was to the office of first Chapelmaster”; and that it led to events, which will be noticed hereafter. The lists of “Arrivals in Vienna” during this season contain the names of several old and new friends of Beethoven, the dates of whose arrival avail in some instances to correct certain current errors. The following seem worth copying:

June 1, Joseph Linke, musician, from Breslau; June 23, Count von Brunswick, comes from Pressburg; July 2, Dominik Dragonetti, musician, from Venice [London], comes from Trieste; July 10, Alexander Macco, painter of Anspach, comes from Munich; July 11, Count Rasoumowsky, comes from Carlsbad; August 27, Herr Ferdinand Ries, musical composer of Bonn; Nov. 24, Joh. Fried. Reichardt, Chapelmaster of Hesse-Cassel.

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Founding of the Rasoumowsky Quartet

In the carefully considered “Übersicht des gegenwärtigen Zustandes der Tonkunst in Wien” of the “Vaterländische Blätter” for May 27 and 31, 1808, it is noted that the violinists Anton Wranitzky and Herr Volta are “in the service of Prince Lobkowitz; Herr Schlesinger in that of the Graf Erdödy; Herr Schmidgen of Count Armadé; Breimann of Esterhazy”; and the like of various performers on other instruments. But no such note follows the name of Schuppanzigh, “who is particularly distinguished among quartet players and probably stands alone as a performer of Beethoven’s compositions.” Nor do the names of Weiss and Linke appear in the article. This of itself is perhaps enough to expose the mistake as to the time when the famous Rasoumowsky Quartet was founded, and to correct the erroneous conclusions drawn from it. But the date of Linke’s arrival in Vienna is proof positive.

Rasoumowsky lived in his new palace on the Donau Canal, into which he had very recently removed from the Wallzeil and in which he had put his domestic establishment on a footing of great splendor. It suited his taste to have the first string quartet of Europe in his service. His own skill rendered him amply competent to play the second violin, which he usually did; but the young Mayseder, or some other of the first violinists of the city, was ever ready to take his part when required. Three permanent engagements only were, therefore, necessary, and these now, in late summer or early autumn, 1808, were made. To Schuppanzigh—then the first of quartet players, but still without any permanent engagement—was given the appointment for life of violino primo, and to him was entrusted the selection of the others. He recommended Weiss for the viola, whom Rasoumowsky accepted and to whom, for himself and family, he granted a suitable lodging in one of the houses connected with the palace.

Schuppanzigh had been so favorably impressed with the talents and skill of Linke as to secure him the place of violoncellist. He was a young man of 25 years—slightly deformed in person—an orphan from his childhood.

As before stated, Förster was the Count’s instructor in musical theory, the accomplished Bigot was librarian and his talented wife pianist. These were the years (1808-1815) when, says Seyfried, “as is known Beethoven was, as it were, cock of the walk in the princely establishment; everything that he composed was rehearsed hot from the griddle and performed to the nicety of a hair, according to his ideas, just as he wanted it and not otherwise, with affectionate interest, obedience and devotion such as[126] could spring only from such ardent admirers of his lofty genius, and with a penetration into the most secret intentions of the composer and the most perfect comprehension of his intellectual tendencies; so that these quartet players achieved that universal celebrity concerning which there was but one voice in the art-world.”

The date of Dragonetti’s arrival in Vienna, on this, his second visit, disposes of an English tradition, that Beethoven wrote the famous contrabass passage in the Scherzo of the C minor Symphony expressly for him. The story contains doubtless so much of truth as this: that it was the display of the possibilities of that instrument, made by its greatest master, which induced Beethoven to venture the introduction into that symphony of what has so often proved a stumbling-block and rock of offence to contrabassists of no common and ordinary skill.

But a new topic demands our attention. Beethoven in his later years, in moments of spleen and ill humor, gave utterance both in conversation and in writing to expressions, which have since served as the basis of bitter diatribes against the Vienna public. Czerny—than whom no man could be better informed on the subject of the master’s actual position—takes occasion in his notes for Jahn to remark:

It has repeatedly been said in foreign lands that Beethoven was not respected in Vienna and was suppressed. The truth is that already as a youth he received all manner of support from our high aristocracy and enjoyed as much care and respect as ever fell to the lot of a young artist.... Later, too, when he estranged many by his hypochondria, nothing was charged against his often very striking peculiarities; hence his predilection for Vienna, and it is doubtful if he would have been left so undisturbed in any other country. It is true that as an artist he had to fight cabals, but the public was innocent in this. He was always marvelled at and respected as an extraordinary being and his greatness was suspected even by those who did not understand him. Whether or not to be rich rested with him, but he was not made for domestic order.

The Court Theatres Change Managers

Upon the correctness of these statements, in so far as they relate to Beethoven’s last years, the reader will have ample means of judging hereafter; he knows, that Czerny is right, up to the present date. Indeed, this month of November, to which the letter to Oppersdorff has brought us, affords him excellent confirmation. For, as in the spring so now in autumn, it is Beethoven’s popularity that must insure success to the Grand Concert for the public charities; it is his name that is known to be more attractive to the Vienna public than any other, save that of the venerable Haydn; and as Haydn’s oratorios are the staple[127] productions at the great charity concerts of vocal music in the Burg theatre, so the younger master’s symphonies, concertos and overtures form the most alluring programmes for the instrumental “Academies” in the other theatres—at all events, in 1808, this was the opinion of Joseph Hartl. Beethoven’s “princely rabble” had, after a year’s experience and pecuniary losses, turned over the direction of the theatre to Government Councillor, now Court Councillor, Joseph Hartl. It was not so much for his love of art, as for the great reputation which his administrative talents had gained him, that Hartl was called to assume the labors of directing the three theatres, then sunk “into the most embarrassing conditions”—a call which he accepted. For three years he administered them wisely, and with all the success possible in the troubled state of the public business and finances.

A supervisor of the public charities, who at the same time controlled the theatres, he was of course able to secure the highest talent for benevolent concerts on terms advantageous to all parties concerned; and thus it came about, that at the concert for public charities in the Theater-an-der-Wien on the evening of Leopold’s day, Tuesday, November 15th, Beethoven conducted one of his symphonies, the “Coriolan” Overture, and a pianoforte concerto—perhaps he played the solo of the last; but the want of any detailed report of the concert leaves the point in doubt. Which of the symphonies and concertos were performed on this occasion is not recorded; it is only known that they were not new. In return for Beethoven’s noble contribution of his works and personal services to the charity concerts of April 17 and November 15, Hartl gave him the free use of the Theater-an-der-Wien for an Akademie, thus advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” of December 17.

Musical Academy.

On Thursday, December 22, Ludwig van Beethoven will have the honor to give a musical academy in the R. I. Priv. Theater-an-der-Wien. All the pieces are of his composition, entirely new, and not yet heard in public.... First Part: 1, A Symphony, entitled: “A Recollection of Country Life,” in F major (No. 5). 2, Aria. 3, 3 Hymns with Latin text, composed in the church style with chorus and solos. 4, Pianoforte Concerto played by himself.

Second Part. 1, Grand Symphony in C minor (No. 6). 2, Holy, with Latin text composed in the church style with chorus and solos. 3, Fantasia for Pianoforte alone. 4, Fantasia for the Pianoforte which ends with the gradual entrance of the entire orchestra and the introduction of choruses as a finale.

Boxes and reserved seats are to be had in the Krugerstrasse No. 1074, first storey. Beginning at half past six o’clock.

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The importance of the works produced on this occasion, the whimsical occurrences that are related as having taken place, and the somewhat conflicting statements of persons present, justify an effort to sift the evidence and get at the truth, even at the risk of being tedious. It is unfortunate that the concert of November 15 was so completely forgotten by all whose contemporary notices or later reminiscences are now the only sources of information; for it is certain that, either in the rehearsals or at the public performance, something happened which caused a very serious misunderstanding and breach between Beethoven and the orchestra; but even this is sufficient to remove some difficulties otherwise insuperable. Ries records in the “Notizen” (p. 84) that a scene is said once to have happened in which the orchestra compelled the composer to realize his injustice “and in all seriousness insisted that he should not conduct. In consequence, at the rehearsal, Beethoven had to remain in an anteroom, and it was a long time before the quarrel was settled.” Such a quarrel did arise at the time of the November concert. In Spohr’s Autobiography is a story of Beethoven’s first sweeping off the candles at the piano and then knocking down a choir boy deputed to hold one of them, by his too energetic motions at this concert, the two incidents setting the audience into a “bacchanalian jubilation” of laughter. It is absolutely certain, however, that nothing of the kind occurred at the concert itself, and that the story has its only foundation in Spohr’s fancy.

Compare now these statements by Ries and Spohr with citations from notes of a conversation with Röckel: “Beethoven had made the orchestra of the Theater-an-der-Wien so angry with him that only the leaders, Seyfried, Clement, etc., would have anything to do with him, and it was only after much persuasion and upon condition that Beethoven should not be in the room during the rehearsals, that the rank and file consented to play. During the rehearsals, in the large room back of the theatre, Beethoven walked up and down in an anteroom, and often Röckel with him. After a movement Seyfried would come to him for criticisms.” Röckel believed the story (i. e., if told of a rehearsal) of Beethoven in his zeal having knocked the candles off the pianoforte, and he himself saw the boys, one on each side, holding candles for him.

But the concert-giver’s troubles were not ended even by his yielding to the demands of the orchestra. A solo singer was to be found and vocal pieces to be selected. In a note to Röckel Beethoven wrote: “... in the matter of the vocal pieces I think[129] that we ought to have one of the women singers who will sing for us, sing an aria first—then we will make two numbers out of the Mass, but with German text, find out who can do this for us. It need not be a masterpiece, provided it suits the Mass well.” And again: “Be clever in regard to Milder—say to her only that to-day you are begging her in my name not to sing anywhere else, to-morrow I will come in person to kiss the hem of her garment—but do not forget Marconi....”

Milder was to sing the aria “Ah, perfido! spergiuro,” said Röckel, and accepted the invitation at once. But an unlucky quarrel provoked by Beethoven resulted in her refusal. After other attempts, Röckel engaged Fräulein Kilitzky, Schuppanzigh’s sister-in-law. Being a young and inexperienced singer, her friends wrought her up to such a point that when Beethoven led her upon the stage and left her, stage fright overcame her and she made wretched work of the aria. Reichardt in a letter describes the Akademie:

I accepted the kind offer of Prince Lobkowitz to let me sit in his box with hearty thanks. There we endured, in the bitterest cold, too, from half past six, to half past ten, and made the experience that it is easy to get too much of a good thing and still more of a loud. Nevertheless, I could no more leave the box before the end than could the exceedingly good-natured and delicate Prince, for the box was in the first balcony near the stage, so that the orchestra and Beethoven conducting it in the middle below us, were near at hand; thus many a failure in the performance vexed our patience in the highest degree.... Singers and orchestra were composed of heterogeneous elements, and it had been found impossible to get a single full rehearsal for all the pieces to be performed, all filled with the greatest difficulties.

Production of the Choral Fantasia

Such a programme, exclusive of the Choral Fantasia, was certainly an ample provision for an evening’s entertainment of the most insatiably musical enthusiast; nor could a grander termination of the concert be desired than the Finale of the C minor Symphony; but to defer that work until the close was to incur the risk of endangering its effect by presenting it to an audience too weary for the close attention needful on first hearing to its fair comprehension and appreciation. This Beethoven felt, and so, says Czerny,

there came to him shortly before the idea of writing a brilliant piece for this concert. He chose a song which he had composed many years before,[63] planned the variations, the chorus, etc., and the poet Kuffner was called upon to write the words in a hurry according to Beethoven’s[130] hints. Thus originated the Choral Fantasia, Op. 80. It was finished so late that it could scarcely be sufficiently rehearsed. Beethoven related this in my presence in order to explain why, at the concert, he had had it repeated. “Some of the instruments had counted wrong in the rests,” he said; “if I had let them play a few measures more the most horrible dissonances would have resulted. I had to make an interruption.”

The particulars of this scene, in which Reichardt suffered so, are more or less circumstantially related by Ries, Seyfried, Czerny, Moscheles and Doležalek. Their statements when compared are not inconsistent and supplement each other, except as to Ries, whose memory evidently exaggerated what really occurred. Substantially they are as follows:

Seyfried (Appendix to “Beethoven’s Studien,” p. 15): When the master brought out his orchestral Fantasia with choruses, he arranged with me at the somewhat hurried rehearsal, with wet voice-parts as usual, that the second variation should be played without the repeat. In the evening, however, absorbed in his creation, he forgot all about the instructions which he had given, repeated the first part while the orchestra accompanied the second, which sounded not altogether edifying. A trifle too late, the Concertmaster, Unrath, noticed the mistake, looked in surprise at his lost companions, stopped playing and called out drily: “Again!” A little displeased, the violinist Anton Wranitsky asked “With repeats?” “Yes,” came the answer, and now the thing went straight as a string.

The “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” reported: The wind-instruments varied the theme which Beethoven had previously played on the pianoforte. The turn came to the oboes. The clarinets, if I am not mistaken, make a mistake in the count and enter at once. A curious mixture of tones results. Beethoven jumps up, tries to silence the clarinets, but does not succeed until he has called out quite loudly and rather ill-temperedly: “Stop, stop! That will not do! Again—again!”

Czerny: In the Pianoforte with chorus he called out at the mistake: “Wrong, badly played, wrong, again!” Several musicians wanted to go away.

Doležalek: He jumped up, ran to the desks and pointed out the place.

Moscheles: I remember having been present at the performance in question, seated in a corner of the gallery, in the Theater-an-der-Wien. During the last movement of the Fantasia I perceived that, like a run-away carriage going down-hill, an overturn was inevitable. Almost immediately after it was, that I saw Beethoven give the signal for stopping. His voice was not heard; but he had probably given directions where to begin again, and after a moment’s respectful silence on the part of the audience, the orchestra recommenced and the performance proceeded without further mistakes or stoppage. To those who are acquainted with the work, it may be interesting to know the precise point at which the mistake occurred. It was in the passage where for several pages every three bars make up a triple rhythm.

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Seyfried says further: At first he could not understand that he had in a manner humiliated the musicians. He thought it was a duty to correct an error that had been made and that the audience was entitled to hear everything properly played, for its money. But he readily and heartily begged the pardon of the orchestra for the humiliation to which he had subjected it, and was honest enough to spread the story himself and assume all responsibility for his own absence of mind.

The pecuniary results of this concert to Beethoven are not known.

The Fourth Pianoforte Concerto

One of the two December concerts for the Widows and Orphans Fund was on the 22d, the same evening as Beethoven’s; the other on the next. The vocal work selected was, in compliment to the venerable Haydn, his “Ritorno di Tobia,” first performed in these concerts thirty-three years before. Being too short to fill out the evening, it was preceded, on the 22d, by an orchestral fantasia of Neukomm—on the 23d by a pianoforte concerto of Beethoven. Ries says

that Beethoven asked him to play his fourth Concerto in G, giving him only five days in which to learn it. Thinking the time too short, Ries asked permission to play the C minor Concerto instead. Beethoven in a rage went to young Stein, who was wise enough to accept the offer; but as he could not prepare the Concerto in time, he begged Beethoven, on the day before the concert, as Ries had done, for permission to play the C minor Concerto. Beethoven had to acquiesce. Whether the fault was the theatre’s, the orchestra’s, or the player’s, says Ries, the Concerto made no effect. Beethoven was very angry.

For this concert Beethoven received 100 florins from Esterhazy, who apparently ranked the composer with the leading actors of the theatre. Towards the close of 1808, Clementi again arrived in Vienna and was not a little surprised to learn from Beethoven that he had not yet received from London payment for the compositions which he had sold to Clementi in April, 1807. He wrote on December 28, 1808, to his partner asking that the money, £200, due Beethoven, as he had delivered the six compositions contracted for, be sent at once. But in September, 1809, the account had not yet been liquidated, as we shall see. There is reason to believe that a large number of compositions of greater or less extent was projected and in part sketched during this year; but the number known to have been completed, and therefore properly bearing the date 1808, is small. These compositions are: The “Pastoral” Symphony, Op. 69; the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 69; the Trios for Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, in D and E-flat, Op. 70; the Fantasia for Pianoforte,[132] Orchestra and Chorus, Op. 80; the Song (with four melodies) “Die Sehnsucht.”

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The Sonata for Pianoforte and ’cello was sketched in 1807, and practically completed in that year, the only sketches appearing among those of 1808 being a couple evidently made while the work was being written out. The earlier sketches appear among those of the C minor Symphony. It is dedicated to Gleichenstein. On June 8 Beethoven offered it, as has been seen, to Breitkopf and Härtel, and it was included in the works for which Härtel signed a contract in person on September 14. On January 7, 1809, Beethoven wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel asking that Gleichenstein’s title “K. K. Hofconcipist” be elided from the dedication, because it was distasteful to him. It was published in 1809, but with a large number of errors which gave occasion to three letters from the composer to the publishers. (La Mara, “Musikerbriefe aus fünf Jahrhunderten,” 1886; Frimmel, “II. Beethoven Jahrbuch”; Kalischer, “Beethoven’s Sämtliche Briefe,” II, 262—where the date is incorrectly given as 1815.)

The two Trios are dedicated to Countess Erdödy, in whose house Beethoven lived when they were written. The first sketches for them found by Nottebohm belong to the second in E-flat and occur amongst the sketches for the Finale of the “Pastoral” symphony. The Trios are not mentioned in the first letter, in which Beethoven offers the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies besides other works to Breitkopf and Härtel. In the second letter, of July, Beethoven speaks of two pianoforte sonatas, and in a later letter of two trios. This has led to the conclusion that Beethoven first conceived them as solo sonatas and later developed them as trios. Beethoven played them at Countess Erdödy’s in the Christmastide of 1808, when Reichardt was present; he wrote an enthusiastic account of them under date December 31. On May 26, Beethoven wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel suggesting changes in the text and also asking that the name of Archduke Rudolph be substituted for that of Countess Erdödy in the dedication. The reason given was that the Archduke had become fond of the works and Beethoven had observed that in such cases his patron felt a gentle regret when the music was dedicated to somebody else. Beethoven, of course, says nothing of his quarrel with the Countess (of which something will be said in the next chapter). There was a reconciliation, and Beethoven’s solicitude for the[133] feelings of the Archduke seems to have evaporated; at any rate, the original dedication remained.

The Choral Fantasia was obviously finished only a short time before its performance and is plainly one of the few compositions on which Beethoven worked continuously after once beginning it, though the plan of the work had occurred to him long before. The early sketch, to which allusion has been made, shows that the use of the melody of the song “Gegenliebe” was part of the original scheme. A sketchbook of 1808, whose contents were analyzed by Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 495), is devoted entirely to the Fantasia and the Pianoforte Concerto in E-flat, which was not worked out till later. The most interesting disclosures of Nottebohm’s study are that there is no hint of a pianoforte introduction such as Beethoven improvised at the performance; that Beethoven first thought of beginning with the string quartet of the orchestra; that work was begun before a text had been found; and that, as in the case of the Choral Symphony, of which the Fantasia is so interesting a prototype in miniature, Beethoven thought of paving the way for the introduction of the voices by words calling attention to the newcomers among the harmonious company (Hört ihr wohl?). Czerny’s statement that the text was written by Kuffner is questioned by Nottebohm, who points out that the poem is not included in the collected writings of that author, though all manner of fragments and trifles are. Because of the ingenuity and effectiveness with which the words were adapted to the music, Nottebohm suspects Treitschke of having written them in accordance with Beethoven’s suggestions as to form and contents. The introductory pianoforte fantasia which was published to take the place of Beethoven’s improvisation at the first performance, was composed in 1809.

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Summary of a Year’s Work

The publications of the year 1808 were:

1. Trois Quatuors pour deux Violons, Alto et Violoncello, composés par Louis van Beethoven. Œuvre 59^me. Dedicated to His Excellency Count von Rasoumowsky. Advertised by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir in the “Wiener Zeitung” of January 9.

2. Ouverture de Coriolan, Tragédie de M. de Collin, etc., composée et dediée à Monsieur de Collin, etc.. Op. 62. Advertised in the same place on the same date.

3. “Sehnsucht,” by Goethe, No. 1 of the four melodies published as a supplement to the periodical “Prometheus” in April.

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4. Fourth Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra. Dedicated to His Highness, Archduke Rudolph of Austria, Op. 58. Advertised by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir in the “Wiener Zeitung” on August 10.

5. Concerto pour le Pianoforte avec accompagnement de grand Orchestre, arrangé d’après son 1^er Concerto de Violon et dédié à Madame de Breuning. Œuvre 61. Advertised in the same journal on August 10.

6. “In questa tomba oscura,” the last of 63 settings of the same text by various composers, published by T. Mollo, and advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” of September 3.

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Chapter VIII

Jerome Bonaparte’s Invitation—The Annuity Contract—Operatic Projects—Seyfried’s “Studies”—The Siege of Vienna—Increased Cost of Living—Dilatory Debtors—The Year 1809.

The offer of an honorable position in Cassel—permanent, so long as Napoleon’s star might remain in the ascendant and his satellite retain his nominal kingship of Westphalia—was one no less gratifying to Beethoven, than surprising and perplexing to his friends. Knowing both the strong and the weak points of his character, they saw the extreme improbability that, with his increasing deafness, his removal thither could in the end redound to his profit, honor, or happiness. On the other hand, they saw him—at the very moment when he was giving new proofs of those stupendous powers which elevate him far above all other instrumental composers—forced to consider the question of seeking in a small provincial capital that permanent provision for his future necessities which, in the home of his choice at the end of sixteen years’ residence, he saw no hope of obtaining. What an inexcusable, unpardonable disgrace to Vienna would be the departure of Beethoven under such circumstances! It was the first time the question had been presented; but being presented it was promptly met by a request from persons of “high and the highest rank that he state the conditions under which” he would decline the call to Cassel and remain in Vienna.

Here was one of those happy opportunities for conferences, notes, letters and despatches innumerable, which Beethoven all his life seems to have so eagerly embraced and enjoyed. Several of his notes to Gleichenstein on the topic have been preserved, but are not worth transcribing, except those containing instructions for the drafting of the conditions of his remaining in Vienna. A letter dated January 7, 1809, by Beethoven to Breitkopf and Härtel, indicates that at the opening of the year 1809, Beethoven was still firmly resolved to go to Cassel. In it occurs this passage:

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At last I am forced by the intrigues and cabals and contemptible actions of all kinds to leave the only surviving German fatherland on the invitation of his Royal Majesty of Westphalia, I am going thither as chapelmaster with an annual salary of 600 ducats in gold—I have only to-day sent my assurance that I will come by post and am only waiting my decree before making preparations for my journey which will be by way of Leipsic—therefore in order that my journey shall be the more brilliant for me I beg of you if not too prejudicial to your interests not to make anything known of my works till Easter—in the case of the sonata which is dedicated to Baron Gleichenstein, please omit the “K. K. Concipist,” as it is distasteful to him. In all probability abusive letters will again be written from here about my last musical academy to the “Musikalische Zeitung”; I do not ask that what is against me be suppressed; yet somebody ought to be convinced that nobody has more personal enemies here than I; this is the more easily to be understood, since the state of music here is steadily growing worse—we have chapelmasters who know so little about conducting that they can scarcely read a score themselves—it is worst of all, of course, auf der Wieden—there I had to give my academy and all kinds of obstacles were put in my way. The Widows’ Concert, and Herr Salieri is among the first, was guilty of the hideous act of threatening to expel every musician who played for me—notwithstanding that several mistakes which I could not help were made, the public accepted everything enthusiastically—nevertheless, scribblers from here will certainly not fail again to send miserable stuff against me to the “Musikalische Zeitung”—the musicians were particularly angry because when a blunder was made through carelessness in the simplest, plainest place in the world, I suddenly commanded silence and loudly called Again—such a thing had never happened to them before; the public at this showed its enjoyment—but it is daily growing worse. The day before my concert, in the easy little opera Milton, at the theatre in the city, the orchestra fell into such disorder that chapelmaster and director and orchestra veritably suffered shipwreck—for the chapelmaster instead of being ahead was behind in his beat and then came the director.

(On the back of the cover):

I beg of you to say nothing with certainty about my appointment in Westphalia until I write to you that I have received my decree.—Farewell, etc.

Plan to Keep Beethoven in Vienna

It seems likely that the suggestion that formal stipulations for a contract under which Beethoven would decline the offer from Cassel and remain in Vienna be drawn up came from Countess Erdödy. At any rate Beethoven writes to Gleichenstein: “Countess Erdödy is of the opinion that you ought to outline a plan with her according to which you might negotiate in case they approach you as she is convinced they will. If you have time this afternoon, the Countess will be glad to see you.”

The outline of the proposition which was to be submitted to certain noble gentlemen was drawn up by Beethoven for Gleichenstein as follows:

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(On the outside: “Outline for a Musical Constitution.”)

First the offer of the King of Westphalia is to be set forth. B. cannot be held down to any obligation on account of this salary since the chief object, viz., the invention of new works would suffer thereby—this remuneration must be assured to Beethoven until he voluntarily renounces it—the Imperial title also if possible—to alternate with Salieri and Eibeler—the promise of active court service as soon as possible—or adjunction if it be worth while. Contract with the theatres likewise with the title of Member of one of the Committees of Theatrical Direction—a fixed day forever for a concert, even if there be a change in the directorate in the theatre, in return for which Beethoven binds himself to compose a new work every year for one of the charity concerts as may be thought most useful—or to conduct two—a place at a money changer’s or such kind where Beethoven would receive the stipulated salary—the salary must be paid also by the heirs.

On some of these points Beethoven changed his mind and wrote again thus:

It is probably too late to-day—I could not get your writing back from E.—until now, inasmuch as A. wanted to add a few items, buts, and inasmuches—I beg of you to have everything turn on the true and proper practice of my art, thus you will write what is in my heart and head—the introduction is what I am to get in Westphalia, 600 ducats in gold, 150 ducats travelling expenses, for which I have to do nothing except conduct the King’s concerts which are short and not numerous—I am not even bound to conduct any opera that I may write—from all which it is clear that I can devote myself wholly to the most important purpose of my art to compose works of magnitude—also an orchestra at my disposal.

N. B. The title of Member of one of the Theatrical Committees is dropped—It could bring nothing but vexation—in respect of the Imperial duties I think the point must be handled delicately—not less than the demand for the title of Imperial Chapelmaster, than a regard to my being placed in a position through a court salary to give up the sum which the gentlemen are now paying me. I think that this might best be expressed as a hope or a highest wish sometime to enter the Imperial service, when I could at once accept as much less as the sum received from his Imperial Majesty amounts to.

(On the top of the last page):

N. B. We shall need it to-morrow at 12 o’clock, because we must then go to Kinsky. I hope to see you to-day.

Under these instructions the “Conditions” were drawn up by some person unknown, in manner and form following:

It must be the striving and aim of every true artist to achieve a position in which he can devote himself wholly to the elaboration of larger works and not be hindered by other matters or economical considerations. A musical composer can, therefore, have no livelier desire than to be left undisturbedly to the invention of works of magnitude and then to produce them in public. In doing this he must also keep his old[138] age in view and seek to make ample provision for himself against that time.

The King of Westphalia has offered Beethoven a salary of 600 ducats in gold for life and 150 ducats travelling expenses, on the single condition that he occasionally play for him and conduct his chamber concerts, which are to be not numerous and short.

This offer is certainly entirely in the interest of art and the artist.

Beethoven, however, has so great a predilection for life in this city, so much gratitude for the many proofs of good will which he has received here, and so much patriotism for his second fatherland, that he will never cease to count himself among Austrian artists and will never make his domicile elsewhere if the opportunities mentioned above are measurably offered him here.

Persons of high and the highest ranks, having asked him to state under what conditions he would be willing to remain here, he has complied with the request as follows:

1. Beethoven should receive from a great personage assurance of a salary for life even if a number of persons of rank contribute to the sum. This salary under the existing conditions of high cost of living, could not be less than 4000 florins a year. Beethoven desires that the donors of this salary consider themselves co-authors of his new works in the large forms, because they place him in a position to devote himself to their production and relieve him of the need of attending to other affairs.

2. Beethoven should always have freedom to make artistic tours, because only by such can he make himself very well known and acquire some property.

3. It would be his greatest desire and most ardent wish sometime to enter into the actual Imperial service and by reason of the salary expected from such a source to be able to waive in whole or in part the compensation set forth above; meanwhile the title merely of an Imperial Chapelmaster would make him very happy; if it could be obtained for him his stay here would be still dearer to him.

Should this desire some day be fulfilled and he receive a salary from His Majesty, Beethoven will forgo his claim on as much of the 4000 florins as the Imperial salary amounts to, and if this is 4000 florins, then he would forgo the entire 4000 florins above specified.

4. As Beethoven desires to perform his new works in public, he desires an assurance from the Court Theatrical Directors, for themselves and their successors, that on Palm Sunday of each year he shall have the use of the Theater-an-der-Wien for a concert for his own benefit.

In return for this assurance, Beethoven would bind himself to arrange and conduct a charity concert every year or, in case of inability to do this, to contribute a new work for such a concert.[64]

Beethoven Guaranteed an Annuity

The conditions proving acceptable, the business was concluded and Beethoven retained in Vienna by this

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Agreement:

The daily proofs which Herr Ludwig van Beethoven is giving of his extraordinary talents and genius as musician and composer, awaken the desire that he surpass the great expectations which are justified by his past achievements.

But as it has been demonstrated that only one who is as free from care as possible can devote himself to a single department of activity and create works of magnitude which are exalted and which ennoble art, the undersigned have decided to place Herr Ludwig van Beethoven in a position where the necessaries of life shall not cause him embarrassment or clog his powerful genius.

To this end they bind themselves to pay him the fixed sum of 4000 (four thousand) florins a year, as follows:

His Imperial Highness, Archduke Rudolph	Fl. 1500
The Highborn Prince Lobkowitz	„   700
The Highborn Prince Ferdinand Kinsky	„ 1800
Total	Fl. 4000

which Herr van Beethoven is to collect in semi-annual installments, pro rata, against voucher, from each of these contributors.

The undersigned are pledged to pay this annual salary until Herr van Beethoven receives an appointment which shall yield him the equivalent of the above sum.

Should such an appointment not be received and Herr Ludwig van Beethoven be prevented from practising his art by an unfortunate accident or old age, the participants herein grant him the salary for life.

In consideration of this Herr Ludwig van Beethoven pledges himself to make his domicile in Vienna, where the makers of this document live, or in a city in one of the other hereditary countries of His Austrian Imperial Majesty, and to depart from this domicile only for such set times as may be called for by his business or the interests of art, touching which, however, the high contributors must be consulted and to which they must give their consent.

Given in Vienna, March 1, 1809.

(L. S.) Rudolph,
Archduke.
(L. S.) Prince von Lobkowitz,
Duke of Raudnitz.
(L. S.) Ferdinand Prince Kinsky.

This document bears in Beethoven’s hand these words:

Received
On February 26, 1809
from the hands
of Archduke
Rudolph, R. H.

The remarks in a former chapter upon the singular attraction for the young of Beethoven and his works are supported by this contract. Lobkowitz, it is true, was near the master’s age, being[140] then 35; but Rudolph and Kinsky were respectively but 21 and 27. Ries, who was then much with Beethoven, asserts that the contract with the King of Westphalia “was all ready; it lacked only the signature” before his Vienna friends moved in the matter and “settled a salary on him for life.” He continues:

The first fact I knew; of the second I was in ignorance until suddenly Chapelmaster Reichardt came to me and said: “Beethoven positively would not accept the post in Cassel; would I as Beethoven’s only pupil go there on a smaller salary?” I did not believe the first, went at once to Beethoven to learn the truth about it and to ask his advice. I was turned away for three weeks—even my letters on the subject were unanswered. Finally I found Beethoven at the Ridotto. I went to him and told him the reason of my inquiries, whereupon he said in a cutting tone: “So—do you think that you can fill a position which was offered to me?” He remained cold and repellant. The next morning I went to him to get an understanding. His servant said to me gruffly: “My master is not at home,” although I heard him singing and playing in the next room. Since the servant positively refused to announce me I resolved to go right in; but he sprang to the door and pushed me back. Enraged by this I grabbed him by the throat and hurled him down. Beethoven, hearing the racket, dashed out and found his servant still lying on the floor and me pale as death. Angrily excited, I so deluged him with reproaches that he stood motionless and speechless with surprise. When the matter was finally explained to him he said, “I did not understand it so; I was told that you were trying to get the appointment behind my back.” On my assuring him that I had not yet even given an answer, he at once went out with me to make the mistake good. But it was too late; I did not get the appointment, though it would have been a piece of great good fortune for me at that time.

It requires no great sagacity to perceive from the text of the “Agreement,” that neither of its signers had any expectation that Beethoven could ever perform the duties of an Imperial Conductor acceptably; and his hope of obtaining the title must have rested upon the influence, which he supposed Archduke Rudolph might exert upon Emperor Franz. Be this as it may, the composer was justly elated by the favorable change in his pecuniary condition; and his very natural exultation peeps out in the correspondence of the time. While the business was still undecided, Gleichenstein had departed on a visit to his native Freiburg, via Munich, taking with him a letter of introduction, the contents of which Beethoven himself thus epitomises:

Here, my dear fellow, is the letter to Winter. First it says that you are my friend—secondly, what you are, namely K. K. Hofconcipist—thirdly, that you are not a connoisseur of music but nevertheless a friend of all that is beautiful and good—in view of which I have asked the chapelmaster in case anything of his is performed to let you participate in it....

[141]

On March 18, Gleichenstein received a copy or abstract of the contract enclosed in this:

You see my dear, good Gleichenstein how honorable my remaining here has turned out for me—the title of Imperial Chapelmaster will also come later, etc. Write to me as soon as possible if you think that I ought to make the journey in the present warlike state of affairs—and if you are still firmly resolved to travel with me; several have advised me against it, but in this matter I shall follow you implicitly; since you already have a carriage it would have to be arranged that for a stretch you travel towards me and I towards you. Write quickly. Now you can help me hunt a wife, if you find a beautiful one in F. who yields a sigh to my harmonies, but it must be no Elise Bürger, tackle her at once. But she must be beautiful, for I cannot love what is not beautiful—else I should love myself.

The jesting on matrimony in this letter and the allusion to Bürger’s unlucky marriage with Christine Elizabeth Hahn, attest the writer’s lightness of spirit, but are not to be taken seriously; for we shall soon find reason to believe that at this moment he had a very different project in view than to make a wife of the greatest beauty in Freiburg.[65]

The Invitation to Cassel Declined

Under date “Vienna, March 4, 1809,” Beethoven wrote a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel in which he informed them, by means of an inclosure to which he called their attention, of his change of plans touching the appointment at Cassel and told them that he was contemplating a “little journey,” provided the “threatening storm-clouds did not become more dense.” The letter accompanied the Violoncello Sonata dedicated to Baron Gleichenstein and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, together with a memorandum of slight improvements which had suggested themselves to him at the performance; also a formula for the dedication of the Trios (then numbered 62) to Countess Erdödy. About this time came out new compositions and new editions or arrangements of old ones which occupied the opus numbers from 59 to 66 and compelled Beethoven to change these proposed numbers, 59-62 to 67-70. The “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” had printed a notice about the offer from Cassel in which Reichardt was represented as having been the intermediary in the[142] negotiations. This brought out from Beethoven a correction dated April 5, addressed to Breitkopf and Härtel:

Your letter was received by me with pleasure. I thank you for the article in the A. M. Z., only I wish that when occasion offers, you would make a correction in respect of Reichardt, I was not at all engaged by R., on the contrary, the Chief Chamberlain of his Majesty, the King of Westphalia, Count Truchsess-Waldburg, conveyed to me the offer of First Chapelmaster of H. R. H., the King of Westphalia. This offer was made before Reichardt came to Vienna and he was surprised, as he himself said, that nothing of it had reached his ears. R. took all manner of pains to dissuade me from going there. As I have besides very many reasons for questioning the character of Mr. R.—and he may, for political reasons, perhaps have communicated this to you—I think that I am entitled to the greater credence and that on an occasion which might easily be created, you will print the truth about the affair—since it is important as touching my honor. Also by next post I shall send you all three works, the oratorio, opera, mass—and ask no more for them than 250 florins in convention money—I do not believe that you will complain at this—I cannot find the letter just now in which Simrock offered 100 florins, convention money, for the mass, here too I could get this sum and even something more from the Chemical Printing Co., for them; I am not hoaxing you, that you know—I nevertheless send you all three works because I know that you will not take advantage of the fact. Make the inscriptions in French as you please. Next time you shall receive a few lines about the other matter—it is impossible to-day.

Your most obedient
Friend and Servant
Beethoven.

It need not be a pompous retraction, but the truth ought to be made plain.

Do not forget the First Chapelmaster, I laugh at such things, but there are Miserables who know how to dish up such things in the manner, of the cook.

The allusions to a tour in the letters to Gleichenstein and Breitkopf and Härtel, and the provision made in the Agreement for the composer’s temporary absence from Austria, acquire a particular significance from one of the notes of Röckel’s conversation, namely: “Beethoven in those days was full of the project of traveling, and a plan was marked out of visiting the German cities, then England and finally Spain; upon which last Röckel laid great stress. He was to have accompanied Beethoven; but he could not leave Vienna, on account of having so many of his brothers and sisters[66] sent to him to care for.”

[143]

Relations with Franz Oliva

In March, 1809, Beethoven, forwarding a letter to his brother, “to be delivered at the apothecary shop ‘To the Golden Crown’” in Linz, enclosed in it an envelope, inside of which he wrote the words quoted in a previous chapter, in which he prayed God to put feeling in place of insensibility into his brothers, and bemoaned the fact that, needing some one to help him, he knew not whither to turn. The breach between Beethoven and his brother Karl was now, in business matters, complete; and he needed some one to perform for him many little offices which he could not with propriety demand of Zmeskall, Gleichenstein or Röckel, even had they had the leisure and the will. Hence, about this time, was formed his connection with a certain Franz Oliva, clerk in the employ of Offenheimer and Herz. A singular obscurity rests upon this man’s personal history and the exact nature of his relations to Beethoven—an obscurity which even the indefatigable investigator Ferdinand Luib did not succeed in removing. What is certain is this: the relations between them were exceedingly close up to the spring of 1812; afterwards less so; but never broken off entirely until the departure of Oliva in 1820 to St. Petersburg, where he found it for his interest to establish himself as a teacher of languages. In due time the “Wiener Zeitung” published an official notice from the Austrian Government calling upon him immediately to return and justify himself for overstaying his leave of absence under pain otherwise of being proceeded against under the emigration laws of the country. Oliva’s reply to this was a very practical one; he took a wife, fixed his Lares and Penates in St. Petersburg and begat a daughter, who, under date of August 26, answered a letter of Otto Jahn’s inquiring about her father’s relations and correspondence with Beethoven by saying that a fire and the death of Oliva from cholera in 1848, had caused the loss and dissipation of Beethoven’s letters and that she was unable to write the details of the intercourse between her father and Beethoven. Inasmuch as she fixed the beginning of this intercourse in 1814, it is not likely that her contribution to this history would have been valuable.

But the threatening war-clouds became more dense. The same French armies which laid the foundations for Johann van Beethoven’s prosperity not only prevented Ludwig’s contemplated journey but affected him disastrously both pecuniarily and professionally. On May 4th, the Empress left Vienna with the Imperial family. Archduke Rudolph accompanied her, and Beethoven mourned his departure in the well-known first movement of the Sonata, Op. 81a. This work has been described by Marx as a[144] “Soul picture, which brings before the mind the Parting—let us assume of two lovers; the deserted—let us assume again sweet-heart or wife—and Reunion of the Parted Ones.” But unfortunately for that writer Beethoven’s manuscript bears these inscriptions in his own hand: “The Farewell, Vienna, May 4, 1809, on the departure of His Imperial Highness the revered Archduke Rudolph”; on the Finale: “The Arrival of His Imperial Highness the revered Archduke Rudolph, January 30, 1810.”

With a garrison of 16,000 troops, 1000 students and artists, the civil militia and a small number of summoned men, Archduke Maximilian was ordered to defend Vienna. Thus it came about that Beethoven, on the 10th of May, found himself shut up in a beleaguered city.

Beethoven’s experiment of lodging with Countess Erdödy, as might have been predicted, was not a successful one; he was too irritable, whimsical, obstinate; too ready to take offense, too lax in asking or giving explanations. We have seen in divers cases, how, when he discovered himself to be in the wrong, he gladly made every due acknowledgment; but, as in the case of Ries, this was often too late to remedy the mischief already caused. Before the close of the winter, he was evidently becoming discontented; so much so as to take ill even the singular proof of the Countess’ good will spoken of in the following note:

I think, my dear Zmeskall, that even after the war is over, if ever it begins, you will be ready to carry on negotiations for peace. What a glorious office!! I leave it wholly in your hands to settle the affair about my servant, but the Countess must not have the slightest influence over him. She has, as she says, given him 25 fl. and 5 fl. a month only to make him remain with me. Now I must necessarily believe in this magnanimity—but do not wish it to be continued....

Another note bears Zmeskall’s date: “March 7, 1809”:

I might easily have thought it. About the blows, this is dragged in by the hair of the head; this story is at least 3 months old—and is by no means—what he now makes out of it—the whole miserable affair was brought about by a huckster woman and other wretches—but I shall not lose much, because he was really spoiled in the house where I am.

What cause of dissension, beyond the ill-advised gratifications to the servant, had arisen between Beethoven and the Countess is not known; but something had occurred, the blame of which he soon saw was all his own, and for which he thus humbly expresses his contrition and beseeches forgiveness:

My dear Countess, I have erred, that is true—forgive me, it was assuredly not intentional malice on my part, if I have pained you—only[145] since last night do I know the truth about the matter, and I am very sorry that I acted as I did—read your billet coolly and judge for yourself if I deserve all and if you did not pay me back six-fold since I offended you unintentionally; send my note back to me to-day, and write me only one word that you are no longer angry, I shall suffer infinitely if you do not do this, I can do nothing if things are to continue thus—I await your forgiveness.

There are sufficient grounds for belief that an immediate reconciliation took place; nevertheless, Beethoven decided to go into another lodging, and one was found for him in the “Klepperstall in der Teinfaltstrasse im 3ten Stock beym Advokaten Gotischa,” as he describes it in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel dated August 3, 1809. He does not seem to have occupied the lodging, however, for as a letter written to Zmeskall in the same month[67] shows he was still in Baden, much interested in the exhibitions of an aeronaut named Degen. If he took possession at all he soon gave it up and removed to one in the Walfischgasse looking out over the city wall and glacis directly upon the place where the Polytechnic Institute now stands.

The French commanders demanded the capitulation of Vienna, but Archduke Maximilian rejected the demands, and the French erected a battery on the Spittelberg to shell the city. Every shot directed by this battery against the Kärnthnerthor and the Wasserkunst Bastei was liable to plunge into Beethoven’s windows.

At 9 o’clock at night (on the 11th) the battery of 20 howitzers opened fire. Rich and poor, high and low, young and old at once found themselves crowded indiscriminately in cellars and fireproof vaults.

Beethoven took refuge in the Rauhensteingasse and “spent the greater part of the time in a cellar in the house of his brother Kaspar (Karl), where he covered his head with pillows so as not to hear the cannons,” so says Ries. More probably Beethoven took this wise precaution to save his feeble organs of hearing from the effect of the sharp reports of bursting shells, for it does not appear that either the cannons on the bastions or those mounted in the streets were fired. “At half-past 2 (the afternoon of the 12th) the white flag was sent up as notice of capitulation to the outposts of the enemy.”

French Occupation of Vienna

The occupation of the capital by the French and the gathering together of opposing armies for the terrible battles of Aspern, Esslingen, Wagram and Znaim produced the inevitable[146] effects of increased consumption and deficient supply of the necessaries of life. Even before the capitulation “the rate of interest went up fearfully, especially in the sale of food, particularly bread, and because of the disappearance of copper coins.” From the capitulation to the armistice of July 12th, two months, “the enemy had drawn from the city nearly 10,000,000 florins and demanded enormous requisitions of supplies.” There was one requisition, perhaps more than one, which touched Beethoven directly: “A forced loan on the houses of the city and the suburbs amounting to one-quarter of the rentals from owners or the parties to a contract for rent on from 101 to 1000 florins and one-third on from 1001 to 2000 florins, etc.” Perhaps at no other time was Beethoven so well able to meet the extraordinary demands upon his purse as now. He had received from Archduke Rudolph 750 florins and from Prince Lobkowitz 350 florins, his first payment of the annuity; and doubtless Breitkopf and Härtel and his other publishers had remitted money or bills. Still he must have felt the pressure of the time severely before Vienna again became free. To whom could he go for aid? Kinsky departed to Prague on February 26; his wife and Prince Lobkowitz on March 14. The Lichnowskys, Palfys, Waldstein, etc., were all away; some in the war; some in the civil service; some on their estates—the Erdödys, for instance, took refuge in Hungary or Croatia. Of personal friends, Breuning seems to have remained—no other is known to have done so. Bigot and his wife went off to Paris, never to return; Zmeskall and the public officials in general had followed the Court and the Ministers to places of safety. The posts were interrupted and for many weeks communication with the country prohibited. It was not until near the end of July that the Prater, the Augarten, Schwarzenberg Garten, and the Schönbrunner Garten were opened to the public. For Beethoven, this confinement during this season of the year when he was accustomed to breathe inspiration in vale and forest, was almost intolerable, and increased if possible his old hatred of Napoleon and the French. Young Rust met him one day in a coffee-house and saw him shake his fist at a passing French officer, with the exclamation: “If I, as general, knew as much about strategy as I the composer know of counterpoint, I’d give you something to do!”

Under such circumstances, and with no immediately pressing necessity for composition, even the genius of a Beethoven must sleep. We may suppose, that under the impulse of the departure of the Archduke, Beethoven completed the “Farewell” and “Absence” of the Sonata, Op. 81a; and that he gave the final touches to[147] the Pianoforte Concerto in E-flat, Op. 73, and made some studies for new symphonies, and sonatas; but the fountain soon ran dry, and the tedious weeks of this miserable summer were mainly devoted to the laborious task of selecting and copying in order extracts from the theoretical works of C. P. E. Bach, Türk, Kirnberger, Fux and Albrechtsberger, for subsequent use in the instruction of Archduke Rudolph—a task which, in our opinion, he had for some time had in mind, and had begun, at the very latest, early in the year. The “Materials for Thoroughbass” and “Materials for Counterpoint”—as two of his books are respectively headed by him—are largely the basis of that extraordinary imposition upon the musical public, prepared by Seyfried and published by Haslinger as Beethoven’s Studies under Haydn and Albrechtsberger—an imposition which was successful for 30 years! Schindler early warned the public against the fraud. His charges were never answered; nor was his challenge to prove the genuineness of the work taken up.

A Member of the Dutch Institute

Some time in August a letter from Amsterdam, which was preserved by the widow of Beethoven’s nephew Karl, was received by the composer, notifying to him his appointment as a Correspondent of the Fourth Class of the Royal Institute of Science, Literature and the Fine Arts. It gave occasion shortly after its receipt for a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel in which Beethoven says: “Do you know that I have become a member of the Society of Fine Arts and Sciences?—after all a title—ha-ha, it makes me laugh!” In another letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, dated August 8, he says he has sent them the Sextet for Wind-instruments, Op. 71, and two German songs as a “return gift for all the things which I have asked as gifts from you.” “The Sextet is one of my early things and, besides, was written in one night; nothing more can be said of it except that it was written by an author who at least has done better things—but to many people such things are the best.” He also asks for the complete works of Goethe and Schiller, his “favorite poets, with Ossian and Homer.” One of the two songs referred to was undoubtedly “Ich denke dein.” The second song was probably the “Lied aus der Ferne,” the first of five settings which Beethoven made of poems by C. L. Reissig and which gave rise to much annoyance. In a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, dated February 4, 1810, he wrote:

The “Gesang in der Ferne” which my brother sent you recently[68] was written by a dilettante, as you no doubt observed for yourselves, who[148] pressed me urgently to set it to music, but has also taken the liberty to have the a(ria) printed, I therefore have thought it well to give you a proof of my friendly feeling by informing you of the fact, I hope you will print it at once on receipt, you can send it here and elsewhere as you please, if you make haste you may have it here before it can be printed here, I know for a certainty that it will be published by Artaria—I wrote the A. only as a favor, and as a favor I give it to you—but I beg you to send me the following book, namely “Bechstein’s Natural History of Birds in two large volumes with copper-plates,” with which I wish to give great pleasure to a good friend of mine.... I am not yet sound in health—we are given poor food and have to pay incredibly—things are not quite in order with my appointment, I have not yet received a heller from Kinsky—I fear or rather almost hope that I shall be compelled to go away perhaps even for the sake of my health, it may be a long time before conditions grow better than they are now—there can be no thought of what they were.

In this letter Beethoven offers Breitkopf and Härtel the Fantasia (Op. 77), the Choral Fantasia (Op. 80), three Pianoforte Sonatas (Op. 78, 79 and 81a), the Variations (Op. 76, in D major), the Quartet (Op. 74), the Pf. Concerto in E-flat, and “12 songs with pianoforte accompaniment, texts partly in German, partly in Italian, nearly all composed throughout.” That among these songs were four others to Reissig’s words (“An den fernen Geliebten,” “Der Zufriedene,” “Der Jüngling in der Fremde” and “Der Liebende”), which were not published till some years later, is a natural conclusion from a passage in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, dated September 11, 1810:

That Cavalry Captain Reissig ever paid me anything for my compositions is an abominable lie, I composed them for him as a friendly favor because he was a cripple at the time and excited my compassion. In writing this I declare that Breitkopf and Härtel are the sole owners of the songs which I have sent you, of which the words are by Cavalry Captain Reissig.

In a still angrier mood he recurs to the songs again in a letter of October 15:

You ought to add “ich denke dein” to this collection, I have seen it printed separately and somewhere in it I do not remember where, not having it, a wrong mordent. Another thing: you ought to publish the “Gesang aus der Ferne” at once if you have not already done so, the poetry is by that rascal Reissig, it was not published at the time and it took nearly half a year before this rascal told me that, as he said, he had had it “printed by Artaria only for his friends.” I sent it to you by letter-post and received for it instead of thanks, stench (statt Dank Stank).

A Concert for the French Invaders

Beethoven’s longing desire for the country was not to be gratified immediately. Manager Hartl had projected a new charity,[149] a theatrical poor fund, and as usual called upon him to give attraction to the first public concert for its benefit, by directing one or more of his works. During the French occupation the ordinary performances of both Court Theatres were given in the Kärnthnerthor. At the Burg—the real Court Theatre, forming, indeed, a part of the Imperial residence—after being closed some weeks, a French company opened on the 18th of July, played for a time alternately with a German one, and then held—as if in bitter irony—exclusive possession of the stage. Was not Vienna a French city? the Burg a French palace? Did not Napoleon’s eagle head the “Wiener Zeitung”? At Schönbrunn the theatre was devoted almost exclusively to Italian opera and ballet, for the amusement of the French Court. Under these circumstances Hartl might reasonably expect munificent support from the conquerors for at least one charity concert for the benefit of the actors and their families. Hence, as on the 8th of September (the Nativity of the Virgin Mary) the Court Theatres would be closed, he selected that day. The programme has eluded search; but one number was the “Sinfonia Eroica,” conducted by its author. Was this selected, in the expectation that Napoleon would be present, to do him homage? If so, it failed of its aim. The day before, Napoleon journeyed from Schönbrunn to Krems and Mölk. Or was it in bitter sarcasm that Beethoven chose it?

An undated letter to von Collin refers to this concert. In it he asked the Court Secretary to rewrite a note which he had addressed to Beethoven when Hartl gave him the commission for the concert, and which he had lost. He goes on:

I beg of you, dear Friend, to recall to mind the contents as near as I can recollect: “that you wrote to me that you had spoken to H. v. Hartl concerning a day for a concert and that then he gave you instructions to write to me that if at this year’s concert for the theatrical poor, I gave important works for performance, and would myself conduct, I might at once pick out a day for a concert at the Theater-an-der-Wien, and that under these conditions I might have a day every year. Vive vale.”

Give to this note the earliest date possible, still there remain to Beethoven less than four months to the Christmas holidays, in which to complete, copy and rehearse whatever new works he intended to produce in the concert. The Pianoforte Concerto in E-flat major is the only work known to have been ready; what others may he have had in contemplation? The question is, in itself, rather interesting than important; its bearing, however, upon other matters hereafter warrants its discussion at some length.

[150]

Study-Material for a Royal Pupil

Let us turn again for a moment to the so-called “Studien.” On the margin of the “Materialien zum Generalbass,” Beethoven wrote: “from 101 to 1000 florins a quarter—all residents or parties to rent-contracts without distinction.” This was, of course, written at the time of the forced contribution of June 28th, but is no proof that the book was then just begun. It shows merely that it was lying before him, offered him a convenient vacant space for the memorandum.[69] Again on page 17, on the upper margin, stands: “Printer’s errors in the sonata for pianoforte with obbligato violoncello.” This sonata, beyond all question, was the one dedicated to Gleichenstein, published early in April by Breitkopf and Härtel, and sent to the composer before the breaking of post communications by the advance of Napoleon’s armies. Now, whether Beethoven’s words were merely a memorandum, or—as Nottebohm is of opinion—were the heading of a sheet intended to receive a list of the printer’s errors—in either case we must suppose them to have been written immediately upon the composer’s first examination of the printed work—at the latest in April.[70]

Now, it cannot be reasonably supposed that the idea of selecting and arranging such a series of “Studien” for the Archduke’s instruction as these bound sheets contain was suddenly conceived and executed with no previous study nor protracted examination of the then existing authorities, and all during the few weeks when Beethoven was confined to the city. It is equally improbable that the Archduke’s studies in the theory of music did not begin until after his return to Vienna (January, 1810), when he was 22 years of age. We can discover no objection to the following hypothesis as to the origin of the bound sheets in question; namely, that Beethoven began by making his extracts from Bach, Türk, etc., as they were needed in the progress of his lessons; and that the execution of the task complete was an afterthought, arising from want of occupation at a time when he felt himself unfitted for original composition. The inference is, that, for several months, his thoughts had been more than ordinarily turned toward theoretical studies.

[151]

Now, to the question just proposed.

Study-Material for a Royal Pupil

In the late Gustav Petter’s Collection of Autography (in Vienna) is a sketchbook of Beethoven’s—148 pages in extent—largely devoted to studies for two works, but containing themes and hints for many others, with an occasional characteristic note or name: random, not always strictly musical. Those who have had occasion to study this book—the present writer included—have heretofore assumed, that it belongs to the year 1812. The correctness of this assumption must be tested.[71]

On the first page are two measures of music—merely a succession of chords—with this remark: “Such (passages) should produce another effect than the miserable enharmonic evasions which every school Miserabili can write, they ought to disclose the change to every hearer.” This, though not fixing the date, does at least suggest the time when its writer’s mind was unusually occupied with theoretical studies. On the same page is this: “Cotton in my ears at the pianoforte frees my hearing from the unpleasant buzzing (das unangenehme rauschende)”—which suggests a time when his organs of hearing were still very sensitive, and he had not yet abandoned his pianoforte playing. Suggestions so vague cannot be offered as argument; but if any weight be granted to them, it is in favor of the winter 1808-9. Something more than a mere suggestion is offered on page 18. Here Beethoven has written: “Overture Macbeth, the chorus of witches comes in at once.” Whether the succeeding sketches belong to this overture is a question for a musician. Now that first act of “Macbeth,” read by Röckel in 1808, together with the first act of the Oratorio, “Die Befreiung Jerusalems”—both written for Beethoven—lay before the composer in print early in the year 1809. Collin had inserted them in the “Hoftheater-Taschenbuch” of that year. The poet died in 1811, leaving both unfinished. To suppose that Beethoven, in 1812, gave thought to an incomplete text by a deceased poet, is absurd. His memorandum is evidently the record of an idea which occurred to his mind on perusing the fragment, and determines the date of the first part of the sketchbook to be the beginning of 1809. Passing to the middle of page 22, one comes upon this:

[152]

With few interruptions, such as a theme for a “symphony without drums,” “good triplets of another sort,” the Allegretto and Finale of the Seventh Symphony are the subjects of the studies for more than forty pages. That modest gem—the theme of the Allegretto—is still the same throughout; but how astonishing the number and variety of forms for its setting, that were tested, before the majestic, the sublime simplicity was attained, which satisfied the exquisite taste of its creator!

On page 71 begin the sketches for the first, on page 83, for the last movement of the Eighth Symphony. These two Symphonies, then, were the grand orchestral works in preparation for the proposed concert. Scattered along this part of the sketchbook are divers subjects for pianoforte works; as if Beethoven had in mind a companion piece to the E-flat Concerto for the farther display of his powers. In our notes we find, “Overture-Concerto,” p. 73; p. 83 “Concerto in G”—“Concerto in G or E minor”—“Adagio in E-flat”—“Finale Tutti”; and near the bottom of the same page—“Polonaise for Pianoforte alone.” But the master had no new vocal work for the occasion. Do not the following memoranda—accompanied in the sketchbook by numerous studies—show how the deficiency was to be supplied? Immediately following the “Polonaise” we read:

Freude schöner Götter Funken Tochter. Work out the overture.

Again on leaf 43:

Freude schöner Götter Funken Tochter aus Elysium. Detached fragments, like princes are beggars, etc., not the whole.

On the same page again:

Detached fragments from Schiller’s Freude brought together in a whole.

One of the sketches (according to our copy) begins thus:

Overture Schiller

Freude, schöner Götter funken, Tochter

At or near this point the book was for the present laid aside; for the intended concert was abandoned, and Beethoven’s studies were abruptly turned in other directions.

[153]

The explanation of this is easy.

In the lists of “newly performed plays” in the two Vienna Court Theatres from August 1, 1803 to July 31, 1805, and from August 1, 1806 to December 31, 1807, Schiller’s name does not once occur; not so in the lists after Hartl’s undertaking the direction, January 1, 1808. Here we find:

1808: February 13, “Macbeth,” after Shakespeare; July 23, “Kabale und Liebe”; December 17, “Phædra,” after Racine; 1809: August 23, “Don Carlos”—all by Schiller.

Thus had Schiller suddenly become a leading topic in the conversation of theatrical circles. One sees now how Collin and Beethoven hit upon the “Macbeth” as a subject for opera; and how the composer’s youthful idea [see Vol. I, p. 132] of making the “Ode to Joy” the subject of a composition was recalled to mind.

Music to “Egmont” Projected

It does not appear from any records at hand, that either of the above-named dramas was produced with music composed for it; but Hartl now determined, with his next Schiller drama, to put one by Goethe in rehearsal and to provide both with original music. “When it was decided,” writes Czerny,

to perform Schiller’s “Tell” and Goethe’s “Egmont” in the city theatres the question arose who should compose the music. Beethoven and Gyrowetz were chosen. Beethoven wanted very much to have “Tell.” But a lot of intrigues were at once set on foot to have “Egmont,” supposed to be less adaptable for music, assigned to him. It turned out, however, that he could make masterly music for this drama also and he applied the full power of his genius to it.[72]

Perhaps Beethoven’s experience with the “Ode to Joy” and the “Egmont” just at this time was the origin of a fine remark to Czerny. “Once, when the talk was about Schiller, he said to me: ‘Schiller’s poems are very difficult to set to music. The composer must be able to lift himself far above the poet; who can do that in the case of Schiller? In this respect Goethe is much easier.’”

The order for the immortal “Egmont” music, by presenting the completion of new compositions, necessarily caused the concert to be abandoned, and Beethoven was at last able to seek the much needed rest and recreation, both physical and mental, away from the city, its cares and duties. It needs scarcely to be said that the condition of affairs prevented Beethoven from going into the country until late in the summer of 1809.

To what “happy corner in the country,” if indeed to any, he now retired, is not positively known. “He was often in Hungary,”[154] says Czerny, and there is no good reason to doubt that he went thither now to pass several weeks with the Brunswicks. It was already his practice to grant manuscript copies of his new works for the collection of Archduke Rudolph, whose catalogue, therefore, is of the highest authority in determining their dates. From this source it is known that the Pianoforte Fantasia, Op. 77, previously sketched, and the great F-sharp Pianoforte Sonata, Op. 78, were completed in October. The dedication of these two works to Count Franz and his sister Therese leads to the inference, that they are memorials of happy hours spent in their domestic circle.[73]

Beethoven himself speaks in very strong terms of his extraordinary industry during these weeks, the only probable explanation of which, we think, is, that he now composed or completed and prepared for publication several songs and minor pianoforte works—in part previously sketched, in part quite new. There are several such compositions, known to belong to this period of his life, although their exact date has not been ascertained.

It is conjectured, also, that, at this time and through the influence of Count Brunswick, Beethoven received the order for his other principal contributions to dramatic music. In 1808 Emperor Franz had sanctioned the building at Pesth of “an entirely new grand theatre with Ridotto room, casino, restaurant and coffee-house,” an enterprise which, notwithstanding the catastrophe of 1809, it was now thought would be completed in 1810.[74] It was time therefore to consider the programme for its opening performances, and as no living musician could give the occasion so much splendor as Beethoven, it was of high importance that his consent to compose the music should be secured as early as possible. This, through Brunswick and other Hungarian friends, was no difficult task; more especially as the master had a work of the character required in hand—the “Egmont” music. Another reason for hastening the business with the composer may have been, that his consent or refusal must have some influence upon the form and character of the drama or dramas, which were still to be written. After Beethoven’s return to the Walfischgasse, his time appears still to have been exceedingly occupied in composition; so much so as to yield nothing eventful for a biographer to record. There is, however, one deeply touching[155] and interesting letter to Gleichenstein which must be copied complete. Its date is determined by these circumstances, namely: Poor Breuning had, in April, 1808, married Julie, the beautiful and highly accomplished daughter of Staff Physician von Vering. Less than one year thereafter the young wife, by an imprudent use of cold foot-baths, brought upon herself a hemorrhage of the lungs and died suddenly, only 19 years of age, March 21, 1809. The letter dates from this period:

Concerned about Von Breuning

Dear good Gleichenstein! It is impossible for me to refrain from letting you know of my anxiety for Breuning’s convulsive and feverish condition, and to beg of you that you strive to form a closer attachment to him or rather to bind him closer to you; the condition of my affairs allows me much too little opportunity to perform the high duties of friendship, I beg of you, I adjure you in the name of the good and noble sentiments which you surely feel to take from me upon yourself this truly tormenting care, it will be particularly beneficial if you can ask him to go here and there with you, and (no matter how much he may seek to goad you to diligence) restrain him from his immoderate, and what seems to me unnecessary, labors. You would not believe in what an overwrought state I have occasionally found him—you probably know of his worry of yesterday. All results of the fearful irritability, which, if he does not overcome it, will certainly be his ruin.

I therefore place upon you, my dear Gleichenstein, the care of one of my best and most proved friends, the more since your occupation already creates a sort of bond between you, and this you will strengthen by frequently showing concern for his welfare, which you can easily do inasmuch as he is well disposed towards you—but your noble heart, which I know right well, surely needs no injunctions in respect of this; act for me and for your good Breuning. I embrace you with all my heart.

It was upon finding himself in the Walfischgasse without a servant that Beethoven seems first to have thought of trying the experiment of living independently of hotels and eating-houses, and dining at home. It was therefore of importance to him, if possible, to obtain the joint service of some man and wife, and such a couple now offered themselves as servant and housekeeper. This, with the remark that the rehearsal mentioned was of the Lobkowitz Quartet, Op. 74, is sufficient introduction to the following excerpts from the Zmeskall correspondence:

To-day comes Herzog, who wishes to become my servant for 30 fl., you may negotiate with him with his wife obligato—wood, candles, no livery—I must have somebody to cook, as long as the present wretched food continues I shall remain ill—to-day I eat at home, because of the better wine, if you will order what you want, I should be glad to have you come to me also, you will get the wine gratis and better than that at the beastly Swan.

Here comes Herzog with his wife—listen to their condescension—she will cook when I want her to—also mend, etc., for this is a highly[156] important matter—I will come to you afterward in order to hear the result—perhaps it would be best to ask what service they are going to perform for me?

Shakespeare’s clowns in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” have enriched theatrical speech with “lamentable comedy” and “very tragical mirth”; phrases not inappropriate to the domestic dramas in which Beethoven and his servants were the actors, and which he made the subjects of numberless Jeremiads both in conversation and in letters to his friends—especially to Zmeskall and Mme. Streicher. As one example—and surely one is enough—take the case of the Herzogs. They were engaged and were still in Beethoven’s employ when the departure of Napoleon and his armies enabled those belonging to the public service to return and resume their duties in the Capital—Zmeskall among them. As in the spring he had to accommodate himself to “peace negotiations” between Beethoven and his servant, so now he must again officiate in this “glorious office” between him and the Herzogs. The imagination can readily form a lively and correct picture of Beethoven’s troubles, partly serious, partly tragi-comic, with these people, during that wretched summer, shut up in the city, all the necessaries of life at famine prices, and they on his hands to be provided for. The situation certainly was not one fitted to sweeten the temper of either party; no doubt both had good cause of complaint. We have, however, only the master’s side of the question and not the whole of that. One who invariably has trouble with his servants must sometimes himself be in fault; so, perhaps, the Herzogs were not such “very bad people” after all.

---

His friend Clement of the Theater-an-der-Wien gave Beethoven a pleasing compliment by reproducing in his annual concert (December 24) the “Christus am Ölberg.” On the same evening, by the way, Dobenz’s oratorio, “Die Sündfluth,” with music by Kauer, was sung at the Leopoldstadt Theatre, as it would seem, from the sarcastic notice in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.,” with appropriate scenery! If Beethoven heard it, which is doubtful unless at rehearsal, he found he had little reason to mourn his non-acceptance of that text.

Arrangements of Welsh and Irish Songs

Negotiations had been resumed about this time between George Thomson of Edinburgh and Beethoven, touching the arrangement of national melodies. In a letter dated September 25,[157] 1809, Thomson sent Beethoven 43 Welsh and Irish melodies with the request to provide them as soon as possible with ritornellos and accompaniments for pianoforte or pedal harp, and violin or violoncello, and held out the promise of 100 ducats, Vienna standard, or even more as payment. Besides this, Thomson had requested him to write three quintets, two for two violins, viola, flute and violoncello, one without flute but two violas instead (with bassoon or double-bass ad lib.), and also three sonatas for pianoforte and violin. For these works he offered him 120 ducats Vienna standard. “I make you this offer,” said Thomson, “more to show you my taste and predilection for your music than in the hope to profit by the publication.”[75] To this proposition Beethoven replied as follows—in French and his own wretched hand, under date of November 23, 1809:

I will compose the ritornellos to the 43 little songs, but I ask 10 pounds or 20 ducats de Vienne more than you offer, that is instead of 50 pounds Sterling, or 100 ducats V. S. I ask 60 pounds Sterling or 120 ducats V. S. This work, moreover, is of a kind that gives a composer but little pleasure, but I shall nevertheless always be ready to oblige you since I know that you can do a good business with it. As regards the quintets and the three sonatas, I find the honorarium too little for me—I ask of you for them the sum of 120, i. e., one hundred and twenty pounds Sterling or two hundred and forty ducats V. S., you offered me 60 pounds Sterling and it is impossible for me to gratify you for such an honorarium—we are living here in a time when a frightful price is asked for everything, we are paying almost three times as much as formerly—but if you are agreed with the sums that I ask I will serve you with pleasure. So far as the publication of the works here in Germany is concerned, I think that I would bind myself not to publish them sooner than after seven or eight months if you think this time long enough for your purposes. As regards the double-bass or bassoon I wish that you would give me a free hand, I may, perhaps find something that will be even more agreeable to you—also we might use a bassoon or other wind-instrument with the flute and write only the third quintet for two violins, two violas and violoncello, since in this way the style would be purer. In short, rest assured that you are dealing with a true artist who, indeed, likes to be decently paid, but who loves fame and also the fame of art more—and who is never satisfied with himself and is always striving to make greater progress in his art.

As regards the songs I have already begun them and will deliver them in about a week to Fries—therefore please send me an answer soon, my dear sir.

Next time please send me the words of the songs along with them as it is very necessary for me to have them in order to get the correct expression—they will be translated for me.

[158]

September came and still no payment from Clementi and Co. for the works bought by them in April, 1807. Clementi was in Rome and thither, it would seem, Beethoven sent several letters asking for payment. Clementi now came to Vienna and sent a letter to his London partner, Collard, which, though dateless as to year and day, was, no doubt, the result of Beethoven’s importunities. In it he complains of having written five or six letters to them for money with which to meet Beethoven’s demands, the composer having “plagued” him with several letters—but in vain. At last a firm of Viennese bankers informs him that a credit for £400 has been sent him, but no letter. He concludes that of this sum £100 are meant for Beethoven and £300 for himself, and that they had received but half of Beethoven’s manuscripts. “A most shabby figure you have made me cut in this affair!—and that with one of the first composers of the day! You certainly might have found means in the course of two years and a half to have satisfied his demands. Don’t lose a moment and send me word what you have received from him, that I may settle with him.”

Towards the end of the year Beethoven took ill, as he informs Breitkopf and Härtel in a letter which was dated December 4 (but from which the figure was stricken; the letter may have been delayed or Beethoven become doubtful, as usual, about the day of the month). In this he writes: “A fever which shook me up thoroughly, prevented me from sending these tardily found errata [in the two Trios] at once.” On January 2, 1810, he writes another letter which begins: “Scarcely recovered—my illness threw me back again for two weeks—is it a wonder—we have not even eatable bread,” concluding with: “I am too weak to-day to answer your kind letter more fully, but in a few days touching everything else in your letter.”

Beethoven had now entered his fortieth year, a year which forms a marked and striking era in his life, but of which the most important event is veiled in all the obscurity with which the care and efforts of the parties concerned could envelop it. In the hope of a solution, at least probable, of the mystery which it presents, many minutiæ of the years 1807-09 have been reserved to be presented consecutively, since only thus can their relations to and their bearings upon the problem before us be well understood. The next chapter must, therefore, be but an introduction to the history of the year 1810.

Beethoven in Financial Straits

The compositions and publications of this year remain to be enumerated—a task of some difficulty, requiring a preliminary remark or two. The great cost of living and the various[159] extraordinary demands upon his purse this year, deranged Beethoven’s pecuniary affairs seriously; from the same cause the Vienna publishers were not in a condition to pay him adequately and in advance for his manuscripts. The dilatoriness of the London publishers has just been mentioned. Happily his relations with Breitkopf and Härtel were such, that they were ready to remunerate him handsomely for whatever new compositions he might send them; and there seems to have been an arrangement made, under which divers new works of this period were published simultaneously by them in Leipsic and by Artaria in Vienna. Nevertheless, Beethoven was pressed for money, not only from the causes above stated, but from the need of an extra supply, in case the project of marriage, now in his mind, should be effected. Of course he counted with certainty upon the regular payment of his annuity, now that the war was over, and a lasting peace apparently secured by the rumored union between Napoleon and Archduchess Marie Louise. But a semi-annual payment of this annuity was far from sufficient to meet the expenses of establishing himself as a married man. Now that his concert was abandoned, no immediate profit could arise from the completion of the new symphonies; nor was there any immediate need of his beginning the “Egmont” music. It is obvious, therefore, that his labors, during the “several weeks in succession” when he worked “so that it seemed rather for death than immortality,” were, as before said, the completion and correction for the press of various more or less important works existing in the sketchbooks, and the composition of divers smaller pieces, such as would meet with a ready sale, and hence be promptly and liberally paid for by publishers. It is not at all surprising to find among them a number of songs the texts of which were apt expressions of his feelings at this juncture. Such considerations render it extremely probable, perhaps certain, that a larger number of minor productions belong by date of completion to this year, than they, who have endeavored to ascertain the chronology of Beethoven’s works, have heretofore suspected. But the following list contains only works of which the date is certain—or probable almost to certainty.

The Composer’s Work in 1809

Compositions of 1809:

1. Concerto for Pianoforte, E-flat major, Op. 73.

2. “Quartetto per due Violini, Viola e Violoncello, da Luigi van Beethoven, 1809,” Op. 74, E-flat major.

3. Sonata for Pianoforte: “Das Lebewohl, Wien am 4ten Mai 1809,” etc.; “Die Abwesenheit. Die Ankunft des ... Erzh. Rudolph, den 30. Jänner 1810,” Op. 81a, E-flat. We suppose the sonata to have been completed in 1809, and ready for presentation to the Archduke[160] upon his return; but as this was delayed until January 30th, “Die Ankunft,” of course, took this date.

4. March in F major for Military Band. “For the Bohemian Landwehr, 1809”; also inscribed by Beethoven: “For His Royal Highness, the Archduke Anton, 1809.”

5. Variations for the Pianoforte, D major, Op. 76.

6. Fantasia for Pianoforte, G major, Op. 77.

7. Sonata for Pianoforte, F-sharp major. Op. 78.

8. Sonatina for Pianoforte, G major, Op. 79.

9. Songs from “Blümchen der Einsamkeit” by C. L. Reissig:

(a) “An den fernen Geliebten.” A copy bears the words in Beethoven’s hand: “Fifth song,” “1809,” and corrections in the song itself, Op. 75, No. 5.

(b) “Der Zufriedene,” Op. 75, No. 6.

(c) “Lied aus der Ferne,” “1809.”

(d) “Der Liebende.”

(e) “Der Jüngling in der Fremde.”

10. Other Songs:

(a) “Gretel’s Warnung.” A copy bears the words in Beethoven’s hand: “Fourth song,” “1809,” and corrections in the song itself.

(b) “Andenken,” by Matthison.

(c) “Die laute Klage,” by Herder.

(d) “L’amante impaziente,” “1809”; and probably all the numbers of

(e) “Four Ariettas and a Duet,” Op. 82.

The first sketches for the Fifth Pianoforte Concerto, E-flat, Op. 73, dedicated to Archduke Rudolph, are found in the so-called Grasnick sketchbook after the sketches for the Choral Fantasia as it was performed for the first time on December 22, 1808, and the pianoforte introduction to the same which, as we have seen, is of a later date (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 495 et seq.). It is mentioned by Beethoven in the correspondence with his publishers for the first time on February 4, 1810. It was in their hands on August 21 of that year, when Beethoven prescribed the dedication to his distinguished pupil, and was published in February, 1811. The Concerto had then already been played in public by Johann Schneider with brilliant success toward the close of 1810, and, as the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” reported, put a numerous audience into such “a state of enthusiasm that it could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition and enjoyment.”

The E-flat Quartet, Op. 74 (the so-called “Harp Quartet”), dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, was written simultaneously with the Concerto and Pianoforte Sonata in the same key. Beethoven[161] was evidently hard at work on them when he wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel on “Weinmonath [October] 1908”: “Next time about the quartet which I am writing—I do not like to occupy myself with solo sonatas for the pianoforte, but I promise you a few.” Nottebohm says (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 91), that the four movements of the Quartet were begun and finished in the order in which they appeared in print. According to a note by Archduke Rudolph, the Fantasia, Op. 77, was composed in October. The three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 78, 79 and 81a, are closely connected in time, notwithstanding their diversity of sentiment. Sketches for Op. 78 have not been found, but those for the other two are in the sketchbook of Carl Meinert (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 255), which ends with the sketches for the Fantasia, Op. 77, composed for Count Franz von Brunswick; and it is likely that the Sonata, Op. 78, dedicated to Countess Therese von Brunswick, was conceived and written immediately after the Fantasia (in October). The three sonatas were doubtless in the mind of Beethoven when he promised Breitkopf and Härtel “a few” on October 19. On February 4, 1810, he offers to the publishers “three pianoforte solo sonatas—N.B., of which the third is composed of three movements, Parting, Absence and Return, and would have to be published alone.” On August 21, 1810, Beethoven wrote about the dedication: “The sonata in F-sharp major—À Madame la Comtesse Therese de Brunswick; the fantasia for pianoforte solo—À mon ami Monsieur le comte François de Brunswick—as regards the two sonatas publish them separately, or, if you want to publish them together, inscribe the one in G major Sonata facile or sonatina, which you might also do in case you [do not] publish them together.” Breitkopf and Härtel published the sonatas separately and Op. 79 therefore received no dedication. The notion, once current, that Op. 79 (sometimes called the “Cuckoo Sonata”) was an older work, is disproved by the sketches of 1809 (Nottebohm, “Zweit. Beeth.,” p. 269). The E-flat Sonata, Op. 81a, seems to have been completely sketched before October and held in readiness against the return of the Archduke, as has been said. Breitkopf and Härtel published it in the fall of 1811, without either dates or dedication and with the French title: “Les Adieux, l’Absence et le Retour,” much to Beethoven’s dissatisfaction. The Variations in D, dedicated “to his friend” Oliva, anticipate by two years the use of the same theme as a Turkish march in the incidental music which Beethoven wrote for Kotzebue’s “Ruins of Athens.” Nottebohm (“Zweit. Beeth.” p. 272, foot-note) says of it: “Tradition has it that the theme is a[162] Russian melody. This is improbable and incapable of proof. The theme is not to be found in any collection of Russian melodies known to us. Had Beethoven borrowed the theme he would, as he always did, have mentioned the fact in connection with the Variations and the ‘Ruins of Athens’ (a singular idea to use a Russian melody for a Turkish march!). It may be that a Russian folktune which was popular in Vienna between 1810 and 1820, which bears some resemblance to this melody and on which, besides Gelinek and others, Beethoven too made Variations (Op. 107, No. 3), gave rise to the confounding of the two.” The Military March in F was designed for Archduke Anton and was chosen for a “carrousel” at the court at Laxenburg. It is the “horse music” of Beethoven’s correspondence with Archduke Rudolph. The year also saw the beginning of the arrangements of the Irish melodies for Thomson.

The publications of the year 1809 were:

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Chapter IX

A popular conception of Beethoven’s character, namely, that a predisposition to gloom and melancholy formed its basis, appears to the present writer to be a grave mistake. The question is not what he became in later years—tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis—but what was the normal constitution of his mind in this regard. Exaggerated reports of his sadness and infelicity during the last third of his life became current even before its close, and prepared the public to give undue importance to the melancholy letters and papers of earlier years, which from time to time were exhumed and published. The reader upon examination will be surprised to find how few in number they are, at what wide intervals they were written, and how easy it is to account for their tone.

Beethoven’s childhood was excessively laborious, though not so cheerless as has been represented; and, however flattering to occupy at the age of twelve years the place of a man in theatre and chapel, his boyhood could not have been a happy one. His brightest days up to the middle of his seventeenth year were undoubtedly those spent in Vienna in 1787—the date of the earliest of those papers from his own pen, on which the popular conception of his character is founded. But the letter to Dr. Schaden, written to explain and excuse the non-payment of a debt, takes its tone, not from any predisposition to gloom and melancholy, but from the manifold troubles which just then beset him—the bitter disappointment of his sudden recall from Vienna; the death of his mother; the hopeless poverty of his family; hence, the pangs of wounded pride and self-respect; the depression of spirits caused by asthmatic maladies, and his utter hopelessness of any timely change for the better, such as, in fact, one short year was to bring.

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It is clear that Beethoven’s character could not develop itself normally, until he had become to a considerable degree independent of his father; and, consequently, that certain peculiarities related of him in his boyhood were probably less the results of his natural tendencies than the consequence of these being checked and obstructed by adverse circumstances. Soon after the letter to Dr. Schaden came the turning-point in the boy’s fortunes. Beethoven was now substantially emancipated from his father; his talents opened to him a higher and finer-toned circle of society; a love for the best literature was cherished, if not created; and no long time elapsed before his father’s increasing moral infirmities made him virtually the head of the family. The nobler qualities of his head and heart now received a culture impossible before. At last his character could and did develop itself normally. In all the following fourteen years—during which the boy organist of Bonn rises step by step to the position of first of pianists and most promising of the young composers in Vienna—one seeks in vain for any trace of the assumed constitutional tendency to melancholy. Now come the pathetic letters to Wegeler and the “Testament” of 1802—dark, gloomy, despondent. But these were all written under the first pressure of a malady which, he justly foreboded, would in time unfit him for general society and debar him from every field of the musician’s activity and ambition save that of composition. It is perhaps worthy of remark, that among the well-known phenomena of mental action are the intellectual prostration and the consequent depression of spirits which follow the completion of any great work in literature or art that has been for some time engrossing the attention, absorbing the thoughts and straining the faculties; and that the “Testament” of 1802 belongs in the precise period of reaction after completing that first of his great works, the Second Symphony. The “Testament” is indeed a cry of agony; but, in the paroxysms of intense physical suffering, cries of agony are not proofs of a naturally weak or defective constitution of the body; that sort of patient suffers less—but dies. Had Beethoven’s temperament really been of the gloomy and melancholy cast supposed, suicide, insanity or—through seeking temporary alleviation of mental suffering in sensual indulgences—moral shipwreck would soon have ended his career. “Strength is the morality of men who distinguish themselves above others, and it is also mine,” he wrote to his “Dearest Baron Muck Carter”:—“Beethoven was, in fact, the personification of strength,” said the aged poet Castelli to the present writer. The thought of suicide[165] is alluded to in both the “Testament” and the letter to Wegeler; but with him the “To be or not to be?” was only a momentary, a passing, question; not because “conscience does make cowards of us all,” but by reason of innate manliness to bear “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” with courage and fortitude, until time and patience should bring resignation. How bravely he sustained his heavy burden to the end of 1806, has been amply recorded in this work. The famous love-letter affords its own sufficient explanation of whatever degree of melancholy it exhibits in the bitterness of parting and separation—the wretched life in Vienna, the uncertainty of his pecuniary resources, the impossibility of marriage without some decided change for the better in his condition and prospects. When, a few months later, the question of the possession of the theatres was decided against Braun, Beethoven had reason to hope that this change was assured; since the position of Lobkowitz, both socially and in connection with the theatres, gave to his hint, that the composer should apply for a permanent engagement, almost the force of a promise that he should receive it. In view of Beethoven’s abhorrence of all restrictions on his personal freedom, it is by no means certain that the final non-acceptance of his proposals caused him any very severe and lasting disappointment.

Whether so or not, and notwithstanding the prolonged uncertainty of his future prospects and the occasional characteristic complaints in his letters, still these three years—1807-8-9—were unquestionably the happiest in the last half of his life. That it was a period of extraordinary activity and productiveness, of a corresponding augmentation and extension of his fame, of animated and joyous social intercourse, and was brightly tinted with so much of the romance of love as a man of middle-age is apt to indulge in—all this the reader knows.

The coming of Reichardt to Vienna and the recording of his observations on the musical life of the Austrian capital in his book entitled “Confidential Letters, etc.,” were fortunate incidents for the lovers of Beethoven. Reichardt’s was one of the great names in music. He stood in the front rank both as composer and writer on the art. His personal character was unspotted; his intellectual powers great and highly cultivated in other fields than music; nor had his dismissal from his position of Royal Chapelmaster by Frederick William II been founded upon reasons which injured his reputation abroad. He therefore found all, even the highest, musical salons of Vienna open to him, and he received attention which under the circumstances was[166] doubly grateful. A colossal self-esteem, a vanity almost boundless alone could have sent such pages as his “Letters” to the press without a more thorough expurgation. But this is nothing to the present generation, which owes him a large debt of gratitude for the most lively and complete picture existing of the musical life at Vienna at that period, and especially for his notices of Beethoven, the date of which (winter of 1808-09) adds doubly to their value. They should be read in connection with this biography.[76]

And here a word upon the compositions of these years. The notion, that the beauties of the opera “Leonore” were in great measure the offspring of an old, unfortunate affection for Fräulein von Breuning and of a still more unlucky recent passion for Julia Guicciardi, was treated in its place as unworthy of serious refutation; but nowhere in this work has anything been said affirming or implying that the moral and mental condition of the man Beethoven would not produce its natural and legitimate effect upon Beethoven the composer. Now, examine the lists of compositions which terminate the preceding chapters, and say whether any but a strong, healthy, sound, elastic mind could have produced them? To specify only the very greatest; there are in the last months of 1806, after the visit to the Brunswicks, the placid and serene Fourth Symphony—the most perfect in form of them all—and the noble Violin Concerto; in 1807, the Mass in C and the C minor Symphony; in 1808, the “Pastoral” Symphony and the Choral Fantasia; and in 1809, the conception and partial execution of the Seventh, perhaps also the Eighth, Symphony and the glorious “Egmont” music.

Are such the works of a melancholy, gloomy temperament or of a forlorn, sentimental lover, sighing like a furnace and making “a woeful ballad to his mistress’ eyebrow?”

Beethoven, during the fifteen years since Wegeler’s vain effort to induce him to attend lectures on Kant, had become to some considerable degree a self-taught man; he had read and studied much, and had acquired a knowledge of the ordinary literary topics of the time, which justified that fine passage in the letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, touching his ability to acquire knowledge from even the most learned treatises. Strikingly in point is the interest which he exhibits during these and following years in the Oriental researches of Hammer and his associates. His notes and excerpts[167] prove a very extensive knowledge of their translations, both published and in manuscript; and, moreover, that this strange literature was perhaps even more attractive to him in its religious, than in its lyric and dramatic aspects. In these excerpts—indeed, generally in extracts from books and in his underscoring of favorite passages in them—Beethoven exhibits a keen perception and taste for the lofty and sublime, far beyond the grasp of any common or uncultivated mind. “The moral law in us and the starry heavens above us. Kant!!!” is one of the brief notes from his hand, which now and then enliven the tedious and thankless task of deciphering the Conversation Books. The following, given here from his own manuscript, is perhaps the finest of his transcriptions from Hindu literature:

Beethoven’s enjoyment of Persian literature as revealed to him in the translations and essays of Herder and von Hammer will now readily be conceived by the reader; as also the delight with which he read that collection of exquisite imitations of Persian poetry with its long series of (then) fresh notices of the manners, customs, books and authors of Persia, which some years later Goethe published with the title “West-Östlicher Divan.” Even that long essay, apparently so out of place in the work—“Israel in der Wüste”—in which the character of Moses is handled so unmercifully, was upon a topic already of curious interest to Beethoven. This appears from one of his copied papers—one which, as Schindler avers, “he considered to be the sum of the loftiest and purest religion.” The history of this paper is this: The Hebrew chronicler describes the great lawgiver of his nation as being “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” This leads Schiller, in his fine essay on “Die Sendung Moses,” into a[168] discussion of the nature and character of this wisdom. The following sentences are from his account:

The sentences here printed in capital letters “Beethoven copied with his own hand and kept (them), framed and under glass, always before him on his writing-table.”

Beethoven was now at an age when men of thoughtful and independent minds have settled opinions on such important subjects as have received their attention, among which, to all men, religion stands preëminent. Few change their faith after forty; there is no reason to suppose that Beethoven did; no place, therefore, more fit than this will be found to remark upon a topic to which the preceding pages directly lead—his religious views. Schindler writes in the appendix to his biography of Beethoven:

As an argument against Schindler and to prove Beethoven’s orthodoxy in respect to the Roman Catholic tenets, the fervid sentiment and sublime devotion expressed in the music of the “Missa Solemnis” have been urged; but the words of the Mass were simply a text on which he could lavish all the resources of his art in the expression of his religious feelings. It should not be forgotten that the only Mass which can be ranked with Beethoven’s in D, was the composition of the sturdy Lutheran, J. S. Bach, and that the great epic poem of trinitarian Christianity was by the Arian, John Milton. Perhaps Schindler would have his readers understand more than is clearly expressed. If he means, that Beethoven rejected the trinitarian dogma; that the Deity of his faith is a personal God, a universal Father, to whom his human children may hopefully appeal for mercy in time of temptation, for aid in time of need, for consolation in time of sorrow—if this be Schindler’s “deism,” it may be affirmed unhesitatingly, that everything known to the present writer, which bears at all on the subject, confirms his view. Beethoven had the habit in moments of temptation and distress, of writing down short prayers for divine support and assistance, many of which are preserved; but neither in them, nor in any of his memoranda or conversations, is there the remotest indication that he believed in the necessity of any mediator between the soul of man and the Divine Father, under whatsoever name known—priest, prophet, saint, virgin or Messiah; but an even stronger religious sentiment, a more ardent spirit of devotion, a firmer reliance on the goodness and mercy of God are revealed in them, than Schindler seems to have apprehended.

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Chapter X

The topics last under notice have carried us far onward, even to the last years of Beethoven. We now return to the end of 1809—to the master in the full vigor and maturity of his powers. The last months of this year had been marked by an untiring and efficient industry; his sketchbooks abounded in the noblest themes, hints and protracted studies for orchestral, chamber and vocal compositions; and several important works—among them the Seventh Symphony—were well advanced. The princes, whose generosity had just placed him, for the present at least, beyond the reach of pecuniary anxieties, may well have expected the immediate fulfillment of “the desire that he surpass the great expectations which are justified by his past achievements.” They were bitterly disappointed. Kinsky did not live to hear any new orchestral work from that recently so prolific pen; Lobkowitz, whose dissatisfaction is upon record, heard but three; while the Archduke saw the years pass away comparatively fruitless, hardly more being accomplished in ten, than formerly in two—the marvellous year 1814 excepted. The close of 1809 terminated a decade (1800-1809) during which—if quality be considered, as well as number, variety, extent and originality—Beethoven’s works offer a more splendid exhibition of intellectual power than those of any other composer produced within a like term of years; and New Year, 1810, began another (1810-19), which, compared with the preceding, exhibits an astonishing decrease in the composer’s productiveness. The contrast is rendered more striking by the fact that many of the principal works completed in the second decade belong in plan and partly in execution to the first.

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Schindler’s division of Beethoven’s life into three distinctly marked periods appears forced—rather fanciful than real; but whoever makes himself even moderately conversant with the subject, soon perceives that a change in the man did take place too great and sudden to be attributed to the ordinary effect of advancing years; but when? The abrupt pause in his triumphant career as composer just mentioned, would seem to determine the time; and, if so, the natural inference is, that both were effects of the same cause. There was a point in the life of Handel when his indefatigable pen dropped from his hand and many weary months passed before he could resume it. The failure of his operas, his disastrous theatrical speculation, consequent bankruptcy, and the culmination of his distresses in a partial paralysis of his physical powers, were the causes. The cessation of Beethoven’s labors, though less absolute than in Handel’s case, is even more remarkable, as it continued longer and was not produced by any such natural and obvious causes. The fact is certain, and will probably find a sufficient explanation when we come to the details of the master’s private history during this period; if not, it is another question the solution of which must await the accident of time or the keener penetration and wider knowledge of some other investigator.

Beethoven’s studies were now, for the third time, diverted from important works in hand to an order from the directors of the theatres—the “Egmont” music. The persevering diligence of the last months, of which he speaks in his letters, was evidently for the purpose of clearing his desk of a mass of manuscript compositions sold to Breitkopf and Härtel, before attacking Goethe’s tragedy—as decks are cleared for action before a naval battle. If so, he could hardly have seriously engaged upon the “Egmont” before the new year; but nothing is known, which fixes the exact date of either the beginning or completion of the work. Its overture bears the composer’s own date “1810”; its first performance was on the evening of Thursday, May 24. The Clärchen was played by Antonie Adamberger—a young actress alike distinguished for her beauty, her genius and her virtues—whose marriage in 1817 to the distinguished archæologist von Arneth was a distinct loss to the Vienna stage. The two songs which Clärchen has to sing, necessarily brought Fräulein Adamberger for the moment into personal relations with Beethoven, of which she wrote to the present author the following simple and pleasing account under date January 5, 1867:

Long afterwards, in a Conversation Book, an unknown hand writes: “I remember still the torment you had with the kettledrums at the rehearsal of ‘Egmont’.” Nothing more is known of the history of this work. Beethoven’s name appears on both this year’s concerts for the Theatrical Poor Fund—March 25, with the first movements of the Fourth Symphony; April 17, with the “Coriolan” Overture; but it does not appear that he conducted on either occasion; it is, however, probable that he did conduct the rehearsals and performance of a symphony in Schuppanzigh’s first Augarten concert in May.

Add to the above the subsequent notices of a few songs and the Quartet, Op. 95, and the meagre history of Beethoven as composer for 1810 is exhausted; what remains is of purely private and personal nature. Kinsky’s active service in the campaign of 1809 and his subsequent duties in Bohemia had prevented him hitherto from discharging his obligations under the annuity contract; but the Archduke, perhaps Lobkowitz also, was promptly meeting his; and these payments, together with the honorable remuneration granted by Breitkopf and Härtel for manuscripts, supplied Beethoven with ample means for comfort, even for luxury. He had at this time no grounds for complaint upon that score.

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It was in 1810 that Beethoven received from Clementi and Co. the long-deferred honorarium for the British copyrights bought in April, 1807. Exactly when this money was received by Beethoven cannot be determined from the existing evidence, but it seems to have been before February 4, 1810, on which date Beethoven wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel offering them the compositions from Op. 73 to 83 (exclusive of 75), and remarking that he was about to send the same works to London. He would scarcely have had such a purpose in mind unless he had had a settlement with his London publishers. Additional evidence, though of little weight, is provided by the circumstance that at the same time he was contemplating a change of lodgings, as a letter to Professor Loeb, written on February 8, shows; it was to his old home in the house of Baron Pasqualati, which he had occupied two years before and which he now took again at an annual rental of 500 florins.

A number of letters to Gleichenstein and Zmeskall to which attention must now be called seem to show us Beethoven in the character of a man so deeply smitten with the charms of a newly-acquired lady friend that he turns his attention seriously to his wardrobe and personal appearance and thinks unusually long and frequently of the social pleasures enjoyed at the home of his charmer. A desire to save space alone prevents the publication of the letters in full, but the reader may find them in the published Collections of the composer’s letters.[77] In the first of these he sends Gleichenstein 300 florins which the Count was to expend for him in the purchase of linen and nankeen for shirts and “at least half a dozen neckties.” On the same day, he informs his correspondent that acting on his advice he had paid Lind 300 florins.[174] Henickstein had paid him twenty-seven and a half florins for a pound sterling and invited him and Gleichenstein to dine the next day with Clementi. Very significantly the letter ends with: “Greet everything that is dear to you and me. How gladly would I like to add to whom we are dear????” Lind was a tailor and Henickstein the son of a banker. The next day he writes that on the previous evening the Archduke had requested his presence on the day set for the dinner and he had been obliged to send Henickstein a declination. The day after that he concludes a note telling about the meeting at the Archduke’s with “Farewell. This evening I will come to the dear Malfattis.” Here is the next letter in full:

On the day after that he sends Gleichenstein an S. (a sonata, doubtless) which he had “promised Therese” and adds: “Give my compliments to all of them. It seems as if the wounds with which wicked men have pierced my soul might be healed by them”; he sends 50 florins more for cravats and makes a boast of it that Gigons, Malfatti’s little dog, had supped with him and accompanied him home. This is the first of the only two allusions which Beethoven makes in all the papers, printed or written, relating to him, of a domestic pet animal. Another letter reads: “I beg of you to let me know when the M. remain at home of an evening. You surely had a pleasant sleep—I slept little, but I prefer such an awaking to all sleep.” Again he writes to say that he wished “Madame M.” would give him permission to pick out a pianoforte for her which she wished to buy “at Schanz’s.” Though it was his rule never to accept commissions on such sales, he wanted to save money for the lady on this purchase.

Now we reach the notes to Zmeskall, the first of which is endorsed by the recipient as having been received on April 18, 1810. From Beethoven’s lodgings in the Walfischgasse it was but a few steps around the corner in the Kärnthnerthorstrasse to an entrance of the Bürgerspital where Zmeskall lived, of whose readiness to oblige him he could and did avail himself to an extent which at length excited misgivings in his own mind that he was really going too far and abusing his friend’s kindness. This time Beethoven’s want was of a very peculiar nature, namely a looking-[175]glass; that it was not for shaving purposes but for a more general control of his toilet is indicated by the second note:

The date of the first note (April 18) is important as showing that at the time Beethoven was not in the country but still in Vienna and that, consequently, the 8th mentioned in the letter to Therese Malfatti which follows, was not the 8th of April, but of May. From this letter we deduce that Beethoven’s intercourse with the Malfatti family in Vienna had become more animated and intimate, that Beethoven improvised at the pianoforte and that at the punchbowl his spirits rose rather high (“forget the nonsense”). The conclusion points pretty plainly towards a desire to be united with the family in closer bonds. The Malfattis had probably gone to their country home towards the end of April or beginning of May. The following letter to Gleichenstein was probably written on the day after the merry evening of which the letter to Therese speaks:

The letter to Therese reads:

Under such circumstances Beethoven wrote the famous letter of May 2, 1810 to Wegeler in Coblenz, asking him to[177] procure a copy of his baptismal certificate for him. In this letter he says:

To the “Notizen” (1838) Wegeler published a few pages of appendix on the occasion of the Beethoven festival at Bonn (1845), giving therein a most valuable paragraph explanatory of this important letter:

We know now that the marriage project fell through early in May, soon after he had written the letter to Wegeler. Two[178] short letters to Gleichenstein instruct us slightly touching the conclusion of this psychological drama which, no doubt, tore the heart of Beethoven. It would seem as if at first Beethoven wanted to visit the Malfattis at their country home, but at the last preferred to send a formal proposal of marriage by the hands of Gleichenstein. We have no testimony concerning the refusal beyond the utterance of the niece and the cessation of all correspondence on the subject. Here are the letters:

Beethoven’s relations with another fair friend now demand attention. In the Vienna suburban road Erdbeergasse stands the lofty house then numbered 98, its rear windows overlooking Rasoumowsky’s gardens, the Donau canal and the Prater, whence on May 15, 1810, Elizabeth Brentano (Bettina) wrote to Goethe:

Joseph Melchior von Birkenstock (born in 1738), the honored, trusted and valued servant of Maria Theresia and Kaiser Joseph, the friend and brother-in-law of the celebrated Sonnenfels—the esteemed correspondent of so many of the noblest men of his time, including the American philosopher Franklin and the Scotch historian Robertson, the reformer of the Austrian school system, the promoter of all liberal ideas so long as in those days progress[179] was allowed—was pensioned in 1803, and thenceforth lived for science, art and literature until his death, October 30, 1809. His house, filled almost to repletion with the artistic, archæological, scientific collections of which Bettina speaks, was one of those truly noble seats of learning, high culture and refinement, where Beethoven, to his manifest intellectual gain, was a welcome guest.

Sophie Brentano, older than Bettina, very beautiful notwithstanding the loss of an eye, and, like all the members of that remarkable family, very highly talented and accomplished, had made a long visit to Vienna as Count Heberstein’s bride—their marriage being prevented by her untimely death. “She brought about the marriage of her brother Franz with Antonie von Birkenstock,” says Jahn. “The young wife, who did not feel at home in Frankfort”—and also because of the precarious health of her father, we may add—“persuaded Brentano to remove to Vienna, where for several years she occupied a home in the Birkenstock house which Bettina describes so beautifully. In this house, where music was cultivated, Beethoven came and went in friendly fashion. His ‘little friend,’ for whose encouragement in pianoforte playing he wrote the little trio in a single movement in 1812, was her daughter Maximiliane Brentano, later Madame Plittersdorf, to whom ten years later he dedicated the Sonata in E major (Op. 109). After Birkenstock’s death he tried to give a practical turn to his friendship by seeking to persuade Archduke Rudolph to buy a part of his collection. More effective, evidently was the help which Brentano extended to him, who, when he came into financial straits and needed a loan, always found an open purse. Madame Antonie Brentano was frequently ill for weeks at a time during her sojourn in Vienna, so that she had to remain in her room inaccessible to all visitors. At such times Beethoven used to come regularly, seat himself at a pianoforte in her anteroom without a word and improvise; after he had finished ‘telling her everything and bringing comfort,’ in his language, he would go as he had come without taking notice of another person.”

The credibility of Madame von Arnim’s contribution to Beethoven literature has been questioned in all degrees of severity, from simple doubts as to particular passages to broad denunciation of the whole as gross distortions of fact, or even as figments of the imagination. Dogmatism is rarely in proportion to knowledge, unless, perhaps, in inverse ratio. The bitterest attacks upon the veracity of Mme. von Arnim have been made by those whose ignorance of the subject is most conspicuous; but among the doubters are people of candor, good judgment and wide knowledge[180] of Beethoven’s history; and a decent respect for the opinions of such renders it just and proper to explain why so much of these contributions has been admitted into the text as being substantially true.

At the very outset we are met by a statement in Schindler’s book (Ed. 1840) which if correct destroys at once the credibility of Mme. von Arnim’s account of her first interview with Beethoven. It is this: “Beethoven became acquainted with the Brentano family in Frankfort through her [Bettina].” A later writer, Ludwig Nohl, supports the assertion on the authority of “Frau Brentano, now 87 years old”—Birkenstock’s daughter. But Schindler, after his long residence in and near Frankfort, writes (1860): “There still lives one of the oldest friends of our master during life, with whom he became acquainted already on his arrival in Vienna (1792) in the house of her father.” This was the above-mentioned lady “now 87 years old.” The other writer also withdraws his statement in a later publication where he speaks of this aged lady’s daughter, “Maxe, who as a child in 1808 [?] in Vienna, often sat at Birkenstock’s on his (Beethoven’s) knees.”

Any possible doubt on the subject is dispelled by a communication made to this author in 1872, by the then head of the Brentano family living in Frankfort, who wrote:

Beethoven, through his familiar intercourse with the Brentanos, must, of course, have known of the expected visit of Bettina and of her relations to Goethe. Her account of their first meeting, therefore, is in all respects credible; nor has it been, so far as is known, questioned. It is twice given by her own pen in the “Briefwechsel” with Goethe under date 1810, and in the Pückler-Muskau correspondence as belonging to 1832. At this last-named date she had not yet received from Chancellor von Müller her[181] letter to Goethe, and wrote from memory, confining her narrative to the minor incidents of the meeting. The two accounts differ, but they do not contradict, they only supplement each other.

The present writer had the honor of an interview or two with Mme. von Arnim in 1849-50, and heard the story from her lips; in 1854-5, it was his good fortune to meet her often in two charming family circles—her own and that of the brothers Grimm. Thus at an interval of five years he had the opportunity of comparing her statements, of questioning her freely and of convincing himself, up to this point, of her simple honesty and truth.

But the rock of offense does not lie here; it is in the long discourse of Beethoven which will presently be given in these pages. Schindler objects to this, both in its matter and form, on the ground that he had never heard “the master” talk in this manner. But the Beethoven whom Schindler knew in his last years was not the Beethoven of 1810, and Anton Schindler certainly was not an Elizabeth Brentano. There happens to be proof that just in the former period the composer could talk freely and eloquently. Jahn says: “Beethoven’s personality and nature, moreover, were calculated to make a significant but winning impression upon women,” and cites Mme. Hummel (Elizabeth Röckel) in proof. “As a matron advanced in years,” says he, “and still winning because of her charming graciousness, she spoke with ingratiating warmth of the good fortune of having been observed by Beethoven and to have been on friendly relations with him. ‘Whoever saw him in good humor, intellectually animated, when he gave utterance to his thoughts in such a mood,’ said she with glowing eyes, ‘can never forget the impression which he made.’”

There are two hypotheses as to the genesis of this letter to Goethe. The one: that Mme. von Arnim in preparing the “Briefwechsel” for publication wrote out her own crude and nebulous thoughts and gave them to the public in the form of a fictitious report of a conversation of Beethoven. The other: that she found Beethoven fresh from the composition of the “Egmont” music, full of enthusiasm for Goethe and vehemently desirous that his, the great composer’s, views upon music should be known and comprehended by the great poet; that he, happening to get upon this topic at their first interview, imparted those views to her with that express purpose; and that she, so far as she was able to follow and understand the speaker, and so far as her memory could recall his words a few hours after, correctly records and reports them.

[182]

The first hypothesis rests now on precisely the same foundation as when Schindler wrote, namely, on the presumption that Beethoven could not have spoken thus; but a discourse uttered under such circumstances and with such a purpose, poured into the willing ear of a beautiful, highly cultivated and remarkably fascinating young woman, one who possessed the higher artistic and intellectual qualities of character in an extraordinary degree—such a discourse might well abound in thoughts and expressions which the prosaic Schindler in the most prosaic period of his master’s life never drew from him.

Two significant minor points may be noted: there was a Latin word in use by the Breuning family in the old Bonn days with a meaning not given in the dictionaries. This we learn from Wegeler’s “Notizen,” and only there. Yet Mme. v. Arnim puts this word, raptus, in precisely this local sense into Beethoven’s mouth several years before the publication of the “Notizen”! Again: when the discoveries of Galvani and Volta were still a novel topic of general interest, when, through them, physiologists, as Dubois-Raymond expressed it, “believed that at length they should realize their visions of a vital power”; and when the semi-scientific world was full of the theories of Mesmer and his disciples—at that time, the first years of the nineteenth century, custom gave the word elektrisch (electrical) a significance long since lost, which well conveyed the thought Beethoven is made to express. But in 1834-5, to introduce this word in that sense, retrospectively, into a fictitious conversation purporting to be of the year 1810, shows, no less than the raptus, an exquisite tact so rare, that it might well be termed a most felicitous stroke of genius, one of which any writer of romance might be vain.

Julius Merz, in his “Athenæum für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben” (Nuremberg, January, 1839), printed for the opening article “Drei Briefe von Beethoven an Bettina.” The third of these letters was copied the next July into Schilling’s ephemeral musical periodical the “Jahrbücher” (Carlsruhe), with remarks by the editor expressing doubts of its authenticity. But Schindler, whose book was just then going to press, copied a large portion of it as genuine; and in his second edition (1845) reprinted all three entire, without adding a word of doubt or misgiving. They had appeared in English in 1841, from a copy given to Mr. Henry F. Chorley by Mme. von Arnim; and since then have been reprinted in various languages probably more frequently, and become more universally known, than any other chapter in Beethoven literature. Here and there a reader shared in Schilling’s doubts;[183] but twenty years elapsed before these doubts were put into such form, and by an author of such position, that a reasonable self-respect could allow Mme. von Arnim to take notice of them; and then it was too late—she lay upon her death-bed. Her silence under the attacks made upon her veracity is therefore no evidence against her.

A. B. Marx, the author here referred to, produces but one argument which demands notice here, and this is the occurrence of certain “repetitions”: “liebe, liebste,” “liebe, gute,” “bald, bald” which he declared to be “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian.” Now, on the contrary, in the text of this volume there is abundant proof that just these expressions are very Beethovenian and characteristic of his letters to favorite women at the precise period in question.

It is true, as he says, that when Marx wrote, nothing of the kind had ever been published; a fortiori, nothing twenty years before; but this fact, on which he laid such stress, instead of supporting really demolishes his argument. It was in the autumn of 1838 that Mr. Merz received the letters. At that time specimens of Beethoven’s correspondence had been published by Seyfried in the pseudo-“Studien,” by Schumann in the “Neue Zeitschrift,” by Gottfried Weber in the “Cäcilia,” by Wegeler in the “Notizen”; and a few others were scattered in books and periodicals. Imitators, counterfeiters, fabricators of false documents, must have samples, patterns, models; but all the Beethoven letters then in print were so far from being the patterns or models of the Bettina letters that the contrast between them was the main argument against the authenticity of the latter. If, then, Mme. von Arnim introduced so many expressions which we know (but she could not) are not “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian” into a fictitious correspondence, she did so not only without a pattern or model, but against all patterns and models. Credat Judæeus Apella, non ego.

There are points of doubt and difficulty in the third letter which the warmest advocates of its authenticity have not been able fully to overcome; but as Marx had not sufficient knowledge of his subject to perceive them, and the question of the acceptance or rejection of this letter will rest upon grounds to be given in the text, these points need not be noticed here. Another one must be, namely: suppose that letter should be proved counterfeit, does it follow that the others are so? Not at all; but that they are the authentic letters whose manner and style are imitated.

[184]

In 1848, Mme. von Arnim published two volumes of characteristic correspondence with Herr Nathusius under the title: “Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia.” In one of his letters Pamphilius requests autographs of Goethe’s mother and Beethoven, for a collection which he is making. This gives her occasion in various letters to express her admiration and reverence for the composer in terms which come warm from the heart. At length (Vol. II, p. 205) she writes: “Herewith I am sending you the letters of Goethe and Beethoven for your autograph collection.” She prints all three in the pages following; but a comparison of the several passages relating to them leads to the inference, that only one autograph was sent. Is all this a mystification? Was there no Pamphilius? No autograph collection? No contribution of a letter in Beethoven’s hand to it? Herr Nathusius knows.

Mme. von Arnim, then, gave the letters to the public three times; in the “Athenæum,” January, 1839; in English translation, through Chorley, 1841; in the “Pamphilius und Ambrosia,” in 1848. It is patent to the feeblest common sense, that, if not genuine, either the same copy, or copies carefully collated so as to avoid all suspicious variations, would have been sent to the printer; and that the two German publications would differ only by such small errors as compositors make and proof-readers overlook—such as are found in Schindler’s reprint from the “Athenæum,” and in Marx’s from Schindler. But the variations of the “Pamphilius” copy from that in the “Athenæum” are such as cannot be printer’s errors, but precisely such as two persons, inexperienced in the task, would make in deciphering Beethoven’s very illegible writing; one (Mr. Merz) correcting the punctuation and faults in the use of capital letters (as Wegeler has evidently done), and the other (Mme. von Arnim) retaining these striking characteristics of the composer’s letters. The change of the familiar “Bettine,” which Beethoven learned in her brother’s family, to the more formal “Freundin,” can hardly be made a point of objection. Marx’s argument had been so completely upset, that, in renewing (1863) his attack upon the then deceased Mme. von Arnim, he was compelled to base it upon other considerations. It was then that the present writer compared the letters printed in the “Athenæum” with the copies in the “Pamphilius,” which convinced him, on the grounds above noted, of their authenticity, at least in part, and led to a correspondence, of which an abstract here follows: On July 9, 1863, the present author requested Mr. Wheeler, American Consul at Nuremberg, to see Mr. Merz, learn from him the circumstances under which he obtained the[185] letters, and whether he printed from Beethoven’s autograph. Mr. Wheeler replied on August 9th: “He [Mr. Merz] states, that he enjoyed the personal acquaintance of that lady (Mme. von Arnim), and was at the time in Berlin on a visit; and being at her residence on a certain occasion, she gave him these letters, remarking: ‘There is something for the Athenæum.’ After publishing the letters, Mr. Merz feels confident, he returned the letters to Mme. v. Arnim.” The author now, on August 25th, requested Mr. Wheeler if possible to obtain from Mr. Merz his written statement that he had printed the letters from the original autographs. Mr. Wheeler, on September 24th, replied.... “Yesterday he [Merz] was good enough to write me the note you requested; I trust it may be found of the tenor wished.” The note which was enclosed in this letter is this: “I can certify that at the time in question I had in my possession the letters referred to in the January number of the ‘Athenæum,’ but gave them back again. Nuremberg, September 23, 1863. Julius Merz, book publisher.” It may be said that this note does not explicitly cover the whole ground. True, it is the testimony of a conscientious man who, after the lapse of twenty-five years, remembers deciphering certain letters of Beethoven which he printed, but does not venture to declare that all that he printed lay before him in the handwriting of the master. There is another witness who is reported to have been less distrustful of his memory. Herr Ludwig Nohl, in a note to these letters (“Briefe Beethoven’s,” p. 71), says: “Their authenticity (barring, perhaps, a few words in the middle of the third letter) was never doubtful in my mind and will not be now after Beethoven’s letters have been made public. Though superfluous, it may yet be said for the benefit of such as are not wholly willing to accept internal evidence, that Prof. Moriz Carriere, in a conversation on the subject of Beethoven’s letters in December, 1864, expressly stated that the three letters to Bettina were genuine; he saw them himself in her house in Berlin in 1839, read them through with the greatest interest and care, and because of their significant contents had urged their immediate publication. When they were printed a short time afterward, no changes in the reprint struck his attention; on the contrary, he could still remember that the much controverted terms, particularly the anecdote about Goethe in the third letter, were precisely so in the original.”

And now to the matter, the discussion of which has detained us so long. One day in May, Beethoven, sitting at the pianoforte with a song just composed before him, was surprised by a pair of[186] hands being placed upon his shoulders. He looked up “gloomily” but his face brightened as he saw a beautiful young woman who, putting her mouth to his ear said: “My name is Brentano.” She needed no further introduction. He smiled, gave her his hand without rising and said: “I have just made a beautiful song for you; do you want to hear it?” Thereupon he sang—raspingly, incisively, not gently or sweetly (the voice was hard), but transcending training and agreeableness by reason of the cry of passion which reacted on the hearer—“Kennst du das Land?” He asked: “Well, how do you like it?” She nodded. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically, “marvellously beautiful; I’ll sing it again.” He sang it again, looked at her with a triumphant expression, and seeing her cheeks and eyes glow, rejoiced over her happy approval. “Aha!” said he, “most people are touched by a good thing; but they are not artist-natures. Artists are fiery; they do not weep.” He then sang another song of Goethe’s, “Trocknet nicht Thränen der ewigen Liebe.”

There was a large dinner party that day at Franz Brentano’s in the Birkenstock house and Bettina—for it was she—told Beethoven he must change his old coat for a better, and accompany her thither. “Oh,” said he jokingly, “I have several good coats,” and took her to the wardrobe to see them. Changing his coat he went down with her to the street, but stopped there and said he must return for a moment. He came down again laughing with the old coat on. She remonstrated; he went up again, dressed himself properly and went with her.[78] But, notwithstanding his rather clumsy drollery, she soon discovered a greatness in the man for which she was wholly unprepared. His genius burst upon her with a splendor of which she had formed no previous conception, and the sudden revelation astonished, dazzled, enraptured her. It is just this, which gives the tone to her letter upon Beethoven addressed to Goethe. In fact, the Beethoven of our conceptions was not then known; the first attempt to describe or convey in words, what the finer appreciative spirits had begun to feel in his music, was E. T. A. Hoffmann’s article on the C minor Symphony, in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of July 21st—five weeks later.

[187]

The essential parts of Bettina’s long communication are these:

In the letter to Pückler-Muskau in which Mme. von Arnim dwells more upon the incidents of this meeting, she writes thus:

In the Goethe letter she continues:

To this letter Goethe answered:

[190]

By the middle of June she was in Bohemia.

There are a few letters from this period to which attention may be paid. On July 9, 1810, Beethoven wrote to Zmeskall telling him of his distracted state of mind: he ought to go away from Vienna for the sake of his health, but Archduke Rudolph wanted him to remain near him; so he was one day in Schönbrunn, the next in Vienna. “Every day there come new inquiries from strangers, new acquaintances, new conditions even as regards art—sometimes I feel as if I should go mad because of my undeserved fame; fortune is seeking me and on that account I almost apprehend a new misfortune.” On July 17th, he sent to Thomson the Scotch songs which he had arranged, accompanied by a letter (in French) in which he discusses business matters, gives some instructions touching the repetitions in the songs, repeats his offer to compose three quintets and three sonatas and to send him such arrangements for quartet and quintet as have been made of his symphonies. Soon thereafter he wrote to Bettina Brentano:[79]

[191]

[192]

The cessation in Beethoven’s productiveness in this period is partly explained by the vast amount of labor entailed by the preparation of manuscripts for publication, the correction of proofs, etc. Of this there is evidence in a number of letters to Breitkopf and Härtel. On July 2 he wrote demanding an honorarium of 250 florins for works that he had specified, and sending the first installment, two sonatas for pianoforte, five variations for pianoforte and six ariettas (probably Op. 75). The second installment, he said, should be a Concerto in E-flat, the Choral Fantasia and three Ariettas. The third, the Characteristic Sonata “Farewell, Absence and Return,” five Italian ariettas and the score of “Egmont.” On August 21, 1810, he wrote to the firm at great length. He sends a draft of a plan for a complete edition of his works, in which Breitkopf and Härtel were to figure as the principal publishers. He asks what they are willing to pay for “a concerto, quartet, etc., and then you will be able to see that 250 ducats is a small honorarium.”... “I do not aim at being a musical usurer, as you think, who composes only in order to get rich, by no means, but I love a life of independence and cannot achieve this without a little fortune, and then the honorarium must, like everything else that he undertakes, bring some honor to the artist.” He gives directions as to the dedications. Of the “Egmont” he says: “As soon as you have received the score you will best know what use to make of it and how to direct the attention of the public to it—I wrote it purely out of love for the poet, and to show this I accepted nothing from the theatre directors who accepted it, and as a reward, as ever and always, have treated my work with great indifference. There is nothing smaller than our great folk, but I make an exception in favor of the archdukes—give me your opinion as to a complete edition of my works, one of the chief obstacles seems to be in the case of new works which I shall continue to bring into the world I shall have to suffer in the matter of publication.”...

Without date, but endorsed by the firm as of August 21st, is the following little note containing an important correction in the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony:

... I have found another error in the Symphony in C minor, namely, in the third movement in ¾ time where, after the ♮ ♮ ♮ the minor returns again, it reads (I just take the bass part) thus:

The two measures marked by a X are redundant and must be stricken out, of course also in all the parts that are pausing.

[193]

If the correspondence in this chapter seems in tone and character at variance with the assumption that, for some reason or other, this was a disastrous year to Beethoven, it must not be forgotten that there are troubles and sorrows which must be borne in silence—when to complain and lament is apter to excite ridicule than compassion. Though the burden be almost insupportable, the sufferer must perform his duties and pursue the business of life with a serene countenance, and permit no outward sign to reveal the secret pain. “The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun,” says Longfellow. “The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us and the world seems but a dim reflection—itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself.” When “surprised” by Bettina, Beethoven’s great hope had set and “ill humor had complete control” of him. His “marriage project had fallen through.” Whoever the lady was, the blow had now fallen and must be borne in silence. Its disastrous effect upon Beethoven’s professional energies is therefore for us the only measure of its severity. True, he writes to Zmeskall and talks of his art as if great things were in prospect; but he had no heart for such labor, and not until October did he take up and finish the Quartetto Serioso for his friend. The long bright summer days, that in other years had awakened his powers to new and joyous activity and added annually one at least to the list of his grandest works, came and departed, leaving no memorial but a few songs and minor instrumental works—the latter apparently composed to order. He took no country lodging this summer—alternating between Baden and Vienna, and indulging in lonely rambles among the hills and forests. We think it must have been in this period of song composition and oriental studies that, on such an excursion, he had with him the undated paper containing a selection from the songs in Herder’s “Morgenländische Blumenlese” and wrote upon it in pencil:

Another half-sheet in the Library of the Musikfreunde in Vienna, mostly covered with rude musical sketches, is a suitable[194] pendant to the above, as it contains these words: “Without the society of some loved person it would not be possible to live even in the country.”

It is well known that Beethoven’s duties to Archduke Rudolph soon became irksome and at last almost insupportable. It was, however, for his good that he was compelled to perform them and be master of himself to that extent; it was also fortunate that Elizabeth Brentano came just at the crisis with beauty, grace and genius to turn his thoughts into other channels. Nor was it without benefit to him that Thomson’s melodies, which required no severe study, gave some desultory but profitable employment to his mind. Just at the close of the year it was rumored that he contemplated a journey into Italy “next spring, in order to seek restoration of his health, which had suffered greatly for several years, under southern skies.” There was some foundation for this, for some years later Beethoven himself states in one of his letters: “I declined a call to Naples.”

The compositions of the year 1810 are:

The publications of the year were:

[196]

Chapter XI

Beethoven’s intercourse with the Brentanos kept his interest in Bettina alive and to this we owe a characteristic and welcome letter which, like the first, is here taken from the Nuremberg “Athenæum”:

This letter invites attention to several erroneous comments which have been made on the Bettina letters and the history of the “Egmont” music. Czerny’s statement that Beethoven did not compose the music to the tragedy out of love for Goethe’s poems but would have preferred a commission for Schiller’s “Tell” is contradicted by Beethoven himself in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel which was written six weeks before the letter to Bettina. In his book “Die Briefe Beethovens an Bettina von Arnim” (1882), Dr. Deiters expressed a doubt that Beethoven would have written in February, 1811, that he was “about to write to Goethe” about his work which was finished early in 1810; but this objection to the authenticity of the letter is removed by the fact that it was two months more before the purpose thus expressed was carried out. In the Goethe archives in Weimar there is a letter from Beethoven which was first given to the world in 1890, by Dr. Theodor Frimmel in his “Neue Beethoveniana” (p. 345). It runs as follows:

[198]

The music to “Egmont” was not published till January, 1812, and Goethe had to wait a long time before he was able to form an opinion concerning it. This was not Beethoven’s fault, however; on October 9, 1811, we find him writing to Breitkopf and Härtel:

This injunction was not obeyed, and on January 28, 1812, Beethoven makes another urgent request:

Beethoven had had the intention of sending the score of the “Egmont” music to Goethe from the moment he began on it, as appears from a memorandum on the autograph manuscript of the Quartet in E-flat, Op. 74, written in 1809: “Score of Egmont to Goethe at once.”

On the 28th of February, Beethoven sent his friend Mähler an invitation to a concert. Mähler accepted the invitation and received a ticket “extra-ordinaire,” signed “B^r. de Neuwirth,” admitting him free to three midday concerts on Thursdays, February 28, March 14 and 28. Beethoven’s elasticity of tem[199]perament therefore was doing him good service in enabling him to recover from the crushing blow of the preceding year; he was now able not only to find diversion and amusement in society, the theatre and the concertroom, but the spirit of composition was again awakened. In three weeks—March 3rd to the 26th—he produced the glorious B-flat Trio, Op. 97, which had been sketched in 1810.

There were now, or soon to be, in the hands of Breitkopf and Härtel’s engravers the Pianoforte Concerto, Op. 73, the Fantasia, Op. 80, the Sonate “Les Adieux,” Op. 81a, the Ariettes and Songs, Op. 82 and 83, and the “Christus am Ölberg.” The revision of these works for the press, with the correction of the proofs and his duties to the Archduke, are all the professional labors of Beethoven in these months of which we find any trace. Hence, that high appreciation of his greatness, which induced his admirers and friends even then to attach such value to the most trivial written communications from him as to secure their preservation, now does us excellent service; for—the dates of the Trio excepted—his correspondence furnishes the only materials for the history of the first half of this year. To this we turn.

There is a note, which may be dated about the end of March, apologizing to the Archduke for his absence, on the ground of having been for two weeks again with his “tormenting headache.” “During the festivities for the Princess of Baden (March 5-12), and because of the sore finger of Your Imp. Highness,” he adds, “I began to work somewhat industriously, of which, among other things, a new Trio for the piano is a fruit.” Soon after he sends the new Trio to the Archduke to have it copied, “but only in your palace, as otherwise one is never safe from theft.” He proceeds thus:

These professions may well excite a smile; for “it is surely true” when we say, that his duties to the Archduke had already become extremely irksome; and that the necessity of sacrificing in some small degree to them his previous independence grew daily more annoying and vexatious; so much so that, in fact, he[200] availed himself of any and every excuse to avoid them. The Archduke made a point of adding a complete collection of Beethoven’s music to his library; and the master lent his aid in this both by presenting all his new productions in manuscript and in giving titles of older printed works—gaining thereby a secure depository for his compositions, where they were ever at his service. Thus (May 18) he sends for the Sonata “Das Lebewohl, etc.,” “as I haven’t it myself and must send the corrections”; some time after for the Scottish songs, “as two numbers, one in my handwriting, have been lost and they must be copied again so that they may be sent away.”[83]

Here is the place for a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel:

About this time Gottfried Chr. Härtel’s wife died, and on May 20th Beethoven wrote to him a letter of condolence in which he said: “It appears to me that in view of such a separation which confronts nearly every husband one ought to be dissuaded from entering this state.” To a suggestion made by his publishers he replies: “What you say about an opera would surely be desirable, the directors, too, would pay well for one, the conditions are just now unfavorable, it is true, but if you will write me what the poet demands I will make inquiry concerning the matter; I have written to Paris for books, successful melodramas, comedies, etc. (for I do not dare to write an original opera with any of our local poets), which I shall then have adapted—O, poverty of intellect—and pocket!”

The new theatre at Pesth was so far advanced in 1810, that the authorities began their preliminary arrangements for its formal opening on the Emperor’s name-day, October 4th, 1811, by applying to Heinrich von Collin to write an appropriate drama, on some subject drawn from Hungarian history, for the occasion. “The piece was to be associated with a lyrical prologue and a musical epilogue.” “The fear that he could not complete the work within the prescribed time and that his labors would be disturbed, compelled Collin to decline the commission with thanks.” The order was then given to Kotzebue, who accepted it and, with characteristic rapidity, responded with the prologue “Ungarn’s erster Wohltäter” (Hungary’s first Benefactor), the drama “Bela’s Flucht” (Bela’s Flight), and the epilogue “Die Ruinen von Athen” (The Ruins of Athens). As Emperor Franz had twice fled from his capital within five years, it is not surprising that “‘Bela’s Flight’ for various reasons cannot be given” and gave place to a local piece (“The Elevation of Pesth into a Royal Free City”). Kotzebue’s other two pieces were accepted and sent to Beethoven in May of this year. The composition of the music to them was the engagement above mentioned, and, of course, formed his principal employment during the summer.

Hartl had now retired from the direction of the Court Theatres, and Lobkowitz and Palffy were again at the helms respectively of the theatre next to the Kärnthnerthor and that An-der-Wien. Beethoven was busy with dramatic compositions and so, very naturally, the project of another operatic work was revived. He had also obtained a subject that pleased him—a French melodrama.[202] “Les Ruines de Babylon”—probably from the Prussian Baron Friedr. Joh. Drieberg. This composer, much more favorably known for his researches into ancient Greek music than for his operas, had been five years in Paris, “where he studied composition under Spontini and probably for a short time also under Cherubini,” and now for two years in Vienna.

A series of notes from Beethoven to Drieberg, Treitschke and Count Palffy, written in June and July, 1811, show how the operatic project was shaping itself in his mind. On June 6, he is anxious to know if Treitschke has read the book, and wishes to re-read it himself before beginning work on it; to the same on July 13, he writes that he has now received the translation of the melodrama with directions from Palffy to discuss it with him. He expresses dismay to Palffy on July 11, because he has heard that a benefit performance of the melodrama “Les ruines de Babilone” is projected, sets forth how hard he had worked to find a suitable libretto, as he had in this, and how much more desirable it would be to have it given as an opera; and finally hopes that Palffy will forbid the intended performance.

“It is said,” writes the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” under date January 8, “that Beethoven may next Spring undertake a journey to Italy for the purpose of restoring his health, which has suffered severely during the last few years.” One effect of his maladies was to produce long-continued pains in the head, and it was finally thought best by his physician, Malfatti, to abandon the journey and try the waters of Teplitz. This Beethoven decided to do and to take with him as friend and companion young Oliva. In a letter to Count Brunswick he thanks him for agreeing to make the journey with him, and tells him that on the advice of his physician he must spend two whole months at Teplitz until the middle of August, wherefore he could not accompany the Count. He adds: “I pray you so to arrange your affairs as to be here [i. e., Vienna] at the latest by July 2 or 3, as otherwise it will be too late for me, and the doctor is already grumbling that I am waiting so long, although he himself says that the companionship of such a dear good friend would benefit me.” In another letter he says: “I cannot accept your refusal; I have permitted Oliva to go away alone, and on your account; I must have some trusted one at my side if everyday life is not to become burdensome.... As I do not know how you came to have the portrait[84] it would be best if you were to bring it with you, no[203] doubt a sympathetic artist will be found who will copy it for friendship’s sake.”

Brunswick did not come to Vienna, where Beethoven remained till the end of July, as we see from a note to Zmeskall after the return from Teplitz and a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel after he had been at the watering-place three weeks. Meanwhile Beethoven worked on the Scottish Songs for Thomson and announced their completion on July 20, in a letter in which he complains that, because the three copies of the 53 songs which he had previously sent to Thomson had not been received, he had been obliged practically to rewrite them from his sketches—which may have been a somewhat exaggerated statement of the facts. In it, furthermore, he says: “Your offer of 100 ducats in gold for the three sonatas is accepted for your sake and I am also willing to compose three quintets for 100 gold ducats; but for the dozen English songs my price is 60 ducats in gold (for four songs the price is 25 ducats). For the cantata on the naval battle in the Baltic sea, I ask 50 ducats; but on condition that the text contains no invectives against the Danes, otherwise I cannot undertake it....[204][85] I will not fail to send you the arrangements of my symphonies in a very short time, and will gladly undertake the composition of an oratorio if the words be noble and distinguished and the honorarium of 600 ducats in gold be agreeable to you.”

Beethoven arrived in Teplitz about August 1, possibly a day or two earlier, and for three weeks was chiefly concerned with his cure and the correction of proofs, as appears from a letter, dated on August 23, to Breitkopf and Härtel. In this, speaking about the “Christus am Ölberg,” he says:

He has words of approval for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and of dispraise for Italian musicians in general, as see:

Varnhagen von Ense, then a young man of 25 years and lieutenant in the Austrian service, came from Prague to Teplitz this summer to pass a few weeks with “The goddess of his heart’s most dear delight,” Rahel Levin. In his “Denkwürdigkeiten” we first meet Beethoven since his letter to Thomson—a solitary rambler in the Schlossgarten at Teplitz, whither, as Brunswick could not or would not accompany him, he had journeyed alone. Varnhagen was with Beethoven every day and came into more intimate relations with him through his eager desire to write texts for him for dramatic compositions or to revise such texts. With Tiedge and the Countess von der Recke, Beethoven formed a warm friendship. Varnhagen wrote to Rahel: “Only Oliva could I endure about me for any length of time; he was sympathetic, but deeply depressed because of violent altercations which he had with Beethoven.” From the source of these communications we also learn that Varnhagen was expected to adapt an opera text for Beethoven and to revise and improve another. In a letter of September 18, Varnhagen himself wrote to Rahel as follows on the[205] subject: “I may translate a French piece as an opera for Beethoven; the other text might be written later, but this contains the entire scenic arrangement. It is entitled ‘Giafar’ and might bring me from 8 to 10 ducats.” But later, “Of Beethoven and Oliva I hear and see nothing; the latter must have been unable to make anything out of the opera which I was to make from a French melodrama and which, unfortunately, another had begun.”

Soon after Beethoven’s arrival in Teplitz there must have occurred the incident of Beethoven’s visit to the grave of Seume, which was referred to in a previous chapter in connection with the C-sharp minor Sonata. Seume had died on June 13, 1810, at Teplitz. There were other visitors, not mentioned by Varnhagen, with whom Beethoven formed relations more or less cordial and intimate. One was the Royal Imperial Gubernialrath and Steyermärkischer Kammerprokurator Ritter von Varena of Gratz; another was Ludwig Loewe, the actor, just then engaged for the theatre at Prague. “Thereby hangs a tale.”

Another visitor at Teplitz was Prince Kinsky; and this gave the composer an opportunity to obtain the arrears of his annuity. On the still existing envelope of the contract of 1809 is written: “Kinsky am letzten August behoben.” Another was Amalie Sebald, who had come with Countess von der Recke from Berlin, a member of a family who for years had furnished members to Fasch’s Singakademie, where she had appeared as a solo singer. She was said to have “a fascinatingly lovely singing voice.” Among the friends of Carl Maria von Weber when he was in Berlin in 1812, were Amalie Sebald and her sister Auguste, also “highly musical” and a singer. For Amalie, Weber conceived a[206] warm and deep affection; and now Beethoven was taken an unresisting captive by her charms. She is mentioned—the reader will note how familiarly—in this letter to Tiedge, dated Teplitz, September 6, 1811:

The desire here expressed to visit his new friends in Dresden, could not be gratified, owing to the necessity of completing and forwarding the music composed for the opening of the Pesth theatre. How long Beethoven remained in Teplitz cannot be said with exactness, though there is evidence in a couple of letters to Breitkopf and Härtel and Countess von der Recke which, taken in connection with an established incident of his journey, fixes the date approximately. The letter to Breitkopf and Härtel of October 9, 1811, has so large an interest on other accounts as to merit translation and publication:

Two days later he wrote letters of apology for his sudden departure to Elise von der Recke and Tiedge, promising the former a setting of one of her poems. From the letters to Breitkopf and Härtel and Tiedge, it would appear that Beethoven composed the music to “The Ruins of Athens” and “King Stephen” within a month and sent it to its destination on Monday, September 16, and then departed from Teplitz without saying farewell to his friends. From Varnhagen’s “Denkwürdigkeiten” we learn that “Beethoven, who returned to Vienna from Teplitz with his friend and mine, Oliva, did not remain long in Prague”; and from the correspondence with Rahel (II, p. 154), that Oliva went on to Vienna on September 23, without Beethoven, who made a rather wide detour to visit Lichnowsky. Of this visit we learn in one of Jahn’s notices, namely: “In the year 1811, B. was at Prince Lichnowsky’s on his estate Grätz near Troppau. The Mass in C was performed at Troppau, for which everything possible was drummed up; the master of athletics was put at the tympani; in the Sanctus, Beethoven himself had to show him how to play the solo. The rehearsals lasted three days. After the performance Beethoven improvised on the organ for half an hour to the astonishment of every one; Fuchs was the soprano soloist.” Beethoven returned to Vienna refreshed and invigorated both in body and mind; and something of his old frolicsome humor again enlivens his notes to Zmeskall: He expects him to dine with him at the Swan (which was at that time exceptional, as Beethoven had his own cook); he begs for more quills, and promises shortly a whole parcel of them, so that Zmeskall “will not have to pull out his own”; he may receive “the great decoration of the Order of the ’Cello”; and so on.

Beethoven’s notes to Zmeskall are a barometer that indicates very correctly the rising and sinking of his spirits; they were now high—at composition point—and, as the Archduke did not return from Pressburg until the 7th November, he had at least one month for continuing without hindrance the studies, whatever they were, that followed the completion of the music for Pesth. In our[209] judgment they are those, which occupy the last leaves of the sketchbook (Petter’s) partly filled in the Spring of 1809.[88]

There was no call nor special inducement for the immediate completion of any orchestral work. Since the “Egmont” Overture and the “Pastoral” Symphony, produced by Schuppanzigh in May, and the “Coriolan” Overture at a charity concert on July 14, there is but one notice of the performance of any one of Beethoven’s greater compositions, and even this (November 15) is very doubtful. In truth, this was no season for grand musical entertainments with a view to private emolument. The Finance Patent of February shed its baleful influence on the just and the unjust and compelled all classes alike to study and practise economy. Even the old favorite of the Vienna public, Franz Clement, returning from a musical tour in Russia, and Sebastian Meier, “although Handel’s ‘Acis and Galatea’ was performed” in their annual Akademies, “had few hearers.” Two or three virtuosos were able to fill small halls; but no performances on a grand scale were ventured, except for charities; at these the wealthy appeared in force, it being a pleasant and fashionable method of doing something to alleviate the general distress. Beethoven was not the man to hasten his works to completion when there was no prospect of making either in public or in private any present use of them.

The ascertained compositions of this year were:

The publications:

[211]

Chapter XII

Beethoven must again, for the present, be made his own biographer. The selections from his correspondence taken for this purpose will all gain in interest and perspicuity by first giving the notes to Zmeskall and the Archduke so as to afford a sort of background for the more important ones, and by introducing here the explanations which numerous allusions demand in a short series of observations. Schindler writes in 1840:

An error of some kind must be here involved. This seems so obvious and palpable, as to render it hardly credible that, in all the long years since 1840, it has not caught the attention of some one writer on Beethoven and induced him to cast his eye for a moment upon the Patent itself. The depreciation of a national paper currency to null and its subsequent repudiation by the Government that emitted it is, in effect, a domestic forced loan equal in amount to the sum issued; and the more gradual its depreciation, so much the more likely is the public burden to be general and in some degree equalized. Such a forced loan was the “Continental Currency” issued by the American Congress to sustain the war against England in 1775-83; and such were the French “Assignats” a few years later; and such, to the amount of 80 per centum of all the paper in circulation, was the substitution[212] of notes of redemption for the bank-notes at the rate of one for five, by the Austrian Finanz-Patent, promulgated February 20th, and put in force March 15th, 1811. But if Schindler be correct, the Imperial Royal Government went farther and committed the folly and injustice—with little or no advantage to itself—of issuing and enforcing a decree which, in its effect, simply confiscated 80 per centum of all domestic indebtedness—where the payment in specie or its equivalent was not stipulated—to the gain of the debtor and the loss of the creditor! According to more modern ideas of national economy, those ordinances of the Finanz-Patent of February 20, which relate to “continuing, periodically recurring payments of interest, incomes, farm-rents, pensions, maintenance moneys, annuities, etc.,” were certainly unwise and uncalled-for; but they involved no such blunder as that. The Government assumed that every contract of pecuniary obligation between Austrian subjects, wherein special payment or its equivalent was not stipulated, was payable in bank-notes; and that the real indebtedness under any such contract was in justice and equity to be determined and measured by the value in silver of the bank-notes at the date of the instrument. This second proposition is fallacious and deceptive, because such contracts rested upon the necessary presumptions that the faith and honor of the supreme authority were pledged to the future redemption of its paper at par and that the pledge would be redeemed. But this was not seen or was not regarded. Consequently, there was annexed to the Finanz-Patent a table showing decimally the average equivalent of the silver florin in the bank-notes, month by month, from January, 1799 to March, 1811. This table was made a “Scala über den Cours der Bancozettel nach welchem die Zahlungen zufolge des Paragraphs 13 und 14 des Patents vom 20 Hornung, 1811, zu leisten sind.” (“Scale of the rate of exchange according to which payments are to be made in accordance with paragraphs 13 and 14 of the Patent of February 20, 1811.”) We copy two of the months as examples:

Beethoven’s annuity contract bore date March 1, 1809, when one florin in silver was equal to two and forty-eight hundredths in bank-notes. Hence his 4000 did not shrink to 800 but to 1612-9/10[213][89] in paper money; but this paper money then was intended to be, and for some time was, equal to silver. More than this he could not legally demand; but the original reasons for the contract, the intentions of the donors and the mutual understanding of the parties gave him a perfect claim in equity for the full amount of 4000 florins in notes of redemption. Nor did the princes hesitate to admit its justice. They were men of honor and this was a debt of honor. Archduke Rudolph immediately gave the necessary order and instructions in writing; and Beethoven’s anxiety because the others had not yet given him the same security was justified by the event, although he might have expressed it rather more delicately.[90]

The opening of the new theatre in Pesth not having taken place in October as proposed, was deferred to Sunday, February 9th, that it might bear the character of a festivity in honor of the Emperor’s birthday (October 12th). The performances were repeated on the 10th and 11th to crowded audiences which received Beethoven’s music to “King Stephen” and “The Ruins of Athens” (reported to be “very original, excellent and worthy of its master”) with clamorous applause. Beethoven had been so favorably impressed with Kotzebue’s texts that in January, 1812, he applied to him for an opera text:

As the date of this letter plainly shows, it was sent to Breitkopf and Härtel together with one to Goethe, with the request that the two be forwarded to their destinations.

Among the sufferers by the Finanz-Patent were the Ursuline nuns at Graz, whose institution, since 1802, had at no time less than 50 wards and always more than 350 pupils. At this juncture they were excessively poor and in debt. In the hope of gaining them some substantial aid Beethoven’s new friend, Varena, now wrote to him offering to pay him properly for the use of some of his compositions in a concert for their benefit to be given on Easter Sunday, March 29. Beethoven at once presented two of his new compositions to the Art Society of Graz for gratuitous use at charity concerts. At the concert on Easter Sunday there were eight numbers, Beethoven being represented by the overture to “King Stephen,” the march with chorus from “The Ruins of Athens,” the overture to “Egmont,” and the Septet. The nuns gained on the occasion the handsome sum of 1836 fl. 24k. Vienna Standard.

Walter Scott somewhere remarks: “It is seldom that the same circle of personages, who have surrounded an individual at his first outset in life, continue to have an interest in his career till his[215] fate comes to a crisis. On the contrary, and more especially if the events of his life be of a varied character and worth communicating to others, or to the world, the hero’s later connections are usually totally separated from those with whom he began the voyage, but whom the individual has outsailed, or who have drifted astray, or foundered on the passage.”

A few years more and this will begin to be very true of Beethoven. The old familiar names will rapidly disappear and new ones take their places; some half a dozen perhaps will remain to the end. But this is not yet. The old friends, Lichnowsky, Rasoumowsky, Erdödy and that class, Streicher, Zizius, Breuning and their class, are his friends still. We see less of them, because Beethoven is no longer the great pianist performing in the saloons of the nobles, or playing his new compositions in the lodgings of his untitled admirers. His astonishing playing in the concert of December, 1808—which completed full thirty years since his appearance in Cologne as a prodigy—proved to be, as it happened, the splendid close of his career as a virtuoso. He had surely earned the right to retire and leave that field to his pupils, of whom Baroness Ertmann and Carl Czerny were preëminent as performers of his music. In the more private concerts he had already long given place to the Baroness; and now Czerny began to take it before the public, even to the extent of introducing his last new composition for pianoforte and orchestra. Theodor Körner, lately arrived in Vienna, writes home under date February 15:

Castelli’s “Thalia” gives the reason, why this noble work on this, its first public performance in Vienna, was so coldly received:

That was precisely the truth. The work was out of place. The warblings of Fräulein Sessi and Herr Siboni, and Mayseder’s[216] variations on the march in “Aline,” were suited to the occasion and the audience. Instead of Beethoven’s majestic work, Chapelmaster Himmel, who had recently been in Vienna, should have been engaged to remain and exhibit his brilliant finger gymnastics.

The new symphony, to which there are allusions in this correspondence, was the Seventh, which he took up and completed this spring (May 13), with the hope of producing it in a concert about the time of Pentecost—but the project fell through.[92]

Explanatory of the Zmeskall correspondence, it is to be noted, that with the approach of the inclement season, Beethoven ceased to cross the wind-swept Glacis to dine with Breuning; that the “greatest thanks” of one of the notes is merely for keeping his pens in order; and that Zmeskall had been making experiments to determine whether the oscillations of a simple weight and string (without lever) might not answer as a practicable and convenient metrometer.

The works of Beethoven publicly performed in Vienna during this half year, so far as has been learned, were the Pianoforte Concerto as above stated; on March 22nd, march with chorus from “The Ruins of Athens,” in Clement’s concert; on April 16th, the “Coriolan” Overture in Streicher’s Pianoforte Warerooms, conducted by Schuppanzigh—the first piece in the concert, which opened the way for the great performance of Handel’s “Timotheus” in November, which in turn led to the foundation of the Society of the Friends of Music; on April 24th, the “Egmont” Overture in the Concert for the Theatrical Poor Fund; and on May 5th, the overture to “Prometheus,” and the C minor Symphony in Schuppanzigh’s first Augarten Morning Concert of the season. His (Schuppanzigh’s) quartet productions were on Thursdays, at noon; “As it is nearly 12 o’clock and I am going to Schuppanzigh’s,” says Beethoven in a note to Zmeskall, on Thursday, February 20—unfortunately only as an auditor. No record of the programmes during the season has been discovered.

[217]

And now turn we to the selection from the Zmeskall correspondence:

The correspondence with the Archduke, of course including the notes to his “spiritual adviser,” Baumeister, and his “chamberlain,” Schweiger, in the very profuseness of its expressions of devotion, awakens some mistrust of its writer’s sincerity. There is too much of profession. True zeal in and a hearty performance of one’s duty need few verbal attestations.

[218]

In a note to the Archduke he excuses his absence the two previous days because he was “unexpectedly” ill, “at just the time when he was about to go” to him. In another he has “oftener than usual” waited upon him “in the evening hour, but no one was to be found.” In another “certain unexpected circumstances prevent” his attendance “to-day, but,” he says, “I shall make use of the gracious privilege of waiting upon you to-morrow evening.” In still another:

The last of these selections affords another illustration of the usefulness of the Archduke’s library to the composer. Its date has also some importance in the discussion of the famous love-letter; and it is the final notice of Beethoven before his departure from Vienna for the summer.

A very interesting series of letters to Varena, and one very creditable to Beethoven, began at the end of January this year and ended, so far as is known, in 1815. Could the space be spared they would all be printed here; but they may be read in the published collections of Beethoven’s letters.

The arrangements of the Irish and Scottish songs for Thomson were continued in this year. A French letter to Thomson under[219] date February 29, 1812, chiefly devoted to business matters, yet contains some expressions which are characteristic of Beethoven’s views and predilections.

He repeats his request that the texts be sent with the Scottish songs, asks if violin and violoncello are to be treated obbligato or if the pianoforte might compose an ensemble in itself, and closes, after having again demanded 9 ducats in gold, with: “we need the gold here, for our country is at present only a paper fountain, and I in particular, for I shall probably leave this country and go to England and then to Edinburgh in Scotland, and rejoice in the prospect of there making your personal acquaintance.”

The letter to Brunswick which follows, has been printed with the date 1809; but in that year Beethoven was not in the Pasqualati house; he was then on the most cordial terms with Oliva (barring the disagreement at Teplitz in 1811); and his satisfaction with the “honorable decree”—the annuity contract—which retained him in Vienna, was at the flood. The date, 1812, renders every point in the letter, except who is meant by “R,” perfectly intelligible.[94] “T” is the manuscript Trio, Op. 97; “S,” the printed sonata, “Les Adieux, etc.,” Op. 81a; “the quartet” is Op. 95, also in manuscript; “nothing decisive” refers to the non-receipt of the desired written instructions from Kinsky and Lobkowitz to their cashiers respecting the notes of redemption, and the “unhappy war” was that movement by Napoleon which proved to be the fatal invasion of Russia.

The letter reads:

The cause of the estrangement between Beethoven and Oliva is hinted at in two letters from Oliva to Varnhagen. On March 25, Oliva writes: “I should like to write you a great deal about the things that sadden me, about Stoll, and Beethoven still more, but I must postpone it—I was ill lately and it moves me greatly to write about things which are so painful”; and in a letter of June 3, after asking Varnhagen in behalf of Beethoven to deliver a letter to Prince Kinsky and seek to persuade the Prince to come to a decision in the matter of paying the annuity contract in notes of redemption, he adds: “Concerning my unfortunate affairs I can only say that Of.” [Offenheimer, the Vienna banker, Oliva’s employer, is meant] “has treated me very shabbily and I am compelled to seek another engagement, perhaps I shall accept Beethoven’s renewed offer and go with him to England. Stoll cheated me in a very miserable manner and even sought to bring about a rupture with Beethoven, in which he was almost successful; I am completely separated from him.” Beethoven’s wrath, to which he gave expression in his letter to Brunswick, seems to have been assuaged and their friendship continued as before until the departure of Oliva for Russia in 1820.

[221]

There is a little Trio in one movement, which bears the superscription in Beethoven’s hand: “Vienna, June 2, 1812. For my little friend Max. Brentano to encourage her in pianoforte playing.” On one of his visits to the Brentanos, soon after, “the little maiden, whom he occasionally teased, in a fit of childish petulance unexpectedly poured a bottle of ice-cold water over his head when he was overheated.”[96]

This was the year in which Beethoven allowed a mask to be taken, at the desire of Streicher, who wished to add his bust to those which already adorned his pianoforte warerooms. The bust was executed by Professor Klein, a pupil of the famous sculptor Fischer, and still adorns the hall for which it was designed. The effigy is the one which has been so often copied and is generally attributed to Dannhauser. That artist was born in 1805, and must have been indeed remarkably precocious, if Beethoven consented to have him, at the age of seven years, plaster his face with gypsum! In May, the son of the Corsican advocate Bonaparte held court at Dresden and received his father-in-law, Emperor Franz, Frederick William of Prussia, the princes of the Rheinbund, etc., etc. Before the end of June, he had crossed the Niemen with his half million of men on his fatal march to Moscow. As if from a presentiment and in the hope of the disastrous failure of the foolhardy invasion of Russia, Teplitz (that neutral ground, but central point of plot and agitation against the parvenu Emperor) became the scene of a virtual congress of imperial personages, or their representatives, accompanied by families, ministers and retinues. Ostensibly they met for health, recreation, social diversion; but views and opinions were exchanged and arrangements made for such concerted action as the result in Russia might render politic. Herr Aug. Rob. Hiekel, Magisterial Adjunct in Teplitz, has kindly communicated copious excerpts from the lists of arrivals that summer, from which these are selected, through the friendly mediation of Dr. Schebek of Prague, which is gratefully acknowledged:

Passing from the royal and diplomatic circles, we note:

No hint anywhere appears that Beethoven renewed his intercourse with Tiedge and Countess von der Recke—they had, no doubt, departed before his arrival—nor that a meeting took place between him and any one of those persons who arrived on and between the 1st of August and the 19th of the same month. With Varnhagen,[98] too, the meetings during the sojourn at Teplitz this year seem to have been few and fleeting. On June 9, Varnhagen had reported to Oliva in Vienna concerning the success of his visit to Prince Kinsky. On July 5 Beethoven arrived in Prague in company with Oliva’s friend Willisen. Varnhagen writes to Rahel on July 2: “I am writing after the arrival of Beethoven and Willisen.” As appears from a letter from Beethoven to Princess Kinsky dated December 20, 1812, Beethoven called upon the Prince and received 60 ducats on account. Unfortunately he delayed the definitive settlement of the annuity matter; had he[223] attended to it at once he would have been spared the negotiations which followed the sudden death of the Prince.

On July 14th, Beethoven wrote a letter to Varnhagen from Teplitz in which he said: “There is not much to be said about Teplitz, few people and among the few nothing extraordinary, wherefore I live alone! alone! alone!” Three days later Beethoven wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel, promising some corrections in the Mass in C with the words: “We say to you only that we have been here since the 5th of July, how are we?—on that point much cannot yet be said, on the whole there are not such interesting people here as were last year and are few—the multitude seems fewer than few.”

On July 19, Goethe enters Beethoven’s name for the first time among his “visits”—no doubt those made by him. On the same day he writes to his wife, who had gone on to Karlsbad for a cure:

Already on the next day Beethoven made a pleasure trip with Goethe to Bilin, and on the 21st and 23rd Goethe spent the evening with Beethoven. Hence the note on the 21st, “He played delightfully.” As Arnim and Bettina are mentioned in the list of arrivals, it is easily possible that this was the evening concerning which Bettina reported to Pückler-Muskau. On the 27th of July, Beethoven went to Karlsbad on the advice of his physician, Dr. Staudenheimer, and he did not return to Teplitz till after September 8th, Goethe having already journeyed to Karlsbad on August 11th. That there was no estrangement between them is proved by the letter of Goethe to Christiane advising him to give Beethoven a letter addressed to him; he therefore expected Beethoven to return, which he did not do, because Staudenheimer sent him further on to Franzensbrunn. Goethe’s letter says: “Herr van Beethoven went from here to Karlsbad a few days ago; if you can find him, he would bring me a letter in the shortest time.” On August 2nd, Beethoven is still looked upon as the possible courier: “If I receive the consignment through Beethoven I will write again, then nothing more will be necessary” (because Goethe himself went to Karlsbad). In Karlsbad Goethe and Beethoven may have met each other only between September 8 and 11. On September 12, Goethe departed; but on the 8th he had written in his journal: “Beethoven’s arrival.”

[224]

In view of these things, Beethoven’s report to Archduke Rudolph from Franzensbrunn on August 12th, which will appear presently, will be read with greater interest, and the only known utterance of Goethe touching Beethoven in the letter to Zelter be viewed with different eyes:

Many things which have been reported and had so much of a legendary sound as to cause them to be received with doubt, may, under the circumstances, serve to complete the story of the relations between Goethe and Beethoven; such, for instance, as the familiar anecdote according to which, when Goethe expressed his vexation at the incessant greetings from passers-by, Beethoven is said to have replied: “Do not let that trouble your Excellency, perhaps the greetings are intended for me.” This is variously related to have occurred in a carriage at Karlsbad and in the Prater, and during a walk together on the old walls at Vienna; while the late Joseph Türk, the Vienna jeweler, who was in Teplitz in the summer of 1812, makes that place the scene of the story. It may, therefore, possibly have some foundation in truth.

Rochlitz, in 1822, reporting a conversation with Beethoven, has him say: “In Karlsbad I got acquainted with him (Goethe)”; but he makes him also say: “at that time, while I was veritably burning with enthusiasm (so recht im Feuer sass), I also conceived my music for his Egmont.” But this music was composed two years before. Beethoven’s allusion here to the “Egmont” music certainly, and to meeting with Goethe in Karlsbad probably, if correctly reported, prove nothing but the truth of Schindler’s observation: “Beethoven’s memory of the past always proved to be very weak.” Dr. Eduard Knoll, of Karlsbad, in a detailed investigation of the dates of the visit of Goethe and Beethoven to Teplitz and Karlsbad—which also fixes August 6th as the date of the Beethoven-Polledro concert—comes to the same conclusion as the present writer, namely: “In all probability Beethoven came in contact with Goethe only in Teplitz, for during Beethoven’s presence in Karlsbad, it can be proved Goethe was not there. But even in Teplitz the period of their mutual presence was a rather limited one.”

[225]

On July 26th, a large portion of the town of Baden, near Vienna, including the palace of Archduke Anton, the cloister of the Augustines, the theatre and casino, the parochial church and the palace of Count Esterhazy, was destroyed by a conflagration which broke out between noon and 1 o’clock. In all, 117 houses were burned. “From Karlsbad under date of August 7, it is reported,” writes the “Wiener Zeitung” of August 29th, that “scarcely had the misfortune which recently befel the inhabitants of Baden become known here before the well-known musicians Herr van Beethoven and Herr Polledro[99] formed the benevolent purpose to give a concert for the benefit of the sufferers. As many of the guests of high station were already prepared to depart and it became necessary to seize the favorable moment, and in the conviction that he who helps quickly helps twofold, this purpose was carried out within twelve hours.... Universal and rousing applause and receipts amounting to 954 florins, Vienna Standard, rewarded the philanthropic efforts” of the concert-givers. Beethoven himself gives a very different aspect to this concert in a letter to Archduke Rudolph:

[226]

Three days before, Beethoven had written in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel:

Beethoven arrived in Franzensbrunn on August 8, and on September 7 returned to Karlsbad, where he remained only a few days; after the 16th of September, he was again in Teplitz.[101] His arrival in Franzensbrunn was simultaneous with that of the family Brentano from Vienna.

Madame von Arnim in her letter to Pückler-Muskau gives some account of the intercourse between Goethe and Beethoven:

In these passages we have the substance of a large portion of the famous third of the Beethoven-Bettina letters. Are they an abstract of that letter or is the letter an expansion of them? In other words, the question is forced upon us: Is that letter authentic? The last paragraph of the Pückler letter affords a decisive answer: “Afterward Beethoven came running to us and told us everything, and was as happy as a child at having teased Goethe so greatly, etc., etc.” Who were they to whom Beethoven came running? They are named in Herr Hiekel’s list of visitors: Ludwig (Achim) von Arnim, his young wife Bettina Brentano and Frau von Savigny, her sister! In the pseudo-letter we read: “Yesterday we met the entire imperial family.” Therefore, if the letter to Pückler be true—and it bears all the marks of being so—and if the other be authentic, Beethoven is made to relate the story one day and write a long letter containing it to the same person the next! It follows: when such a letter in Beethoven’s well-known handwriting shall be seen and accepted as authentic by competent judges, its genuineness may be conceded but, henceforth, until then, never.[103]

Beethoven returned to Teplitz with no amelioration, but rather an increase of his maladies, and was compelled to remain[228] until near or perhaps quite the end of September. To his great satisfaction, he found there the young lady who had so powerfully attracted him the previous summer. The character of their renewed acquaintance is sufficiently obvious from the series of notes following, which are given in the order which appears to correspond best with their contents.

[229]

Hard upon the first letter to Amalie Sebald there followed a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel which confirms the statement concerning his illness and its cause and discloses his desire to leave Vienna, though temporarily, for concert purposes.

Beethoven’s health must have rapidly improved after the 16th of September, for Chapelmaster Glöggl’s “Linzer Musik-Zeitung” announces his arrival in that place on October 5th:

[230]

He had come thither, probably direct via Prague and Budweis, to pass a few weeks with his brother Johann, who gave him a large room affording him a delightful view of the Danube with its busy landing-place and the lovely country beyond. Franz Glöggl—later a music publisher in Vienna, then a youth in Linz—shortly before his death wrote down his reminiscences of the composer, for use in this work.

One of Beethoven’s memoranda, copied into the Fischoff Manuscript, is this: “In 1812, I was in Linz on account of B.”[231] Supposing this B. to stand for Beethoven’s brother it confirms certain very unpleasant information obtained in Linz (1860), from perfectly competent authority, namely, that the principal object of the journey thither was to interfere in Johann’s domestic affairs.

Soon after coming to Linz, the apothecary, being unmarried and having a house much too large for his necessities, leased a part of it to a physician from Vienna, whose wife’s sister some time later joined them. She, Therese Obermeyer, was described as possessing a very graceful and finely proportioned figure, and a pleasing, though not beautiful, face. Johann van Beethoven soon became acquainted with her, liked her, and made her his housekeeper and—something more.

When it is considered, that the apothecary was a man of some thirty-five years, that he had gained his present position entirely by his own enterprise, perseverance and good fortune, and that, beyond advice and remonstrance, his brother had no more right to meddle in his private concerns than any stranger, it seems hardly credible that Beethoven, with all his eccentricities of character, could have come to Linz with precisely this purpose in view. But, according to the evidence, this was so. Had the motive of his visit been simply fraternal affection, and had he then and there first discovered his brother’s improper connection with Therese, he could justly have employed earnest expostulation and entreaty to the end of breaking it off—but nothing more; if unheeded, he could leave the house. But to come thither for this express object, and employ force to accomplish it, was an indefensible assumption of authority. Such, at all events, was Johann’s opinion, and he refused to submit to his brother’s dictation. Excited by opposition, Ludwig resorted to any and every means to accomplish his purpose. He saw the Bishop about it. He applied to the civil authorities. He pushed the affair so earnestly, as at last to obtain an order to the police to remove the girl to Vienna if, on a certain day, she should be still found in Linz. The disgrace to the poor girl; the strong liking which Johann had for her; his natural mortification at not being allowed to be master in his own house; these and other similar causes wrought him up almost to desperation. Beethoven, having carried his point, might certainly have borne his brother’s anger with equanimity; might have felt pity for him and sought to soothe him in his trouble. But no; when Johann entered his room with reproaches and upbraidings, he, too, became angry and a scene ensued on which—let the curtain be drawn. It was, unhappily, more disgraceful to[232] Ludwig than Johann. The apothecary, to use the language of the card-table, still had the commanding trump. Should he play it? The answer is in the parochial register at Linz. It is the record of marriage, November 8th, 1812, of Johann van Beethoven to Therese Obermeyer. There is some slight reason to think that the journey to Linz was suddenly undertaken in consequence of a false report that Johann was about to marry Therese, and with the intention to prevent it. Whether this be true or not he lost the game and immediately hastened away to Vienna, angry and mortified that the measures he had taken had led to the very result which he wished to prevent; had given to the unchaste girl the legal right to call him “brother,” and had put it in Johann’s power—should he in the future have cause to rue his wedding-day—to reproach him as the author of his misfortune. Indeed, when that unhappy future came, Johann always declared that Ludwig had driven him into this marriage; how the composer then viewed the matter, we shall see when the time comes. One sister-in-law had already been to Beethoven a bitter source of shame and mortification; and now the other?—Time must show. Here we part from the apothecary, and it will be long before we meet him again.

Beethoven’s professional occupation in Linz was the completion of the Eighth Symphony, which, on Johann van Beethoven’s doubtful authority, was wrought out from the sketches during walks to and upon the Pöstlingberg.[107] Schindler’s account of the origin of the famous Allegretto Scherzando adds a new name to our dramatis personæ.

Johann Nepomuk Mälzel was the son of an organ-builder of Ratisbon. He received a thorough musical education, and began life on his own account as a performer upon and a teacher of the pianoforte of no mean ability; but his extraordinary taste for mechanism and talent for invention soon led him to exchange the music-room for the workshop. It is somewhere related, that, having been appointed “Court Mechanician” at Vienna and having a work to execute for the Empress, rooms were assigned him, in 1809, in Schönbrunn. Soon after this, Napoleon took possession of that palace, and while there played a game with Kempelen’s chess player (of which Mälzel had become proprietor), Allgaier[233] being (probably) the person concealed in the chest. The truth of the anecdote we cannot warrant. From Schönbrunn, Mälzel removed to rooms in Stein’s pianoforte manufactory, and began the construction of a new and improved panharmonicon, having sold his first one in Paris. This was his principal employment in the year 1812. Carl Stein (from whom the author derived this information) remembered distinctly the frequent visits of Beethoven to Mälzel’s workshop, the great intimacy of the two men, and the persevering efforts of the mechanician to construct an ear-trumpet which the deaf composer should find of practical use and benefit. It is well known, that of the four instruments constructed, one was so far satisfactory as to be used occasionally for some eight or ten years. The necessity and practicability of inventing some kind of machine by which composers should be able to indicate exactly the duration of a piece of music—in other words, the rapidity of its execution—had been for several years subjects of wide discussion. An article in the “Wiener Vaterländische Blätter” of October 13, 1813, entitled “Mälzel’s musikalischer Chronometer,” reads:

The “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of December 1st devotes some two pages to the instrument, from which a few words of description are enough for our purpose:

That “chronometer” was not what is now known as Mälzel’s “metronome.”

[234]

It is now to be seen whether Schindler’s account of the Allegretto Scherzando will bear examination. It is this:

Schindler here prints the now well-known canon and adds: “Out of this canon was developed the Allegretto Scherzando.” That Mälzel’s “ta, ta, ta,” suggested the Allegretto, and that at a farewell meal the canon on that subject was sung, is doubtless true; but it is by no means certain that the canon preceded the symphony. Schindler was then a youth of 17 years, “in the last course of the gymnasium at Olmütz,” and consequently relates his story on the authority of another—Count Brunswick. There may have been a slight lapse of memory on the part of Brunswick as to date, but it is far more probable that Schindler unconsciously adapted what he heard to his own preconceived notions. At all events, the preceding pages show that he was in the wrong as to the metronome, as to the proposed journeys of both Beethoven and Mälzel, and therefore, probably, as to the date of the farewell meal. On this last point, the lists of “Arrivals in Vienna” offer very strong negative evidence, namely: Forray comes from Pesth-Ofen in 1809-10-11; Countess Brunswick, 1811; but no Count Brunswick after March, 1810, until the end of February, 1813—four months after the Eighth Symphony is completed. At that date, we shall find reasons in plenty for the farewell gathering—though none in the “Spring of 1812.” The canon could not have contained the word “Metronome” until 1817; nor could the “ta, ta, ta,” have represented the beat of a pendulum of an instrument not yet invented; it was an imitation of the beat of the lever on the anvil.

The Conversation Books show, in Schindler’s own hand, how he became possessed of the canon. Beethoven, during the first years of their acquaintance, was in the habit of meeting frequently evenings a captain of the Arcierenleibgarde des[235] Kaisers, a certain Herr Pinterics, well known then in musical circles, and Oliva, “in a retired room in the Blumenstock in the Ballgässchen.” In a Conversation Book (1820) Schindler writes:

On the first of these occasions, therefore, the word “Chronometer” must have been sung; on the second, as Mälzel had returned to Vienna with the “Metronome,” that word was substituted, and of course retained in the copy made in 1820. The necessary conclusion is this: If the canon was written before the Symphony, it was not improvised at the farewell meal; if it was improvised on that occasion, it was but the reproduction of the Allegretto theme in canon-form.

Pierre Rode, who at his culmination had occupied perhaps the first place among living violinists, being driven from Russia, made a concert tour in Germany and came in December to Vienna. Spohr, whose judgment of violin playing cannot be impugned, had heard him ten years before with delight and astonishment, and now again in a public concert on January 6. He now thought that he had retrograded; he found his playing “cold and full of mannerisms”; he “missed the former daring in the overcoming of difficulties,” and felt himself “particularly unsatisfied by his cantabile playing.” “The public, too, seemed dissatisfied,” he says, “at least he could not warm it into enthusiasm.” Still, Rode had a great name; paid to and received from the nobles the customary homage; and exhibited his still great talents in their saloons. Beethoven must have still thought well of his powers, for he now took up and completed his Sonata, Op. 96, to be played at one of Lobkowitz’s evening concerts by him and Archduke Rudolph. From the tone of two notes to the Archduke (printed by Köchel), the composer seems to have been less satisfied by Rode’s performances than he had expected to be:

The date of the concert was December 29th. Therefore, if the sketches for the second, third and fourth movements of this noble sonata do not belong to the year 1811, as argued near the close of the preceding chapter, the entire work, except the first movement, was produced in twelve or fifteen days at most.

Though it may be slightly in advance of strict chronological order, it would seem well to quote here what Spohr in his Autobiography writes of his personal intercourse with Beethoven. It is interesting and doubly acceptable as the only sketch of the kind belonging to just this period; it is, moreover, trustworthy. In general, what he relates of the composer in that work so abounds with unaccountable errors as to necessitate the utmost caution in accepting it; it is pervaded by a harsh and grating tone; and leaves the impression, that his memory retained most vividly and unconsciously exaggerated whatever tended to place Beethoven in a ridiculous light. What is here copied is, at least comparatively, free from these objections:

Beethoven had other cares, troubles and anxieties in the coming year—to which these reminiscences in strictness belong and serve as a sort of introduction—not known to Spohr. Theirs was not the confidential intercourse which lays bare the heart of friend to friend. As Varnhagen last year, so Theodor Körner this and the next informs us that Beethoven’s desire again to try his fortune on the operatic stage was in no wise abated. On June 6th the youthful poet writes: “If Weinlig does not intend soon to compose my Alfred, let him send it back to me; I would then, having bettered my knowledge of the theatre and especially of opera texts, strike out several things, inasmuch as it is much too long, and give it to the Kärnthner Theatre, as I am everlastingly plagued for opera texts by Beethoven, Weigl, Gyrowetz, etc.” On February 10, 1813, he writes: “Beethoven has asked me for ‘The Return of Ulysses.’ If Gluck were alive, that would be a subject for his Muse.”

The ascertained compositions of 1812 were:

The publications:

[239]

Chapter XIII

Short as Bettina’s stay in Vienna was, it occurred at the very crisis of Beethoven’s unlucky marriage project; and her society served a good purpose in distracting his thoughts; while her known relations to her future husband prevented the growth of any such feeling on his part as some have conjectured did really awaken. Next came the rather absurd affair with Fräulein Malfatti; but this was so little of an earnest nature[109] as in turn to be quite forgotten, so soon as the rejected lover came fairly under the influence of the remarkable mental and personal charms of Amalie von Sebald, in whom he found all that his[240] warmest wishes could desire. The renewal in the last summer of his acquaintance with her completely cured him of his recent unfortunate passions, but, there is too much reason to believe, at the cost of plunging him into a new one, not the less powerful because utterly hopeless, and so firmly rooted that in 1816 “it was still as on the first day.”

The so-called journal (Tagebuch) of the Fischoff MS. begins thus:

The date given is simply 1812; but the month of September in Teplitz suggests itself instantly for the first two paragraphs, and the time when Beethoven was busy with the Eighth Symphony for the other. The next-following in the manuscript is dated:

It is obvious that the hated “servitude” is the instruction of the Archduke in music, and that the new feeling which he has to defy, and if possible conquer, lest everything go to destruction, is the absorbing affection for Amalie Sebald which he had unconsciously suffered to gain tyrannical sway over his mind and heart. The “great act” of the last citation is the “long journey” of the first—of which hereafter.[110]

Other causes also joined to render his case now truly pitiable. The result of his interference with his brother Johann, vexatious[241] and mortifying as it was, was of little moment in comparison with the anxiety and distress caused by the condition of his brother Karl. In 1809, Karl had been advanced to the position of Deputy Liquidator with 1000 fl. salary and 160 fl. rent money; but all salaries being then paid in bank-notes, the minor public officials, especially after the Finanz-Patent, were reduced to extreme poverty. Karl van Beethoven was already owner of the house in the Alservorstadt near the Herrnalser Linie, which contained lodgings for some ten or twelve small families, enclosed a court-garden with fruit trees, etc., and was valued (1816) at 16400 fl.: so long as he remained in the Rauhensteingasse, the whole of this house was rented, and, after deducting interest and taxes, gave him a very desirable addition to his miserable salary. When Beethoven writes, that he had wholly to support “an unfortunate sick brother together with his family,” it must be therefore understood cum grano; but that he had for some time been obliged very largely to aid them in obtaining even the necessaries of life is beyond question. Just now, when his own pecuniary prospects were so clouded, his anxieties were increased by Karl’s wretched state of health, which partly disabled him for his official duties, and seems to have forced him to pay for occasional assistance. In March, he appeared rapidly to be sinking from consumption, and he became so hopeless of improvement in April as to induce him—in his wellfounded distrust of the virtue and prudence of his unhappy wife—to execute the following

Happily for all parties concerned, Spring “brought healing on its wings.” Karl’s health improved; he was advanced to the position of Cashier of the “Universal-Staats-Schulden Kasse,” with 40 fl. increase of rent money; and now, at last, the decree was issued for the payment of all salaries (of public officials) in silver. Twelve hundred florins in silver, used with reasonable economy, was amply sufficient to relieve Ludwig of this part of his troubles.

[242]

In a letter to Rudolph written in January, Beethoven said bitterly: “neither word, nor honor, nor written agreement, seems binding.”—The words relate to non-payments of the Kinsky and Lobkowitz subscriptions to his annuity.

Kinsky, on the 2nd or 3rd of the preceding November, while riding at Weldus near Prague, was—by the breaking of his saddle-girth—thrown from his horse with such force as to crush his skull, and survived but ten hours. In settling his affairs, the question arose whether, under the Finanz-Patent, Beethoven was entitled to more than the subscription as computed by the scale: or, more correctly, there being no question under the law, Beethoven raised one, by claiming the full nominal sum (1800 fl.) in notes of redemption. The curators of the estates—as it was their sworn duty to do—refused to admit the claim until it should be established by competent judicial authority; and, pending the decision, withheld all payments. As to Lobkowitz, his profuse expenditures had brought him to a suspension of payments and had deprived him of the control of his vast estates. What has just been said of the Kinsky subscription for Beethoven applies, therefore, literally to his. Hence, nothing of the annuity was paid by the Kinsky curators from November 3rd, 1812, to March 31st, 1815; nor by those of Lobkowitz from September 1st, 1811, until after April 19th, 1815. From the abundant correspondence called out by these differences of opinion, as to whether law or equity should rule in the case, three letters to the widowed Princess Kinsky may be selected as explanatory of Beethoven’s views. In the first of these letters, dated at Vienna, December 30th, 1812, Beethoven rehearses the story of the origin of the annuity contract, the disarrangement of the governmental finances, Archduke Rudolph’s prompt compliance with the request that payments be made in notes of redemption instead of bank-notes, and thus reaches the visit of Varnhagen von Ense to Prince Kinsky at Prague. He quotes a letter written by Varnhagen as follows:

[243]

Continuing, Beethoven tells the Princess of his visit to Kinsky, who confirmed the statements in the letter and paid 60 ducats on account—as the equivalent of 600 florins, Vienna Standard. It was agreed that the arrears should be paid when the Prince should come to Vienna and instructions be given to his agents. Beethoven’s illness kept him at Teplitz longer than he had expected. Nevertheless, through Oliva he reminded the Prince, then in Vienna, in December of his promises, who again confirmed them and added that he would arrange matters at his exchequer in a few days. After the departure of the Prince with his family he had made inquiries and learned to his astonishment that nothing had been done in the matter. In conclusion he expressed the conviction that the heirs of the noble Prince would act in the spirit of magnanimity which had inspired him and pay the arrears and give directions for the future payments in notes of redemption.

In the second letter he repeats the request, having learned first from the Prince’s representatives that nothing could be done in the matter until a guardian had been appointed, which office had been assumed by Her Highness. “You will easily see,” he continues,

The third letter, dated February 12, 1813, again urges the duty of the heirs to carry out the intentions of the Prince and formulates his petition as follows:

The payment of the 60 ducats on account of the salary which by the Prince’s consent was to be paid in notes of redemption is again advanced as evidence of the Prince’s intentions, as is also the plea on the score of his necessities. The first and third letters[244] are written in a strange hand and merely signed by Beethoven. The petition contained in the third was not granted.

Schindler has enlarged upon Beethoven’s inexperience and lack of skill in matters of business, and of his propensity to waste his resources in needless changes of lodgings; Wegeler and others inform us of his ignorance of the value of money; Karl van Beethoven had been a great expense to him; and five-eighths of his annuity had for some time remained unpaid. Still, it is impossible to account satisfactorily for the very low state of his finances at this time. He must have been strangely imprudent in non-husbanding his resources. From March 1, 1809, to March 1, 1813, he had received from Kinsky rather more than five semi-annual payments (the “60 ducats” included), from Lobkowitz five and from the Archduke seven—five of them in notes of redemption; in all, 11500 florins. In the Spring of 1810, Collard (Clementi) had paid him £200; from Thomson he had received 150 ducats, if not in July, 1810, at least in July, 1811, and 90 ducats more in February, 1813, and within the last years Breitkopf and Härtel had certainly paid him several thousand florins for the many works of magnitude purchased by them; besides all this he had borrowed at least 1100 florins from Brentano, for two or three years only after this he notes: “I owe F. A. B. 2300 fl., once 1100 and 60 ducats”; and we know of no time after the beginning of 1814, when he was under the necessity of applying to that generous friend for any sums like these. But, whatever was the cause, and whoever was in fault, Beethoven was now, up to the time when his brother Karl received his new appointment, learning by harsh experience a lesson in economy—happily to his profit.

To finish this topic at once, we pass on to the summer, which the composer spent in Baden, meeting there his friends the Streichers. Frau Streicher afterwards related to Schindler, that she “found Beethoven in the summer of 1813, in the most desolate state as regards his physical and domestic needs—not only did he not have a single good coat, but not a whole shirt,” and, adds Schindler, “I must hesitate to describe his condition exactly as it was.” Frau Streicher, after her return to the city, “put his wardrobe and household affairs to rights and, with the help of her husband, saw to the provision of the necessities,” and, what was still better, they impressed upon him the necessity of “putting money by against the future, and Beethoven obeyed in every particular.” A small sum received from Gratz, and the 750 fl. due from the Archduke, September 1st, relieved him for the moment; but before the end of the year, he was again so[245] reduced, probably by the necessary expenditures made on his account by the Streichers, as to obtain a loan of 50 ducats from Mälzel.

The tone of the correspondence during the first half of this year is far less depressed than might be expected under the adverse circumstances just detailed, to which is to be added constant ill health; indeed, his notes to Zmeskall are enlivened by divers gleams of his old humor. For the better understanding of the selections here made it is to be premised, that

(a) Brunswick arrived in Vienna, February 21; that

(b) Beethoven contributed a “newly composed Triumphal March” to Kuffner’s tragedy “Tarpeia” for its first performance in the Burgtheater, March 26; that

(c) One of his symphonies was the principal attraction of the Theatrical Poor Fund Concert in the Kärnthnerthortheater, April 16; that

(d) He could justly claim the use of that theatre from Prince Lobkowitz for a benefit concert; that

(e) Varena had again applied to him for music for another charity concert in Gratz; that

(f) Louis Bonaparte, Ex-King of Holland, then residing in Gratz, was the “rich third party” referred to in one of the letters; and

(g) That the pecuniary embarrassments of Lobkowitz reached their climax this summer and recalled Beethoven from Baden to take the needful steps to secure himself from farther loss, if possible.

On January 24th, he writes to Zmeskall:

Between this letter and the next there falls a rather long letter in French to Thomson, dated February 19, 1813, which informs us touching the progress of the work on the British songs. Beethoven writes:

Further on in the letter he asks Thomson to tell him whether Andantino was to be understood as meaning faster or slower than Andante, “for this term, like so many in music, is of so indefinite a significance that Andantino sometimes approaches an Allegro and sometimes, on the other hand, is played like Adagio.”

A rather long note to Zmeskall of February 25, being about a servant, is not worth copying. It begins: “I have, my dear Z., been almost continuously ill since I saw you last,” and closes after the signature with the word “Miserabilis.” Omitting others of similar contents we come to this interesting letter to Varena:

Closely connected with this in subject, and no doubt in time, is the following letter to Zmeskall:

Thereupon he wrote again to Varena:

Numbers 8 and 9 of Köchel’s “Drei-und-achtzig Original-Briefe” by Beethoven to Archduke Rudolph and his chamberlain, pray the Archduke to intercede for him with the Rector of the University for permission to give two concerts in the hall of the University. The result is shown in a note to Zmeskall dated April 19:

The rehearsal took place on Resurrection Day, April 18, as we learn from the 48th letter in the Köchel Collection, which, together with the preceding two (Nos. 46 and 47), belong in the year 1813, not in 1819, as Köchel surmised. The following little note to Zmeskall refers to the rehearsal:

To Zmeskall he wrote on April 23:

[249]

There follows another long letter to Varena:

In a letter to the Archduke, who was then in Baden (also written on May 27), Beethoven reports his arrival there. From Baden the correspondence with Varena was continued, as appears from a letter of July 4, 1813, in which Beethoven says:

We learn from the “Aufmerksame” of Gratz, that “Christus am Ölberg,” sent there by Beethoven in the preceding year, was sung as the second part of a concert for the poor on Palm Sunday, April 11, with applause which did honor to the good taste of the musical public of the Styrian capital.

In Vienna the C minor symphony opened and the new march from “Tarpeia” closed Schuppanzigh’s concert on the 1st of May in the Augarten; but no such enthusiasm was awakened as to induce Beethoven to risk the trouble and expense of producing his new symphonies, and the projected “Academies” were abandoned.

Recalled to Vienna early in July, Beethoven wrote thence to Archduke Rudolph:

Beethoven soon returned to Baden, where for the present he may be left in the enjoyment of nature, taking such pleasure as his deafness still granted in Rasoumowsky’s quartets, and submitting with what patience he could to his servitude with the Archduke.

Mälzel, during the past winter, had opened his “Künstler-cabinet” as a public exhibition. There were marbles, bronzes and paintings and a variety of contributions, scientific or curious, from various artists—among them a large electrical machine with apparatus for popular experiments, but the principal attractions were his own Mechanical Trumpeter and the new Panharmonicon. The Trumpeter executed a French cavalry march with signals and melodies which Mälzel himself accompanied on the pianoforte. The Panharmonicon combined the common instruments then employed in military bands, with a powerful bellows—the whole being inclosed in a case. The motive power was automatic and the keys were touched by pins fixed in a revolving cylinder, as in the common hand-organ or music-box. Compositions of considerable extent had each its own cylinder. The first pieces made ready were Cherubini’s “Lodoiska” Overture, Haydn’s “Military” Symphony, the overture and a chorus from Handel’s “Timotheus”; and by the end of January, Mälzel was at work upon an echo piece composed for him some years before by Cherubini. In the course of the summer he added a “few marches” composed by the popular young pianist, Moscheles, who during their preparation much frequented the workshop.

Beethoven’s “long journey” and “great act” both refer to a proposed journey to England with Mälzel, seriously contemplated during the first months of this year. Brunswick’s visit to Vienna occurred just when the project seemed ripe for execution; as it was on his authority that Schindler reports the “farewell meal” and the singing of the canon, this may be accepted as credible.

The condition of Karl van Beethoven’s health forced his brother to defer the journey; and Mälzel, too, found reason to wait until the end of the year—the idea of his really very beautiful and striking exhibition, the “Conflagration of Moscow,” had occurred to him and he willingly remained in Vienna to work it out. The change for the better in Karl van Beethoven’s health and pecuniary condition, and the completion of the “Conflagration,” left both Beethoven and Mälzel late in autumn free for[252] their departure. The mechanician was not only a man of unquestionable inventive genius, but he also understood the public; knew as by instinct how to excite and gratify curiosity without disappointing expectation, and had the tact and skill so to arrange his exhibitions as to dismiss his visitors grateful for an amusement for which they had paid. He was personally both respected and popular. He knew by experience the principal cities of the Continent, and London well enough to foresee, that the noble compositions of Handel, Haydn and Cherubini secured the success of his Panharmonicon there; but that if he could add to its repertory some new, striking and popular piece, bearing the now great name of Beethoven, he would increase both its attractiveness and the public interest and curiosity in the composer. Battles and sieges had for many years been favorite subjects for descriptive music, and the grand engagements of the last fifty years were few indeed which had not been fought over again by orchestras, bands and all sorts of instruments. Poor Koczwara—who hanged himself in jest at London in 1792—was the author of a “Grande Battaille” (in D) for orchestra, and the “Battaille de Prague” for pianoforte trio “avec tambour,” or pianoforte solo, commemorative of a victory of Frederick II of Prussia. This, for forty years, was a showpiece throughout Europe and even in America. Devenne composed the “Battle of Gemappe”; Neubauer, of Martinestie; Jadin, of Austerlitz; Fuchs, of Jena; and so on, for orchestra. The grand battle piece for two flutes, which is generally supposed to have existed but in a joke, the point of which is its absurdity, was really published—it was an arrangement of Fuchs’ “Jena.” For the pianoforte solo, or with the accompaniment of two or more instruments, the press teemed with battles. Among them were those of Fleurus, Würzburg, Marengo, Jena (by others than Fuchs), Wagram, the bombardment of Vienna. Steibelt produced two land engagements and a “Combat naval”; Kauer, “Nelson’s Battle”; and so on indefinitely.

When, therefore, the news of Wellington’s magnificent victory at Vittoria, June 21, 1813, reached Vienna, Mälzel saw instantly that it presented the subject of a composition for his Panharmonicon than which none could be conceived better fitted to strike the popular taste in England. A work which should do homage to the hero, flatter national feeling by the introduction of “Rule Britannia” and “God save the King,” gratify the national hatred of the French, celebrate British victory and Gallic defeat, bear the great name of Beethoven and be illuminated by his genius—what more could be desired? He wrought out the plan[253] and explained it to the composer, who, for once, consented to work out the ideas of another. In a sketchbook for this composition, having signals for the battle on its first page, we read: “Wellington’s Victory Vittoria, only God save the King, but a great victory overture for Wellington”; and in the so-called “Tagebuch”: “I must show the English a little what a blessing there is in God save the King”; perhaps, also, another remark just after this was occasioned by his experience on this work: “It is certain that one writes most beautifully when one writes for the public, also that one writes rapidly.” There is nothing in this at all contradictory to Moscheles’s positive and unimpeachable testimony on the origin of the work. In a note to his English edition of Schindler’s book he writes:

The same, in general and in most of its particulars, was related to the author by Carl Stein, who was daily in Mälzel’s rooms—they being, as before noted, in his father’s pianoforte manufactory—and who was firmly of the opinion, that Mälzel was afterwards very unfairly, not to say unjustly, treated by Beethoven in the matter of this composition. The composer himself says: “I had already before then conceived the idea of a battle which was not practicable on his Panharmonica,” thus by implication fully admitting that this idea was not his own; moreover, the copy of a part of the Panharmonicon score, in the Artaria Collection, has on the cover, in his own hand: “On Wellington’s Victory at Vittoria, 1813, written for Hr. Mälzel by Ludwig van Beethoven.” This is all more or less confirmatory of Moscheles, if indeed any confirmation be needed. It is almost too obvious for mention, that Mälzel’s share in the work was even more than indicated above, because whoever wrote for the Panharmonicon must be frequently instructed by him as to its capacities and limitations, whether a Beethoven or the young Moscheles. We may reasonably assume, that the general plan of “Wellington’s Victory” was[254] fixed during the composer’s occasional visits to the city in August and September, and such alterations in the score determined upon as the nature of the instrument demanded; so that early in October the whole was ready for Mälzel to transfer to its cylinder.

On Beethoven’s return to his city lodging, between the 15th and 20th of September, his notes to Zmeskall become as usual numerous, the principal topic just now being the engagement of a new servant. While with the assistance and under the direction of the excellent Streichers, Beethoven got his lodgings and wardrobe into decent order, with the aid of Zmeskall he obtained that servant spoken of by Schindler,

This is touching and trustworthy.

To return to “Wellington’s Victory.” Schindler, supposing the Panharmonicon to have played it, remarked in the first edition of his book: “The effect of the piece was so unexpected that Mälzel requested our Beethoven to instrumentate it for orchestra.” He is mistaken as to the reason; for Mälzel had only, in Beethoven’s words, “begun to engrave.” In truth, he was musician enough to see from the score, how very effective it would be if instrumentated for grand orchestra, and sagacious enough to perceive, that the composition in that form might prove of far greater advantage to them in London and probably be more attractive afterwards when performed by the Panharmonicon. But there was another consideration far more important.

Before the age of steam a journey from Vienna to London with the many huge cases required for even a part of Mälzel’s[255] collection, was a very expensive undertaking. The problem now was, how to provide the necessary funds. Beethoven’s were exhausted and his own were very limited. To go alone and give exhibitions at the principal cities on the way, involved little or no risk for Mälzel, as the experience of the next year proved; but to make the journey direct, with Beethoven for his companion, was impossible until in some manner a considerable sum of ready money could be provided.

The only resource of the composer, except borrowing, was, of course, the production of the two new Symphonies, one of which had been copied for trial with small orchestra at the Archduke’s, thus diminishing somewhat the expenses of a concert. It was five years since he had had a benefit, and therefore one full house might be counted on with reasonable certainty; but no concert of his had ever been repeated, and a single full house would leave but a small margin of profit. Moreover, his fruitless efforts in the Spring to arrange an “Akademie” were discouraging. Unless the new Symphonies could be produced without cost to himself, and the interest and curiosity of the public so aroused as to insure the success of two or three subsequent concerts, no adequate fund for the journey could be gained; but if so great a sensation could in some manner be made as to secure this object, the fame of it would precede and nobly herald them in London.

Beethoven was helpless; but Mälzel’s sagacity was equal to the occasion. He knew that for the highly cultivated classes of music-lovers, able and ready to appreciate the best, nothing better could be desired than new Symphonies by Beethoven; but such auditors are always limited in number; the programme must also contain something surprising, sensational, ad captandum vulgus, to catch the ear of the multitude, and open their pockets. His Trumpeter was not enough; it had lost its novelty; although with an orchestra instead of pianoforte accompaniment, it would be something. Beethoven alone could, if he would, produce what was indispensable. Time pressed, Mälzel had long since closed his exhibition, and every day of delay was a serious expense. The “Conflagration of Moscow,” the model of his Chronometer and the cylinders for his Panharmonicon were all finished, except the “Victory,” and this would soon be ready. Before the end of the year, therefore, he could be in Munich, as his interest imperatively demanded, provided Beethoven should not be his companion. There was nothing to detain him in Vienna after the “Victory” was completed, but his relations to the composer. Him he knew too well to hope from him any work deliberately written[256] with a view to please the multitude, had the time allowed, which it did not.

Preparations were making in October for two grand performances on the 11th and 14th of November, in the R. I. Winter Riding Academy, of Handel’s “Timotheus” for the benefit of the widows and orphans of Austrians and Bavarians who had fallen in the late campaign against Napoleon. On this hint Mälzel formed his plan. This was, if Beethoven would consent to instrumentate the “Victory” for orchestra—in doing which, being freed from the limitations of the Panharmonicon, he could give free play to his fancy—he (Mälzel) would return to him the score, risk the sacrifice of it for its original purpose, remain in Vienna, and make it the popular attraction of a grand charity concert for the benefit of the Austrians and Bavarians wounded in the battle at Hanau, trusting that it would open the way for two or more concerts to be given for their own benefit. Under all the circumstances, it is difficult to decide, whether to admire the more Mälzel’s good judgment, or his courageous trust in it and in Beethoven’s genius. He disclosed his plan and purposes to the composer, they were approved by him, and the score was returned.

While Beethoven wrought zealously on his task, Mälzel busied himself with the preparations for the concert. His personal popularity, the charitable object in view, curiosity to study Beethoven’s new productions, especially the battle-piece, secured the services of nearly all the leading musicians, some of whom were there only in passing or temporarily—Dragonetti, Meyerbeer, the bassoon-player Romberg, and others. Tomaschek, who heard the “Victory” next year, writes that he was “very painfully affected to see a Beethoven, whom Providence had probably assigned to the highest throne in the realm of music, among the rudest materialists. I was told, it is true, that he himself had declared the work to be folly, and that he liked it only because with it he had thoroughly thrashed the Viennese.” There is no doubt that this was so; nor that they, who engaged in its performance, viewed it as a stupendous musical joke, and engaged in it con amore as in a gigantic professional frolic.

The University Hall was granted on this occasion and the 8th of December was fixed for the concert. Young Glöggl was in Vienna, visited Beethoven, and was by him granted the privilege of attending the rehearsals. “I remember,” he writes,

Spohr, playing among the violins,

Mälzel’s first placards announcing the concert spoke of the battle-piece as his property; but Beethoven objecting to this, others were substituted in which it was said to have been composed “out of friendship, for his visit to London.” No hint was conveyed of Mälzel’s share in the composition. The programme was:

The success of the performances was so unequivocal and splendid as to cause their repetition on Sunday, the 12th, at noon, at the same prices, 10 fl. and 5 fl. “The net receipts of the two performances, after deducting the unavoidable costs, were 4006 florins, which were reverently turned over to the ‘hohen Kriegs-Präsidio’ for the purposes announced” (“Wiener Zeitung,”[258] December 20). The “Wiener Zeitung,” “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of Leipsic, and the “Beobachter,” contained excessively laudatory notices of the music and vivid descriptions of its effect upon the auditors, whose “applause rose to the point of ecstasy.” The statements of the contemporary public prints are confirmed by the veteran Spohr, who reports that the Allegretto of the Seventh Symphony “was demanded da capo at both concerts.”

Schindler calls this rightly “one of the most important moments in the life of the master, at which all the hitherto divergent voices, save those of the professional musicians, united in proclaiming him worthy of the laurel.” “A work like the battle-symphony had to come,” adds Schindler with good judgment, “in order that divergent opinions might be united and the mouths of all opponents, of whatever kind, be silenced.” Schindler also preserved a “Note of Thanks” prepared for the “Wiener Zeitung” and signed by Beethoven, which ends with a just and merited tribute to Mälzel:

Why was this document not printed? Beethoven had suddenly quarreled with Mälzel.

Evidence of the impatience with which Beethoven conducted the controversy with the heirs of Prince Kinsky, concerning the payment of the annuity installments, is given by a letter dated “Vienna, December 18, 1813,” to Dr. Beyer, a lawyer in Prague, in which he says:

The ascertained compositions of this year are:

Publications:

[261]

Chapter XIV

On the last day of 1813, the “Wiener Zeitung” contained this public notice:

Mälzel saw, therefore, that the objects for which he had sacrificed the “Battle,” for which he had lost so many precious weeks and had spent so much labor and pains, were accomplished in so far as Beethoven’s new works were now the subjects of general interest and curiosity, and their repeated performance to large and profitable audiences was secured. To his courage and sagacity this was wholly due. It is thoroughly unjust to deny or ignore the value of his services. What his feelings were now, to find himself deprived of all share in the benefit resulting from them, and therefore left without compensation, may readily be conceived. His Mechanical Trumpeter was necessarily discarded with himself, and Beethoven had to find something to take its place on the[262] programme. Hence this note (in December) to Moritz Lichnowsky:

The result of this conference was the selection of Nos. 6, 7 and 8 of the “Ruins of Athens” music, viz: the “Solemn March with Chorus” and the concluding Bass Air, sung by Weinmüller, with the choruses. The last was exceedingly appropriate in a concert in the Redouten-Saal, it being the number in which (as in the old Bonnian “Blick in die Zukunft”) the bust of the monarch is made suddenly to appear. To insure the effectiveness of this is the object of a humorous note to Zmeskall, on New Year’s Day.

The orchestra was for the most part composed of the same professional and amateur artists as had taken part in the two previous concerts, so that the rehearsals were comparatively inexpensive, the only new music being the selections from “The Ruins”; but Salieri, as director of the cannonade, gave place to Hummel. Franz Wild, the singer, was present and records in his “Autobiography” his reminiscences of the occasion thus:

The composer had every reason to be satisfied with the result, for not only was it pecuniarly profitable but

So speaks the “Wiener Zeitung” on the 9th, which on the 24th of January printed this:

“Only in this room” (the large Redoutensaal), says Schindler, “was the opportunity offered to put into execution the manifold intentions of the composer in the Battle Symphony. With the help of the long corridors and the rooms opposite to each other the opposing forces were enabled to approach each other and the desired illusion was strikingly achieved.” Schindler was among the listeners on this occasion and gives assurance that the enthusiasm awakened by the performance, “heightened by the patriotic feeling of those memorable days,” was overwhelming.

Among the direct consequences of this sudden and boundless popularity of Beethoven’s music, to which Mälzel had given the occasion and impulse, was one all the more gratifying, because totally unexpected—the revival of “Fidelio.”

“The Inspizienten of the R. I. Court Opera, Saal, Vogel and Weinmüller, about this time were granted a performance for their[264] benefit, the choice of a work being left to them, without cost.” There was then no opera, German, French or Italian, likely to draw a remunerative house in the repertory of the theatre, which could be produced without expense to the institution. The sensation caused by Beethoven’s new music, including the numbers from “The Ruins of Athens” in which Weinmüller had just sung, suggested “Fidelio.” All three had been in Vienna at its production and therefore knew it sufficiently to judge of its fitness for them as singers, and the probability of its now being successful; at all events the name of Beethoven would surely secure for their night a numerous audience. “Beethoven was approached for the loan of the opera,” says Treitschke, who had this year been re-appointed stage-manager and poet at the Kärnthnerthor-Theater after having been employed some years at the Theater-an-der-Wien, “and very unselfishly declared his willingness, but on the unequivocal condition that many changes be made.”

The principal changes made by Treitschke were, by his own account, these:

Concerning this air, Röckel writes:

Treitschke continues:

At this point, Treitschke avoided what had always appeared to him to be “a great fault”—namely, that the dungeon was the scene of the entire second act—by introducing a change in the scenery so that the conclusion should be “in full daylight upon a bright green courtyard of the palace.”

[266]

Before the middle of February the alterations to be made were determined by musician and poet, and each began his task; both were hindered by frequent interruptions, and its completion deferred.[116]

Beethoven’s attention to it was immediately called away by the concert of which these two notes speak:

The “Wiener Zeitung” of February 24th contains the advertisement of the “Akademie, next Sunday, the 27th inst. in the large Redoutensaal,” announcing “a new symphony not yet heard and an entirely new as yet unheard terzetto” as novelties. To Hummel, Beethoven now wrote:

The report in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” contains the programme in full with a few short and pertinent observations:

The “something new for Milder” resulted in something rather old; for the terzetto in which she sang was the “Tremate, empj, tremate,” fully sketched in 1801-1802, but now first written out and completed in its present form.

[268]

Schindler discovered among Beethoven’s papers, and has communicated substantially in his book, certain accounts of expenses incurred in this concert. Only the Eighth Symphony and the terzetto had to be copied; for these “the specification amounted in total: 452 written pages at 12 kreutzers, makes 90 florins, 24 kr.; the specified cost of the orchestra alone at this concert amounted to 344 florins. Nevertheless, only 7 first violinists and only 6 seconds who were paid some 5 some 7 fl. are mentioned by name, because in each part twice as many dilettanti had played.” One of Beethoven’s own memoranda gives the exact number of the string instruments: “At my last concert in the large Ridotto-room there were 18 first violins, 18 second, 14 violas, 12 violoncellos, 17 contra-basses, 2 contra-bassoons.” Whether the audience numbered 5000, as Schindler reports, or 3000, which is more likely, the clear pecuniary profits of the two concerts were very large. Czerny remembered that on this occasion the Eighth Symphony “by no means pleased” and Beethoven was angry thereat, “because it is much better,” he said. Another of his reminiscences is that Beethoven “often related with much pleasure how, when walking on the Kahlenberg after the performance of the Eighth Symphony, he got some cherries from a couple of girls and when he asked the price of one of them, she replied: ‘I’ll take nothing from you. We saw you in the Ridotto-room when we heard your beautiful music.’”

The University Law Students had a composition by Beethoven on the programme of their concert, on February 12; the Medical Students opened their concert, March 6, with the “Egmont” Overture; and the Regiment Deutschmeister, theirs of March 25 with that to “Coriolan”; with these concerts Beethoven had nothing to do; but in the Annual Spring “Akademie,” March 25, in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater for the Theatre Poor Fund, he conducted the “Egmont” Overture and “Wellington’s Victory.”

Both poet and composer had now been again delayed in their “Fidelio” studies, in this wise: The French Armies had so often taken possession of the capitals of the various Continental states, that the motives are inconceivable, which induced Schwarzenberg to restrain the approach of the allied armies on Paris, until Blücher’s persistence, enforced by his victories, at last compelled the Commander-in-Chief to yield the point. When this became known in Vienna, it was determined to celebrate the event, so soon as news of it should arrive, by an appropriate performance in the Court Opera. To this end, Treitschke wrote a Singspiel in one act entitled “Gute Nachricht” (“Good News”). Of the nine[269] pieces of music in it, the overture was given to Hummel and the concluding chorus, “Germania, wie stehst du jetzt im Glanze da,” to Beethoven.

In a note to Treitschke, called out by the proposed changes in the scenery of “Fidelio,” Beethoven wrote:

Towards the end of March, Beethoven received the new text to “Fidelio.” To Treitschke he wrote: “I have read your amendments to the opera with great pleasure; they determine me to rebuild the ruins of an old castle.” A letter to the poet refers again to the chorus which he had composed for Treitschke’s Singspiel:

Beethoven’s attention was now again called away from the opera by a concert in the hall of the Hotel zum Römischen Kaiser, arranged by the landlord and Schuppanzigh for a military charity. Czerny relates that a new grand trio had then for some time been a subject of conversation among Beethoven’s friends, though no one had heard it. This work, Op. 97, in B-flat major, was to open the second part of the concert and the composer had consented to play in it. Spohr was by chance in Beethoven’s rooms at one of the rehearsals and heard him play—the only time. “It was not a treat,” he writes:

[270]

The concert took place at noon on Monday, April 11. Moscheles was present and wrote in his diary:

In those days a well-to-do music-lover, named Pettenkofer, gathered a number of young people into his house every Saturday for the performance of instrumental music. One evening a pupil of Schuppanzigh’s requested his neighbor at the music-stand, a youth of 18 years, to take a note from his teacher next day to Beethoven, proposing a rehearsal of the Trio, and requiring no answer but “yes” or “no.” “I undertook the commission with joy,” he records:

This youth was Anton Schindler. He continues his narrative:

And thus ended all personal intercourse between Schindler and Beethoven until the end of the year—a fact to be noted.

A few weeks later Beethoven played in the Trio again at a morning concert of Schuppanzigh’s in the Prater, and thus—excepting once accompanying a song—he took leave of the public as a pianist.

“Gute Nachricht” was first played also on the evening of Monday, April 11; for the news of the triumphal entry of the allied armies (March 31), as Moscheles records in his diary, reached Vienna the day before. It was repeated on the 12th, 14th, 17th,[271] 24th and May 3rd, in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater, and on June 11th and 14th in the Burg.

Meantime an event had occurred, the effect of which on Beethoven is nowhere indicated; but let us hope and believe that it, for the moment, unfitted him for labor—Prince Carl Lichnowsky, his old friend and protector, died April 15. It is gratifying that the last notice of him in our work is that touching reminiscence by Schindler, which proves that time had neither cooled nor diminished the warm affection that he had conceived twenty years before for the young Bonn pianist.

The following note to Zmeskall was written about this time:

This new lodging, for which Beethoven now left the Pasqualati house, was in the 1st storey of the Bartenstein house, also on the Mölker Bastei (No. 96); so that he still remained in the immediate vicinity of his friends, Princess Christine Lichnowsky and the Erdödys.

The other matters mentioned in the note call our attention again to Mälzel, who, notwithstanding his bitter disappointment at the turn which his affairs with Beethoven had taken, had still lingered in Vienna several weeks in the hope of making some kind of amicable arrangement with him. As his side of the story was never made public, there is little to add to the information on the subject contained in the papers of Beethoven, preserved by Schindler. From them these facts appear; that Beethoven repaid the fifty ducats of borrowed money; that Mälzel and he had several interviews at the office of the lawyer, Dr. Adlersburg, which had for their subject the “Battle of Vittoria” and the journey to England; that he made various propositions which Beethoven would not accept “to get the work, or at least the right of first performance for himself,” and the like; that, incensed by the conduct of the composer and hopeless of benefit from any farther consultation, he did not appear at the last one appointed; and that he obtained by stealth so many of the single parts of the “Battle” as to be enabled therefrom to have a pretty correct score of the work written out, with which he departed to Munich and there produced it in two concerts on the 16th and 17th of March.

[272]

When this became known in Vienna[122] Beethoven’s wrath was excited and, instead of treating the matter with contemptuous silence, or at most making an appeal to the public in the newspapers, he committed the absurdity of instituting a lawsuit against a man already far on his way to the other extremity of Europe, at the same time in all haste preparing a copy of the “Battle” and sending it to the Prince Regent of England, that at least he might prevent Mälzel from producing it there as a novelty. It was a costly and utterly useless precaution; for, on the one hand, Mälzel found in London no inducement to attempt orchestral concerts, and on the other, the score sent by Beethoven lay buried in the library of the Prince, who neither then nor ever took the slightest notice of it (except to permit its performance, as we shall presently see) or made any acknowledgment to the composer.

Casting aside all extraneous matter contained in Beethoven’s documents, the real question at issue is very clear. The two leading facts—one of which is admitted by implication, and the other explicitly stated by Beethoven himself—are already known to the reader: First, that the plan of the work was Mälzel’s; second, that the composer wrought it out for the Panharmonicon gratis. In this form, therefore, the composition beyond all doubt was Mälzel’s property. There was, therefore, but one point to be decided: Did the arrangement of the work for orchestra at Mälzel’s suggestion and request, transfer the proprietorship? If it did, Beethoven had a basis for his suit; if it did not, he had none. This question was never decided; for after the process had lingered through several years, the two men met, made peace, Beethoven withdrew his complaint, and each paid the half of all expenses that had been incurred![123]

[273]

Thus had been caused a new interruption of the work on “Fidelio.”

“The beneficiaries,” says Treitschke, “urged its completion to take advantage of the favorable season; but Beethoven made slow progress. To one of the poet’s notes urging haste, Beethoven wrote, probably in April:

The repetitions of the “Gute Nachricht” came to a conclusion with the performance in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater on[277] May 3, and the beneficiaries became more and more impatient. Hence, Treitschke wrote again to Beethoven, asked him what use was to be made of the chorus “Germania,” and urged him to make haste with the work on “Fidelio.” Notwithstanding so much was wanting, the rehearsals had begun in the middle of April, and the performance was now fixed for the 23rd of May. Beethoven’s memorandum of his revisal of the opera reads: “The opera Fidelio [?] March to 15th of May, newly written and improved.” May 15th was Sunday, the “Tuesday” of his answer to Treitschke was therefore the 17th, and the date, doubtless, about the 14th:

“The final rehearsal,” says Treitschke, “was on May 22d, but the promised new overture was still in the pen of the creator.” It was then, on the 20th or 21st, that Beethoven dined with his friend Bertolini in the Römischer Kaiser. After dinner he took a bill of fare, drew lines on the blank side and began to write. “Come, let us go,” said Bertolini; “No, wait a little; I have the idea for my overture,” replied Beethoven, who remained and finished his sketches then and there. Treitschke continues:

Schindler says an overture to “Leonore,” Seyfried the overture to “The Ruins of Athens,” was played on this occasion. The “Sammler” in its contemporary notice confirms Seyfried: “The overture played at the first performance does not belong to the opera and was originally written for the opening of the theatre at Pesth.” In 1823, Beethoven in conversation happened to speak of this substitution and remarked: “The people applauded, but I stood ashamed; it did not belong to the rest.” In the manuscript book of the text prepared for use in the theatre on this occasion, one is surprised to see the title begun thus:

“Leonore, Fidelio
An Opera in Two Acts, etc.”

The word “Leonore” is crossed out and “Fidelio” written at the side in red pencil afterwards inked over. There was then on the part of some one—whom?—an intention subsequently abandoned, of thus changing the title. Again, in the list of “properties,” stands

and the same name occurs in the list of the

Dramatis Personæ

Madame Hönig was a new soprano, engaged after the “Hoftheater-Taschenbuch” for 1814 had been printed, whose name appears in that for 1815. Though appointed to the part when this text-book was copied, she gave place before the day of performance to the original Fidelio, Mme. Milder-Hauptmann.

“Herr v. B.,” says the “Sammler,” “was stormily called out already after the first act, and enthusiastically greeted.” The opera was first repeated on the 26th, when the new overture in E major “was received with tumultuous applause and the composer again called out twice at this repetition.”

The chorus “Germania,” in pianoforte arrangement, was published in June “im K. K. Hoftheater-Verlag.” A characteristic note of Beethoven to Treitschke asks for the manuscript for the purpose of correcting the proof and introduces to our acquaintance a personage or two, who will often meet us henceforth to the end, and therefore merit a short personal paragraph here.

The “K. K. Priv. Chemische Druckerey,” the property of Rochus Krasinzky and Sigmund Anton Steiner, passed about 1810 into the hands of Steiner alone. In that year Tobias Haslinger (of Zell in Upper Austria), who had been one of Chapelmaster Glöggl’s singing-boys at Linz and assistant in his music-shop, came to Vienna with the design of establishing himself in business, and there soon became acquainted with Steiner. He detailed to him his purposes and plans and induced him to withdraw his prints and other wares from Grund’s bookstore in the Singerstrasse, and open a shop of his own in the narrow passage then existing at the northeast corner of the Graben, known as the “Paternoster-Gassel,” employing him (Haslinger) as bookkeeper and manager; from which position he soon rose to be partner in the firm, “S. A. Steiner and Co.” Beethoven conceived an odd and whimsical liking for the young man, and in a few years his relations to the firm became very much the same as those which formerly existed between him and the “Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir.” Haslinger had learned divers instruments in Linz, had begun the study of composition there and continued it in Vienna. His Opus 10, “Ideal einer Schlacht,” for the pianoforte, had just been published—the subject of Homeric laughter to Jupiter-Beethoven and the[280] other gods. He made his place of business attractive and it became a favorite resort of composers, musicians, singers, writers for the theatre, the public press, and the like. In his correspondence with the firm Beethoven was “Generalissimus”; Steiner “Lieutenant-General”; Haslinger “Adjutant” or rather “Adjutanterl” (the diminutive of Adjutant); their assistants were “Subalterns”; and the shop, “Office of the Lieutenant-General.” These titles make their appearance in a note, typical of many, written to Treitschke:

One of Beethoven’s minor productions (still unpublished) was now composed for his friend Bertolini. The occasion was an evening festival arranged by the doctor at his own expense on the name-day (St. John’s day) and in honor of Malfatti. It was a little piece for four voices with pianoforte accompaniment to a text written by Abbate Bondi:

Invitations were extended not only to Malfatti’s relatives and personal friends but to a large number of artists of the various professions, resident or temporarily in Vienna—Dragonetti among the musicians. The scene was Malfatti’s villa in Weinhaus. There they feasted; the wine flowed; the cantata was sung; Beethoven, “thoroughly unbuttoned,” improvised; fun and frolic ruled the hour. “The sport cost me a few hundred florins,” laughingly said the good doctor fifty years afterwards.

“Fidelio” was repeated on May 26, June 2d and 4th and on Tuesday, June 7th. The theatre was then “closed because of preparations for the spectacle to be presented on the return of the Emperor.” After this the theatre closed again for two days and on the 21st was reopened with “Fidelio.” A letter to Treitschke was written about this time:

[281]

The day here proposed for the benefit was not granted. The “Wiener Zeitung” of July 1st contained a “Musical Notice” which may be quoted as a comment on the first topic of the above note:

Moscheles, then just twenty years of age, wrote about this time in his diary: “The offer has been made to me to make the pianoforte score of the masterpiece ‘Fidelio.’ What could be more desirable?” “We now find entries,” says his widow, “of how he carried two, and again two numbers to Beethoven, who looked through them; and then, alternately, ‘he changed little’ or ‘he changed nothing,’ or sometimes ‘he simplified it’ or ‘he reinforced it.’ One note reads, ‘Coming early to Beethoven, he was still in bed; this day he was particularly merry, leaped up at once, and, as he was, went to the window, which opened on the Schottenbastei, to look through the arranged numbers. Naturally the street boys assembled under the window until he cried out: ‘Damn the youngsters, what do they want?’ I smilingly pointed to his garment. ‘Yes, yes, you are right,’ said he and hastily threw a dressing-gown over his shoulders.[127] When we reached the last great duet, ‘Namenlose Freude,’ where I had written down the text ‘Ret-terin des Gat-ten,’ he crossed it out and wrote ‘Rett-erin des Gatt-en’; for it was not possible to sing on ‘t.’ Under the last number I had written ‘fine with God’s help.’ He[282] was not at home when I carried it to him; and when he sent it back under mine were the words: ‘O man, help yourself.’”

Before bidding Moscheles farewell for the next half a dozen years, let us look at a few sentences from the preface to the English translation of Schindler’s book, partly for the information they impart and partly to prevent a mistake or two from passing into history on his authority. He thus writes:

As to the “Fidelio,” Moscheles told the writer (February 22, 1856) that he was selected to arrange it because Beethoven was on bad terms with Hummel; and that to hasten the work, Hummel did arrange one of the finales; but when Beethoven received it and looked it through, he tore it to pieces without remark, or explaining why he did so. Two errors in these last sentences will at once strike the reader—that Schindler was then much with Beethoven, and that Beethoven was on bad terms with Hummel. The explanation is easy. Moscheles had translated Schindler’s book, and unconsciously had adopted certain ideas from it, which in course of time had taken the form of memories. This is a common experience with us all. The true reason why Beethoven rejected Hummel as the arranger of “Fidelio” is obvious: Hummel was a man of sufficient talent and genius to have a style of his own—and one (as is well known) not much to Beethoven’s taste; “Fidelio” arranged by him would necessarily exhibit more or less of this style; moreover, Beethoven could not feel the same freedom in discarding, correcting, making suggestions if the work were done by him, as when performed by a young man like Moscheles.

So the score was not now published—a mistake, as the event proved, and as Beethoven himself confessed in the note to Treitschke below. “In accordance with his wish,” says Treitschke, in concluding the relation from which so much has been cited,[131] “I offered our work to foreign theatres; several ordered it, others declined because they already had the opera by Paër. Still others preferred to get it in a cheaper way by hiring cunning copyists who, as is still the custom, stole the text and music and sacrificed them for a few florins’ profit. It was of little use to us[284] that others translated ‘Fidelio’ into several languages and made large sums by it. The composer received scarcely more than a handsome laurel-wreath, and I a little leaf, and the sincere affection of the Immortal.”

Meantime the season had far advanced, the summer heats were approaching, the departure of the nobility and the wealthy for their country-seats was near, and Beethoven thought, perhaps justly, that new attractions must be added to “Fidelio” and the public journals moved to say an appropriate word, to secure him a full house at his benefit, so long deferred. Doubtless with this last object in view, he now gave the “Friedensblätter” the song “An die Geliebte” (text by Stoll), which was engraved as a supplement to the number for July 12, and a notice closing with

This was certainly to the purpose. The earliest hint as to what the new attractions of the opera were to be is found in a note to Treitschke:

[285]

Beethoven’s benefit performance of “Fidelio” took place on Monday evening, July 18, 1814. The song so impatiently awaited could have been no other than Rocco’s “gold aria” which had been sung only in the two performances of 1805. Beethoven, desiring now to give Weinmüller a solo, restored it to the score. Jahn, in his edition of “Leonore,” gives two texts—the original by Sonnleithner and one which he conjectures may have been written by Breuning. From them Treitschke now prepared a text, as we have it, by changing somewhat and improving Sonnleithner’s first stanza and joining to it the second stanza of the other, unchanged except by the omission of its close.

As to the new piece for Milder, Treitschke says explicitly it was “a grand aria for Leonore, but as it checked the rapid movement of the rest it was again omitted.” In the advertisement of his benefit Beethoven says only: “For this performance ... two new pieces have been added.” The notice in the “Friedensblätter” next day is somewhat more explicit: “‘Fidelio’ will be given with two entirely new arias to be sung by Mme. Milder and Hrn. Weinmüller, for the benefit of the composer”; and from the “Sammler” we learn that at the performance the new air sung by Madame Milder-Hauptmann “was very effective and the excellent performance seemed to labor under peculiarly great difficulties.” What is known from printed sources concerning this air is this: it was in E-flat major with four horns obbligati;[133] the text was “Komm’ Hoffnung, etc.”; it was not the aria already sung by the Milder six times this season; it was one which the composer is not certain that she can sing after fourteen days’ study; it was not the one which Moscheles had arranged for the new edition of the opera.

Now we read in the “Fidelio” sketchbook about the time when Beethoven wrote to Treitschke about “sending out the opera” (p. 107): “Hamburg, 15 ducats in gold; Grätz, 12 fl.; Frankfort, 15 ducats in gold; Stuttgart, 12 ducats in gold; Carlsruhe, 12 ducats in gold; Darmstadt, 12 ducats in gold”—evidently the price of the opera; and on the next page, “Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin!” i. e., sketches for the recitative; but sketches for the aria are not known. Are not our informants in error? Was not the new air after all the one which Moscheles arranged and which is still sung? And if not, what has become of it?[134]

[286]

Shortly before the performance on July 14, 1814, Beethoven wrote a letter to Archduke Rudolph in which he said:

Next day, Friday the 15th, appeared, over his own signature, the advertisement of “Beethoven’s Benefit” on Monday, the 18th. “Boxes and reserved seats may be ordered Saturday and Sunday in the lodgings of the undersigned on the Mölkerbastei, in the Baron Pasqualati house, No. 94, in the first storey.” Imagine his comical consternation when the “Wiener Zeitung” came to hand and he read the “Pasqualatischen” instead of the “Bartenstein’schen” house! But the number was correct and that would save his friends the needless ascent of four flights to his old lodging. The contemporary reports of the performance are numerous and all very eulogistic. Forti, as Pizarro, was “entirely satisfactory”; the “gold aria,” although well sung by Weinmüller, “did not make a great effect”; “beautiful and of large artistic value was the aria in E-flat major with four [!] obbligato French horns, but the reviewer is of the opinion that it retards the rapid progress of the first act. The house was very full; the applause extraordinary; the enthusiasm for the composer, who has now become a favorite of the public, manifested itself in calls before the curtain after every act.” All free tickets were[287] invalid; the pecuniary results must therefore have been in a high degree satisfactory.

Another consequence of Beethoven’s sudden popularity, was the publication of a new engraving of him by Artaria, the crayon drawing for which was executed by Latronne, a French artist then in Vienna. Blasius Höfel, a young man of 22 years, was employed to engrave it. He told the writer,[136] how very desirous he was of producing a good likeness—a matter of great importance to the young artist—but that Latronne’s drawing was not a good one, probably for want of a sufficient number of sittings. Höfel often saw Beethoven at Artaria’s and, when his work was well advanced, asked him for a sitting or two. The request was readily granted. At the time set, the engraver appeared with his plate. Beethoven seated himself in position and for perhaps five minutes remained reasonably quiet; then suddenly springing up went to the pianoforte and began to extemporize, to Höfel’s great annoyance. The servant relieved his embarrassment by assuring him that he could now seat himself near the instrument and work at his leisure, for his master had quite forgotten him and no longer knew that anyone was in the room. This Höfel did; wrought so long as he wished, and then departed with not the slightest notice from Beethoven. The result was so satisfactory, that only two sittings of less than one hour each were needed. It is well known that Höfel’s is the best of all the engravings made of Beethoven. In 1851, Alois Fuchs showed to the writer his great collection, and when he came to this, exclaimed with strong emphasis: “Thus I learned to know him!”

Höfel in course of the conversation unconsciously corroborated the statements of Madame Streicher, as reported by Schindler, in regard to Beethoven’s wretched condition in 1812-13. The effect upon him of his pecuniary embarrassments, his various disappointments, and of a mind ill at ease, was very plainly to be seen in his personal habits and appearance. He was at that time much accustomed to dine at an inn where Höfel often saw him in a distant corner, at a table, which though large was avoided by the other guests owing to the very uninviting habits into which he had fallen; the particulars may be omitted. Not infrequently he departed without paying his bill, or with the remark that his brother would settle it; which Karl did. He had grown so negligent of his person as to appear there sometimes positively “schmutzig” (dirty). Now, however, under the kind care of the Streichers, cheered and inspirited by the glory and emolument of[288] the past eight months, he became his better self again; and—though now and to the end, so careless and indifferent to mere externals as occasionally to offend the sensitiveness of very nice and fastidious people—he again, as before quoted from Czerny, “paid attention to his appearance.” From a note of apology to the Archduke, written while busy with the “arrangements for my opera,” we learn that Beethoven contemplated another visit to Teplitz; but the public announcement of a royal congress to meet in Vienna, August 1, put an end to that project, and Baden again became his summer retreat, for recreation but not for rest. Sketches for the “Elegiac Song” (“Sanft wie du lebtest”) are found among the studies for the new “Fidelio,” and this short work was probably now completed in season to be copied and delivered to his friend Pasqualati on or before the 23rd of August, that day being the third anniversary of the death of his “transfigured wife,” in honor of whose memory it was composed. The Sonata in E minor, Op. 90, bears date August 16. Then comes a cantata—as it is named in the “Fidelio” sketchbook, where some hints for it are noted; in fact, it is but a chorus with orchestra—a piece of flattery intended for the royal personages of the coming congress.

This is the text; but as the congress was deferred, there was no haste, and the chorus was not finished until September 3rd.

Meanwhile the controversy with the Kinsky heirs had entered upon a new phase. Dr. Johann Kanka, a lawyer in Prague, in a communication to the author,[137] wrote:

Then, after a rather protracted history of the annuity and the effect produced upon it by the Finanz-Patent of 1811, “whereby Beethoven’s means of subsistence were materially reduced and his longer residence in Vienna rendered impossible,” he continues:

[289]

Dr. Kanka closed with the promise to grant for use in this work, such letters of Beethoven—“precious relics”—as remained in his possession—a promise fulfilled a few days afterwards. Thus, in half a dozen lines—indeed, by the single statement that he was the curator of the Kinsky estate and as such effected a compromise between the parties—the venerable doctor exposes the mistakes and destroys the hypotheses of all who treated the topic at length from Schindler onward. Beethoven’s lawyer in Vienna was Dr. Adlersburg, and his “legal friend” in Prague, Dr. Wolf, who must have already become heartily weary of his client, for Beethoven himself writes in a letter to the court at Prague:

That, as is here insinuated, Wolf instituted the suit against the Kinsky heirs without explicit instructions from his client, is doubtful; but at all events that proceeding brought matters to a crisis, and led to an interview in the course of the summer between Beethoven and the Verlassenschafts-Curator, with the object, on the part of the latter, of effecting a settlement of the affair by compromise. Kanka, a fine musician and composer, an old friend, or rather acquaintance of Beethoven’s, and of the same age, was a man also whose legal talents and knowledge must have no less deeply than favorably impressed him. The letters written during the next six months to his new friend, show us how Beethoven first relinquished the notion of a legal claim to the 1800 florins in notes of redemption, then abandoned the claim in equity, and at length came into a rational view of the matter, saw the[290] necessity of compromising, and sought no more than to effect this on the best terms possible.[138]

There is a letter to Thomson dated September 15, and another in October, the day not specified. Both are in Italian and only signed by Beethoven. In the first, the demand of “4 zecchini” per melody is renewed and “mille ringraziamente” sent to the author of a sonnet printed in the “Edinburgh Magazine” which Thomson had enclosed to the composer. The occasion of the poem was the performance of selections of Beethoven’s music at a rural festival of artists in England. The hour was advanced to near midnight, when Grahame, the Scotch poet, who was present, inspired by the music and by the beauty of the bright moonlit night, improvised the lines:

Beethoven’s thanks came too late; Grahame was dead. The letter of October again presses the demand of “4 zecchini,” but is for the most part devoted to urging Thomson to purchase for publication the “Wellington’s Victory”—about as preposterous as if Professor Max Müller had solicited the editor of a popular magazine, to which he had contributed articles, to undertake a Sanskrit dictionary. Our narrative brings us to a letter

To Count Moritz von Lichnowsky.

Baden, Sept. 21, 1841 [sic].

Worthy honored Count
and friend.

I did not receive your letter, unfortunately until yesterday—cordial thanks for your thought of me and all manner of lovely messages to the[291] worthy Princess Christine—yesterday, I made a lonely promenade with a friend in the Brühl and you up came particularly in our friendly conversation and behold on arriving here yesterday I find your good letter—I see that you still persist in overwhelming me with kindnesses, as I do not want you to think that a step which I have taken was prompted by a new interest or anything of that kind, I tell you that a new sonata of mine will soon appear which I have dedicated to you. I wanted to surprise you, for the dedication was set apart for you a long time ago, but your letter of yesterday leads me to make the disclosure, no new cause was needed for the public expression of my feelings for your friendship and kindness—but you would give me pain with anything resembling a gift, since you would totally misapprehend my purpose, and everything of the kind I could only refuse.

I kiss the hands of the Princess for her thought of me and her kindness, I have never forgotten how much I owe you all, even if an unfortunate circumstance brought about conditions under which I could not show it as I should have liked to do—what you tell me about Lord Castleregt, the matter is already well introduced, if I were to have an opinion on the subject, it would be that I think that Lord Castleregt ought not to write about the work on Wellington until the Lord has heard it here—I am soon coming to the city where we will talk over everything concerning a grand concert—nothing can be done with the court, I have made an offer—but

Adagio
but, but, but, but, but, but
and yet Silentium!

Farewell, my honored friend and think of me always as worthy of your kindness—

Your
Beethoven.

I kiss the hands of the honored Princess C. a thousand times.

Beethoven’s “Lord Castleregt” was Viscount Castlereagh, now in Vienna as British plenipotentiary in the coming congress; and his object was to obtain through him some recognition from the Prince Regent for the dedication of the “Wellington’s Victory.” Nothing came of it.

The Sonata was the Op. 90, dated “August 16, 1814”—the subject of one of Schindler’s authentic and pleasantest anecdotes. Lichnowsky, after the decease of his first wife, fell in love with Fräulein Stummer, a singer just now transferred from the Theater-an-der-Wien to the Hoftheater, whose talents and unblemished character rendered her worthy of the Count’s affection. Difference in social position long prevented their marriage, nor was it solemnized until some time after the death of Prince Karl.

[292]

The only new work suitable for a grand concert which Beethoven now had, was the chorus; “Ihr weisen Gründer.” Over the title of the manuscript is written in pencil by him: “About this time the Overture in C.” This work he had now in hand; also a vocal composition of considerable length. The author of the text, whoever he was, must have profoundly studied and heartily adopted the principles of composition as set forth by Martinus Scriblerus in his “Treatise on Bathos, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry”: for anything more stilted in style, yet more absurdly prosaic, with nowhere a spark of poetic fire to illuminate its dreary pages, is hardly conceivable. It begins something like this:

Neither the Overture nor the Cantata was finished, when the arrival at Vienna of the King of Wurtemberg on the 22d of September, of the King of Denmark on the 23d and the announcement of the coming of the Russian Emperor with the King of Prussia[293] on Sunday the 25th, brought Beethoven back to the city. Owing to the failure of Lobkowitz, the Court theatres had passed under the management of Palffy. If there be any truth whatever in his alleged hostility to Beethoven, it is not a little remarkable that the first grand opera performed in the presence of the monarchs—Monday the 26th—was “Fidelio.” One of the audience on that evening, in a published account of his “Journey to the Congress,” records: “To-day I went to the Court Theatre and was carried to heaven—the opera ‘Fidelio’ by L. v. Beethoven was given.” Then follow some fifteen pages of enthusiastic eulogy. That auditor was Alois Weissenbach, R. I. Councillor, Professor of Surgery and Head Surgeon of the St. John’s Hospital in Salzburg, where after sixteen years’ service in the Austrian armies he had settled, devoting his leisure to poetry and the drama. His tragedy “Der Brautkranz” in iambics, five acts, was produced January 14, 1809, at the Kärnthnerthor-Theater. Whether his “Barmeciden” and “Glaube und Liebe” were also brought out in Vienna we have no means of deciding. At all events, he was a man of high reputation. Of him Franz Graeffer writes:

Weissenbach himself writes:

Remarks follow upon Beethoven’s ignorance of the value of money, of the absolute purity of his morals (which, unfortunately, is not true) and of the irregularity of his life. “This irregularity reaches its climax in his periods of productiveness. Then he is frequently absent days at a time without any one knowing whither he is gone.” [?]

We know no reason to suppose that Beethoven received Weissenbach’s poem before the interview with him; but, on the contrary, think the citations above preclude such a hypothesis. Moreover, the composer’s anxiety to have an interview at the earliest possible moment arose far more probably from a hint or the hope, that he might obtain a text better than the one in hand, than from any desire to discuss one already received. What is certain is this: Beethoven did obtain from Weissenbach the poem “Der glorreiche Augenblick,” and cast the other aside unfinished—as it remains to this day.

First, Beethoven had to complete his overture, the supposed scope and design of which may occupy us a moment.

Scott said, that when he wrote “Waverly, or ’Tis Sixty Years Since,” it had already become impossible for the people of England[295] and Scotland, in their greatly changed and improved condition, to form any correct conception of the state of public feeling in those kingdoms in 1745, when the Pretender made that last effort against the House of Brunswick which is the subject of “Waverly,” and the defeat of which is commemorated by Handel in “Judas Maccabæus.” It is equally difficult for us to conceive adequately the sensations caused by the downfall of Napoleon at the time of which we are writing.

When monarchs play chess with armies, “check to the king” means the shock of contending foes and all the horrors of war; but in perusing the history of Bonaparte’s campaigns, we become so interested in the “game” as to forget the attendant ruin, devastation and destruction, the blood, carnage and death, that made all central Europe for twenty long years one vast charnel-house. But only in proportion as the imagination is able to form a vivid picture of the horrors of those years, can it conceive that inexpressible sense of relief, the universal joy and jubilee, which outside of France pervaded all classes of society, from prince to peasant, at the fall of the usurper, conqueror and tyrant. And this not more because of that event, than because of the all-prevailing trust, that men’s rights, political and religious—now doubly theirs by nature and by purchase at such infinite cost—would be gladly and gratefully accorded to them. For sovereign and subject had shared danger and suffering and every evil fortune together, and been brought into new and kindlier relations by common calamities; thus the sentiment of loyalty—the affectionate veneration of subject for sovereign—had been developed to a degree wholly unprecedented. Nothing presaged or foreboded the near advent and thirty years’ sway of Metternichism. No one dreamed, that within six years the “rulers” at this moment “of happy states” would solemnly declare, “all popular and constitutional rights to be holden no otherwise than as grants and indulgences from crowned heads”;[139] that they would snuff treason in every effort of the people to hold princes to their pledged words; and that their vigilance would effectually prevent the access of any Leonore to the Pellicos, Liebers and Reuters languishing for such treasons in their state prisons. At that time all this was hidden in the future; the very intoxication of joy and extravagant loyalty then ruled the hour. It was, as we believe, to give these sentiments musical expression, that Beethoven now took up and wrought out certain themes and motives, noted by him five years before in connection with the memorandum: “Freude schöner Götterfunken Tochter—[296]Ouverture ausarbeiten.”[140] The poetic idea of the work was not essentially changed—the joy of liberated Europe simply taking the place of the joy of Schiller’s poem. But the composer’s particular purpose was to produce it as the graceful homage of a loyal subject on the Emperor’s name-day. How else can the autograph inscription upon the original manuscript be understood: “Overture by L. v. Beethoven, on the first of Wine-month, 1814—Evening to the name-day of our Emperor”? In the arts, as in literature, there is no necessary connection between that which gives rise to the ideas of a work, and the occasion of its composition; the occasion of this overture was clearly the name-day festival of Emperor Franz; why then may it not in the future, as in the past, be known as the “Namensfeier” Overture?

Assuming the “first of the Wine-month” (October 1) to date the completion of the work, there remained three days for copying and rehearsal. The theatre had been closed on the 29th and 30th of September, to prepare for a grand festival production of Spontini’s “La Vestale” on Saturday evening, October 1st; but for the evening of the name-day, Tuesday the 4th, “Fidelio” (its 15th performance) was selected. It was obviously the intention of Beethoven to do homage to Emperor Franz, by producing his new overture as a prelude on this occasion. What, then, prevented? Seyfried answers this question. He writes: “For this year’s celebration of the name-day of His Majesty, the Emperor, Kotzebue’s allegorical festival play ‘Die hundertjährigen Eichen’ had been ordered. Now, as generally happens, this decision was reached so late that I, as the composer, was allowed only three days, and two more for studying and rehearsing all the choruses, dances, marches, groupings, etc.” This festival play was on the 3d and rendered the necessary rehearsals of Beethoven’s overture impossible.[141]

“Fidelio” was sung the sixteenth time on the 9th. Tomaschek, one of the auditors on that evening, gave to the public in[297] 1846 notes of the impression made upon him, in a criticism which, by its harshness, forms a curious contrast to Weissenbach’s eulogy. Having exhausted that topic, however, Tomaschek describes his meetings in an account which has a peculiar interest not only because, though general descriptions of Beethoven’s style of conversation are numerous, attempts to report him in detail are very rare. The description is also valuable because of its vivid display of Beethoven’s manner of judging his contemporaries, which was so offensive to them and begat their lasting enmity. A dramatic poem, “Moses,” words by Klingemann, music (overture, choruses and marches) by von Seyfried, was to be given on the evening of Tomaschek’s first call. Tomaschek says he has no desire “to hear music of this kind” and the dialogue proceeds as follows:

Before Tomaschek visited Beethoven again, Meyerbeer’s opera “Die beiden Caliphen” had been produced at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre. Tomaschek comes to take his farewell. Beethoven is in the midst of preparations for his concert and insists upon giving him a ticket. Then the conversation goes on:

Of some minor compositions belonging to this autumn, this is the story: The Prussian King’s Secretary, Friedrich Duncker, brought to Vienna, in the hope of producing it there, a tragedy, “Leonore Prohaska,” “which tells the story of a maiden who, disguised as a soldier, fought through the war of liberation.” For this Beethoven composed a soldiers’ chorus for men’s voices unaccompanied: “Wir hauen und sterben”; a romance with harp, 6/8, “Es blüht eine Blume”; and a melodrama with harmonica. It is also stated, that he instrumentated for orchestra the march in the Sonata, Opus 26, Duncker preferring this to a new marcia funebre.[143] Dr. Sonnleithner had also a note from some quarter—discredited by him—that even an overture and entr’actes were[299] written. Nothing of the kind is known to exist, and doubtless never did. “It is said the censor would not allow the piece”—it certainly never came to performance; and until its production was made sure, Beethoven would of course—even if he had the time—not have engaged in a work of such extent.

Beethoven had announced a grand concert for November 20, in the large Ridotto Room, but advertisements in the “Wiener Zeitung” of the 18th postponed it till November 22d, then till the 27th, and finally till the 29th. On November 30th, the newspaper reports:

One would like to know what Beethoven said when he read this; for the symphony supposed by the writer to be composed as a companion-piece (Begleitung) to the “Wellington’s Victory” was the magnificent Seventh![144]

The solo singers in the Cantata were Mme. Milder, Dem. Bondra, Hr. Wild and Hr. Forti, all of whom sang well, and the Milder wonderfully. “The two Empresses, the King of Prussia” and other royalties were present and “the great hall was crowded. Seated in the orchestra were to be seen the foremost virtuosi, who were in the habit of showing their respect for him and art by taking part in Beethoven’s Academies.” All the contemporary notices[300] agree as to the enthusiastic reception of the Symphony and the Battle, and that the Cantata, notwithstanding the poverty of the text, was, on the whole, worthy of the composer’s reputation and contained some very fine numbers. The concert, with precisely the same programme, was repeated in the same hall on Friday, December 2d, for Beethoven’s benefit—nearly half the seats being empty! And again in the evening of the 25th for the benefit of the St. Mark’s Hospital, when, of course, a large audience was present. Thus the Cantata was given three times in four weeks, and probably Spohr, who was still in Vienna, played in the orchestra; yet he gravely asserts in his autobiography that “the work was not performed at that time.”

The proposed third concert for Beethoven’s benefit was abandoned and there is no clue to the “new things in hand” for it, which Beethoven mentioned in a letter to Archduke Rudolph, unless possibly the “Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt” may have been begun for the occasion. The most remarkable and gratifying thing in the letter, however, is to find Beethoven once more speaking of “pleasures and joy”—whence arising, we learn from Schindler. True, he does not, nor cannot yet, speak from personal observation; but his well-known relations to the composer began while the memories of these days were still fresh; and what he records is derived from Beethoven himself for the most part, though, as usual, he has inserted a statement or two, honestly made, but not the less incorrect on that account. But first, a paragraph from an article by Schindler in Raumer’s “Hist. Taschenbuch,” published in 1863:

Turn we to Schindler:

As Rasoumowsky was not elevated to the rank of Prince until June 3rd, 1815, Schindler, in his next sentences, is all wrong in making that incident “the cause of festivities of a most extraordinary character to which Beethoven was always invited.”

There is reason to believe that these receptions in the apartments of the Archduke did not begin until those at Rasoumowsky’s had come to their disastrous end. Huge as the palace was, it lacked space for the crowds invited thither to the Czar’s festivities. A large temporary structure of wood was therefore added on the side next the garden, in which, on the evening of December 30th, a table for 700 guests was spread. Between five and six o’clock of the morning of the 31st, this was discovered to be on fire—probably owing to a defective flue—the conflagration extending to the main building and lasting until noon.

And thus Rasoumowsky also passes out of our history.—Among the visitors to Vienna at the time of the Congress was Varnhagen von Ense, who had gone into the diplomatic service; he came in the company of the Prussian Chancellor von Hardenburg. His attitude toward Beethoven had cooled—probably because of Oliva’s complaints touching Beethoven’s behavior towards him. His brief report of his meeting with the composer derives some interest from its allusion to Prince Radziwill, to whom Beethoven dedicated the Overture, Op. 115 (which was not published until 1825). The report (printed in Varnhagen’s “Denkwürdigkeiten,” Vol. III, pp. 314-15) is as follows:

The compositions of the year 1814 were these:

The publications of the year:

[304]

Chapter XV

Beethoven might well have adopted Kotzebue’s title: “The most Remarkable Year of my Life” and written his own history for 1814, in glowing and triumphant language; but now the theme modulates into a soberer key. “Then there is the matter of a new opera,” says a letter to the Archduke early in December. The “Sammler” of the 17th explains the allusion: “It is with great pleasure that we inform the music-loving public that Herr van Beethoven has contracted to compose an opera. The poem is by Herrn Treitschke and bears the title: ‘Romulus and Remus.’” The notice was based upon this note to Treitschke:

Now here was a promising operatic project; but before six weeks had passed came the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” bringing Johann Fuss’s musical “Review of the month of December,” wherein among the items of Vienna news was a notice that “Hr. Fuss had composed an opera in three acts entitled ‘Romulus and Remus’ for the Theater-an-der-Wien”! And this was so; portions of it were afterwards sung by a musical society of which Dr. L. Sonnleithner was a member, and in Pressburg it was put upon the stage at a later date;—but it never came to performance in the theatres of Vienna, perhaps in consequence of measures adopted after the following letter to Treitschke:

The matter was so arranged with Fuss as to leave the text in Beethoven’s hands; but how, and on what terms, is not known.

Among the sketches to “Der glorreiche Augenblick” appears the theme of the Polonaise for Pianoforte, Op. 89, the story of which is as follows: In a conversation with Beethoven one day, in the time of the Congress, Bertolini suggested to him that, as polonaises were then so much in vogue, he should compose one and dedicate it to the Empress of Russia; for, perhaps, thereby he might also obtain some acknowledgment from Emperor Alexander for the dedication to him of the Violin Sonatas, Op. 30,—for none had ever been made. As usual, Beethoven at first scorned dictation, but at length thought better of the proposal, sat down to the pianoforte, improvised various themes and requested Bertolini to choose one; which he did. When it was completed, they waited upon Walkonski, to seek through him permission to make the proposed dedication, which was granted. At the appointed time Beethoven was admitted to an audience with the Empress and presented the Polonaise, for which he received a present of 50 ducats. On this occasion he was asked, if he had ever received anything from the Czar? As he had not, a hundred ducats was added for the Sonatas.[145]

It was about this time (precisely when the painter could not remember when speaking of it in 1861), that Beethoven sat again to his friend Mähler, who wished to add his portrait to his gallery of musicians. This was the picture which, after the death of the artist, was purchased by Prof. Karajan. Another portrait of Beethoven was painted by Mähler for Gleichenstein. On the 25th of January, a grand festival took place in the Burg on the occasion of the Russian Empress’s birthday, which in part consisted of a concert in the Rittersaal. The last piece on the programme was the canon in “Fidelio”: “Mir ist so wunderbar,” and by a whimsical stroke of fortune Beethoven himself appeared, and, to the audience of emperors and empresses, kings and queens, with their ministers and retinues, played for the last time in public! Wild, who dates the concert a month too soon, gives an account[306] of it in which, after telling of his own success with “Adelaide,” he says:

By far the most important event in Beethoven’s history during these months, was the final settlement, by compromise, of the annuity affair with the Kinsky heirs, on the 18th of January. So soon as the legal formalities could be ended and communicated to Beethoven, he issued in autograph a power of attorney to Baron Josef von Pasqualati in Prague to collect the money due, and act for him in all things necessary. On March 26th, Pasqualati acknowledged the receipt of 2479 florins W. W. as payment on the annuity in full up to the end of March, 1815. In this instance “W. W.” (Wiener Währung) meant notes of redemption, since the bank-notes had been retired from circulation in 1812. The compromise decree arrived at through the ministration of Dr. Kanka fixed the original annuity of 1800 florins at 1200 florins, beginning on November 3d, 1812. There was therefore due to Beethoven, for from November 3d to the end of March, 1815, 2890 florins, from which was deducted 411 florins, as the equivalent of the 60 ducats paid to Beethoven by Prince Kinsky in October, 1812, leaving 2479 florins as aforesaid. The decision in the case with Lobkowitz also soon followed. According to the judgment of the Court, entered on April 19, 1815, the future annual payments were fixed at 700 florins (the equivalent of 280 fl. conventional coin, silver), and the 2508 fl. arrears were ordered paid in notes of redemption within two months. Payments were made accordingly and (as Dr. v. Köchel reported in a private note to the author), from 1811 up to his death, Beethoven received on the annuity contract the following sums every year:

[307]

Notwithstanding that Prince Lobkowitz’s financial affairs had been satisfactorily ordered, his return to Vienna was delayed until the Spring of 1815, one reason being that (as he states in a letter to Archduke Rudolph, dated Prague, December 29, 1814) an opinion prevailed in the Austrian capital that his presence would be “unseemly.” In this letter he gives expression to his feelings toward Beethoven as follows:

Is this not nobly said?

Consider these facts: Lobkowitz was now deprived of the control of his revenues; those revenues, in so far as they were based upon contracts, were subject to the Finanz-Patent of 1811; the curators of his estates were also bound by it; and the General Court (Landrecht) had no power arbitrarily to set it aside. What that tribunal could and did do was, by its assent and decree, to give binding force to such agreement between the parties in principal, as had obtained the sanction of the curators, with, probably, the consent of the principal creditors of the Prince. It follows then that the concession of Beethoven’s full demand of 700 fl. in notes of redemption could have been obtained only through the good will and active intervention of Lobkowitz himself, using his personal influence with the other parties concerned. Schindler incidentally confirms this.

Will the reader here pause a moment and think what impression the aspersions on Lobkowitz’s character in Beethoven’s letters have left upon his mind? Have they not begotten a prejudice so strengthened by “damnable iteration” that it is now hardly possible to overcome it, and believe it unfounded? Lobkowitz, young, generous to prodigality, rendered careless by the very magnitude of his possessions, had, in the lapse of some twenty years, so squandered his enormous resources, as to fall into temporary embarrassments, which threw the responsibility of[308] meeting his pecuniary engagements upon others, who were bound by the nature of their office to pay none but strictly legal claims. Thus Beethoven became a loser in part of what was originally no debt, but a gift—or rather would have been so, but for the interference of Lobkowitz.

We have here another warning of the great caution to be exercised when using private correspondence for purposes of biography. In writing of Beethoven this is especially necessary, because so large a proportion of it consists of confidential notes and communications containing the ebullitions of splenetic moments, and not seldom hasty charges and mistaken accusations, such as he gladly withdrew on learning the truth. To accept all this without question is preposterous; to use it as authentic historic matter without scrupulous examination, is to do great injustice to the dead.

The proof is ample, that Beethoven was already fully convinced of the entire innocence of both Prince Kinsky and Prince Lobkowitz of all desire to escape any really just demands upon them: yet, probably, until the greater part of our present Beethoven literature has sunk into oblivion, the memory of those noble and generous personages will be made to suffer on the authority of Beethoven’s hasty expressions.

A letter written in English, probably by his friend Häring, who had been much in England, and signed by Beethoven, marks the progress of his business with Thomson:

This naturally turns our attention to Beethoven’s English affairs. “Christus am Ölberg” (“The Mount of Olives,” as the oratorio is called in England and America) had been given for the first time in England on February 25, 1814, by Sir George Smart, who in 1861, in conversation with the author at his house (the one in which Weber died), related the circumstances of this production and of “Wellington’s Victory,” which was a consequence of the success of the oratorio, substantially as follows:

In the winter of 1812-1813, Smart undertook the Lenten oratorio season at Drury Lane Theatre, introducing at the first concert, January 30, 1813, Handel’s “Messiah” with Mozart’s additional accompaniments, but not noting this fact upon the programme. The audience was delighted with the new effects and Mozart’s name appeared on the next programme. During this season Smart heard the “Christus am Ölberg” spoken of. Desiring to find some novelty the next season and Beethoven having already a great name, he offered £50 to anyone who would procure him the score of that work published by Breitkopf and Härtel—an exceedingly difficult thing to get at that time, when Napoleon had almost hermetically sealed the Continent against England. The next winter (1813-14) Jack Morris, keeper of a tavern or eating-house of the better sort, a man who had free entry behind the scenes of the theatre and was continually there, came to Smart and put the score of the oratorio into his hands, to his (Smart’s) great astonishment.

“Well,” said Smart, “I’ll give you the £50.”

“No,” was the reply, “I’ll take only two guineas, for that’s what I paid for it.”

“How did you get it?” asked Smart.

“A friend of mine who is a King’s Messenger bought it for me in Leipsic.”

The only acknowledgment that Morris would take, beside the two guineas, was that Smart should accept an invitation from him to be present at a pugilistic exhibition and at the supper afterwards. The score bears the date of reception, January 7, 1814.

Now to bring it out.

[310]

Samuel J. Arnold translated the text, putting all the characters into the third person, so as not to shock English feelings of reverence by producing Christ and the Apostles on the stage, and Smart adapted the translation to the music. It was rehearsed at his house (“in this room,” said he), and very ill received by amateurs present, who told Smart, he was mad to produce such a thing! On February 25th, the first part of the programme of the “Oratorio,” a sacred concert, at Drury Lane Theatre, was selections from the “Messiah” in which Catalani sang; Part II, “The Mount of Olives,” solos by Mrs. Dickens, Mrs. Bland, Mr. Pyne and Mr. Bellamy; Part III, Musical selections. Parts I and II also closed with selections from “Paradise Lost” read by Miss Smith. The tenth, and last, performance was on May 28th.

Subsequently, Kramer, master of the Prince Regent’s band, told Smart that the Prince had the score of a Battle Symphony by Beethoven, and he was welcome to the use of it, if he desired to produce it. Smart, encouraged by the success of the “Christus,” was delighted, notwithstanding the musicians called the work a piece of musical quackery. On examining it, Sir George saw that it would never do with his audience to end with the fugue on “God save the King,” and consulted with Ferdinand Ries as to what kind of close to make. Ries added to the score a short passage of modulation, which led from the fugue into the plain, simple tune. The work was copied, rehearsed, and produced on the 10th of February, 1815, as Part II of a Drury Lane “Oratorio”—the word being used then for a sacred concert, like “Akademie” in Vienna for a secular one. As the orchestra ended Ries’ passage of modulation, the hymn was taken up and sung by the principal solo singers, and the full chorus. The audience used also to join in and make the old theatre ring again. The success was immense; it was performed several seasons, and Smart cleared £1000 by it.[147]

There is a sketchbook in the Mendelssohn collection, which shows in part what compositions employed Beethoven’s thoughts about this time. It contains sketches to marches; for a “Symphony in B minor”; a “Sonata ’cello pastorale”; a chorus, “Meeresstille”; a song, “Merkenstein.” This confirms a statement of Czerny’s: “On ‘Merkenstein,’ Beethoven composed two little songs, both, I think, for almanacs.” The one published by[311] Steiner and Co., however, does not appear to have come out in that manner. The date of these sketches is fixed by a memorandum of Beethoven’s on the seventh leaf, of Smart’s production in London of “Wellington’s Victory”: “In Drurylane Theatre on February 10th, and repeated by general request on the 13th, ‘Wiener Zeitung’ of March 2d.” This led to inquiry, and Sir George Smart’s name, as leader of the Lenten concerts in London, became known to Beethoven, who engaged his friend Häring, who knew Smart intimately, to write the following English letter in his behalf:

Häring now writes the following for Beethoven to sign:

The works enumerated in this letter, taking them in the same order, are Op. 95, 91, 92, 93, 97, 113, 115, 117 and 96. Häring was evidently ignorant that all of Beethoven’s new works were even then sold, except for England. Steiner had purchased them. The precise terms of the contract between the composer and this publisher are not known; for, although the transaction was too important to have been left to a mere parole agreement, no written instrument has been discovered. Jahn had no copy of any; and Nottebohm writes (November 19, 1875): “I was yesterday in the[313] comptoir of Haslinger, but there nothing is to be found.” The earliest reference to the business yet discovered is a letter to Steiner, from which it is to be inferred that Karl van Beethoven was in some manner interested—perhaps as arranger, under his brother’s inspection, of the editions for pianoforte of the orchestral works:

The works purchased by Steiner are named in a list sent by Nottebohm with the letter above cited. It is the copy of an unsigned memorandum, evidently proceeding from Beethoven, which, except the omission of the works mentioned in the Häring letter, runs thus:

Whatever may have been the proposed interest of Karl van Beethoven in the contract, his failing health soon prevented him from performing any labor under it. The correspondence with Steiner and Co. indicates that the task of arranging the orchestral works for the pianoforte was performed by Haslinger and Anton Diabelli, with occasional assistance from Carl Czerny, under Beethoven’s superintendence.

Diabelli, born near Salzburg in 1781, had now been for some years one of the more prolific composers of light and pleasing music, and one of the best and most popular teachers in Vienna. He was much employed by Steiner and Co., as copyist and corrector, and in this capacity enjoyed much of Beethoven’s confidence, who also heartily liked him as a man. In the composer’s comical military staff, he was the “General Profoss,” and in the correspondence his name becomes “Diabolus”—for Beethoven could never resist the temptation to a play upon words. About the 1st of April Beethoven received a package which proved to be an opera text by Rudolph von Berge, sent to him with a letter by his old friend Amenda from Courland. While this letter was under way Beethoven received a visit from a friend of Amenda’s who, on his departure from Vienna, carried with him a letter in which he said:

The opera book sent by Amenda was entitled, “‘Bacchus,’ Grand Lyric Opera in Three Acts.” The libretto was preserved among Schindler’s papers in the Royal Library in Berlin. It seems likely that Beethoven gave some thought to the opera and experimented with some themes. There are interesting notes on a work with a classical subject, the words apparently the beginning of an invocation to Pan, in a sketchbook of 1815, which[315] Nottebohm describes in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 329 et seq.) without saying whether they belong to Treitschke’s “Romulus” or von Berge’s “Bacchus.” Dr. Riemann assumes without hesitation that the sketches were made for “Bacchus” and sees a premonition of Wagner’s methods in the following:

bountiful

bountiful Pan
not quite so characteristic, it must be evolved out of the B. M.[150] where the
dance only intermittently

Corni

Throughout the opera probably dissonances, unresolved or very differently, as our refined music cannot be thought of in connection with those barbarous times.

On the approach of warm weather the Erdödys removed for the summer to Jedlersee, never to return to the Schottenbastei; and as Lichnowsky was dead, Beethoven had no inducement longer to remain in that vicinity and therefore departed from the Mölkerbastei—also never to return. The new lodging was in the third storey of a house then belonging to Count Lamberti, in the Sailerstätte, with a double number 1055, 1056, near which he had lived a dozen years before, having the same sunny aspect and the glorious view across the Glacis from the Karlkirche and the Belvidere Gardens, away across the Danube to the blue Carpathian mountains in the distance. In this house, about the first of June, Häring introduced to Beethoven the very fine English pianist and enthusiastic musician Charles Neate, who after five months’ study with Winter in Munich had come to Vienna in the hope of obtaining instruction from the great symphonist. To his application, Beethoven replied in substance: “I cannot teach, but I will give you an introduction to my master, Förster” (which he did by letter), “and you may bring your compositions to me for my inspection, and I will examine and remark upon them.” In consequence of this permission Neate saw him almost daily. Beethoven spent a part of this summer in Baden, and Neate took a room very near him. There the composer was in the habit of working all the forenoon, dining early at twelve or one o’clock, and, towards evening, walking with Neate—sometimes up the[316] Helenen-Thal, oftener through the fields. Neate, in the course of his long life—he was nearly eighty when he related these things to the author[151]—had never met a man who so enjoyed nature; he took intense delight in flowers, in the clouds, in everything—“nature was like food to him, he seemed really to live in it.” Walking in the fields, he would sit down on any green bank that offered a good seat, and give his thoughts free course. He was then full of the idea of going to England, but the death of his brother and adoption of his nephew put an end to the project. Neate remembered the boy as a very beautiful, intelligent lad. Beethoven, at that time, and as Neate knew him, was charmingly good-tempered to those whom he liked—but his dislikes were so strong, that to avoid speaking to persons to whom he was not well affected, he would actually increase his pace in the street to a run. At this time, his dark complexion was very ruddy and extremely animated. His abundant hair was in an admirable disorder. He was always laughing, when in good humor, which he for the most part was, as Neate saw him.

One day Neate spoke to him about the popularity of his Sonatas, Trios, etc., in England and added that his Septet was very much admired:—“That’s damned stuff” (or “a damned thing”), said Beethoven, “I wish it were burned!” or words to this effect, to Neate’s great discomfiture. Another time, walking in the fields near Baden, Neate spoke of the “Pastoral Symphony” and of Beethoven’s power of painting pictures in music. Beethoven said: “I have always a picture in my mind, when I am composing, and work up to it.”

Neate conversed with him in German and had no difficulty in making him understand, when speaking into his left ear. He brought to Beethoven an order from the Philharmonic Society of London—obtained by the exertions of Ries—for three concert overtures, of which we shall hear more hereafter.[152]

The destruction of Rasoumowsky’s palace suspended his quartets, and Linke, the violoncellist, passed the summer with the Erdödys at Jedlersee. This gave the impulse to Beethoven to write the principal works of this year: the two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102. The first bears his date: “To[317]wards the end of July”; the second: “Beginning of August.” While he was employed upon them, Treitschke called upon him for a closing chorus, “Es ist vollbracht,” to a little dramatic piece similar to the “Gute Nachricht,” entitled “Die Ehrenpforten,” and prepared to celebrate the second capitulation of Paris. It was performed July 15, 16 and 23; and, on the occasion of the Emperor’s nameday, was revived “with appropriate changes” October 3rd and 4th; but (according to the theatre bills) with the chorus “Germania” substituted for “Es ist vollbracht.”

This was the last year of Beethoven’s personal intercourse with the Erdödys, a very interesting memorial of which, namely, a series of notes and letters, has been preserved and made public by the coolness and decision of Otto Jahn. Being in Munich in 1852, or about that time, he learned that this correspondence was in the hands—if our memory serve—of the widow Brauchle, and obtained permission to read it in the presence of the possessor. Suddenly starting up he exclaimed (in effect): “I will copy this at the hotel,” and before the lady, in her amazement and perplexity, could refuse or prevent, he was away, and made the only copy known to be in existence, except transcripts made from it.[153] Several of these papers are only Beethoven’s apologies for not coming to Jedlersee “to-day” or “to-morrow”—but all are interesting in the glimpse which they give of the affectionate intimacy which they show as existing between Beethoven and the family.

A letter to Brauchle is important from a biographical point of view. It reads:

Neate and the Erdödys have carried us forward quite out of the strict order of time, to which we now return, beginning with letters to our old Bonn and London acquaintance, Johann Peter Salomon and others:

[318]

Some time about October 15th, Beethoven returned to Vienna. And now another bitter parting: The Erdödys, accompanied by Brauchle, Sperl and Linke, departed to Croatia never to return.

The letters to Smart, Salomon and Ries were not in vain; through their efforts, especially Salomon’s, Mr. Robert Birchall, Music Publisher of No. 133 New Bond St., was induced to purchase four of the works enumerated by Häring, viz: the pianoforte arrangements of the “Wellington’s Victory,” Op. 91, and Symphony in A, Op. 92; the Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, and the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 96, for “the sum of one hundred and thirty-five gold Dutch ducats—value in English currency, sixty-five pounds.” The correspondence between the composer and publisher as presented by Mr. Birchall’s successors begins with a paper in extraordinary English which has hitherto passed as a note received from Vienna, but which, it is obvious, is nothing but the effort of some resident German to interpret the contents of the following letter from Beethoven:[155]

We now reach one of the most important and at the same time most melancholy events in Beethoven’s life—an event which exerted the profoundest influence on the rest of his life—the death of his brother Karl. We introduce it with that brother’s last will and testament:

On November 20, 1815, the “Wiener Zeitung” printed the announcement: “Died on November 16, Hr. Karl van Beethoven, Cashier in the R. I. Bank and Chief Treasury, aged 38 years,[156] of consumption.” And so in his own house died the brother Karl whose last moments came with a suddenness which aroused his brother’s suspicions that the end had been hastened by poison! Nor would he be satisfied upon the matter until his friend[322] Bertolini had made a post mortem examination “whereby the lack of foundation for the suspicion was proved.”

A few weeks before his death, Karl had applied for leave of absence from his office on the score of his feeble condition; but his petition was harshly refused in a document on which Beethoven afterwards wrote: “This miserable financial product caused the death of my brother.” In fact, however, it made probably little difference; his was evidently one of those common cases of phthisis, where the patient, except to the experienced eye, shows no signs of immediate danger; who at the last moments finds himself free from pain and blessed with a buoyancy of spirit that gives him vain hopes of prolonged life. It is the last flickering of the flame, as the skillful physician well knows.

As above noted, Karl van Beethoven’s will was deposited with the proper authorities on the 17th, and “the R. I. L. Austrian Landrecht (General Court) on November 22, 1815, appointed the widow of the deceased, Johanna van Beethoven, guardian, the brother of the deceased, Ludwig van Beethoven, associate guardian of the minor son Karl.” And so, for the present, we will leave the matter.[157]

And Breuning? Why during these years and especially in this time of sorrow does his name nowhere meet us? His son answers the question in that extremely interesting little volume “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause.”[158]

Jacob Rösgen, an employee in the office of the Minister of War in which Breuning was a Secretary, had learned certain facts, or suspicions, in relation to Karl van Beethoven’s integrity, which he thought should be communicated to Ludwig as a warning “not to have anything to do with him in financial matters.” To this end he, having obtained Breuning’s word of honor not to make known the source of the information, imparted to him the whole matter. “Breuning faithfully performed the task which he had assumed; but Ludwig, in his tireless endeavor to better his brother,[323] hastened to take him to task for his conduct and charge him with the acts which had been reported to him; he went so far, when pressed by his brother for the source of his information, as to mention the name of his friend Steffen. Kaspar (Karl) then appealed directly to my father and asked the name of the author of the ‘denunciation,’ and when my father resolutely declined to give the name (Rösgen) Kaspar indulged himself in abuse to such an extent that he left insulting letters addressed to him and unsealed with the portier of the Ministry of War. My father, angered and pained at this impertinence and Ludwig’s breach of confidence, read the latter a sharp lecture which ended with the declaration that because of such unreliability it would be impossible longer to hold association with him.”[159] It will be long before we meet Breuning again.

There is a striking incongruity between Beethoven’s pleas of poverty in his letters to correspondents in England at this period and the facts drawn from official and other authentic sources. Let us tarry a moment on this point.

He was now, at the end of 1815, in the regular receipt of his annuity, 3400 florins in notes of redemption; in March and April the arrears, 4987 florins in such notes, had been paid him; the profits of his concerts since January 1, 1814, with presents from crowned heads and others were, if we may trust Schindler, who appears to speak from accurate knowledge, sufficient in amount to purchase somewhat later the seven bank-shares, which at his death, “according to the price current on the day of his death,” had a value in convention-coin of 7441 florins; Neate had paid him 75 guineas; for the works sold to Steiner and Co. he had “been wholly compensated”; in March (1816) he received from Mr. Birchall 65 pounds sterling; and there were payments to him from Thomson and others, the aggregate of which cannot be determined.

This incongruity is not essentially diminished either by his taxes—sixty pounds for 1814, he tells Thomson—nor by the 10,000 florins W. W. expended for the benefit of his brother, whether the “Wiener Währung” in the letter to Ries be understood as the old five for one, or the new in notes of redemption; for this fraternal charity extended back over a series of years. In this letter to Ries, the reader will observe also a remarkable instance of its writer’s occasional great carelessness of statement, where he speaks of his “entire loss of salary” for several years; for the Archduke’s share had throughout been punctually paid; not[324] to mention again the receipt of what had for a time been withheld of the Kinsky and Lobkowitz subscriptions. The omission of these facts in this and other letters, imparted to Ries an utterly false impression; and on their publication in 1838, to the public also. Hence the general belief that Beethoven was now in very straitened circumstances, and that Karl’s widow and child had been left in abject poverty; the truth as to them being this: that the property left them produced an annual income, which with the widow’s pension amounted at this time to above 1500 florins. From the day that Beethoven assumed the office of guardian and took possession of the child, he had a valid claim upon the mother for a part of the costs of maintaining him—a claim soon made good by legal process. If he afterward elected to suffer in his own finances rather than press his sister-in-law, this is no justification of the heedless statements in some of his letters now—a truth to be held in mind. And now the letter to Ferdinand Ries:

On the same day he wrote to Birchall:

The Trio and Sonata, however, were not forwarded until the 3d of the next February—a decidedly long “fortnight.”

In those days £65 was no small sum for the mere right of republication in England of these pianoforte works and arrangements, and Ries richly merited these words of his old master: “And now my heartiest thanks, dear Ries, for all the kindness you have shown to me, and particularly for the corrections. Heaven bless you and make your progress even greater, in which I take a cordial interest.”

About the first of December, “a magisterial deputation solemnly delivered” into the hands of Beethoven a certificate conferring upon him the citizenship of Vienna in acknowledgment of his benevolent services in behalf of St. Mark’s Hospital. Ries, writing on September 29th for Salomon, who had broken his right shoulder in a fall from his horse, informs Beethoven that at that date the three overtures purchased by Neate for the Philharmonic Society had not reached London. Beethoven, in December, repeats this to Neate, who was still in Vienna, adding, in substance, his readiness to make any desired written agreement about these things in England. Salomon’s misfortune occurred in August; he lingered only until the 25th of November. No higher proof of his reputation in England can be given than the fact that the remains of this Bonn violinist rest near those of Handel in Westminster Abbey.

Schindler somewhere censures the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde for its long delay in making Beethoven an honorary[326] member. It did what was better. Hardly was it organized, when its directors turned their attention to him; and, in the second year of its legal existence, proposed to him through Zmeskall to compose an oratorio for its use. On the 22d of December, Count Appony reported: “that Hr. L. v. Beethoven, through Hrn. v. Zmeskall, had declared his readiness to deliver a large work to the society and that the Board of Management were awaiting his conditions.” It was but the course of common propriety—of ordinary delicacy—to leave him free of all obligation to the society until this matter of business should be settled; indeed, that Streicher was one of the principal founders and most influential members of the society is a sufficient pledge, that no disrespect for, nor indifference to, his great merits, had aught to do with the delay, which Schindler blames. We shall find that, so soon as it was certain that Beethoven could not live to fulfill his engagement, the society sent him its honorary diploma. Could it well do this before?

Of noteworthy new friends and acquaintances may be mentioned here Peters, tutor of the young Princes Lobkowitz, and Carl Joseph Bernard, a young literateur and poet—the reviser of Weissenbach’s poem—a great admirer of Beethoven’s music, soon to be appointed Editor of the official “Wiener Zeitung.” He is the “Bernardus non Sanctus” of the Conversation Books; and the two are the friends whom Beethoven set to music in the text:

Another was Anton Halm, “in whose fresh military nature Master Ludwig took delight,” says Schindler. He was a native of Styria, and now but twenty-six years of age. After some years’ service against Napoleon, he had resigned (1812) his lieutenancy in the 44th Regiment. He was a pianoforte player of very respectable rank, and even before entering the army had appeared in public in Beethoven’s C minor Trio, Op. 1, and the C major Pianoforte Concerto, Op. 15. He had now been three years in Hungary, living during the third with his friend, Brunswick, who gave him a letter to Beethoven upon his departure for Vienna, whither he had come to be tutor in a Greek family named Gyike. “Halm once brought a sonata of his own composition to him,” says Czerny, “and when Beethoven pointed out a few errors, Halm retorted that he (B.) had also permitted himself many violations of the rules, Beethoven answered: ‘I may do it, but not you.’”

[327]

Young Schindler’s acquaintance with Beethoven had now advanced a step:

But Schindler’s intimacy with Beethoven was not yet such as to save him from errors when writing of this time. Thus he gravely assures us that a concert which took place on the 25th of December “provided the impulse which led the Magistracy of Vienna to elect our master to honorary citizenship.” And yet the “solemn delivery” of the diploma is already an item of news in the Vienna newspapers of December 15. This concert, in the large Ridotto room, conducted by Beethoven was for the benefit of the Bürgerspitalfond (Citizens’ Hospital Fund) and the works performed were “an entirely new overture” (that in C, known as the “Namensfeier”); “a new chorus on Goethe’s poem ‘Die Meeresstille’”; “Christus am Ölberg.” Between the cantata and the oratorio, Franz Stauffer, “the twelve-year-old son of a citizen of Vienna,” played a “Rondo brillant” by Hummel.

[328]

The compositions which are known or, on good grounds, are supposed to belong to the year 1815 are:

The ascertained publications of the year are:

[329]

Chapter XVI

Compared with the years immediately preceding, the year 1816 is comparatively barren of large incidents in the life of Beethoven; its recorded history, therefore, is to be found to a still larger extent than before in the composer’s extended correspondence together with explanatory annotations. Some of the letters, especially those written to his English friends, are likely to make a somewhat melancholy, and to that extent erroneous, impression. The real record of the writer finds expression in the letters which he wrote to Steiner and Co. and Zmeskall. These are bubbling over with playfulness and jocularity, proving that the writer was generally in a cheerful humor and in this year was anything but the melancholy Beethoven of the romance writers. He seems to have endured the rapid and disquieting increase in his malady, an inevitable consequence of the exertions and excitement attending the rehearsing and conducting of so many large concerts, with surprising patience and resignation. And why not? His pecuniary affairs were in good condition, notwithstanding his lamentations to Ries and others; he had won his lawsuit with his brother’s widow, and his artistic ambition must have found complete satisfaction in the great fame which he had won. A letter concerning a new operatic project first invites attention. The eight rôles which Madame Milder had played in the past summer in Berlin, had given such keen delight that she had been reëngaged for a second and much longer series. Domestic troubles and sorrows, in which her husband, the jeweler Hauptmann, appears to have been entirely the guilty party and which embittered all her future life, rendered her utterly unable for the present to appear upon the stage; and “because of illness and weakness” it was not until several weeks after her return from the baths at Pyrmont that she could begin the new engagement on[330] October 3d. Meantime “Fidelio” had been put upon the boards and “given for the first time on October 11th with great success.” “This opera,” said the Berlin “Dramaturgisches Wochenblatt” in its notice of the event, “bears within itself the seeds of a dramatico-musical reformation and will hasten the end of the bastard music.” And yet on this evening, the Leonore was Mad. Schultze—Schuppanzigh’s sister-in-law. When, three days after, Mad. Milder took the part, its greatness was for the first time fully appreciated; and of the twenty-four evenings to which her engagement extended, this greatest representative then living of Gluck’s grandest inspirations devoted eleven to “Fidelio.” This triumph of his opera in Berlin, drew from the composer a letter (dated January 6, 1816) full of expressions of gratitude and enthusiastic appreciation of the singer’s talents, and giving voice too, to a rekindled dramatic ambition. He says:

The next letter relates to the oratorio for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde:

The next selections require the preliminary statement of certain facts. Beethoven’s dissatisfaction at the appointment[331] (on November 22d) of his sister-in-law as the guardian of her son—now nine years old—was expressed in an appeal to the Upper Austrian Landrecht on the 28th, to transfer the guardianship to himself. Next day, the 29th, that tribunal ordered the petitioner and Dr. Schönauer to appear before it in this matter on December 2d at 10 o’clock a. m. At that time the subject was deferred to the same hour on the 13th. Beethoven then appeared and declared that he could produce “weighty reasons why the widow should be entirely excluded from the guardianship.” Whereupon, on the 15th, it was ordered that he produce those grounds within three days, “failing which, the preparation of the guardianship decree to the widow would be proceeded with without further delay.” The same day Beethoven signed a petition to the City Magistrates for an official certificate concerning the “condemnation of his (Karl’s) mother, Johanna van Beethoven, on an investigation for infidelity.” The magistrate answered him on the same day through their secretary that they could not legally grant him a copy of the judgment against her, but would communicate the “necessary disclosures” to the tribunal. This was done on the 21st. Then came the Christmas holidays, and no further action was taken until the 9th of January, when a decision was rendered in Beethoven’s favor, and he was ordered to appear on the 19th to take the “vows for the performance of his duties.” He complied, and on the outside of this order is written:

This document also empowered the new guardian to take possession of the boy, who of course was still with his mother. But what to do with him? Beethoven could not take him into his own lodging; a child of that age needs a woman’s care and tenderness.

A certain Cajetan Giannatasio del Rio was at that time proprietor and manager of a private school in the city for boys, which enjoyed a high and deserved reputation. His family consisted of his wife and two highly accomplished daughters, young women of fine talents, of much musical taste and culture, and—especially the eldest—enthusiasts for Beethoven’s music. The composer, accompanied by Bernard and the boy, visited and inspected the school, and was so much pleased with it and the family, that he determined to withdraw his nephew from the public school, and place him there as pupil and boarder. On February 1st, he wrote to Giannatasio:

[332]

The next day, February 2, the boy was taken from his mother. The intolerable annoyance caused by her appearing in person or sending a messenger daily to take him from the school, drew from Giannatasio on the 11th a written application to the guardian for “a formal authority in a few lines for refusing without further ado to permit her to fetch her son.” In his reply, Beethoven writes: “as regards the mother I request that on the plea that he is busy you do not admit her to him at all.” He then consulted Joseph Edler von Schmerling, a member of the Landrecht, upon the measures proper for him to adopt, and communicated that gentleman’s advice to Giannatasio by letter, on the morning of the 15th. The same day, taking Bernard with him, he went to the school, and there meeting Giannatasio, the three prepared a formal petition to the Landrecht, praying that tribunal to grant the guardian plenary authority to exclude the widow and her agents from all or any direct communication with the boy. This was signed by Beethoven and immediately presented. On the 20th, the Landrecht granted, essentially, this petition; but its decree contained this proviso: that the mother might still visit her son “in his leisure hours, without disturbing the course of his education or the domestic arrangements, in the company of a person to be appointed by the guardian or the director of the educational institution.” Armed with this authority, Giannatasio on March 8th informed in writing “Madame Jeannette de Beethoven, Vorstadt, Alsergasse, No. 121,” that she has in future “to apply solely to the uncle as to whether, how and when” she can see her son. And thus this wretched business again for the present rested. In these days belongs a letter by Beethoven to Giannatasio:

Neate was now gone to London. On his departure Beethoven wrote in his album two canons entitled “Das Schweigen” (Silence) and “Das Reden” (Speech), adding with the date, “January 24, 1816,” the words:

The document concerning the sale of the three overtures to the Philharmonic Society which Beethoven promised to give Neate (which Moscheles printed in his paraphrase of Schindler’s biography in translation, as if it had been written in English and not altogether correctly)[162] ran as follows:

The three overtures had already been sold to Steiner, but were not published till six years later. The works entrusted to him, as remembered by Mr. Neate forty-five years afterwards, were: 1. A copy of the Violin Concerto, Op. 61, with a transcription of the solo for Pianoforte on the same pages, which Beethoven said he himself had arranged and was effective; 2. The two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102, with a dedication to Neate; 3. The Seventh Symphony in score; 4. “Fidelio” in score; and 5. The String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95—all in manuscript. There is some reason to think that besides these works Neate also took a copy of “Der glorreiche Augenblick.” On January 20, Beethoven wrote the following letter to Ries in London:[164]

[334]

It is necessary here to state certain facts, both to explain the failure of Mr. Neate to sell any of these works to the London publishers, and to render some of the letters to come intelligible.

The Philharmonic Society was an association of the first musicians of London and its vicinity, and no city on earth could at that time present such an array of great names. Here are a few of them taken alphabetically from its roll: Atwood, Ayrton, Bridgetower, Clementi, Cramer, Carnaby, Dragonetti, Horsley, Lindley, Mazzinghi, Mori, Naldi, Novello, Ries, Shield, Smart, Spagnoletti, Viotti, Watts, S. Webbe, Yanewicz. Imagine the disappointment of these men, fresh from the performance of the C minor Symphony, when they played through the overtures to “The Ruins of Athens” and “King Stephen,” which, however interesting to a Hungarian audience as introductions to a patriotic prologue and epilogue in the theatre, possess none of those great qualities expected from Beethoven and demanded in a concert overture! Nor was the “Namensfeier” thought worthy of its author. Ries speaks thus of this matter:

But when it became known that neither of the three—Op. 115 possibly excepted—was new, and that not one of them had been composed to meet the Society’s order, is it surprising that this act of Beethoven’s was deemed unworthy of him, disrespectful, nay, an insult to the Society, and resented accordingly?

Another matter was personal with Mr. Birchall. That publisher, having at last (early in February) received the last of the works purchased by him, immediately deposited with Coutts and Co. the sum agreed upon, to the composer’s credit, and forwarded the following “Declaration” to Vienna for signature, leaving the day of the month blank—as it still remains—to be inserted when signed:

Instead of this document, so indispensable for his security, the publisher received a new demand from Beethoven!—one for five pounds additional, as per memorandum:

[336]

The very unfavorable impression which this proceeding made upon the mind of Mr. Birchall may readily be conceived. These £5 are the 10 ducats mentioned in the following letter, portions of which were suppressed when printed by Ries:

Immediately upon the receipt of this letter, Ries spoke with Mr. Birchall, who next day (March 15), deposited the £5 with Coutts and Co.; but month after month passed and still the “Declaration” with Beethoven’s signature did not arrive. Of the justice, propriety, delicacy of this new demand, nothing need be said; its historical importance is due entirely to the very unfavorable effect which it and the correspondence relating to it produced upon the minds of the London publishers. Mr. Neate was in some degree prepared for the coldness with which those gentlemen received his proposals in Beethoven’s behalf, by a letter written to him after[337] the trial of the overtures. One sentence in it he remembered word for word: “For God’s sake, don’t buy anything of Beethoven!” But he was not prepared for the utter refusal in all quarters to listen to him. He besought Mr. Birchall to purchase the overtures. The reply was: “I would not print them, if you would give me them gratis.”

As to the score of the Symphony in A (the Seventh), it was folly to expect that the Philharmonic Society would pay a large sum for the manuscript of a work already (March 6) advertised in Vienna for subscription at the price of twenty-five florins.

It is another instance of Beethoven’s unlucky tendency to suspect the conduct and motives of others, that seeing in a newspaper a notice of the production of one of his Symphonies by the Philharmonic Society, he at once assumed that it was the Seventh and that Neate had given the use of his manuscript!

Under such circumstances Neate could do nothing for Beethoven; nor could he well disclose the true causes of his failure; so the composer characteristically assumed that he would do nothing, and, as will be seen, gave vent to his wrath in terms equally bitter and unjust. The letters selected pertaining to these transactions are reserved for their places in chronological order.

Linke’s departure with the Erdödys to Croatia was noted in the last chapter; he returned to Vienna in the Autumn in season to enable Schuppanzigh to begin his winter season of quartets in November. They were given in the hall of the hotel “Zum Römischen Kaiser,” and had now ended. So, too, had ended the engagement of Schuppanzigh, Weiss and Linke with Rasoumowsky. The destruction of his palace, the approach of old age, and failing sight, induced him now to dismiss them with suitable pensions from his service. Schuppanzigh went to Russia; Linke returned to the Erdödys and Weiss remained in Vienna. Before their departure the first two gave each a farewell concert. Schuppanzigh’s took place in the palace of Count Deym, the programme being made up entirely of Beethoven’s works, viz: Quartet C major, Op. 59; Quintet for Wind-instruments and Pianoforte, Op. 16, Carl Czerny, pianist; and the Septet, Op. 20. Beethoven “entered at the beginning of the quartet” and shared in the deafening applause of the crowded audience. Czerny relates: “When I played the Quintet with Wind-instruments at Schuppanzigh’s concert, I allowed myself in my youthful frivolity, many changes—increasing the difficulty of passages, using the higher octaves, etc. Beethoven very properly and severely upbraided me for it in the presence of Schuppanzigh, Linke and the other players. The next[338] day I received from him the following letter, which I copy exactly from the original lying before me”:

Linke’s concert took place on the 18th of February in the hall of the “Römischer Kaiser,” the programme, except a Rondoletto for the Violoncello by Romberg, being also entirely Beethoven. Stainer von Felsburg played the new Sonata, Op. 101, and Czerny the pianoforte part of one of the Sonatas, Op. 102, on which occasion the composer “made it good publicly.” And so, except for an occasional visit to Vienna by Linke, two more of our old acquaintances disappear for several years; also Hummel and Wild. Hummel we shall meet again beside Beethoven’s death-bed; Wild no more. An album-leaf containing a canon, “Ars longa, vita brevis est” and “A happy journey, my dear Hummel, think occasionally of your friend, Ludwig van Beethoven, Vienna, April 4, 1816,” was the farewell to the pianist and composer. On the 20th, Wild gave a little musical festival “in the home of an art-lover,” at which he sang the “Adelaide” and “An die Hoffnung,” Op. 94. Beethoven was present and played the accompaniments. And this was his farewell to the singer. On April 3d, Beethoven wrote the following letter to Ries:

[339]

On May 15, a letter of condolence to Countess Erdödy was called out by the sudden death of her son Fritzi. At the countryseat in Croatia, the lad burst one morning into his sister’s room and, complaining of his head, with a cry of anguish sank dead at her feet. Beethoven labors sadly in his effort to find words of comfort for the stricken mother: “Reflect that your son might have been forced to go into battle and might then, like millions of others, have met his death, besides you are still the mother of two dear, hopeful children.” On the same day he wrote a French letter to Neate which, because of its characteristic style and unconventional spelling, Moscheles reproduced literally. A paragraph will suffice us here:

The following letter of a few days later was written in English, probably by Häring, and only signed by Beethoven:

We can follow the progress of the business in connection with the compositions to be published in London in the following letter to Ries:

Touching the unhappy negotiations with Birchall and the “declaration,” Beethoven finally wrote, in French, the following letter:

Beethoven had now made up his mind to take his nephew from Giannatasio’s care and make a home for him with himself. The removal was to be made at the end of the approaching quarter and meanwhile Karl was to remain where he was so that he might have proper care during his recovery from the effects of an operation for hernia. Beethoven notified his purpose to Giannatasio on July 28, 1816, and admonished his friend that in the interim the old strictness was to be observed touching the mother’s visits. The following passage is from the letter:

The surgical operation on the boy was performed by Dr. Smetana and under the affectionate care which he received at the hands of the Giannatasios he quickly recovered and visited his uncle at Baden, going thither with the Giannatasios. Fräulein Fanny tells the story of the visit simply and gracefully:

[342]

Beethoven’s project now was, upon returning to the city to abandon his tavern life and so to arrange his domestic affairs as to have his nephew live with him and attend school or study with private tutors—perhaps both. As usual Zmeskall was charged with looking after servants, discovering their qualifications, etc. After Karl should come there would be need of a housekeeper, but meanwhile Beethoven suggested to Zmeskall that he find for him a servant who should be good, of decent deportment, well recommended, married “and not murderous so that my life may be safe inasmuch as for the sake of several rapscallions I want to live a little longer in this world.” He returned to Vienna by September 27 at the latest.

That brilliant youth Alois Jeitteles of Brünn, now a student of medicine at Vienna, wrote when hardly twenty-one years of age the beautiful series of songs “An die ferne Geliebte,” so exquisitely set to music by Beethoven. Schindler states, that the composer thanked the young poet for the happy inspiration; but whether he had found them in a handbook, which is probable, or received them in manuscript, does not appear. But no one can hear them adequately sung without feeling that there is something more in that music than the mere inspiration of the poetry. It was completed not many weeks before, in his letter to Ries (May 8), he wrote: “I found only one whom I shall doubtless never possess”; and but six months before the above conversation with Giannatasio. Just five years had now elapsed since he became acquainted with Amalie von Sebald: was she not the real inspiration of “An die ferne Geliebte”?[168]

Peter Joseph Simrock of Bonn, then 24 years of age, was now in Vienna. He was often with Beethoven, in Baden, in his lodging in the Sailerstätte and in the inn “Zur goldenen Birn,” where he often dined after the removal of Giannatasio to that quarter. Mr. Simrock also told the writer that he had no diffi[344]culty in making Beethoven understand him if he spoke into his left ear; but anything private or confidential must be communicated in writing. On one occasion the composer handed him paper and pencil, remarking that his servant was an eavesdropper, etc. A few days afterwards when Simrock called again, “Now,” said Beethoven, “we can talk, for I have given my servant 5 florins, a kick in the rear and sent him to the devil.”

Everywhere in public, said Simrock, Beethoven railed at Emperor Franz because of the reduction of the paper money. “Such a rascal ought to be hanged to the first tree,” said he. But he was known and the police officials let him do what he pleased. He ate a great deal at the tavern because he ordered haphazard and sent away what was not to his taste.

Another of Beethoven’s visitors just now was Alexander Kyd. This gentleman, since July 25, 1810, a Major-General in the East India Company’s Engineer Corps, paid the usual tribute to the climate, and, broken down in health, came to Vienna to put himself under the treatment of Malfatti. He thus made the acquaintance of Dr. Bertolini, who gave to Jahn and the present writer the following details:

Kyd was a great lover of music, and, after his long residence in India, enjoyed to the utmost his present opportunities of hearing it. Bertolini took him to Czerny, who during several visits played to him all the pianoforte works of Beethoven then in print. The General was ravished with these compositions, asked for a complete thematic catalogue of the composer’s works, and besought Bertolini to introduce him to their author. This took place on the 28th of September “in the house next to the Colorado Palace,” said Bertolini. They found him shaving and looking shockingly, his ruddy face browned by the Baden sun variegated by razor cuts, bits of paper, and soap. As Kyd seated himself crash! went the chair. In the course of the interview, the General, showing the common belief of Beethoven’s poverty, proposed to him through the Doctor, to compose a symphony for which he would pay him 200 ducats (£100), and secure its performance by the London Philharmonic Society, not doubting that the profits of the work to the composer would thus amount to £1000. He offered also to take him himself to London. To Beethoven’s leaving Vienna just now there really seems to have been no serious impediment, other than his nephew; and the boy was certainly in the best of hands so long as he remained with Giannatasio. However, he did not accept the proposition, nor even the order for the Symphony; because Kyd desired to have it rather like the[345] earlier, than the later ones—that is, somewhat shorter, simpler, and more easy of comprehension than these last. The conclusion of the story as told in the Fischoff MS. corresponds entirely with the Doctor’s relation:

When he afterwards quarrelled with and insulted Malfatti he broke entirely with Bertolini; but both those gentlemen were too honorable ever to disclose the details of this breach. Simrock writes in an autograph notice for this work:

“Whom I threw down stairs” was, of course, meant metaphorically. It is pretty evident that Beethoven in some degree misunderstood General Kyd’s proposition and that this ebullition of spleen was rather directed against Neate and the Philharmonic Society than the General. It is greatly to be regretted that this artistic pride had so little restraining effect upon his correspondence when pecuniary matters form the topic—which remark brings us again to Mr. Birchall. Beethoven had at last discovered the £5 to his credit in the bank of Fries and Co., and signed a receipt for it on August 3d—too late to prevent the following letter being sent to him:

Beethoven’s reply in English bears all the marks of Häring’s pen, being only signed by himself:

Beethoven not only complained of Neate to Ries, but now wrote to Smart of him in such bitter terms that that gentleman suppressed the letter entirely except to show it to Neate himself, whose grief and astonishment at the injustice done him are but partly expressed in this next letter:

[349]

Zmeskall, whose patience and forbearance were inexhaustible, had again provided his friend with servants—a man and his wife—and something was done towards making the lodging in the Sailerstätte ready to receive the nephew at the end of the quarter. But this was not yet to be. The circumstances explain the following little letter to Zmeskall of date November 3, 1816:

Further information is provided by the following letter to Giannatasio:

[350]

In November, Mr. Lonsdale wrote as follows in behalf of Mr. Birchall:

To this letter Beethoven sent an answer addressed to Mr. Birchall dated December 14, 1816, as follows:

This letter closed the correspondence; for upon the death of Mr. Birchall his successor, Lonsdale, did not deem the connection with the composer to be worth retaining. Letters to Zmeskall, Sir George Smart and Neate, in London, tell of incidents which make up the history of the latter part of the year 1816:

Toward the end of the month Beethoven wrote a lengthy letter to Dr. Kanka:

[354]

A little cantata, written in honor of Prince Lobkowitz, belongs to this month of December. An autograph copy was given some forty years afterwards to Dr. Ottokar Zeithammer, of Prague, by the aged widow of Beethoven’s friend Peters, who gives this account of its origin:

The intended performance never took place, because Lobkowitz, born on December 7, 1772, died on December 16, 1816. And so he, too, disappears from our history. The foregoing receives all needful confirmation in this letter:

[355]

To the few names which this year have appeared in our narrative, there is still to be added one worthy of a paragraph: that of a wealthy young man from Gratz, an amateur musician and composer of that class whose idol was Beethoven—Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who came to Vienna in 1815 to study with Salieri, and formed an intimate friendship with Franz Schubert. His enthusiasm for Beethoven was not abated when the present writer, in 1860, had the good fortune to enjoy a period of familiar intercourse with him, to learn his great and noble qualities of mind and heart, and to hear his reminiscences from his own lips. That these, in relation to Beethoven, were numerous, no one will expect; since no young man of twenty-two years, and a stranger, could at the period before us be much with the master except as a pupil—and he took none—or in the position lately occupied by Oliva and soon to be assumed by Schindler; which of course was all out of the question with Hüttenbrenner.

And again:

Hüttenbrenner remembered as a common remark in Vienna in those days that what first gave Beethoven his reputation on coming there twenty-four years before, was his superb playing of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavichord.”

Two or three minor notes will close the story of the year. In the concert for the Theatrical Poor Fund, in the Theater-an-der-Wien, September 8th, one of the finales to Beethoven’s[356] “Prometheus” music was revived: “A glorious piece worked out in a masterly manner,” says a reporter; and the concert for the Hospital of St. Mark, on December 25, opened with his “Symphony in A, one difficult of execution, which was performed with the greatest precision under the direction of this brilliant composer.” More important was a proposition made early in the year by his old friend Hoffmeister in Leipsic, for a complete edition of his pianoforte works, which came to nothing and concerning which more in another connection. In July he received another series of songs from Thomson which, according to a letter in French to Thomson, dated January 18, 1817, he had already finished by the end of September.

The works composed in 1816 are:

The publications for the year were:

[358]

Chapter XVII

Beethoven’s splenetic remarks to strangers in his last years upon the music, musicians and public of Vienna have given rise to widely diffused but utterly false conceptions as to the facts. Thus William Henry Fry, a leading American writer on music in the middle of the nineteenth century,[172] did but express a common opinion in the following:

The popular want of appreciation of his merits “doomed Beethoven to a garret, which no Irish emigrant would live in.” It is altogether unnecessary to argue against such statements, as the whole tenor of this biography refutes them; but the public press of Vienna deserves a vindication, and the appearance of a new “Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung” on January 2nd, 1817, affords a suitable opportunity for the little that need be said on the subject. This journal, conducted “with particular reference to the Austrian Empire,” and published by Steiner and Co., was, during the first two years, without the name of any responsible editor; the volumes for 1819 and 1820 announce Ignaz von Seyfried as holding that position; the others, from 1821 to 1824, bear the name of Friedrich August Kanne. A leading writer in the earlier volumes was Hofrath Ignaz von Mosel, who already had some local celebrity[359] for his articles on musical topics in the “Vaterländische Blätter” and other periodicals, and who continued a prolific contributor to musical journals to the end of his life in 1844. Beethoven valued him as a writer; but Mosel had the temerity to undertake, like Mozart, the task of revising and modernizing Handel. Of his eight mutilations of that great man’s works, two, “Samson” and “Belshazzar,” were printed and, for some fifty years, adopted for performance throughout Austria and Germany—a remarkable proof of the general ignorance which prevailed concerning the works of the greatest oratorio composer; for two such monuments of arrogant presumption, of incompetency to comprehend his author and of a false and perverted taste, probably do not exist unless, perhaps, among the other six works which were not printed. One of Beethoven’s sarcasms, remembered by Carl Czerny, indicates his opinion of Mosel’s dilettantism. Reading a newspaper once at Artaria’s, he saw that Mosel “had been ennobled, particularly because of his services in behalf of music.” “The Mosel is muddy where it flows into the Rhine” (Der Mosel fliesst trüb in den Rhein!), said Beethoven, laughingly. Kanne ranked with the best musical journalists of the day, and, to use the words of Hanslick, his labors and influence as a critic were considerable, especially because of his enthusiasm for Beethoven, is certain.

Taking 1821-1822 as a medium date, the leading political and literary journals in Vienna in those years were the “Wiener Zeitung,” Joseph Carl Bernard, editor; the “Beobachter,” Joseph Pilat, editor; the “Sammler,” Portenschlag and Ledermeyer, editors; the “Wiener Zeitschrift” (fashion journal), Johann Schickh, editor; and the “Theater-Zeitung,” Adolph Bäuerle, editor. Most of these editors were personal friends of Beethoven; and whoever performs the weary task of looking through their myriads of pages sees that all were his admirers and let no opportunity pass unimproved of adding a leaf to his laurels. Still, disappointment at the comparative paucity of matter relating to him follows such an examination. The cause, however, lay in himself; in the small number of his new compositions of high importance, and in the rarity of his appearance before the public. True, there were newspapers, and in divers languages, that took no note of Beethoven and his works because music and musicians were not within their scope; but not one of them was hostile. In short, whether the periodical press be considered as the exponent or the guide of public opinion, in either case its tone at Vienna during the ten years which remained of Beethoven’s life[360] is ample refutation of the so oft asserted disregard for and contemptuous neglect of their great composer on the part of the Viennese. The correspondence of this and the next two or three years is very voluminous. Schindler says most pertinently of it:

There are few men of whom a most false and exaggerated picture may not be presented by grouping together their utterances, spoken or written at long intervals and in the most diverse moods and states of mind. Thomas Carlyle says: “Half or more of all the thick-plied perversions which distort the image of Cromwell will disappear if we honestly so much as try to represent them in sequence as they were, not in the lump as thrown down before us.” Hence, strict chronological order must not lightly be abandoned—never when distortion of the image is thereby produced. But there are series of letters covering comparatively short periods of time, which may be grouped and placed apart with no ill consequence. Such is the series to Steiner and Co.; and such to the Streichers and Zmeskall, which are too unimportant to place in the text.[173] An abstract or analysis of them would serve but a small purpose; but they should be read despite their triviality, for they show, better than any description would, the helplessness of their writer in all affairs of common life; also, by implication, the wretched prospect of any good result to his undertaking the supervision and education of a boy more than usually endowed with personal attractions and mental capacity, but whose character had already received a false bias from the equally indiscreet alternate indulgence and severity of his invalid and passionate father and of his froward and impure mother. Moreover, this undertaking rendered necessary a sudden and very great change in the domestic habits of a man nearly fifty years of age, who, even twenty years before, had not been able, when residing in the family of his Mæcenas, Lichnowsky, to bear the restraints imposed by common courtesy and propriety. It is obvious that there was but one course to be taken for the boy from[361] which a good result might reasonably have been expected; and this was to send him at once to some institution far enough from Vienna to separate him entirely, vacations excepted, from both mother and uncle; to subject him there to rigid discipline and give him the stimulus of emulation with boys of his own age. When it was too late, as will be seen, this idea was entertained, but not sanctioned by the civil authorities. That such a course with the boy would have resulted well, subsequent events leave no doubt; for, passing over the question how far facts justify the harsh judgments recorded against him for more than half a century, each new writer bitterer than the last, we know this: that after his uncle’s death, although his bad tendencies of character had been strengthened and intensified by the lack of efficient, consistent, firm and resolute restraint from 1815 to 1827, yet a few years of strict military discipline made of him a good and peaceable citizen, a kind and affectionate husband and father. Had Beethoven’s wisdom and prudence equalled his boundless affection for his nephew, many painful pages in this work would have no place; many which, if the truth and justice to the dead and living permitted, one would gladly suppress. But it must not be forgotten that Beethoven, on his death-bed, as Schindler relates, expressed “his honest desire that whatever might some day be said of him, should adhere strictly to the truth in every respect, regardless of whether or not it might give pain to this or the other person or affect his own person.”

Let us again take up the thread of our narrative. We are still to imagine Beethoven living in the lofty, narrow house. No. 1055-6 Sailerstätte, entered from the street, but its better rooms on the other side looking over the old city wall and moat and out across the Glacis and little river Wien to the suburb Landstrasse, where, fronting on the Glacis, stood the institute of Giannatasio in which his nephew was a pupil, having been placed there in February, 1816. There is no record, nor do the sketchbooks show, that in the first half of this year his mind was occupied with any important composition; on the contrary, his time and thoughts were given to the affairs of his nephew, to his purposed housekeeping and to quarrels with his servants, as the frequent letters to the Streichers and Zmeskall show ad nauseam. A curiously interesting picture of the man and his doings is disclosed by the letters referred to, Fanny Giannatasio’s records, and the jottings which that young woman wrote down in the form of a diary.[174]

[362]

At the beginning of the year 1817, Beethoven seems to have harbored a desire to take lodgings nearer the institute. Giannatasio offered to let him have one which was at his disposal, but Beethoven declined the offer with the words: “Gladly as I should like to make use of your kind offer that I live with you in the garden-house, it is for various reasons impossible.” In April he moved into rooms in the Gärtnerstrasse near the Streichers and the institute. Meanwhile there had been a misunderstanding between him and Giannatasio. A fortnight later explanations had been made and peace restored; but when Nanni asked Beethoven if he was still angry he replied: “I think much too little of myself to get[363] angry.” The nephew had been to blame and had disclosed new evidences of a thoughtlessness which had deeply pained his good uncle.

Chiefly from the letters written in this year, we learn a sequence of other happenings. Early in January, Beethoven sends copies of the song-cycle, “An die ferne Geliebte,” to Court Councillor Peters, tutor in the house of Prince Lobkowitz, for the new prince whose Christian name he does not know. In the same month he writes an autograph French communication to Thomson, in Edinburgh, stating that all the songs which he had commissioned in the previous July had been completed by the end of September,[364] but had not been forwarded because of an illness from which he was not yet quite recovered. As to the folksongs of various nations he urges that prose versions of the texts be obtained as being preferable to the versified, a thing which he had suggested before, the prose being a better guide for him to the sentiment of the songs than rhymed lines. On January 30, he rebukes Zmeskall for having pained him by sending him a gift in acknowledgment of the dedication of the String Quartet, Op. 95, which had come from the press in December, 1816. “Although you are only a performing musician,” he writes, “you have several times exercised the power of imagination, and it seems to me that it has occasionally put unnecessary whims into your head—at least so it seemed to me from your letter after my dedication. Good as I am and much as I appreciate all the good in you, I am yet angry, angry, angry.” Other letters to Steiner at this time refer to the Pianoforte Sonata in A, Op. 101, which was then in the hands of the printers and appeared in February with a dedication to Baroness Ertmann. The suggestion had gone out that German composers substitute German terms in music in place of Italian. With characteristic impetuosity, Beethoven decided to begin the reform at once, although it seems to have involved the reëngraving of the title-page of the new Sonata. He wrote to Steiner in the military style with which we are already familiar:

Beethoven was in doubt as to the correctness of “Hammerclavier,” thinking that it might better be “Hämmerclavier.” In another communication he says the matter must be referred to a philologist. At the same time he offers, if necessary, to pay for the engraving of a new title, adding that perhaps the old one might be utilized for another sonata. He bases his acceptance of the new word on the belief that the instrument itself was a German invention—a theory long ago disproved so far as the priority of the invention is concerned.

[365]

Baroness Ertmann now lived at St. Pölten, where the command of her husband lay quartered, and thither Beethoven sent a copy of the “Hammerclavier” sonata accompanied by the following letter:

The picture of Beethoven’s domestic affairs will gain in vividness by imagining the following extracts from the so-called “Tagebuch” of the Fischoff Manuscript to be scattered through these preceding pages. Dates are nowhere given; but memoranda of letters to Brentano in April follow which prove these notes to belong to the previous months:

Beethoven’s mind was engrossed with the plans of travel indicated in these excerpts throughout the year; he considered a tour of some kind essential to the restoration of his health and the recovery of his creative powers. A remittance from the Kinsky estate falling due in April, he wrote a letter to Kanka asking him to make the collection for him and enclosed a receipt. He complains of still feeling the effects of an inflammatory catarrh with which he had been attacked in the previous October, and ends by asking what would be the consequence if he were to leave the Austrian Empire; would a signature sent from a foreign place be valid?—meaning, probably, would such a signature be looked upon as evidence of a violation of the contract which he was under to his noble patrons not to take up a residence outside the Austrian dominions. His chronic dissatisfaction with the conditions which surrounded him in Vienna, as well as the moody mind in[367] which his illness had left him, also breathes through the following letter (written in German) to Charles Neate in London:

The Sonatas had been published three months before this letter was written, by Simrock in Bonn; a fact which Beethoven seems to have assumed was not known in London. The Frau v. Jenny mentioned was the Countess von Genney, through whose aid Beethoven hired a villa in Hetzendorf, from Baron von Pronay in 1823. Beethoven’s irascible outbreak against Neate must be read in the light of the latter’s letter of explanation and apology dated October 29, 1816, and printed in the preceding chapter.

[368]

The new lodgings in Georgi were occupied by Beethoven on April 24, 1817, but the contract of rent may have been temporary and conditional, for in July and again in September he wrote to Frau Streicher about lodgings in the Gärtnergasse, and later in the year he changed his lodgings, for which he had little use during the summer because of his sojourn in the country.

Alois Fuchs, now a youth of nearly 18 years, had come to Vienna some months earlier to enter the university, dependent largely upon his musical talents and knowledge for his support. Here he appears to have studied the violin under Beethoven’s old friend, Krumpholz. Whether because the composer remembered him as the solo singer in his mass at Troppau, or through the intervention of Krumpholz, Fuchs has not informed us; but at any rate he had promised a contribution to the youngster’s album. On May 2nd Krumpholz died very suddenly of apoplexy while walking on the Glacis, and Beethoven commemorated the event by writing his “Gesang der Mönche” (from Schiller’s “Tell”) for three male voices in Fuchs’s album with the superscription: “In memory of the sudden and unexpected death of our Krumpholz on May 3rd, 1817.” The date was not intended to record the time of composition, but of the death of the violinist; as such a record it was an error.

After the composer’s removal to the suburb Landstrasse, his mind was much occupied with a new matter between himself and the widow van Beethoven, namely, her bearing a share of the expenses of her son’s education. This was concluded by a contract signed by both parties on May 10, 1817, binding her to pay at once into court 2,000 florins for the lad’s education and support, and in the future to pay to the same tribunal every quarter at least one-half of the pension which the widow was to receive, as well as other contributions. Reference is had to this agreement in the following entries in the Fischoff “Tagebuch” in January or February of the next year:

This was the barren result of negotiations which had cost Beethoven, as to any important work, the first half of the year. In May, Beethoven took rooms in Heiligenstadt to try the baths for his obstinate catarrh, of which he speaks in a characteristic letter to Countess Erdödy, railing against his Italian physician (either Malfatti or Bertolini), whom he accuses of lacking both honesty and insight, and describing the treatment prescribed for him.

Christian Kuffner, a poet, afterwards Court Secretary, who (though Nottebohm questioned it) probably gave poetical form to the text for the Choral Fantasia, also spent some time in the summer of 1817 in Heiligenstadt, and, as he told Music Director Krenn, often went with Beethoven of an evening to Nussdorf for a fish supper in the tavern “Zur Rose.” On one of these occasions, when Beethoven was amiably disposed, Kuffner began:

Long years afterwards, in 1826, when Kuffner was negotiating with Beethoven for an oratorio text, he recalled the meetings in Nussdorf and wrote in Beethoven’s Conversation Book: “Do you remember the fisherman’s house in Nussdorf, where we sat till midnight in the light of the full moon on the terrace, before us the rushing brook and the swollen Danube? I was your guest.” Beethoven soon had his fish with less trouble; he moved to Nussdorf, perhaps in June (at least he was there in July, though he kept his lodging in the city), and in Nussdorf he remained till October, sending occasional notes to Frau Streicher, from which it appears that he was having his customary trouble with servants. Here, too, he received the following highly important letter from Ferdinand Ries, written in London on June 9, 1817:

Beethoven was prompt with his answer, but wishing to send a fair copy to Ries and having his own reasons for not wanting Häring’s handwriting to appear in the correspondence he sent his letter to Zmeskall for transcription and posting. The letter, which was promptly forwarded to London, was as follows:

To this Beethoven appended an autograph postscript as follows:

These letters, as well as those which passed between Beethoven and Ries subsequently, ought to serve to indicate that the relationship between them at this time was, and remained, one of cordial friendship, Schindler’s statements to the contrary notwithstanding. That biographer’s list of grievances between the men may have had a small shadow of foundation, but after all it would be better to take them with a few grains of salt. It is very possible, as Czerny told Jahn, that Beethoven once complained to him that Ries imitated his style more than was agreeable to him; but this is far from saying, as Schindler says, that Ries, following a bent for brilliant technique, gradually lost his understanding of Beethoven’s works, took it upon himself to find fault with some of his daring innovations and made arbitrary changes in performing them. Nor does it seem likely that Ries should have been so indifferent to the success of Beethoven’s compositions in London as to withhold his help while reporting their great popularity to the composer in such enthusiastic words; yet Schindler intimates that it was this fact which, coming to the ears of Beethoven, provoked the latter to expressions of anger which in turn were reported to Ries. There is in all this, we fear, an undercurrent of prejudice which is not difficult of explanation; at any rate, if Ries cherished a feeling of ill-will against his master it found no expression in the “Notizen.”

Efforts of the widow van Beethoven to keep in touch with her son, and questions of discipline in his bringing-up and education, were matters which weighed heavily on Beethoven’s mind during the summer of 1817, and occasioned more misunderstandings between Giannatasio and the composer, as also much distress in the minds of the former’s daughters, especially the solicitous Fanny, as is evidenced by entries in her diary under dates June 25 and July 8 and 21. In an undated letter which seems to belong to[373] this period, Beethoven explains to Giannatasio that the mother had expressly asked to see Karl at his, the composer’s, house and that certain evidences of indecision on his part which his correspondent had observed (and apparently held up to him) had not been due to any want of confidence, but to his antipathy to “inhuman conduct of any kind,” and the circumstance that it had been put out of the power of the woman to do the lad harm in any respect. On the subject of discipline he writes:

He requested that the letter be read to his nephew. Beethoven’s “antipathy to inhuman conduct of any kind” seems to have led him to make concessions to the widow of which he soon repented. In a letter to Zmeskall dated July 30, he says: “After all, it might pain Karl’s mother to be obliged to visit her son at the house of a stranger and, besides, there is more harshness in this affair than I like; therefore I shall permit her to come to me to-morrow”; and he urgently begs his friend to be a witness of the meeting. In a note to Giannatasio he informs him of his intention to take Karl to see his mother, because she was desirous to put herself in a better light before her neighbors, and this might help. But a fortnight after the letter to Zmeskall he has changed his mind, as witness a letter to Giannatasio dated August 14, in which he writes:

Notwithstanding the jeremiads in Beethoven’s letters this year, and the annoyance caused him by his sister-in-law, there are indications in plenty that he was not on the whole in that state of dejection which one might suppose. One of these indications is a work which amused him during the summer, the story of which the careful Dehn admitted into the “Cäcilia.” A musician,[374] whose name is not mentioned, brought to Beethoven the Pianoforte Trio, Op. 1, No. 3, which he had arranged for string quintet (two violins, two violas and violoncello). Though the composer, no doubt, found much to criticize in the transcription it seems to have interested him sufficiently to lead him to undertake a thorough remodelling of the score, on the cover of which he wrote the whimsical title:

The score of the arrangement is in the handwriting of a copyist with corrections by Beethoven; the title, however, is his autograph. It is preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin. The work was published by Artaria in February, 1819, as Op. 104. Beethoven evidently attached considerable importance to it. He referred to it in letters to Frau von Streicher, Zmeskall and Ries; it was performed at a musical entertainment of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna on December 13, 1818.

Beethoven having obtained possession of his nephew and placed him in Giannatasio’s institute, very naturally took measures that he should have systematic instruction in music; to this end he employed Carl Czerny as teacher, and to him we now turn for information on this point.[176] Czerny writes:

In the year 1815 [1816], at his request I began teaching his nephew Karl, whom he had already adopted, and from that time I saw him almost daily, since for the greater part of the time he brought the little fellow to me. From this period I still have many letters written by him, one of which I reproduce here with absolute fidelity because it is musically noteworthy:

“I beg of you to have as much patience as possible with Karl even if matters do not go now as well as you and I might wish, otherwise he will accomplish even less, for (but this he must not know) he is already subjected to too great a strain because of the improper division of his[375] studies. Unhappily this cannot be changed at once, therefore treat him with as much loving consideration as possible, but with seriousness; thus you will have better success with Karl in spite of the unfavorable conditions. In regard to his playing for you, I beg that not until he has acquired a correct fingering and can play in time and reads the notes with reasonable correctness, you direct his attention to the matter of interpretation, and thereafter not to stop him because of trifling mistakes but to point them out after he has finished the piece. Although I have given but few lessons I have always followed this method, it soon makes musicians which, at the last, is one of the first purposes of art, and gives the minimum of weariness to master and pupil. At certain passages like

I wish that you would use all the fingers occasionally as well in such as these

so that they may be played in a gliding manner. True, such passages sound ‘pearly’ as the phrase goes (played with few fingers) or ‘like a pearl,’ but at times other jewels are desirable. More at another time. I wish that you may receive all this in the loving spirit in which it is expressed and intended, at any rate I am and will always remain your debtor. May my sincerity be a pledge for future payment so far as possible.”

Noteworthy in this interesting letter is the very correct view that one ought not to weary the talent of a pupil by too much petty concern (wherein much depends on the qualities of the pupil, it is true) as well as the singular fingering and its influence on interpretation.

Much more valuable were Beethoven’s oral remarks about all kinds of musical topics, other composers, etc., touching whom he always spoke with the greatest positiveness, with striking, often caustic wit and always from the lofty point of view which his genius opened to him and from which he looked out upon his art. His judgment even concerning classic masters was severe, as a rule, and uttered as if he felt his equality. At one lesson which I gave his nephew he said to me: “You must not think that you will do me a favor by giving him pieces of mine to play. I am not so childish as to desire that. Give him what you think good for him.”

I mentioned Clementi. “Yes, yes,” said he; “Clementi is very good,” adding, laughingly “For the present give Karl the regular things so that after a while he may reach the irregular.”

After such conceits, which he was in the habit of weaving into nearly every speech, he used to burst into a peal of laughter. Since irregularities used to be charged against him by the critics in his earlier days he was wont often to allude to the fact with merry humor. At that time (about 1816) I began to have musical entertainments at my home for my very numerous pupils every Sunday before a very select circle. Beethoven was almost always present, he improvised many times with kindly readiness and with that wealth of ideas which always characterized his im[376]promptu playing as much, or often more, than his written works. As his compositions were chiefly played at these meetings and he indicated the tempo, I believe that in this respect I am intimately acquainted with his wishes regarding his works (even his symphonies, which were frequently played in arrangements for two pianofortes).

No animadversion upon the venerable Carl Czerny is intended in again remarking that both in his memoirs and in the language in which he has sometimes recorded them there is occasionally a very disturbing inexactness. In the citations above the date 1815 for 1816, the loose expression “from that time I saw him almost daily,” “Beethoven was almost always present” in the Sunday music meetings, which can have been true only of the first months, and the words “he improvised many times,” must not be understood too literally. Schindler, in whose hands Jahn placed Czerny’s notes and other manuscripts for examination and remark, observes touching this improvising: “Only twice; the first time when Frau von Ertmann played one of his sonatas, the other time when Czerny performed Op. 106, which he had repeatedly gone through with him. In the year 1818, and those that followed, Beethoven never improvised outside of his own dwelling.” Schindler is certainly mistaken upon this last point, and, very possibly, upon the other. It is not a matter of much importance in any aspect, but it offers an opportunity for remarking upon errors in his dates which have long been and still are an abundant source of confusion in this part of Beethoven’s life, like those of Wegeler and Ries in his youth and early manhood. More than one recent writer speaks of his “intimate association with the composer from the year 1814 onward”; one has even learned that “he lived ten years in the same house with Beethoven, devoting all the time at his command to him.” Nothing is more common than to find circumstances accepted as undoubted facts on Schindler’s authority. The present writer[177] discussed at length Schindler’s character as a biographer with Otto Jahn, both of us having known him personally. Our opinions coincided perfectly. We held him to be honest and sincere in his statements, but afflicted with a treacherous memory and a proneness to accept impressions and later formed convictions as facts of former personal knowledge, and to publish them as such without carefully verifying them. In justice to him it must be remembered that when, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, he rewrote his book in the form in which it appeared in 1860, he had no longer the means of doing this, for the Conversation Books which would have prevented his more glaring errors[377] had, since 1845, been in the Royal Library in Berlin. Therefore, whoever studies his life of the master and his numberless contributions to the periodical press during the long period of thirty years—all abounding in biographical matter of great value—must be continually upon his guard. When one seeks precise information upon Beethoven’s life during the years 1816-1820 in Schindler’s writings, his notices are found to be so meagre and vague, and to exhibit occasionally such inconsistencies and errors, as to awaken the suspicion that he, as to those years, did not always write from personal knowledge, and that his memory served him ill.

If he had had the Conversation Books still in his possession he could not have written: “About 1817, Oliva left the Imperial City forever,” for there he would have seen that Oliva was still in his old relation with Beethoven in 1820. Again: “Already in 1816 he [Beethoven] found himself involved in circumstances which compelled him to do a vast amount of writing. Dr. Bach, in whose office I worked several hours every day, advised him to confide everything to me; thus I became Beethoven’s private secretary—without pay.” Later we read in connection with the topic of Beethoven’s nobility, and the transfer of his suit with the mother of Karl to the Vienna magistracy: “There it was possible to achieve something advantageous to Beethoven only by dismissing his representative and pitting an entirely different person against his opponent. His choice fell upon Dr. Johann Baptist Bach, who had just entered the ranks of the court and trial advocates.” Finally: “When Dr. Bach took his case in hand he declared that thenceforward his client must present himself with the title of Chapelmaster, because the gentlemen magistrates were chiefly Bœotians, and a composer was as good as nothing in their eyes, etc.” Now, a document of the Landrecht dated November 29, 1815, contains these words: “Ludwig van Beethoven (Royal Imperial Chapelmaster and Music Composer).” Dr. Bach may have continued to use this title, but how could he have introduced it? Again: “Dr. Bach took the oath as advocate on January 21, 1817.” How then could Schindler in 1816 have “worked several hours every day” in an office not yet in existence? Still again: the decree of the Landrecht transferring Beethoven’s case to the Magistracy is dated December 18, 1818, and Schindler is correct in making this the cause of the employment of Dr. Bach in 1819; how then could he have been the composer’s “private secretary” on Bach’s recommendation during the two years preceding?

The unavoidable conclusion is this: Although there is no reason to doubt that Schindler was upon excellent terms with Beethoven,[378] and often visited him in 1817-1819, the “intimate association” above-noted and in the sense there intended, could not have begun before 1819; and even then, for Oliva was still in Vienna, did not extend beyond aiding in correspondence and like duties. The earliest Conversation Book preserved by Schindler is from April, 1819, in which both he and Dr. Bach write; and from this time onward these books show that the association grew more intimate and of course his records become more trustworthy. Returning to the trivial matter which led to this digression, the accuracy of Schindler’s statement that Beethoven improvised but twice at Czerny’s Sunday concerts may well be doubted. Czerny’s testimony is the weightier.

We resume an account of the events of the year. In August and September the after-effects of the attack of catarrh and the state of Beethoven’s health generally are so distressing and so depressing upon his spirits that he seems to be on the verge of despair. A letter which Zmeskall notes as received by him on August 21, says: “God have pity on me! I look upon myself as good as lost. This servant steals. My health calls for meals at home. If my condition does not improve I shall not be in London next year—perhaps in my grave. Thank God, the part is nearly played.” On September 9, he writes to the same friend: “I am trying every day to near my grave, without music.” Only two days later he is able to report to Zmeskall that the reply to his letter had been received from the London Philharmonic Society (on September 10). There is no tone of elation in his note; it merely mentions the arrival of the letter and a request for the name of some one who could translate it for him, it being in English. As might have been expected the Philharmonic Society rejected the new terms demanded by him, but, as the Society’s records show, repeated the old. These were now at once accepted by Beethoven.

And did he now sit himself down zealously and perseveringly to work on a ninth and tenth symphony? Not at all. His thoughts had become engaged upon a new pianoforte sonata (in B-flat, Op. 106), and so far as is yet discovered, he did not even resume his work on the Ninth Symphony, some parts of which were already sketched. That “indecision in many things,” noted by Breuning a dozen years before, was only aggravated by the lapse of time; and this now was his bane. There was really nothing to prevent his departing at once except that the new symphonies were still to be written. If his nephew must remain in or near Vienna, he could nowhere be so well placed as in the school and family of the excellent Giannatasios, who had all the necessary[379] legal power to save the boy from the bad influence of his mother. The effects of such a journey; of a stay of some months in England; of the intercourse of cultivated people; of the enthusiastic admiration which awaited him there, and of the great pecuniary rewards for his labors which were certain, could only have been propitious in the highest degree to both his physical and mental health. There was, too, just now a new and powerful motive for accepting and fulfilling this engagement.

Though the depreciation of the redemption certificates never quite touched the point feared by him in his letter to Ries in 1815, it did once amount to 4 for 1; and the Government was again forced to repudiate its obligations in part. It founded that National Bank (seven shares in which Beethoven soon afterwards purchased), and made a contract with a new institution by which the bank assumed the obligation of redeeming the redemption certificates at the rate of 2½ for 1. It went into full operation July 15, 1817, and thenceforth Beethoven’s annuity remained instead of 3,400 florins in that paper, 1,360 florins in silver. But this fatal indecision! Could he have but resolutely taken up any two of the many new symphonies which he had planned, as the sketchbooks show, and once fairly engaged himself upon them, he could not have rested until they were finished; he could, and doubtless would, then have redeemed his promises; and like Handel, Haydn and many other German musicians of far less note, have secured from an admiring and generous London public an ample sufficiency for the future. The standard of excellence was high and catholic in London and musical taste pure and exalted. True, at the first trial of the C minor Symphony by the Philharmonic Society a part of it only was played, for the leader of the violins—really the conductor, as the orchestras were then constituted—declared it “rubbish.” But this leader was a German—our old Bonn acquaintance J. P. Salomon. He, however, repented and made amends. At another trial of it, two or three years afterwards, after the first movement, Salomon laid his violin upon the pianoforte, walked to the front and, turning to the orchestra said (through his nose): “Gentlemen, some years ago I called this symphony rubbish; I wish to retract every word I then said, as I now consider it one of the greatest compositions I ever heard!”

We have had occasion heretofore to refer to several young British Beethoven enthusiasts; another is now added to the list—Cipriani Potter—who came just at this time to Vienna, bringing letters to the composer from Neate, Ries, Rode, Dragonetti and[380] others. He heard so much of Beethoven’s rudeness of manners and moroseness of disposition, and so often noticed how people shook their heads when he or his music was mentioned, that he hesitated to visit him. Two weeks had thus passed when one day, at Streicher’s, he was asked if he had seen Beethoven and if he had letters to him. He therefore explained why he had not seen him. He was told this was all nonsense; Beethoven would receive him kindly. He exclaimed: “I will go out at once!” which he did, namely, to Mödling.[178] He presented a letter or two, one of the first being that of Dragonetti. Upon opening that Beethoven also opened his heart to his visitor and demanded immediately to see some of his compositions. Potter showed him an overture—probably one that had been commissioned and played by the London Philharmonic Society in 1816. Beethoven looked through it so hurriedly that Potter thought he had only glanced at it out of politeness and was greatly astonished when Beethoven pointed to a deep F-sharp in the bassoon part and said it was not practicable. He made other observations of a similar nature and advised him to go to a teacher; he himself gave no lessons but would look through all his compositions. In answer to Potter’s question as to whom he would recommend, Beethoven replied: “I have lost my Albrechtsberger and have no confidence in anybody else”; nevertheless, on Beethoven’s recommendation Potter became a pupil of Aloys Förster, with whom he studied a long time until one day the teacher said to him that he had now studied sufficiently and needed only to practise himself in composition. This brought out the remark from Beethoven that no one ought ever to stop studying; he himself had not studied enough: “Tell Förster that he is an old flatterer!” Potter did so, but Förster only laughed. Beethoven never complimented Potter to his face; he would say: “Very good, very good,” but never give unequivocal praise. Yet at Streicher’s he praised him and expressed his surprise that Potter did not visit him at Mödling.[179] Once Beethoven[381] advised him never to compose sitting in a room in which there was a pianoforte, in order not to be tempted to consult the instrument; after a work was finished he might try it over on the instrument, because an orchestra was not always to be had.

Beethoven used to walk across the fields to Vienna very often and sometimes Potter took the walk with him. Beethoven would stop, look around and give expression to his love for nature. One day Potter asked: “Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?” Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, then exclaimed “Cherubini.” Potter went on: “And of dead authors?” Beethoven answered that he had always considered Mozart as such, but since he had been made acquainted with Handel he had put him at the head. The first day that Potter was with Beethoven the latter rushed into politics and called the Austrian government all sorts of names.[180] He was full of going to England and said his desire was to see the House of Commons. “You have heads upon your shoulders in England,” he remarked. One day Potter asked him his opinion of one of the principal pianists then in Vienna (Moscheles). “Don’t ever talk to me again about mere passage players,” came the answer. At another time Beethoven declared that John Cramer had given him more satisfaction than anybody else. According to the same informant, Beethoven spoke Italian fluently but French with less ease. It was in Italian that Potter conversed with him, making himself heard by using his hands as a speaking-trumpet; Beethoven did not always hear everything, but was content when he caught the meaning. Potter considered “Fidelio” the greatest of all operas and once remarked to Beethoven that he had heard it in Vienna, which brought out the remark that he had not heard it, as the singers then at the opera-house were not able to sing it. He was asked if he did not intend to write another opera. “Yes,” replied Beethoven, “I am now composing ‘Romulus’;[181] but the poets are all such fools; I will not compose silly rubbish.” Potter told him of the deep impression made upon him by the Septet when first he heard it; Beethoven replied in effect that when he wrote the piece he did not know how to compose; he knew now, he thought, and,[382] either then or at another time, he said, “I am writing something better now.” Soon after, the Pianoforte Sonata in B-flat (Op. 106) was published.

Another visitor now, and probably occasionally during the winter following, was Heinrich Marschner, who had come from Carlsbad to Vienna on the invitation of Count Amadée. He was 21 years old, ambitious and eager to get Beethoven’s judgment on some of his compositions, which he carried to the great master in manuscript. Beethoven received him, glanced through the music hurriedly, handed it back with a muttered “Hm,” in a tone more of satisfaction than dispraise, and the words: “I haven’t much time—do not come often—bring me something again.” The young man was grievously disappointed; he had expected so much more. He did not understand Beethoven’s sententious manner, and not until he told the story of his reception to his patron and Prof. Klein of Pressburg, did he recall that Beethoven had looked kindly upon him when he spoke the words and had given him his hand at parting. He had gone to his lodgings in a passion of despondency, torn up the manuscripts, packed his trunk with the resolve to abandon music and return to Leipsic to continue his studies for the profession for which he had been designed. But now, on the advice of his friends, he took a different view of Beethoven’s actions, and continued his intercourse with him. The great man was always gracious, and even occasionally let fall a word of encouragement; but an intimacy never sprang up between them.

Beethoven’s intercourse with a third new acquaintance was, doubtless, far more delightful than any other; but not at all of the nature assumed by Schindler, who has attributed to it a very exaggerated and, indeed, ludicrous importance. This visitor was Frau Marie Pachler-Koschak, of Gratz, whom Anselm Hüttenbrenner described as the most beautiful maiden and for several years the most beautiful woman in her native town, who was called “heaven’s daughter,” and who “glowed with admiration for Jean Paul, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.” Beethoven had already heard from Prof. Schneller, whose pupil she had been, of her extraordinary beauty, talents, intellectual culture and refinement, and of her genius for music. He had unconsciously the year before borne testimony to this last in this wise: Her brother-in-law, Anton Pachler, Dr. jur. in Vienna, had at her request showed him for an opinion a fantasia composed by her, but without disclosing the author’s identity. Beethoven looked at the piece carefully and said that it was a good deal from one[383] who had not studied composition, and if the composer were present he would point out the faults in it; it would take too much time to do this in writing and the composer would find them out for himself if he studied diligently. The lady was 24 years old and had been married a little over a year. She had never been in Vienna, Beethoven never in Gratz, and they, of course, had never met. But when they did, it could not be as strangers; for his music had been to her like a new divine revelation, and such noble mental and personal qualities as distinguished her always awakened in him feelings akin to worship. Unfortunately, absolutely nothing is known of their personal association except that Dr. Anton Pachler introduced her to him, that she wrote ten years later that “they were often in each other’s company,” and that Beethoven wrote her two notes “in pencil”—one utterly illegible, the other in terms placing her as a player of his pianoforte music even higher than Frau von Ertmann. He wrote:

Her son has so fully exploded Schindler’s assumption that she was the object of Beethoven’s “autumnal love” that no words need be wasted upon it. It was, no doubt, upon seeing in Beethoven’s papers the letter “M”[182] in this outburst of feeling:

A consideration of the dates given in Dr. Pachler’s pamphlet proves conclusively, however, that this “M” cannot refer to Marie Pachler, for its writer could never have seen her “drive past” on any 27th of July!

There are few unmarried men of highly sensitive nature who have not had the bitter experience of a hopeless passion, who have not felt how doubly grateful at such times is intercourse with a glorious creature like Madame Pachler, and how beneficial in preventing the thoughts from continually dwelling on the impossible, and thus aiding reason and conscience to gain the victory[384] over the heart and fancy. Now it happens that one of Beethoven’s transient but intense passions for a married woman, known to have occurred in this period of his life, has its precise date fixed by these passages in the so-called “Tagebuch” from the years 1816 and 1817. “In the case of T. there is nothing to do but to leave it to God, never to go where one might do a wrong through weakness—to Him, to the all-knowing God, be all this committed.” And again: “But as kind as possible to T. her attachment deserves never to be forgotten even if the results could never prove advantageous to you.” Let the reader recall the passages in his letters showing a strong desire to leave Vienna and read again: “Work during the summer for the journey, only thus can you carry out the great task for your poor nephew, afterwards wander through Italy, Sicily, with a few artists—make plans and be of good cheer for the sake of C....” The last initial is uncertain. Other copies have “L.”; what the original was in Beethoven’s handwriting is not now to be determined. No instance, however, is known of his writing his nephew’s name with a C, and this “C” or “L” was probably T. As the family name of this lady, whose husband was a man of high position and distinction though not noble by birth, is known, it is certain that the T in the above citations is not Therese Malfatti, now Baroness Drosdick; but as her baptismal names have eluded search one can only hint the possibility that the “T” and “M” may indicate the same person, and that this last cry of anguish was written a year or two afterwards when the sight of “M” again, for a moment, tore open a half-healed wound.

In numbers 5 to 8 inclusive of the “Neue Musik-Zeitung” appeared, from the pen of J. Kandler, a long article containing historical notices of various attempts to produce a satisfactory instrument for measuring time in music, and closing with an account, taken from the English, of Mälzel’s metronome. To No. 25 (June 19) of the same journal, Gottfried Weber contributed a paper “On a chronometric tempo designation which makes Mälzel’s metronome, as well as all other chronometric instruments, unnecessary,” in which he repeated his idea, already put forth in the Leipsic “Musikzeitung” in 1813, that the simplest and most correct chronometer is a simple pendulum, a bit of thread with a bullet at the end, whose oscillations would mark the duration of measures according to the length of the thread. This article pleased Beethoven, and in one of his variations on the theme of pens he commends it to his “clarissime amice” Zmeskall, as the best invention yet made. Zmeskall took up the subject with interest and in two[385] articles in the same journal called attention to the fact that Neate, in London, had described a time measurer of the same kind which was known in England, but had not remained long in use—“a little ball hanging at the end of a thread and below it a line divided into a scale of inches.” Zmeskall approved of Weber’s suggestion in principle but improved upon it by proposing that the oscillations of the pendulum indicate the duration of a note instead of a measure, and that the varying lengths of the pendulum be marked by knots in the thread. Beethoven, to whom Zmeskall seems to have sent his contrivance, was interested and lauded its simplicity, playfully wondering whether or not it might be used in measuring from time to eternity.

Music had already come from the press with Mälzel’s tempo marks, and Weber, who seems to have had no kindly feeling for him, prints an article, in the number of the journal following Zmeskall’s, entitled “Mälzel’s Metronome to be had gratis everywhere,” and gives a table showing the lengths of a pendulum in Rhenish inches and French centimetres corresponding to all the numbers on the metronome. As the months passed, the metronome had come largely into use in England, France and the United States, but not in Germany and Austria. It was of high importance to the manufacturers of the instruments to obtain the countenance and good will of the composers in those countries also—Salieri, Weigl, Beethoven, etc.—and Mälzel came back to Vienna to try the effect of personal effort, taking the risk of any serious consequences arising from the lawsuit between him and Beethoven. But there were none. The matter was amicably adjusted, each party paying half of the legal expenses which had been incurred. This would be incredible had Beethoven had any substantial grounds for the action; for his sanction of the metronome was of such value that Mälzel would readily have conceded much to obtain it; and the whole tone of the composer’s correspondence in this period, so far as relates to his pecuniary affairs, shows how little likely he was to sacrifice any just claim.

Beethoven was at first not well disposed to the instrument, notwithstanding he had joined Salieri and the other composers in strongly recommending the “chronometer” in 1813, which certificate had been used in England a fortiori for the new metronome. In a letter[183] Mr. Joseph J. Mickley, of Philadelphia, writes: “Mr. Mälzel, with whom I was well acquainted, told me that he had been particularly anxious Beethoven should mark his music by[386] his metronome, and to get his recommendation; that he (B) refused and became quite indignant, saying: ‘It is silly stuff; one must feel the tempos’”; but Beethoven soon yielded to the obvious considerations in favor of the invention. These were presented to the public together with the objections to Weber’s and Zmeskall’s pendulums, clearly, explicitly and cunningly by Mosel in an article in Steiner’s “Musik-Zeitung” on November 27, which put an end to controversy on the topic.

Meanwhile, Beethoven had prepared a table of tempos for his eight symphonies which was printed in the Leipsic “Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung” on December 17 (copied, says Nottebohm, from a little pamphlet published by Steiner and Co. in which also tempos of the Septet were included), and followed this up with a general metronomizing of his works. On the autograph of his song, “Nord oder Süd,” he wrote: “100 according to Mälzel; but this must be held applicable to only the first measures, for feeling also has its tempo and this cannot entirely be expressed in this figure (i. e., 100).”[184]

If the picture of Mälzel drawn by Schindler and his copyists is true, even the most Christian and forgiving spirit could scarcely have demanded more of Beethoven than this public acknowledgement of the value of the metronome by way of heaping coals of fire upon his head; but he did more, by writing to Mosel this very valuable and for us very interesting letter:

Still more: he joined with Salieri in a public announcement which was printed in the “Wiener Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” of February 14, 1818, setting forth that the metronome would attest its utility forever, was indispensable to all students of singing, the pianoforte or other instruments, etc. On one of the last days of December, Beethoven writes to Madame Streicher: “Day before yesterday I was busy with Mälzel, who is in a hurry as he is soon to leave here.” What had he so important to do with this “rude fellow, wholly without education or breeding,” to cite his own words? Was it in contemplation to make this sudden zeal for the metronome a source of pecuniary profit? No one knows.

As the lodging in the Sailerstätte was separated from Giannatasio’s institute by the whole breadth of the Glacis, Beethoven, on his return from Mödling, exchanged it for one in the house “Zum grünen Baum,” first étage, 2nd storey, No. 26, in the Gärtnergasse, suburb Landstrasse. He was now near both his nephew and the Streichers (in the Ungarstrasse), and, with the aid of Madame Streicher, he had at last brought his domestic arrangements into a condition so that he might take his nephew to himself. While making these arrangements, doubtless he asked practical guidance of some unknown friend touching his table. On one side of a large sheet of paper (it is now preserved in the Royal Library in Berlin) he wrote a list of questions which were painstakingly answered, by the friend to whom they were addressed, on the opposite page. The questions were as follows:

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Beethoven announced his intention to take his nephew to himself at the end of the current quarter in a letter to Giannatasio dated November 12, 1817. The step involved not only an increase in his expenses, but also an abandonment of his engagement with the London Philharmonic Society and of all the profits which might thence arise. Giannatasio, moved by his complaints of poverty, and probably also by a desire to aid him in the proposed visit to London, kindly offered to keep the boy at a much reduced rate of remuneration for board and instruction. Beethoven’s reply shows him to be still undecided as to his movements in the coming spring, and it is possible, could he have made ready the required symphonies, that he might have gone to England; but now the new Sonata had got possession of his imagination, and the symphonies must wait.

But one public appearance professionally of Beethoven is recorded this year. At the concert for the Hospital Fund on December 25, the first part was devoted to the Eighth Symphony, which was conducted by the composer. In the second part Seyfried produced C. P. E. Bach’s oratorio, “The Israelites in the Wilderness,” which he had revised, adding to the accompaniments, curtailing the airs, prefixing it with the well-known fugue on B-A-C-H (orchestrated by himself), and concluding it with the double chorus “Holy, holy, holy.” Nottebohm has shown that the sketches for the overture on the name of the great Leipsic cantor which Beethoven once thought of writing, belong to a later period; but it is yet possible, if not likely, that he conceived the idea at this concert. On November 15, Anton Halm gave a concert for the benefit of the poor in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater at which the Choral Fantasia was performed; but we know nothing of Beethoven’s participation in it in any way.

It is probable that to this time is to be assigned a portrait in oils painted by Christoph Heckel, who was a student at the Royal Imperial Academy in Vienna from 1814 to 1818. Beethoven, it is said, made the acquaintance of the painter in Streicher’s pianoforte wareroom. There is but little to be added to what has been said about the compositions of this almost sterile year. The transcription of the Pianoforte Trio as a quintet (which was the largest work of the year), and the “Song of the Monks,” written on the death of Krumpholz, have been mentioned. Besides these we have a few short songs with pianoforte accompaniment. “Nord oder Süd” (also known as “So oder So”), the poem by Karl Lappe, was known and widely liked in a setting by K. Klage. “Resignation” (“Lisch aus mein Licht”), words by Count Paul von[389] Haughwitz, was composed towards the end of the Summer, and the sketches show that Beethoven contemplated a setting for four voices. A Fugue in D major, for five stringed instruments, was completed on November 28, 1817, and was designed for the manuscript collection of Beethoven’s works projected by Haslinger, who published it soon after Beethoven’s death in 1827, as Op. 137. Beethoven was particularly interested in fugues at the time. “To make a fugue requires no particular skill,” he said later to Holz; “in my study days I made dozens of them. But the fancy wishes also to assert its privileges, and to-day a new and really poetical element must be introduced into the old traditional form.” The sketches for the conclusion of the Quintet fugue (Nottebohm, “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 350) are mixed with notes from Bach and others showing how zealous were his studies in the form at that time. The year also saw work done on the Pianoforte Sonata in B-flat, Op. 106, and the beginning of the Symphony in D minor.

The list of publications for the year is also very small:

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Chapter XVIII

An entry in an old “Porter’s Book” of John Broadwood and Sons, manufacturers of pianofortes in London, offers an agreeable starting-point for the story of Beethoven’s life in 1818. In this book the porter of the firm signs his name, Millet, to the record that on December 27, 1817, he took from the warehouse “A 6 octave Grand Pianoforte, No. 7,632, tin and deal case, Thomas Broadwood, Esq., marked V. B. care of F. E. J. Bareaux and Co., Trieste (a present to Mr. van Beethoven, Viene), deliv’d to Mr. Farlowes to be shipped.” Some time previously Mr. Thomas Broadwood, the then head of the house, with a Mr. Goding (probably the rich brewer), visited the principal cities of the continent and doubtless became acquainted with Beethoven and offered to present to him one of the firm’s pianofortes. On January 3, 1818, Mr. Broadwood seems to have informed Beethoven that the instrument had been shipped, and exactly one month later Beethoven sent the following acknowledgment to the generous donor:

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This letter was sent to Broadwood by Joseph Anton Bridi of the firm of Bridi, Parisi and Co., in Vienna, who had evidently been commissioned to look after the delivery of the instrument to Beethoven after its arrival in Trieste. At least Bridi, in transmitting the letter to Broadwood under cover and date February 5, informs the latter that he had taken the proper steps to have the pianoforte sent to Vienna by Bareaux (or Barraux) and Co., and asks for instructions how to carry out what he understands to be the donor’s desire that the instrument be delivered to Beethoven without his being put to any expense whatever, not even for the import duty. The latter charge must have been in the mind of Beethoven when he wrote a letter, without date, to Count Lichnowsky enclosing a document bearing on the case expressing the hope that he be permitted to receive the instrument and proposing to apply by word of mouth to Count Stadion, the Austrian Minister of Finance. Madame Streicher was also appealed to in the matter, Beethoven begging her in a letter to ask her “Cousin from Cracow” to get from the chief customs official in Vienna an order for the forwarding of the pianoforte, which could be sent to the custom house in Trieste. But neither Broadwood nor Beethoven was called on to pay the duty, the Austrian Exchequer remitting the charge. After some delay the pianoforte was delivered at Streicher’s wareroom and later sent to Beethoven at Mödling. While it was still in his possession, Streicher asked Potter to try it, saying that Moscheles and others could do nothing with it—the tone was beautiful but the action too heavy. Potter, who was familiar with the English instruments, found no difficulty in disclosing its admirable qualities. He told Beethoven, however, that it was out of tune, whereupon the latter replied in effect: “That’s what they all say; they would like to tune it and spoil it, but they shall not touch it.” Beethoven’s delight in the pianoforte must have been great. Bridi reports to Broadwood that the composer already rejoiced in it in anticipation and expressed a desire to dedicate the first piece of music composed after its reception to the donor, “convinced that it would inspire something good.” His jealousy of it seems to have been so great that he would not permit anybody to tune it except Stumpff, of London, who came with a letter of introduction from Broadwood.[185]

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The case of the instrument, simple, plain but tasteful in design, is of mahogany and the structure generally of a solidity and strength paired with grace which caused no little surprise at the time. The compass is six octaves from C, five leger-lines below the bass staff. Above the keys is the inscription: Hoc Instrumentum est Thomœ Broadwood (Londini) donum, propter Ingenium illustrissimi Beethoven. On the board, back of the keys, is the name “Beethoven,” inlaid in ebony, and below this the makers’ mark: “John Broadwood and Sons, Makers of Instruments to His Majesty and the Princesses. Great Pulteney Street. Golden Square. London.” To the right of the keyboard are the autograph names Frid. Kalkbrenner, Ferd. Ries, C. G. Ferrari, J. L. Cramer and C. Knyvett. The presence of these names gave rise to a theory which was widely spread, and is not yet wholly dissipated, that their owners had joined Mr. Broadwood in making the gift; it has also been stated that the gift came from the Philharmonic Society. This latter statement is disproved by the fact that the records of the Society contain no mention of such a transaction; as for the names of the virtuosi, they were no doubt scratched upon the instrument as a compliment to Beethoven and an evidence that they had played upon it. Beethoven kept the instrument as long as he lived. At the sale of his effects it was bought by Spina, the music publisher, for 181 florins; Spina gave it to Liszt, in whose house at Weimar it was up to his death. In 1887, Princess Marie Hohenlohe, daughter of Liszt’s friend, the Princess Sayn-Wittgenstein, presented it to the National Museum in Buda-Pesth.

The time had come for Beethoven to take his nephew from the home and institute of the Giannatasios. On January 6 he wrote to inform the director that Karl would leave his “admirable institute” at the expiration of the month and that Giannatasio might rest assured of his and the lad’s life-long gratitude: “I have observed in Karl that he already feels grateful, and this is a proof that though he is frivolous he is not malicious, and least of all is he bad at heart. I have hopes of all manner of good from him, all the more because he has been under your excellent care for nearly two years.” Karl left the institute on January 24, and on June 15 Fanny Giannatasio wrote in her diary: “We hear nothing from Beethoven,” who was then in Mödling.

Ill-advised and full of evil consequences as was Beethoven’s step in taking personal charge of his nephew, it was yet creditable to his heart and bears strong witness to his high sense of duty. His purpose was pure and lofty, and his action prompted by both love and an ideal sense of moral obligation. It was a woeful mis[393]take, however; Beethoven sadly misjudged his fitness to fill the delicate and difficult rôle of guardian and parent. In all his life he had never had occasion to give a thought to the duties which such an office involved. In the conduct of his own affairs he had always permitted himself to be swayed by momentary impulses, emotions and sometimes violent passions, and he could not suddenly develop the habits of calm reflection, unimpassioned judgment and consistent behavior essential to the training of a careless and wayward boy. In his treatment of him he flew from one extreme to the other—from almost cruel severity to almost limitless indulgence, and, for this reason, failed to inspire either respect for his authority or deep affection for his person, to develop the lad’s self-control or a desire for virtuous living. Very questionable, too, if not utterly unpardonable, were the measures which Beethoven took to separate the boy from his mother in spite of the dying wishes of his father. We have seen his protestations at times of his unwillingness to give her pain. When he was cruel in his own confession it was because he imagined himself constrained to be so by a high obligation of duty. There can be no doubt that the woman whom Beethoven called “The Queen of Night” was wicked and vicious, and that his detestation of her was as well founded as his wish to save his nephew from evil communications and influences. But there were times when he seemed willing to give filial instincts their due. “Karl did wrong,” he writes to Madame Streicher from Mödling in June 1818, “but—mother—mother—even a bad one remains a mother. To this extent he is to be excused, especially by me, who know his intriguing, passionate mother too well.” Why did he not follow this thought to its ultimate conclusion? Why did he permit, if indeed, he did not encourage, the lad to speak disrespectfully of his mother? A memorandum in the Tagebuch after February 20th reads: “Karl’s mother has not seen him since August 10”—a period of more than six months. How often she was allowed to see him during the following months is not of record; we only know from Beethoven himself, in his letters to Madame Streicher, that the mother’s instinct—if, because she was a bad woman, the word “love” be not allowed—drove her to employ the only means by which she could know the condition of her son during the summer in Mödling—i. e., bribing or feeing the servants. That at least is Beethoven’s accusation, and exceedingly wroth he was.[186]

[394]

After taking Karl from Giannatasio’s institute to his own home Beethoven engaged a tutor to prepare him for matriculation at the gymnasium. This tutor, whose name has not been learned, was a professor at the Vienna University and had evidently agreed not only to look after all of the lad’s intellectual needs but also to have an eye on some of the domestic affairs and to that end to become a member of the Beethoven household. On this point, Beethoven enjoined secrecy upon Madame Streicher. How long the service of his “steward,” as he playfully called him to Madame Streicher, continued is not known, nor how satisfactory it was. He does not become a subject of Beethoven’s correspondence beyond a single reference to the fact that once he staid out all night. Beethoven’s London trip had been abandoned without[395] notice or explanation to the Philharmonic Society, apparently; but Ries must have written to him, renewing the offer previously accepted, for on March 25, Beethoven writes to his old pupil as follows:

Ries’s reverence for royalty, apparently, led him to omit Beethoven’s unkind allusion to his august patron and pupil, Archduke Rudolph; Schindler, writing much later, prints it and admits, very properly, as we know from other instances of the same kind, that Beethoven sometimes used his friends as whipping-boys and that his words and deeds were not always consistent with each other. Beethoven removed to Mödling on May 19, taking with him his nephew and the two servants whose treachery aroused the storm of passion which he loosed in the long letter to Madame Streicher, written in June. He found lodgings in the so-called Hafner House in the Hauptstrasse, now ornamented by a memorial tablet. He began taking the baths two days after his arrival and the desire and capacity for work soon returning, he took up energetically the Pianoforte Sonata in B-flat. Karl was placed in a class of boys taught by the village priest, named Fröhlich, who dismissed him a month later for reasons which became a matter of judicial record before the end of the year.[187] In a document filed as an appendix to Madame van Beethoven’s application for guardianship over her son, Fröhlich sets forth that Beethoven had encouraged his nephew to revile his mother, applauding him when he applied vile epithets to her either in writing or by shrieking them into his ear, “thus violating the fourth divine commandment”; that the boy had confessed to him that while he knew that he was doing wrong he yet defamed his mother to curry favor with his uncle and dared not tell him the truth because he would only believe lies. “This he once told his mother and would have said more had he not feared being found out and maltreated by his[397] uncle.” Once, too, Beethoven came to him (the priest) and in a tone of malicious joy told him that his nephew had that day called his mother a “Ravenmother” (Rabenmutter—meaning a wicked and unnatural mother). Karl’s training being thus contrary to all moral principles, he having also displayed indifference to religious instruction, been guilty of unruly conduct in church and in the streets, so that many of the inhabitants of the village had come to him with complaints, and, therefore, admonitions to the boy and appeals to the uncle having borne no fruit, he had been constrained for the sake of his twelve other pupils, who had said “they did not want to study with the unruly Karl van Beethoven,” to dismiss him.

These unfortunate first-fruits of Beethoven’s error in undertaking personal and sole care of his nephew will call for more attention before the history of the year 1818 is closed, and may be dismissed for the present for more cheerful topics. Towards the end of the year 1815, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde had instituted inquiries through Zmeskall touching Beethoven’s willingness to compose a work of magnitude for the Society. Beethoven signified his assent to the project and in turn asked Zmeskall whether or not the Society would allow him 400 ducats as an honorarium. There the matter seems to have rested until May, 1818, on the 17th of which month Vincenz Hauschka, a violoncello player and member of the governing committee of the Society, was authorized by his associates to offer Beethoven from 200 to 300 “pieces of gold” for the music to a “heroic oratorio” to be the exclusive property of the Society for one year after the date of its first performance. Hauschka wrote to Beethoven at Mödling and received a droll letter in reply. It bears no date. In it Beethoven addresses his friend as “Chief Member of the Society of Enemies of Music [the play on the words Freunde and Feinde is impossible in English], in the Austrian Empire” and “Grand Cross of the Order of the Violoncello.” He signifies his willingness to accept the commission in the words: “I am agreed” (Ich bin bereit) set to a fugue-theme:

I am agreed! etc.
Tenore

adding that he had no subject on hand except a sacred one, while[398] the Society had expressed a desire for a heroic work. This was satisfactory to him, but he suggested that as the choir was a large one something sacred be “mixed in”:

Amen!
etc.

Mr. v. Bernard would suit him as poet, but the Society, since it claimed to be friendly to music, ought to pay him. He said nothing of his own compensation, but concluded with:

I am agreed! I am agreed!
Amen!

Schindler also places this letter in 1818, and is doubtless correct in so doing, for its tone and contents show that it was not designed as an official communication to the Society, whose minutes show that such a communication was not received until June 15, 1819. In the interim, no doubt, some negotiations were in progress between Beethoven and Hauschka, for the former had refrained from mentioning the matter of remuneration. Some understanding on this point must have been reached, however, for, if Pohl is correct, Beethoven was paid an advance sum of 400 florins on August 18, 1819. Nothing came of the matter, as we shall see later. In this year, however, there came to Beethoven an incitation of a different nature and one productive of lasting and magnificent results. About the middle of 1818, as Schindler relates, it became known as a settled fact that Archduke Rudolph had been appointed Archbishop of Olmütz. March 20th, 1820, was fixed as the day of his installation. Without bidding, invitation or summons of any kind Beethoven “resolved to compose a mass for the solemnity, thus turning again after the lapse of many years to that branch of his art, toward which, after the symphonic[399]—as he himself often said—he felt himself most drawn. This resolution shows that his outburst against the Archduke[188] was merely a passing cloud, even if we did not know that the master never missed an opportunity to disclose his affection for his august pupil. I saw the score begun late in the Autumn of 1818, after the gigantic Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 106, had just been finished.” Though there is no reason for questioning the rest of Schindler’s statement, the concluding observation is probably incorrect. It may be accepted, inasmuch as the Credo of the mass was already far advanced in 1819, that the Kyrie, at least, perhaps the Gloria, as well, was begun in 1818. The two great works which now filled the mind of Beethoven, which he wrote, indeed, with his heart’s blood, were not only dedicated to the Archduke, but were designed for him from the beginning—facts which may be cited as proof that despite his petulant outbursts against his pupil and patron he was after all sincerely devoted to him in his innermost soul.

The same summer saw the beginning of the most widely distributed portrait of Beethoven. At the instance of his uncle, Baron von Skrbensky, a young painter named August von Klöber (born at Breslau in 1793), who was continuing his artistic studies in Vienna, undertook to paint a portrait of the composer. His own account of his acquaintance with Beethoven and the incidents connected with the painting of the portrait (or rather with the original sketch) were published in the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung,” of 1864 (p. 324). From it we learn that the artist was introduced to Beethoven by a letter written by Dont.[189] He visited Beethoven at Mödling, after receiving permission to make a drawing of him and found him giving a lesson to his nephew on the Broadwood pianoforte. This fact fixes the date of the picture. Though the artist found it impossible to make himself understood unless he wrote his words or spoke them into an ear-trumpet, Beethoven corrected the errors in the lad’s playing, compelled him to repeat passages apparently without difficulty. He grew uneasy after Klöber had worked about three-quarters of an hour and the latter, heeding the advice given by Dont, suspended his work and asked permission to come again on the morrow, since he was living in Mödling. “Then we can meet often,” said Beethoven, “because I do not like to sit long. You must take a good look at Mödling, for it is very beautiful here, and, as an artist, you must[400] be a lover of nature.” Klöber met him often in his promenades and saw him suspend his work at intervals, stand as if listening and make notes on music paper which he carried about with him. When Beethoven saw the picture he was pleased with the treatment of the hair; the artists had hitherto always made him look too well groomed. Klöber’s description of the composer as he saw him was this:

Klöber’s original painting has disappeared. It was a full-length portrait with a bit of Mödling landscape as a background. The nephew Karl was included, reposing under a tree. The composer was depicted with note-book and pencil. The head only was reproduced in a lithograph in Klöber’s atelier, and has been widely copied.

We now reach an incident in the story of Beethoven’s life concerning which much has been written from the biased and frequently erroneous, because uninformed or ill-informed, point of view adopted by Schindler and which it becomes a duty to rectify not only so that the picture of Beethoven as he was may be kept true, but that the better motives and impulses which prompted the woman whom he so cordially and no doubt justly detested be placed in their proper light also. There is nothing in the narrative which brings reproach upon Beethoven so far as his high sense of duty and disinterested affection for his nephew is concerned—an affection which was as little weakened by the self-sacrifice which it entailed as it was balked by the conduct of his ward and the frequently unwarranted means employed by his mother to acquire possession of the lad and the right to superintend his physical, mental and moral training; but the rights of a woman and the honor which a world has always accorded to the strongest, noblest, divinest instinct of woman—maternal love—were also at stake. The mother of Karl, though she had been convicted and punished for adultery at an earlier period, and though she might not have proved a safe mentor for her son, was[401] yet a mother, his mother. That fact Beethoven was willing, in the long letter to Madame Streicher in which he set forth the wicked acts of his servants, to recognize as palliating the conduct of the boy; but he could not bring himself to recognize that it might also palliate if it did not justify the steps which his harshness compelled a mother to take to gratify the need implanted in her by nature. Johanna van Beethoven is at least entitled to the same hearing at the bar of posterity that she received in the tribunals of her day, and it is the duty of Beethoven’s biographer to strip the story of the quarrel between her and her brother-in-law of the romantic excrescences which many writers have fastened upon it. In this narrative the truth will be told, perhaps for the first time, as it is disclosed by the documents, the evidence and the judicial decrees in the case. To set forth these documents in full in the body of the text would call for the sacrifice of much space and sadly interrupt the story; what is essential in them will be given literally, or in outline, whenever it becomes necessary.[190]

After his dismissal from the class of the parish priest at Mödling, Karl van Beethoven was placed in the hands of a private tutor to be prepared for admission to one of the public schools of Vienna—no doubt that known as the Academic Gymnasium. To enter this school the boy had to pass an examination, and for this purpose Beethoven brought him to Vienna about the middle of August. Madame van Beethoven was now determined to wrest from her brother-in-law the authority, which was his as sole guardian, to keep the boy in his care and to direct his training. She took to her aid Jacob Hotschevar, a Hofconcipist (clerk or scrivener in the government service), and petitioned the Landrecht of Lower Austria to take from Beethoven the authority to direct the future training of his ward. The Landrecht was a tribunal with jurisdiction in litigations and other matters affecting the nobility. Acting on the assumption that the Dutch “van,” like the German “von,” was a badge of noble birth, it had listened to Beethoven’s plea and appointed him sole guardian of his nephew, removing the widow from the joint guardianship directed in the will of the boy’s father on the score of her immorality, as we already know. The proceedings were begun in September and were dismissed, as the records show, on the 18th of that month. Three days later, that is, on September 21, she applied to the[402] court again, this time for permission to place her son in the Royal Imperial Convict, where he would have board, lodging and instruction. She and Beethoven as “co-guardian” were commanded to appear in court on September 23, and the latter was directed to bring the report of the lad’s examination with him. There was a postponement of the hearing till September 30, and on October 3d the widow’s application was rejected. Thus far victory had gone to Beethoven.

The postponement of the hearing was had in great likelihood to enable Beethoven to change his residence from Mödling to the city. At any rate, Karl is a public school scholar on November 6th, as Fanny Giannatasio records in her diary on that day together with the fact that her father had met Beethoven, who had shortly before returned from the country. That the boy was in the third grammar class and remained there during the months of November and December, receiving also instruction in pianoforte playing, French and drawing from a private teacher, is known from the court proceedings which were held later. The lad made good progress in his studies, all seemed well and something of the old cordial relations seemed again to be established between Beethoven and the Giannatasios. They provided him with a housekeeper and on one day in November he spent three hours with the family. Fanny writes:

Before long Beethoven is at the Giannatasio house again and becomes interested in the singing of the sisters, singing with them, which produced a comical effect, as he seldom was in tune, but helping them to give the correct expression to the music. Fanny now deplores that their childish timidity had so long deprived them of such a pleasure, which would now perhaps be of short duration, since he had received a second invitation to England. This entry bears date November 20. Within a fortnight the diary chronicles the severest trial that the boy had yet caused his uncle: he ran away from home and sought a haven with his mother. The sympathetic young woman wrote later:

“One day B. came in great excitement and sought counsel and help from my father, saying that Karl had run away! I recall that on this occasion amid our expressions of sympathy[403] he cried out tearfully: ‘He is ashamed of me!’” The incident is recorded in her diary under date of December 5; it occurred, apparently two days before. The diarist’s entry is as follows:

We learn the probable reason for the lad’s truancy from Beethoven’s statement at the examination in court on December 11th. Two letters written by his housekeeper to Fanny Giannatasio, and one written by the latter, had fallen into Beethoven’s hands and from them he had learned of certain delinquencies with which he then confronted his nephew. But let us call Beethoven himself to the witness stand; his recital will give more vitality to the history than any statement of a historian writing nearly a century later. We quote from the minutes of the Landrecht:

In listening to these words from Beethoven on the witness stand we have stretched the thread of our story; for this testimony was given in court on December 11th, and the second attempt of the widowed mother to get control of her son had been foiled by the decision on October 3rd. It was therefore a new case which the court had under consideration when Beethoven made the above utterances. This third application on the part of the[405] mother was filed on December 7, and grew out of the runaway prank of Karl and her fear of what might be its consequences. In her petition she set forth the fact that her son had left the home of his uncle and guardian without her knowledge, that he had been taken back by the police, and that “as, to judge by his actions, Ludwig van Beethoven was willing to send her son away from Vienna, perhaps into foreign lands,” she asked that he be restrained from doing so, and she renewed her request that she be permitted to send her son to the Royal Imperial Convict for keep and education.

Hotschevar supported this petition in a document like a modern law brief, explaining his interest in the matter on the grounds that his wife was a stepsister of Madame van Beethoven’s deceased mother, that the law permitted such an act in all cases where human rights were concerned and that he, having had experience for several years as instructor in the houses of the aristocracy, could not be blamed if he put the knowledge of pedagogics and psychology thus acquired at the service of a lad to whom he bore a family relationship and brought to the attention of the supreme guardian matters which it (the Landrecht) could not possibly know concerning its wards unless proceedings were brought before it. He admitted that Madame van Beethoven had years before been guilty of a moral delinquency for which she had been punished, but asserted her right to a standing in court; he then contended: (1) that the mother had illegally been denied all influence over her son partly with, partly without the knowledge of the court, and (2) that her son could not remain under the sole influence of his uncle and guardian without danger of suffering physical and moral ruin. In support of these contentions he recited that the brothers van Beethoven were eccentric men, so often at odds with each other that they might better be called enemies than friends, Karl van Beethoven being pleasantly disposed toward his brother only when he was in need of money from him, and that the suspicion lay near that the boy had been an object of traffic between them, inasmuch as an agreement touching the payment of 1,500 florins had been made only on condition that Ludwig van Beethoven surrender a document which appointed him guardian. Karl van Beethoven, moreover, knowing the animosity which his brother felt towards his wife, had in a codicil to his will expressly said that he did not want Ludwig van Beethoven to be sole guardian of his son but joint guardian with the mother, and had, for the sake of the boy, admonished more compliancy on the part of the mother and more moderation on that of the brother.[406] Although the Court had deprived the mother of the guardianship over her son, it had granted permission to her to visit him; but this privilege had been withheld from her. The statement of the village priest Fröhlich (which has already been given in these pages) was appended to the widow’s application as evidence of the physical and moral degeneration of the boy, and for himself Hotschevar says that he had observed after the boy had run away from his uncle that his hands and feet were frostbitten, that he had no seasonable clothing and that his linen and baths had been neglected. The priest’s statement was also appealed to to show that the boy had been led into unfilial conduct, indifference toward religion, hypocrisy, untruthfulness and even theft against his guardian—in short, was in danger of becoming a menace to society. He willingly granted Beethoven’s readiness and desire to care for his ward, but maintained that his hatred of the mother, his passionate disposition inflamed by the talebearing of others (once naming Giannatasio), made it difficult for him to employ the proper means. Conceding Beethoven’s magnanimity, he yet urged that in view of the danger in which the lad was, he ought to forgo the guardianship or associate with himself either the mother or some other capable person, it appearing from the facts in the case that he was “physically and morally unfit” for the post.

Madame van Beethoven’s deposition, apparently filed as appendix to Hotschevar’s brief (like that of Fröhlich), alleges that a letter of Giannatasio’s dated March 8, 1816, showed that she had to forgo her desire to visit her son or satisfy it once a month and then “like a thief.” After Beethoven took the boy, and especially after his removal to Mödling, she was not permitted to see him at all. She had been assured that her son would be admitted to the Convict, but his testimonials had been withheld from her and so she had been unable to file them with her application for a scholarship. His expenses were 750 florins per year for board, lodging, clothes, books, medicines, etc., to pay which 2,000 florins had been deposited in Court and yielded 100 florins interest per annum. She had pledged herself to give one-half of her pension of 333 florins, 20, that is 116 florins, 40 kreutzers towards his education. This amounted to 380 florins W. W., including the interest on the deposit; and she would gladly pay the difference between this sum and 750 florins until she should get the promised scholarship for her son. On December 11, the widow appealed to the court that in case the guardian of her son should make application touching plans for his future training it be not granted without giving her a[407] hearing. This was the day when Beethoven, who had brought Joseph Carl Bernard with him, no doubt to protect him in his deafness, gave the testimony already set forth. The nephew had been examined before him:

The testimony of the widow, like that of her son, was taken before Beethoven had been examined and the answer to the final question, no doubt, raised a doubt in the mind of the court touching its jurisdiction; hence the question concerning his birth put to Beethoven. His answer that “van” was a Dutch predicate not confined to the nobility and that he had no proof of noble birth, is all that the minutes of the court show bearing on this question. It[409] led to the Landrecht’s sending the proceedings to the Vienna Magistracy on December 18; this action cut Beethoven to the quick, but the record as here produced also gives a blow, perhaps a fatal one, to one of the pretty romances to which a statement of Schindler’s gave currency. The world knows the story: Doubt having arisen in the mind of the court touching Beethoven’s nobility, he was called upon to produce documentary proof. “At the appointed time he appeared before the tribunal in person and exclaimed: ‘My nobility is here and here,’ pointing to his head and his heart.” But the court would not accept the proof. It is a pity to lose the story, but it must be relegated to the limbo of fiction unless it shall appear that Beethoven made the remark and the clerk refused to record it; and who shall now prove this? Schindler’s insinuation that the reference of the case to the Magistracy had been planned as a move by the widow’s advocate to get the case into a more pliant tribunal is made questionable by the circumstances that it was she who insisted upon the noble birth of the Beethovens and Beethoven who gave the claim a quietus by his straightforward and incontestable answer. It remains a mystery, if she spoke the truth when she said that proof of nobility had been demanded at the probate of the will of her husband, how the case ever got into the Landrecht. As a matter of fact, it deserves to be mentioned, however, that, as later events showed, the lower court espoused the cause of Madame van Beethoven with something like the zeal of an advocate.

Schindler’s comments on the effect of the reference of the case to the Civic Magistrates demand a moment’s attention. Schindler says:

It is also certain that Schindler was not as well informed as he ought to have been in the premises and that his memory often left him in the lurch, as we have frequently seen already and shall see again. Not exact knowledge but an amiable bias in favor of his hero speaks out of his recital. It is scarcely conceivable that Beethoven should have cherished the thought that possibly he was of noble birth or that he seriously encouraged such a belief among his exalted friends.

The nephew’s stay at Giannatasio’s was not of long duration and the signs of an imminent disruption of a beautiful and profitable friendship soon showed themselves, though for the nonce amiable relations between Beethoven and the Giannatasio family were continued. Yet Fanny saw her lovely illusions melting away. It had been agreed that Karl should not associate with the other pupils at the institute. Willing, perhaps desirous at first, that such an arrangement should be made, it seems that Beethoven felt his amour propre hurt by it as soon as the first fit of resentment against the lad gave way before one of his tender moods; now there ensued one of the old fits of moroseness, dissatisfaction and suspicion. He wrote to Giannatasio that Karl’s room should be better heated—that he had never had frostbitten hands and feet when living with him;[192] moreover, too much importance was being attached to his act, and the consequences to the delinquent were being carried too far. In her diary under date December 14, Fanny deplores that Beethoven’s moodiness, and weakness for the lad, had taken possession of him again and induced him to believe “the liar” rather than his tried friends; she concludes with the lamentation that it will never be possible to gain Beethoven’s entire confidence; she has grievous forebodings as to the outcome.

[411]

Let the rest of the year’s history be devoted to Beethoven’s creative work. Considering the revival of interest and desire on the part of the composer, the net result, measured by finished products, was not as large as might have been expected. Two explanations for this circumstances may be offered: the first lies in his domestic miseries and the frame of mind in which they kept him for long stretches at a time—that is obvious; the second may be read in his compositions. He was growing more and more prone to reflection, to moody speculation; his mental processes, if not slower than before, were more protracted, and also more profound, and they were occupied with works of tremendous magnitude. The year produced sketches and partial developments of the Sonata in B-flat, the Symphony in D minor and the great Mass in D. The Sonata, so two sketchbooks carefully analyzed by Nottebohm show, was begun in 1817, and occupied much of the composer’s time during the summer of 1818, notes showing that he worked upon it in his walks about Mödling and in the Brühl valley. Notes of an announcement of a sale of carriages and of a house for rent, taken from a Vienna newspaper (probably in some inn), show that his thoughts were on the London visit and another of his frequent changes of residence. In April the Sonata was so far advanced that he could write to Archduke Rudolph that on his name-day (April 17) he had written out the first two movements in a fair copy, but this does not necessarily mean that the pieces had received their definitive shape. Among the sketches for the last movement there is an outline for a pianoforte piece in B-flat which, according to an inscription upon the autograph, was composed on the afternoon of August 14.[193] Plainly he was already at work on the finale before the end of 1818, and there is no reason for questioning Schindler’s correctness when he says that the Sonata was finished late in the fall when he took up the “Missa Solemnis.” Czerny played it in Beethoven’s presence in the spring of 1819, and it was in London ready for the engraver in April of that year.

Nottebohm, believing that the letter in which Beethoven informed the Archduke that he had written out the first two movements on his name-day could not refer to April 17, 1818, placed both incident and letter in the year following.[194] But, as[412] has been said, it does not at all follow from Beethoven’s remark that the two movements were in a finished state;[195] the reference may have gone only to the first elaboration of the sketches. The “latest happening” to the Archduke was, probably, his elevation to the archbishopric of Olmütz, which occurred on June 4, 1819; but this was merely the formal execution of a purpose which had long been known in anticipation. Nottebohm’s contention for the name-day of 1819, is untenable for the reason that on April 17 of that year the Sonata had been so long in London that, as Ries says, it was already engraved when he received a note dated April 16, 1819, giving metronomic indications for all the movements and prefixing the Adagio with its present first measure.[196] This note must have been preceded by the one erroneously dated April 30; erroneously, because it promises the metronome marks; and this letter again by a still earlier one, mentioning the Sonata as ready for publication. This letter, which Ries does not even mention, is as follows:[197]

The letters printed in the “Notizen” ought to be read in connection with this; we give the first and refer the reader to Ries, or the collections, for the others:

The Sonata was sold to Artaria in Vienna for 100 ducats. The publisher sent the proofs to Beethoven on July 24, and an[414]nounced it as “marking a new period in Beethoven’s pianoforte works” in the “Wiener Zeitung” of September 15, 1819. It appeared under the title: “Grosse Sonate für das Hammerklavier Seiner Kais. Königl. Hoheit und Eminenz, dem Durchlauchtigsten Hochwürdigsten Herrn Erzherzog Rudolph von Österreich Cardinal und Erzbischoff von Olmütz, etc., etc., etc., in tiefster Ehrfurcht gewidmet von Ludwig van Beethoven, Op. 106.” Soon after its publication (on October 1st), Beethoven in a jocose letter asked for six copies of the Sonata and six of the Variations on Scottish Songs. Beethoven informed Ries of the publication in a letter printed in the “Notizen” and wanted to send him a copy to aid him in correcting the English edition, which was not ready. The Sonata Op. 106 was, therefore, the chief product of the year 1818. Beethoven told Czerny that it was to be his greatest; and so it is, not only in its dimensions but also in its contents. “The Sonata was composed under distressful circumstances,” said Beethoven in a letter to Ries (April 19, 1819), “for it is hard to write almost for the sake of bread alone, and to this pass I have come.”

Simultaneously with the Sonata, Beethoven was at work on the Ninth Symphony during a large portion of the year, but these labors were suspended when his mind became engrossed with the great Mass which was to be a tribute to his pupil, Archduke Rudolph, about to be invested with eminent ecclesiastical dignities. Not alone the Ninth Symphony, a Tenth also was before his fancy, but with neither of them had Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” been brought into association, though the employment of the human voice in one or the other was already under consideration. Schindler records that he saw a beginning made on the score of the Mass in D “late in the fall of 1818”; how far he had proceeded in the work by the end of the year cannot be determined from the sketches which have been discovered up to the present time. It is safe to assume, however, that the Kyrie was fully sketched and fixed in outline, and, as he worked pretty continuously on the Credo throughout 1819, it seems likely that the Gloria had also been begun in the year immediately preceding. Notes in the Tagebuch and sketchbooks which, to judge by their context, were written during the summer sojourn in Mödling show the trend of Beethoven’s thoughts on religious subjects and may be naturally associated with the Mass. Thus (in the Tagebuch):

Among the sketches for the Sonata in B-flat are memoranda of vocal pieces which came into his mind during his wanderings in the environs of Mödling. Goethe’s “Haidenröslein,” to which his mind several times turned, occupied him again. His spiritual exaltation finds expression in fragments which he notes as “written while walking in the evening between and on the mountains,” among them this:

Gott allein ist unser Herr. Er allein
(God alone is God our Lord. He alone)

The remark made in the letter to Hauschka that he was compelled to do a lot of scribbling (or “smearing,” as he expressed it) for the sake of money in order to procure leisure for great works may be explained by the fact that he was engaged upon the arrangement of folksongs for Thomson, which were published in Thomson’s Vol. VI, as well, possibly, as those contained in the subsequent octavo edition of 1822-24. The pianoforte piece in B-flat, published by Schlesinger in Berlin under the title “Dernière pensée musicale,” of which mention has already been made, was no doubt a potboiler. With the folksongs must be associated the Variations for Pianoforte alone, or Pianoforte and Flute (or Violin), which he wrote in this and the following year and which were published as Op. 105 and 107. The suggestion had come from Birchall; but Beethoven’s demands for an honorarium was thought too large by the English publisher, and though Beethoven modified them, nothing came of the project at the time. On February 21, 1818, Beethoven offered Thomson twelve “over[416]tures” (in the sense of introductions, or preludes, no doubt) for 140 ducats, and twelve Themes and Variations for 100 ducats, both lots for 224 ducats. The Themes and Variations were accepted and published by Thomson. Beethoven composed sixteen Themes and Variations on folksong material in all; six of them were published by Artaria in Vienna (Op. 105) and the other ten by Simrock in Bonn (Op. 107).

Little is to be added to what has been said about the works published in 1818. Thomson’s Vol. V, the settings for which had been made earlier, was published on June 1, Thomson’s announcement in the preface reading: “On the first of June, 1818, was published by George Thomson, Nr. 3, Royal Exchange, Edinburgh, and by T. Preston, 97 Strand, London, the fifth Volume of Select Scottish Melodies with Symphonies and Accompaniments to each Melody for the Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, composed by Haydn and Beethoven.” Four of the settings are by Haydn; the rest by Beethoven. The song “Resignation” was published on March 31, as supplement of the Vienna “Modezeitung.”

End of Volume II

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Probably the Quintet for Pianoforte and Wind-Instruments, Op. 16, published in March, 1801.

[2] “Cäcilia.” IX, p. 219.

[3] The English editor of this biography found trombone parts written out by Beethoven among Mr. Thayer’s posthumous papers; they belonged to the Trio in the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, and Beethoven’s instructions to the copyist where to introduce them in the score plainly showed that they were an afterthought.

[4] It was not the case this time, for the manuscript of this Concerto bears in the composer’s hand the date “1800.”

[5] In a Conversation Book from the year 1825, Holz writes that till then “Christus am Ölberg” had always drawn full houses, but that the court official in charge of musical affairs (Hofmusikgraf) had not allowed further performances to be given.

[6] Anton Kraft was 14½ years old at the time.

[7] The following observation on the sonata by Czerny is also interesting: “In the Sonata written for Bridgetower and dedicated to Kreutzer, Op. 47 (of which the first movement was composed in four days and the other two [?] added from a sonata already completed), the concluding passage

is said to be borrowed from a piece of Kreutzer’s already in print. I had this assurance immediately after the publication of the Beethoven Sonata from a French musician (1805). It would be worth while to investigate the matter. Perhaps therein lies the reason of its dedication.” And further: “Bridgetower was a mulatto and played very extravagantly; when he played the sonata with Beethoven it was laughed at.”

[8] Letters and other documents, some of which were placed in Mr. Thayer’s hands by Samuel Appleby, Esq., relative to Bridgetower, are printed in an appendix to Vol. II of the first German edition of this biography and as foot-notes and otherwise in Vol. III. What is essential in the memoranda and documents can be put into a much smaller compass. The subscription for the concert amounted to 1140 florins and the list was headed by the English envoy. Bridgetower’s father was known in England as the “Abyssinian Prince,” and Mr. Thayer speculates whether the title was genuine or but a sobriquet given to him suggested by Dr. Johnson’s “Rasselas”; but it will appear presently that he was called an “African Prince,” not an Abyssinian; how his father got to Biala in Poland, where Bridgetower was born, or whether his mother was a German or a Pole, remains a mystery which has not yet been cleared up. The first memorandum of information in Mr. Thayer’s collection was in the shape of an excerpt from a communication from London written by Abt Vogler and printed in Bossler’s “Musikalische Correspondenz” on July 7, 1790. Abt Vogler’s letter bears date London, June 6, 1790; in it he said:

“Last Wednesday, June 2nd, I attended a concert here in Hanover Square where two young heroes contested with each other on the violin and all music-lovers and cognoscenti found most agreeable entertainment for three hours. The two played concertos alternately and both won the warmest applause. The quartet, however, which was played by young virtuosi whose combined ages did not reach 40 years, by virtue of a fine, cheerful, witty and yet harmonious performance exceeded all the expectations that experienced players could gratify. The first violin was played by Clement of Vienna, eight and one-half, the second by Bridgetower of Africa, ten years of age.”

The Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV, took the youth into his service as first violinist in the Pavilion at Brighton. The next piece of information which reached Thayer told of Bridgetower’s first concert in Dresden on July 24, 1802. A second concert was given on March 18, 1803, at which a brother of the violinist, who played the violoncello, took part. A letter from Friedrich Lindemann, a member of the Prince of Wales’s orchestra, dated January 14, 1803, contained the information that a letter of Bridgetower’s forwarded to Brighton by a certain “Billy” Cole had been placed in the hands of the Prince, who read it at once, appeared to be highly satisfied, and granted the writer’s request to be permitted to go to Vienna. Thayer did not learn the dates of Bridgetower’s birth or death, but Dr. Riemann in his revision of the second Volume says that he died “between 1840 and 1850.” This is an error.

In the May number for 1908 of “The Musical Times” (London) Mr. F. G. Edwards printed the results of an investigation into Bridgetower’s life, and provided some new and definite information from a collection of letters and documents in the possession of Arthur F. Hill, F.S.A. From this article it appears that Bridgetower was a pupil of Barthélemon, Giornovichi, Thomas Attwood and—as he claimed—Haydn. If he really was a pupil of Haydn, he must, as Mr. Edwards pointed out, have been in the neighborhood of Vienna before he had completed his tenth year. To this the present writer adds that if he had been a pupil of Haydn’s the latter would not have omitted his name in the list of names which he made of the London musicians on his first visit to the English metropolis, for he included “Clement petit,” who was then between ten and eleven years old. (See, “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” by H. E. Krehbiel, p. 77.) He made his first public appearance in Paris at a Concert Spirituel on April 13, 1789. In the announcement of this concert he was described as “Mr. Georges Bridgetower, né aux colonies anglaises, âgé de 9 ans.” (Yet his passport issued by the police authorities, gives Biala in Poland as his birthplace.) A concert for his benefit was given on May 27, 1789, at the Salle du Panthéon. Soon thereafter he crossed the channel and, if his father is to be believed, he played for the first time in England before George III and his court at Windsor Castle. Next he appears at Bath, the “Morning Post” of November 25, 1789, reporting “Amongst those added to the Sunday promenade were the African Prince in the Turkish attire. The son of this African Prince has been celebrated as a very accomplished musician.” The same newspaper, on December 8, a fortnight later, tells of a concert given on the Saturday morning immediately preceding the publication which was “more crowded and splendid than has ever been known at this place, upwards of 550 people being present. Rauzzini was enraptured, and declared that he had never heard such execution before, even from his friend La Motte, who was, he thought, much inferior to this wonderful boy. The father was in the gallery, and so affected by the applause bestowed on his son, that tears of pleasure and gratitude flowed in profusion.”

It would seem as if the modern methods of advertising musical artists is far behind the old in the impudent display of charlantanry. The plain “Georges” of the first Paris concert, the later George Polgreen, in the announcement of his first concert in Bath becomes George Augustus Frederick. Why? The Christian name of the Prince of Wales was George Augustus Frederick. In this announcement he is described as “a youth of Ten Years old, Pupil of the celebrated Haydn.” The newspapers were amiable or gullible, or both.

The lad played a concerto between “the 2d and 3d Acts” of “The Messiah” at a performance of Handel’s oratorio given for the benefit of Rauzzini on Christmas eve of the same year. He gave a concert in Bristol on December 18, 1789, leading the band “with the coolness and spirit of a Cramer to the astonishment and delight of all present,” and on New Year’s day, 1790. Next he went to London, where, at Drury Lane Theatre on February 19, 1790, he played a solo at a performance of “The Messiah.” Referring to the Lenten concerts of that year, Parke says in his “Musical Memoirs”: “Concertos were performed on the oboe by me and on the violin for the first time by Master Bridgetower, son of an African Prince, who was attended by his father habited in the costume of his country.” The concert described by Abt Vogler was under the patronage of the Prince of Wales. At the Handel Commemoration of 1791 in Westminster Abbey, Bridgetower and Hummel, in scarlet coats, sat on either side of Joah Bates at the organ and pulled out the stops for him. He played in the orchestra at the Haydn-Salomon concerts in 1791, at several of the Lenten concerts in the King’s Theatre in 1792, and on May 28 he performed a concerto by Viotti at Mr. Barthélemon’s concert, the announcement stating that “Dr. Haydn will preside at the pianoforte.” (Haydn’s note-book contains no mention of the concert, which would in likelihood have been the case had Bridgetower ever been his pupil.) He was plainly on terms of intimacy with such musicians as Viotti, François Cramer, Attwood, and later of Samuel Wesley, who wrote of him in a tone of enthusiastic appreciation.

In 1802, being then in the Prince of Wales’s band at Brighton, he obtained leave, as Thayer notes, to visit Dresden and take the baths at Teplitz and Carlsbad; eventually, too, as we have seen, to visit Vienna. The passport issued to him in Vienna for his return to London described him as “a musician, native of Poland, aged 24 years, medium height, clean shaven, dark brown hair, brown eyes and straight, rather broad nose.” He seems to have become a resident of London and to have continued in favor with musical and other notables for a considerable space, for Dr. Crotch asks his aid in securing the patronage of the Prince Regent for a concert.

He received the degree of Bachelor of Music, on presentation of the usual exercise, from the University of Cambridge in 1811. There follow some years during which his life remains obscure, but in which he lived on the Continent. He was in Rome in 1825 and 1827; back in London in 1843, when Vincent Novello sent him a letter which he signed “your much obliged old pupil and professional admirer.” John Ella met him in Vienna in 1845, but he was again in London in 1846, and there he died, apparently friendless and in poverty, on February 29, 1860. In the registry of his death, discovered by Mr. Edwards, his age is set down as 78 years; but he must have been eighty if he was nine when he played at the first concert in Paris in 1789. He was born either in 1779 or 1780. He published some pianoforte studies in 1812 under the title “Diatonica Armonica” which, with a few other printed pieces, are to be found in the British Museum. A ballad entitled “Henry,” which was “Sung by Miss Feron and dedicated with permission to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales,” was evidently composed in 1810.

[9] “Hr. Karl v. Beethoven lives auf-der-Wien 26.” “Staats-Schematismus,” 1803, p. 150; and ibid. 1804, p. 154. “Hr. Ludwig van Beethofen, auf-der-Wien 26.”—See “Auskunftsbuch,” 1804, p. 204. “An-der-Wien, No. 26. Bartolomä Zitterbarth, K. K. Prin. Schauspielhaus.”—See “Vollständiges Verzeichniss aller ... der numerirten Häuser, deren Eigenthümer,” etc., etc., Wien, 1804, p. 133.

[10] A letter printed in 1909 by Leopold Schmidt in his collection from the archives of the Simrock firm, confirms the change of lodgings to the theatre and also brother Karl’s activity as correspondent and arranger. In it he offers a grand Sonata for violin, to appear simultaneously in London, Leipsic, Vienna and Bonn, for 30 florins; a grand Symphony for 400 florins. When the “Kreutzer” Sonata was published (it was announced by Träg on May 18, 1805) Karl acknowledged the receipt of a copy in a letter to Simrock, adding that all the other publishers sent six copies of the works printed by them and asking for the remaining five. Simrock took him to task rather sharply for what he considered a piece of presumption, in a letter which he enclosed to Ferdinand Ries with the statement that he might read it if he wanted to. “I bought the Sonata of Louis van Beethoven,” says the indignant publisher, “and in his letter concerning it there is not a word about giving him six copies in addition to the fees—a matter important enough to have been mentioned; I was under the impression that Louis van Beethoven composed his own works; what I am certain of is that I have fully complied with all the conditions of the contract and am indebted to nobody.” In the note to Ries he calls Karl’s conduct “impertinent and deserving of a harsher treatment, for Herr Karl seems to me incorrigible.”

[11] Thayer considered the “first street to the left” to be the Herrengasse. J. Böck (Gnadenau) argued in “Die Musik.” Vol. II, No. 6, that the house in which the “Eroica” was composed was the present Hauptstrasse No. 92 of Döbling and bore the old No. 4 of the Hofzeile. In 1890 the owner of the house and the Männergesangsverein of Döbling placed a tablet on the “Eroica” house, whose occupants “were still in possession of a tradition concerning Beethoven’s occupation of it.” So says Dr. Riemann.

[12] Th. von Frimmel discusses the Beethoven portraits in his “Neue Beethoveniana,” p. 189 et seq., and “Beethoven-Studien,” Vol. II (1905).

[13] A copy of this portrait which belonged to Thayer is now in the possession of Mrs. Jabez Fox, and is presented in photogravure as frontispiece to the present volume.

[14] The publication of a complete edition of his composition frequently occupied the mind of Beethoven. In 1806 Breitkopf and Härtel tried to get all of Beethoven’s works for publication by them; it is likely that similar efforts on the part of Viennese publishers date back as far as 1803. Later the plan plays a rôle in the correspondence with Probst and Simrock. As late as 1824 it was urged by Andreas Streicher. It has already been said that Beethoven at an early date desired to make an arrangement with a publisher by which he might be relieved of anxiety about monetary matters. He wanted to give all his compositions to one publisher, who should pay him a fixed salary.

[15] Nottebohm, “Skizzenbuch, etc., 1803,” p. 56, says “quartet.”

[16] Kreutzer came to Vienna with Bernadotte in 1789.

[17] “Orpheus,” 1841, p. 248.

[18] Allg. Mus. Zeit. XXIV, p. 320.

[19] But Ries says that Beethoven hired these lodgings besides those in the theatre.

[20] See, in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” III, a criticism of “Nelson’s Great Seabattle,” for pianoforte, violin and violoncello by Ferd. Kauer. Years afterward this piece may have been confounded with the Symphony in Dr. Bertolini’s memory. From Otto Jahn’s papers we learn that Dr. Bertolini told him that the first idea of the “Sinfonia eroica” was suggested to Beethoven by Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt (May, 1798); and the rumor of Nelson’s death at the battle of Aboukir (June 22), at which Nelson was wounded in the head, was the cause of the funeral march. Czerny wrote: “According to Beethoven’s long-time friend, Dr. Bertolini, the first idea of the ‘Sinfonia eroica’ was suggested by the death of the English general Abercrombie; hence the naval (not land-military) character of the theme and the entire first movement.” Music of a naval character to celebrate the death of an army officer! Czerny seems to have been at least temporarily weak either in history or logic.

[21] Dr. Schmidt is of opinion that this anecdote was contributed to his journal by Hieronymus Payer, certainly good authority.

[22] “Full moon, July 22,” almanac of 1804.

[23] This honorarium was a share in the receipts.

[24] In the second (German) edition of Thayer’s “Life,” etc., Dr. Riemann amends this statement in the text as follows: These statements of Treitschke’s prove to be inaccurate, inasmuch as it has definitively been determined that Beethoven began work on “Leonore” before Paër’s opera had been produced in Dresden, i. e., October 3, 1804. This is proved by the discovery of sketches for the early numbers of the opera among sketches for the “Eroica” symphony, and is confirmed by Ries. The latter says: “When he composed ‘Leonore’ he had free lodgings for a year in the Wiedener Theatre; but as these opened on the courtyard they were not agreeable to him. He therefore hired, at the same time, quarters in the Rothes Haus on the Alserkaserne.” “Now,” Nottebohm continues, “Beethoven lived in the Theater-an-der-Wien in May, 1803, and later in the Rothes Haus in the spring of 1804.” Consequently he must have worked on the opera before the spring of 1804. Nottebohm assumes that between the abandonment of work on Schikaneder’s text and the beginning of work on “Leonore” there could not be more than a quarter of a year. It is very probable that Beethoven dropped work on Schikaneder’s text when the latter’s activity as director came to an end on February 11, 1804; but it does not follow that he may not already have approached the setting of Bouilly’s text, as translated into German by Sonnleithner, who now undertook the work of administration. At any rate it is an error to assert that the commission to compose the book was not offered to him until the fall of 1804. Indeed, the question is whether or not Beethoven’s occupancy of lodgings in the theatre was interrupted at all. It ought also to be borne in mind that in view of his relations with Baron von Braun and Sonnleithner, Beethoven may have known before the conclusion of the contract that Schikaneder’s direction was to be terminated—reasons enough for believing that there is nothing improbable in the theory that the composer began work on “Leonore” before the end of 1803.

[25] Dr. Riemann here inserts: “If this was not the case the explanation lies in the fact that the attention of Sonnleithner, who had to provide texts for both Beethoven and Cherubini, had previously been directed to the ‘Léonore’ of Bouilly and Gaveaux, and Beethoven had already begun work on it.”

[26] It was not until February 8, 1809, that Paër’s opera was performed in Vienna, long after Beethoven had withdrawn his opera and when Baron von Braun was no longer Intendant. The story to which Ferdinand Hiller gave currency about the production of Paër’s opera and the attendance of Beethoven upon it in company with the composer must be rejected for chronological reasons. (Riemann.)

[27] In September, 1804, Muzio Clementi, who was not only a fine musician but also a clever business man, made an arrangement with Breitkopf and Härtel, by which he secured all the compositions which Beethoven might bring that firm, for England at one-half the honorarium paid to the composer. (See an article by Max Unger in “The Monthly Record,” Nov.-Dec., 1908.)

[28] Nottebohm’s researches (cf. “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 416 et seq.) show that Beethoven sketched all the movements of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56, in 1804; that the beginning of the work on the “Waldstein” Sonata. Op. 53, dates back to 1803, or at the latest the early part of 1804; sketches for Op. 54 are missing, but the three numbers of Op. 57 are so fully represented among the opera sketches that Schindler’s statement that the so-called “Appassionata” Sonata was composed at Count Brunswick’s in 1806 is to be understood as referring only to its definitive working out and the making of a fair copy; the date of the performance of “Leonore” (“Fidelio”), taken in connection with a revision of the air in E major, show that the “Leonore” sketchbook, between which and the book of 1803 there seems to have been another, of which no trace has been found, may have extended to the beginning of 1805.

[29] Again played by him at the opening of Schuppanzigh’s Augarten concerts in the Spring.

[30] See Nottebohm’s study of the sketches for “Fidelio” in “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 409 et seq.; also what Jahn has to say, and the results of Erich Prieger’s labors in connection with the reprint of the original form of the opera.

[31] Jahn, “Gesammelte Schriften,” p. 244.

[32] To the opinions of the reviewers some attention must be given; it does not seem advisable to quote them in extenso. The “Freymüthige” describes the military occupation of Vienna, the officers quartered in the city proper, the private soldiery in the suburbs. At first the theatres were empty, but gradually the French began to visit them and at the time of writing were more numerous in the playhouses than the Austrians. “Fidelio,” the new opera by Beethoven, did not please. It was given a few times only and the house was empty after the first performance. The music did not meet the expectations of the cognoscenti and music-lovers, lacking the passionate expression which is so compelling in Mozart and Cherubini. The music is beautiful in places, but as a whole the opera is far from being a perfect or successful work. The “Zeitung für the Elegante Welt” records that the music is “ineffective and repetitious,” and did not add to the writer’s opinion of Beethoven’s talent for vocal writing formed on hearing his cantata (“Christus am Ölberg”). In its issue of January 8, 1806, the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” says that he had expected something very different, in view of Beethoven’s undisputed talent. Beethoven had often sacrificed beauty to newness and singularity and therefore something new and original had been expected, but these were the qualities which were least noticeable. The music is distinguished neither by invention nor execution. The overture is not comparable with that of “Prometheus.” As a rule there is nothing new in the vocal parts; they are generally too long, the text is ceaselessly repeated and the characterization misses fire, as, for instance, in the duet after the recognition. A canon in the first act and an aria in F [E] are more successful, though the pretty accompaniment with its three horns obbligato and bassoon is somewhat overloaded. The choruses, especially the song of the prisoners, are a failure. Dr. Henry Reeve, of Norwich, England, one of the earliest collaborators on the “Edinburgh Review,” then a young man of 25, was in Vienna at the time of the French invasion and attended the second representation of the opera on November 21st. Sir George Grove sent a copy of a page from his journal to Thayer. He thought the plot a sad mixture of bad action and romantic situations, but the airs, duets and choruses worthy of all praise. The “overtures,” of which there was one for every act, were too artificial to be generally agreeable and an appreciation of their beauties would require frequent hearing. Beethoven sat at the pianoforte and conducted the performance—a little, dark, young-looking man, who wore spectacles.

[33] “Signale für die Musikalische Welt,” June 21, 1866.

[34] Twice only.

[35] In the chapter immediately preceding the present one in the revised German edition of this biography, Dr. Riemann introduces the following: “Through the efforts of Otto Jahn, Gustav Nottebohm and Erich Prieger, it has been made possible measurably to observe the transformations which ‘Fidelio’ underwent between its first production and its publication. The mysterious disappearance (possibly theft) of several scores made it extremely difficult to determine the form in which it was represented—‘Fidelio’ in three acts in 1805, ‘Leonore’ in two acts in 1806, and ‘Fidelio’ in two acts in 1814—the statements touching the omissions and restorations of single numbers being insufficient and not free from contradictions. About 1850, however. Otto Jahn succeeded in putting together a score of the second revision of 1806 from the separate parts; of this he published a vocal score with pianoforte accompaniment towards the close of 1853 through Breitkopf and Härtel. He also gave some hints concerning its variations from the score of 1805. After another half-century Erich Prieger collected the material for a restoration of the work as it was at the first production in 1805, compiled a vocal score and gave it to the public through Breitkopf and Härtel. More than that—he occasioned its performance at the centennial celebration in the Royal Opera House in Berlin.” From Prieger’s preface we take in part the following statements:

“In 1807 Breitkopf and Härtel published three numbers from the second revision of 1806—viz: the Trio in E-flat, ‘Ein Mann ist bald gewonnen’ (afterwards elided), the canon quartet, and the duet ‘Gut, Söhnchen, gut’; not until 1810 was a vocal score of the second version published. It came from the press of Breitkopf and Härtel, but was without overtures and finales. The overture in C, No. 3, which was performed with the opera in 1806, was published by Breitkopf and Härtel, also in 1810; the overture in C, No. 2, with which the representation of 1805 began, edited by Otto Jahn, was published by B. and H. at the end of 1853. (It was performed in Leipsic on January 27 of that year.) Nottebohm notes the performance of the four overtures on January 11, 1840, and a publication in 1842; but this refers to the work as disfigured by cuts. The so-called ‘first’ C major overture found amongst Beethoven’s posthumous effects and published by Haslinger as Op. 138 is in reality the first of the series, the one which, according to Schindler’s report (third edition, I, 127), was tried over once at Prince Lichnowsky’s and put aside as too simple, but purchased at once by Haslinger. It is true that Nottebohm discovered sketches for the overture in company with sketches for the symphony in C minor and, from this fact, argued that the overture had been composed between April, 1807, and December, 1808 (see ‘Beethoveniana,’ pp. 60 et seq.): but in his analysis of the sketchbook of 1803, extending from October, 1802, to April, 1804, he shows the presence of sketches for ‘Leonore’ among such for the ‘Eroica,’ which proves that Beethoven worked on the opera as early as 1803 and that ‘these labors were so far advanced when the performance of Paër’s opera became known (October 3, 1804) that there could be no thought of an abandonment.’ But this demolishes the theory that Op. 138 must have been composed in 1807-08, and we are compelled to believe with Kalischer that Schindler’s account is correct and that Haslinger (Steiner and Co.) had for years been in possession of the first overture to ‘Leonore’ which ‘had been laid aside after a trial in 1805,’ and that in 1823, at a time when Schindler was Beethoven’s confidant, the composer demanded that it be published and Haslinger refused, saying: ‘We bought those manuscripts and paid for them; consequently they are our property, and we can do with them as we will.’ Only one thing remains problematical, and that is, what could have persuaded Haslinger to state that he had found the overture in a packet of dances which he purchased at the sale of Beethoven’s effects. Kalischer calls attention to a letter from Fanny Hensel to Rebekka Dirichlet, written after the music festival at Düsseldorf in 1836 under the direction of Mendelssohn (see ‘Die Familie Mendelssohn,’ II, 9): ‘Oh, Becky! We have got acquainted with an overture to ‘Leonore’; a new piece. It is notorious that it has never been played; it did not please Beethoven and he put it aside. The man had no taste! It is so refined, so interesting, so fascinating that I know few things which can be compared with it. Haslinger has printed a whole edition and will not release it. Perhaps he will do so after this success.’ That seems to have been the case; but Haslinger permitted the work to be played as early as February 7, 1828, at a concert of Bernhard Romberg’s and elsewhere. In his book ‘Beethoven’s Studien im Generalbass, etc.,’ 1832, Seyfried connects this overture with the project, never carried out, of a production of the opera in Prague in 1807. ‘For the theatre in Prague,’ he says, ‘Beethoven wrote a less difficult overture which Haslinger, afterward R. I. Court Music Dealer, acquired at auction’; to which Haslinger replied: ‘This overture is already engraved in score and orchestral parts and, together with other arrangements of it, will yet appear in the course of this year.’ Nottebohm, too, convinced that the sketches for the overture had to be placed in 1807, and doubtless influenced by Seyfried’s statement, accepted the theory that it had been intended for Prague. Seyfried’s statement, however, in view of the involved story of the manuscript in the hands of Haslinger, lacks credibility, and is probably to be charged to the account of Haslinger, who may not have wanted to tell the truth for fear that it might lessen the market value of the work.”—

To this the English editor feels in duty bound to say that Nottebohm’s argument seems to him at all points invulnerable. The autograph of the overture is no longer in existence. The score bought by Haslinger and the parts are copies which Beethoven corrected. On the first violin part the copyist had written “Ouvertura”; Beethoven added “in C, Characteristic Overture.” Under this title the composition was announced by Haslinger in 1828. He did not publish it at the time, but there were many references to it at its performance at Romberg’s concert and at other times as a “Characteristic” overture which had been found among Beethoven’s posthumous papers. Between 1828 and 1832, when Haslinger finally gave the work to the public, somebody made the discovery, which ought to have been made at sight of the manuscript, certainly at the first performance in 1828 (the melody of Florestan’s song occurring in it as one of the themes), that there was a connection between it and “Fidelio.” When Haslinger published it, therefore, he abandoned the title under which he had announced it four years before, and called it: “Overture in C, composed in the year 1805 for the opera ‘Leonore,’ etc.” Every student knows how valuable Nottebohm’s studies of the sketches are in the determination of dates. Composers usually write the overtures to their operas last; indeed, they must do so when utilizing thematic material drawn from the vocal numbers. Mr. Thayer has already called attention to the fact that the vocal numbers were taken up in the order of their occurrence, as Beethoven’s sketches show. They also show that the overture was sketched after all the vocal numbers had been planned. And the overture thus sketched was that known as No. 2. There is no hint of the overture No. 1 in the sketches made in 1804 and the beginning of 1805. Schindler says that Haslinger bought the overture immediately after it had been laid aside by Beethoven. That would have been in 1805. But Haslinger was not in Vienna till 1810. If Steiner and Co., with which firm Haslinger associated himself shortly after his arrival in the Austrian capital and of which the firm of Tobias Haslinger was the successor, was meant by Schindler, it remains a mystery that the publishers, so intimately connected with Beethoven, should have kept an overture under lock and key for 23 years and then have given it out as a work bought at the sale of Beethoven’s effects. That circumstance could only awaken the suspicion that the composer did not think it worthy of his name and fame. If he did so think, he would not have demanded that Haslinger publish it in 1823. Judging by internal evidence the overture certainly seems to be an earlier work than the overtures which the world knows by the titles “Leonore,” Nos. 2 and 3; but contemporary reports (a letter from Vienna printed in the “Journal des Luxus und der Moden,” Weimar, 1808) offer evidence in addition to the testimony of Seyfried that Beethoven did write a new overture for the projected Prague performance. No doubt Beethoven was convinced, soon after the revival in 1806, that the third “Leonore” was too long and too severe a piece for its purpose; he was still of that opinion when he revised the opera for the revival of 1814, as is evidenced by his composing the “Fidelio” overture in E, and, more than that, consenting to the use of the overture to “The Ruins of Athens” at the first performance. Mr. Thayer was quite as capable of judging of the value of the evidence in the case as his editors; he was familiar with Nottebohm’s contention; and in his history of the year 1807 he unhesitatingly sets down the overture known as “Leonore, No. 1” as that designed for Prague. There is no new evidence so far as this writer knows which could justify a reversal of the opinion which has prevailed amongst musical scholars since 1872.

[36] Frimmel, in his “Beethoven” (second edition, 1893 p. 42), tells the story in essentially the same manner on the authority of a grandson of Dr. Weiser, house physician of Prince Lichnowsky; Dr. Weiser’s version had previously been printed by Franz Xaver Bach in the “Wiener Deutsche Zeitung” of August 31, 1873. In both cases the story ends with Beethoven’s sending a letter to Lichnowsky containing this passage: “Prince, what you are you are by accident and birth; what I am I am through myself. There have been and will still be thousands of princes; there is only one Beethoven.” Authentic or not, the expression might well have come from the lips of Beethoven in a fit of anger.

[37] Thomson’s memory was a little at fault when this preface was written; the proposal was made to Beethoven before Haydn’s death.

[38] But on March 27, 1806, Beethoven offered the Concerto to Hoffmeister and Kühnel together with “Christus am Ölberg” for 600 florins. The work, if not completed, must have been well under way early in the year.

[39] See the “Grenzboten,” April 3, 1857.

[40] Young Wilding: “Oh how they [the women] melt at the Gothic names of General Swapinbach, Count Rousoumoffsky, Prince Montecuculi and Marshal Fustinburgh.” (“The Liar.”)

[41] In June, 1906, Dr. Kalischer published two short notes written by Beethoven to Bigot. They are without date. The first explains Beethoven’s departure from Bigot’s house on the occasion of a visit as due to a sudden attack of fever; the second, accompanying some music, reads as follows: “I intended to visit you last night, but recalled in time that you are not at home on Saturdays—and I discover that I must visit you very often or not at all—I do not yet know which shall be my choice, but I almost believe the latter—because by so doing I shall evade all compulsion of having to come to you.”

[42] Here Dr. Riemann has introduced into the text: “The serious interest which Beethoven felt for Therese could be questioned or ignored by the biographers so long as certain letters of Gleichenstein were accepted as belonging to the year 1807, which we must certainly now assign to the spring of 1810, a time when Therese had passed her 18th year and may have been 20 since (if the record of her age at her death is correct) she may have been born in 1791, so that, in view moreover of the Italian origin of her family, it was scarcely apposite to speak of her as ‘half a child’ in 1810.”

[43] Quid licet Jovi non licet bovi; the maxim ought to be repeated every time this familiar story is told. Moreover, those who repeat Beethoven’s remark oftenest always omit a very significant word in it: “Und so erlaube ich sie!” i. e., “When used in the manner illustrated in the measure in question, I allow them.” Beethoven gave no general license.

[44] Seyfried’s memory has here in part played him false.

[45] Another slight mistake. Schindler was in possession of Beethoven’s glasses and they were by no means “very strong.”

[46] One of Beethoven’s puns, the point of which is lost in the translation: “Schönere Noten brächten mich schwerlich aus den Nöthen.”

[47] The genesis of the fourth symphony, in B-flat, Op. 60, is but imperfectly known. Nottebohm’s studies of the sketchbooks, which are so frequently helpful, fail us utterly here. The autograph score bears the inscription, “Sinfonia 4^ta, 1806, L. v. Bthvn.” Having been played in March, 1807, at one of the two subscription concerts at Lobkowitz’s, it was, of course, finished at that time. Beethoven referred to it in his letter to Breitkopf and Härtel from Grätz on September 3, 1806. This is not convincing proof that it was all ready at the time, but certainly that it was well under way. On November 18 he wrote to the same firm that he could not then give them the promised symphony, because a gentleman of quality had purchased its use for six months. It is within the bounds of possibility that this reference was to the symphony in C minor, the sketches for which date back at least to 1805, though it was not completed till March, 1808, at the earliest. It would seem that work on the C minor symphony was laid aside in favor of the fourth, which was either written or sketched in the late summer and fall of 1806, and completed in Vienna in time for the performance in March, 1807.

The symphony is dedicated to Count Oppersdorff, a Silesian nobleman. The castle of the Counts Oppersdorff lies near the town of Ober-Glogau, which in early times was under their rule. Count Franz von Oppersdorff, who died in Berlin in 1818, was a zealous lover of music who maintained in his castle an orchestra which he strove to keep complete in point of numbers by requiring all the officials in his employ to be able to play upon an orchestral instrument. Partly through bonds of blood and marriage, partly through those of friendship, the family of Oppersdorff was related to many of the noble families of Austria—Lobkowitz, Lichnowsky, etc. The castle of Lichnowsky at Grätz, near Troppau, was scarcely a day’s journey from Ober-Glogau. Thus it happened that Prince Lichnowsky, in company with Beethoven, paid a visit to Count Oppersdorff at his castle, on which occasion the orchestra played the Second Symphony. This, as the evidence indicates, was in the fall of 1806.

[48] Dr. Riemann, who introduced this letter in the body of the text of this biography, preceded it with the following observations on the significance of the transaction between Beethoven and Clementi: “This business plays an extraordinarily important rôle in the next three years of Beethoven’s life (until the spring of 1810). The publication of its details has made portions of the account in the first edition of this work wholly untenable, since those portions were based on the assumption that the conclusion of the contract with Clementi had been followed also by the prompt payment of the honorarium (in 1807), whereas, as a matter of fact, the payment was delayed for three years, as has been plainly shown by the correspondence between Clementi and Collard. Clementi, it would seem, spent the eight years following 1802, when he went to St. Petersburg with Field, till 1810, entirely on the Continent (in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Leipsic, Rome) and sojourned several times in Vienna. We know from Ries’s account that he did not come into contact with Beethoven during his extended stay in 1804, but we also know that as early as the fall of 1804, he tried to secure the right of publishing Beethoven’s works in England.”

[49] This is given from Jahn’s copy, to which is appended the following note: “Titles of the 6 works with changed dedications: 3 quartets, the name Rasoumowsky changed in Beethoven’s handwriting to à son Altesse le Prince Charles de Lichnowsky. The name of Frau von Breuning stricken out of the dedication of the arrangement of the Concerto. The Pianoforte Concerto originally dedicated with a German title to Archduke Rudolph, then with a French title à son ami Gleichenstein.” None of these changes was made; the “six works” came out with the dedications originally intended.

[50] This letter (to which allusion has been made in the chapter devoted to Beethoven’s love-affairs) was first printed from the original owned by Count Géza von Brunswick in the “Blätter für Theater und Musik” (No. 34). If the date, “May 11, 1806,” was written by Beethoven and is not an error by a copyist, it provides another instance of the composer’s irresponsibility in dating his letters; for the reference to the contract with Clementi is irrefutable evidence that it was written in 1807. Beethoven’s remark about getting great without the help of a monument reared by Therese von Brunswick is evidently an allusion to the fact that the Countess erected a monument to her father in the grounds of the family-seat in Hungary, and might properly enough be cited, together with the commissioned kiss, as proof of the intimacy between the Brunswicks and Beethoven. Had there been talk of another family monument at Martonvásár? Beethoven’s remark might easily be thus interpreted. The sister whom he had asked to write about the quartets was doubtless Josephine, Countess von Deym. The sportive remark about Schuppanzigh’s marriage with one like him is explained by the fact that the violinist was of Falstaffian proportions.

[51] The Editor of the English edition feels it to be his duty to permit Thayer to reiterate his argument in favor of the year 1807, as that in which the love-letter was written, notwithstanding Dr. Riemann’s curt rejection of it in the German edition. The question is still an open one.

[52] Nottebohm concludes from a study of the sketches that the Symphony in C minor was completed in March, 1808, and the “Pastoral” Symphony later, though the two were sketched during the same period, in part, and there is a remote possibility that the latter, which was written down with unusual speed, was finished as soon as the former. In support of this theory is the circumstance that at the concert on December 22, 1808, at which both were produced, the “Pastoral” was numbered 5 and the C minor 6. Both symphonies were offered to Breitkopf and Härtel in June, 1808, and bought by the firm in September. In the letter offering them Beethoven observed the present numbering. A stipulation in the letter that the symphonies should not be published until six months after June 1, suggests the probability that the right to perform them in private had been sold to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky, to whom in common the works are dedicated.

[53] Query: The same whom in 1812 Count Ferd. Waldstein married?

[54] On June 8, 1808, Beethoven offered the Mass in C to Breitkopf and Härtel, along with the fifth and sixth symphonies and the sonata for pianoforte and violoncello, Op. 69, for 900 florins. He wrote: “I do not like to say anything about my mass or myself, but I believe I have treated the text as it has seldom been treated.” The answer of Breitkopf and Härtel is not of record, but to the offer which it contained, Beethoven replied on July 16 with a letter in which he offered the mass, two symphonies, the sonata for ’cello and two other pianoforte sonatas (or in place of these, “probably” another symphony) for 700 florins. Then he says: “You see that I give more and take less—but that is the limit; you must take the mass, or I cannot give you the other works—for I am considering honor and not profit merely. ‘There is no demand for church music,’ you say, and you are right, if the music comes from mere thorough-bassists, but if you will only have the mass performed once you will see if there will not be music-lovers who will want it.... I will guarantee its success in any event.” In a third letter, without date, which throws light on the well-nigh insuperable difficulties experienced by a famous composer a century or so ago in securing the publication of a large ecclesiastical work, Beethoven says: “To the repeated proposal made by you through Wagener, I reply that I am ready to relieve you of everything concerning the mass—I make you a present of it, you need not pay even the cost of copying, firmly convinced that if you once have it performed in your winter concerts at Leipsic you will surely provide it with a German text and publish it.... The reason for my having wished to bind you to publish this mass is in the first place and chiefly because it is dear to my heart and in spite of the coldness of our age to such works.” A later letter (of date April 5, 1809) to Breitkopf and Härtel shows that the gift of the mass was not accepted. Beethoven changed its dedication several times. On October 5, 1810, he wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel that it was dedicated to Zmeskall; on October 9, 1811, he gives notice that a change in the dedication would have to be made because “the woman is now married and the name must be changed; let the matter rest, therefore, write to me when you will publish it and then the work’s saint will doubtless be found.” Eventually the “saint” proved to be Prince Kinsky.

[55] This letter was doubtless followed by a billet to Gleichenstein reading as follows: “I think—you would better have them pay you 60 florins more than the 1500 or, if you think that it would be consistent with my honesty—the sum of 1600—I leave this wholly to you, however, only honesty and justice must be the polestar which is to guide you.” The transaction to which the letter and note refer must have been the sale of the compositions, the British rights for which had been sold to Clementi. The quartet was probably one of the Rasoumowsky set and the symphony that in B-flat, since the fifth and sixth were not published by the Viennese Bureau but by Breitkopf and Härtel.

[56] Alois Fuchs related that when Beethoven heard from Krumpholz of Napoleon’s victory at Jena he exclaimed: “Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music; I would conquer him yet!”

[57] Nevertheless a letter, of which a copy was placed in the hands of Thayer at a later date, indicates that an oratorio “Die Sündfluth” was written by Hammer-Purgstall, and also that the correspondence between Beethoven and the Orientalist took place in 1809. It is dated “Ash Wednesday,” the year not being mentioned, but refers to the departure of the Persian Ambassador and the fact that H. Schick had acquainted the writer with Beethoven’s desire to have an Indian chorus of a religious character for composition.

[58] Röckel in his letter to Thayer says: “That Beethoven did not abandon the idea of composing another opera was shown by the impatience with which he could scarcely wait for his friend Collin to make an opera book for him of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth.’ At Beethoven’s request, I read the first act and found that it followed the great original closely; unfortunately Collin’s death prevented the completion of the work.”

[59] Schindler here is mistaken. The “walk toward the Kahlenberg” took them northerly into the valley between Heiligenstadt and Nussdorf, where an excessively idealized bust of the composer now marks the “Scene by the Brook.” After thirty years of absence from Vienna, Schindler’s memory had lost the exact topography of these scenes; and a friend to whom he wrote for information upon it mistook the Grinzing brook and valley for the true ones. This explanation of his error was made by Schindler to the present writer very soon after the third edition of his (Schindler’s) book appeared.

[60] “But the note of the yellowhammer, both in England and in Austria, is not an arpeggio—cannot in any way be twisted into one, or represented by one. It is a quick succession of the same note, ending with a longer one, sometimes rising above the preceding note, but more frequently falling. In fact, Schindler himself tells us that it was the origin of the mighty theme which opened the C minor Symphony!”—Grove, “Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies,” p. 211.

[61] Carl Holz related a story to Jahn, which he may very well have heard from Beethoven himself. Jahn’s memorandum of it is in the following words: “Scherzo of the Pastorale. In Heiligenstadt a drunken bassoonist thrown out of the tavern, who then blows the bass notes.”

[62] Some of the information for which Thayer hoped was supplied by his translator, Dr. Deiters, and has been printed as a foot-note in the preceding chapter. Something more appears from several documents which have come to light since Mr. Thayer wrote, but, it must be confessed, it seems more bewildering than illuminative. One of these is a letter which was published in the “Signale” of Leipsic in September, 1880. It is without date, but an allusion to the felon with which Beethoven was afflicted fixes the time of its writing about March, 1808. The significant part of the letter is as follows: “To-day I have little time to write more to you, I only want to inform you that your symphony has long been ready and I will send it to you by the next post—you may retain 50 florins, for the copying, which I will have done for you, will cost that sum at least—in case you do not want the symphony, however, let me know the fact before the next post—in case you accept it, rejoice me as soon as possible with the 300 florins still due me—The last piece in the symphony is with 3 trombones and flautino—not with 3 kettledrums, but will make more noise than 6 kettledrums and, indeed, better noise—I am still under treatment for my poor innocent finger and because of it have not been able to go out for a fortnight—farewell—let me hear something from you soon, dear Count—it goes ill with me.” The document which Dr. Riemann says “obviously” accompanied this letter (though we cannot see why) runs as follows: “Receipt for 500 florins from Count Oppersdorff for a Sinfonie which I have written for him.” This is dated “1807 on the 3rd of February.” There is another receipt for 150 florins dated March 29, 1808, but nothing to show what the money was paid for except a memorandum accompanying it which seems to be partly in the handwriting of Beethoven, partly in that of Oppersdorff, and states that 200 florins had been paid in June, 1807, for the “5 Sinfoni” (the numeral is vague), but that the symphony had not been received. The reference to the trombones in the finale of the symphony proves that it was the fifth that was in question.

On November 1, 1808, Beethoven writes the letter printed above in the body of the text. Why Dr. Riemann should have thought it necessary to consider the first letter of contemporaneous date with the first receipt is not plain, nor why he should surmise that Beethoven had enclosed the receipt in the letter before he received the money which was not paid at the time. To this Editor it seems as if the confused tangle might be explained in part, at least, as follows, though the explanation leaves Beethoven under a suspicion which cannot be dispelled until more is learned of the dealings between him and Count Oppersdorff: On the occasion of Beethoven’s visit to Count Oppersdorff in company with Lichnowsky in the summer or fall of 1806, the Count commissioned the composer to write a symphony for him; Beethoven had begun work on the Fifth Symphony, but laid it aside and during the remainder of his stay at Grätz and in the winter of 1807 wrote the Symphony in B-flat which is dedicated to Count Oppersdorff; for this he received 500 florins on February 3, 1807; he did not send the Count the score, as was the custom, for exclusive use during a fixed period, but turned it over to Lobkowitz for performance, being in urgent need of money; a year later he substituted the Fifth for the Fourth and accepted from Count Oppersdorff 150 florins in March and 200 in June for it without delivering it, this sum being, it may be presumed, a bonus for the larger work, the Count apparently having asked for something employing an unusual apparatus (hence the “3 kettledrums”); this symphony was also withheld in the end, for reasons which are not known, and Oppersdorff had to content himself with the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat originally designed for him.

Dr. Riemann’s comment on the transactions is this: “The letter of November 1, 1808, proves conclusively that Count Oppersdorff could not have received either the C minor or the B-flat Symphony for his use for the customary half year; for the B-flat Symphony was performed by Lobkowitz in March, 1807; it was sold to Clementi and also to the Industriecomptoir in the summer, delivered for publication at the latest in the fall of 1807 when Beethoven had to return the 1500 florins to his brother Johann. The C minor Symphony was performed at the concert in the Theater-an-der-Wien on December 22, 1808, offered to Breitkopf and Härtel as early as June, 1808, sold on September 14, 1808, and published in April, 1809. To all appearances, Count Oppersdorff was compelled to look upon the 350 florins as remuneration for the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat which was published by the Industriecomptoir in March, 1808 (score not until 1821 by Simrock). The name of Count Oppersdorff does not appear again in the life-history of Beethoven.”

[63] Czerny did not know that Beethoven had formed the idea of this work full eight years before. See notice on the Petter sketchbook ante, Chapter II.

[64] The agreement between this memorial and the letters written on the subject (apparently to Gleichenstein—though Thayer was not willing to commit himself on this point) make it most probable that he was the author of the document. Even the sentimental suggestion that the contributors might look upon themselves as co-authors of the great works to come, went out from Beethoven in one of the notes probably sent to Gleichenstein.

[65] On this letter Dr. Riemann comments as follows: “This letter proves conclusively that in the spring of 1809, Beethoven was not yet thinking of a union with Therese Malfatti and that all letters to Gleichenstein containing hints of that nature are of later date. But it may safely be assumed that the settlement of a fixed income upon him together with the receipts from his compositions set Beethoven seriously to thinking of marriage. Although Dr. Malfatti, uncle of the sisters Therese and Anna, had been Beethoven’s house physician since the death of Dr. Schmidt (February 13, 1808), it was not until some time in the course of the year 1809, that Beethoven’s inclination towards Therese gradually developed until it led to a formal proposal of marriage in the spring of 1810.”

[66] “One of these sisters,” writes Thayer, “was sent to him (in 1807-8?), she then being but some twelve years of age. He gave her a good education, and brought her out as a singer, when Hummel fell in love with her, married her and withdrew her from the stage. I asked Röckel if she could by any possibility have been the person with whom Beethoven in 1809-10 had a marriage project? He proved to me that she was not. So that story is put at rest.”

[67] The letter is incorrectly dated “1811” in the Kalischer Collection.

[68] If the estrangement between Beethoven and his brother was of earlier date than this, it would appear as if the siege of Vienna had brought them together again.

[69] In view of the many indications, especially in the letters to Breitkopf and Härtel, that Beethoven did not work with any continuity from the beginning of May to the end of July, this memorandum assumes a different aspect and might serve to prove that the resumption of work on the first movement of the E-flat Concerto was not made till June or July, and that the entire Meinert sketchbook belongs to the period from July to October.

[70] Nor is this longer to be maintained, since Beethoven reports these errors to Breitkopf and Härtel on July 26, 1809, “having had attention drawn to them by a good friend.”

[71] Nottebohm, “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 188 et seq., contends that the pages in the so-called “Pettersches Skizzenbuch” containing the sketches for “Macbeth” and the D major Trio were not originally part of the book and that it dates from 1812. Neverthless, Thayer, who was familiar with the views divergent from his, is entitled to have his argument set forth as he wrote it.

[72] Czerny’s statements must be corrected in a few respects in view of Beethoven’s own statements in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, dated August 21, 1810, as will appear later.

[73] “The statement in the first edition, that Beethoven perhaps spent some time with the Brunswicks in Hungary in the summer of 1809, lacks all evidence” (says Dr. Riemann).

[74] In their efforts in later years to sustain this theatre in brilliant style, “the Counts Raday and Brunswick were ruined.”

[75] See the entire correspondence between Beethoven and Thomson in the appendix to the original edition of this biography.

[76] See Reichardt’s “Vertraute Briefe, geschrieben auf einer Reise nach Wien und den Österreichischen Staaten zu Ende das Jahres 1808 und zu Anfang 1809,” under date November 30, December 5, December 10, December 16, December 25, December 31, 1808, and January 15, March 6, March 27 and No. 37 (without date), 1809.

[77] The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker, connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not unearthed until five years after his death.

[78] This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents, remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth, when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the letter renders it nearly worthless.

[79] From the “Athenæum.” There are a few variations in the letter as printed in the Nuremburg journal and in “Ilius Pamphilius”—“Bettine” is changed to “friend,” “frog” to “fish,” “and on the bastion” is omitted, “fascinated” (gebannt) is altered to “seized” (gepackt). A few other differences are grammatical errors.

It seems proper at this place for the English Editor to remark that Mr. Thayer’s argument in favor of the authenticity of the Bettina letters was printed in the Appendix to Vol. III of the original edition with a concluding foot-note by Dr. Deiters in which he said that he had not been convinced by his author’s painstaking exposition that the letters are genuine. Dr. Riemann in the second German edition prints the letters and the argument in the text, distributing the latter in two chapters and appending a foot-note in which he gives it as his opinion that only the second (that dated February 10, 1811, the autograph of which is in existence) is authentic as a letter, while the other two, though probably based on observations made by Beethoven to Bettina, were put into epistolary shape by her. One of Bettina’s letters to Pückler-Muskau, which tells of Beethoven’s rudeness to Goethe as illustrated in the anecdote which plays so important a rôle in the third letter, would seem to bear out this theory. But it is also likely that Beethoven’s original letters were tricked out by her for literary effect, which would help to explain the disappearance of the autographs of the letters of 1810 and 1812. The second letter, which was printed in facsimile in the Marx-Behncke critical biography of Beethoven (4th ed., 1884), was in possession of Pastor Nathusius in Quedlinburg in 1902.

[80] Clemens Brentano, brother of Bettina and Franz, who had written the text of a cantata on the death of Queen Louise.

[81] Goethe’s answer to this letter is printed in the Weimar Collection of the poet’s correspondence. Vol. XXII, No. 615. It is worth producing here:

Carlsbad, June 25, 1811.

Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents. Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the happiest of her life.

I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont when I return home and am thankful in advance—for I have heard it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us.

[82] This second letter does not seem to have been preserved.

[83] At this point in the biography, Thayer, believing that the broken marriage engagement which had had so powerful an effect on Beethoven’s spirits and intellectual energies in 1810 had been one entered into with Countess Therese Brunswick, introduces the letters to Gleichenstein and makes the following comments, which the English Editor prefers to introduce in a foot-note rather than to put them in the body of the text, as is done in the second German edition, and give them a false interpretation: “The allusion to Gleichenstein’s marriage with the younger of the sisters Malfatti, which took place near the end of May, sufficiently indicates the date of these notes; and the statement made in a former chapter—that Beethoven once offered his hand in marriage to the elder, Therese—accounts satisfactorily for the strong excitement under which they were written; for, that this offer was not made before this time (1811) has been—nor after, soon will be—made clear.

“There is nothing inconsistent with ordinary experience and observation—certainly not with Beethoven’s character as a lover—in placing this occurrence here, a year after the failure of the marriage project. His weakness was not in seeking a wife, for this was wise and prudent, but in the selection of the person; in imagining that the young girl’s admiration for the artist—her respect and regard for the friend of her parents and of Gleichenstein—had with increasing years (she was now nineteen) grown into a warmer feeling; and in misconceiving the attentions, civilities and courtesies extended to him by all the members of the family, as encouragement to a suit, the possibility of which had, probably, never entered the mind of any one of them. As Gleichenstein could not have been ignorant of his friend’s recent love-troubles, one may well conceive the surprise, dismay and perplexity, which this sudden whim must have caused him. It placed him in a dilemma of singular difficulty. How he escaped from it, there are no means of knowing; the affair was, however, so managed, that the rejection of Beethoven’s proposal caused no interruption—or at most a temporary one—in the friendly relations of all the parties immediately concerned. At this distance of time and in the feeble light afforded us, the whole matter has all the appearance of a mere whimsical episode in the composer’s life causing him some fleeting disquiet and mortification; but there is no reason to infer that his disappointment was either very severe or very lasting. If, however, this be a mistaken view, it was all the more fortunate that a previous engagement now forced him to turn his thoughts again to composition and gave him no leisure to play the love-lorn Corydon.”

[84] It is not a violent presumption that the portrait referred to here was that of Count Brunswick’s sister Therese; at least there is strong support for it in a letter published by Marie Lipsius (La Mara) in Breitkopf and Härtel’s “Mittheilungen” for March, 1910 (p. 4102). It is from Beethoven to Therese Brunswick, the original of which has not been found, but which exists in the form of a transcript in a letter written by Therese to her sister Josephine, dated February 2, 1811, now in the possession of Therese’s grandniece, Irene de Gerando-Teleki. The letter reads as follows:

“Through Franz I have also received a souvenir of our noble Beethoven which gave me much joy; I do not mean his sonatas, which are very beautiful, but a little writing which I will immediately copy literally:

“‘Even without prompting, people of the better kind think of each other, this is the case with you and me, dear and honored Therese; I still owe you grateful thanks for your beautiful picture and while accusing myself as your debtor I must at the same time appear before you in the character of a beggar in asking you if perchance you feel the genius of painting stirring within you to duplicate the little hand-drawing which I was unlucky enough to lose. It was an eagle looking into the sun, I cannot forget it; but do not think that I think of myself in such a connection, although it has been ascribed to me, many look upon a heroic play without being in the least like it. Farewell, dear Therese, and think occasionally of your truly revering friend

Beethoven.’”

Therese complied with Beethoven’s request. On February 23 she admonished her sister: “My request to you, dear Josephine, is to reproduce that picture which you alone are able to do; it would not be possible for me to create anything of the kind.” And later she repeats in French: “You have told me nothing about Beethoven’s eagle. May I answer that he shall receive it?” If the picture referred to by Beethoven in his letter to the Countess was in his possession before February 11, 1811, as appears from the Countess’ letter to her sister, how came it to be in the hands of Count Brunswick in July? Here is another unsolved riddle.

[85] This letter, in French with Beethoven’s autograph signature, is preserved in the British Museum. The cantata referred to was to have been a setting of Campbell’s “Battle of the Baltic.” Returning to England from the Continent in 1801, the poet saw the preparations for the Battle of Copenhagen. Campbell was highly esteemed in Germany, especially by Goethe and Freiligrath, the latter of whom imitated his “The Last Man.”

[86] It was four months before the performance took place.

[87] Fare well.

[88] Nottebohm contends that the book extends from the end of 1811 to the beginning of 1813. See “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 289, 290.

[89] Kinsky, 725, 80; Archduke Rudolph, 604, 84; Lobkowitz, 282, 26.

[90] After the large payment for a year and a quarter which Beethoven received from Kinsky on July 31, 1810, the Prince continued to pay 450 florins regularly every quarter but on July 26 (from March to May), 1811, with the memorandum: “450 bank-notes, or 90 florins notes of redemption,” and again the same on August 30 (for June-August), 1811;—i. e., one-fifth of the stipulated sum. It was not until the issuance of the Court Decree of September 13, 1811, that the more favorable rate of the above table was established. It is to be assumed that the payments thereafter were made in accordance with the scale, 185 florins in notes of redemption for 450 florins; the receipts have not been preserved. (See “Beethoven und Prinz Kinsky,” Frimmel’s “II. Beethoven-Jahrbuch,” 1909, by V. Kratochvil.) Lobkowitz’s payments were suspended in September, 1811, for nearly four years, his assumption of the management of the theatres having thrown his financial affairs into disorder and caused the sequestration of his estates.

[91] An untranslatable pun.

[92] Under date of London, 14th February, 1875, Mr. E. Speyer writes: “My father ... on a visit to Vienna in 1832, made the acquaintance of the Abbé Stadler, who communicated to him the following curious fact in relation to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, viz: That the theme of the Trio

was nothing more nor less than a Lower-Austrian Pilgrimage Hymn (Wallfahrtgesang), which the Abbé himself had frequently heard sung.” This correspondent’s father was the W. Speyer, or Speier, whose name so often appears in old volumes of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.”

[93] Here Beethoven was mistaken. Haydn composed accompaniments for a volume of Scottish songs for Napier, a London publisher, without ritornellos or violoncello; he wrote as Beethoven wrote for Thomson—with violoncello part as well as ritornellos. In a later letter (of February 19) the same error is repeated.

[94] Laub and Jahn read “R”; Köchel, “M.” The former might be the publisher Rizzi, the latter Mollo.

[95] “Andreas Baron von Forray, husband of Countess Julie Brunswick, a cousin of Count Franz Brunswick, was a good pianoforte player and great music lover,” says Köchel.

[96] Related by Court Councillor Wittescheck and confirmed by Schindler, who had “this fact” from Maximiliane—then Frau von Plittersdorf.

[97] Dr. Riemann, who believes that Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved” was Countess Therese Brunswick but places the love-letter, or letters, in the year 1812, accounts for this date on the hypothesis that Beethoven reached Teplitz (whence he assumes, of course, that the letters were sent) on the fifth of the month but was registered on the seventh, on which day he was reported from his lodgings.

[98] The following information about Beethoven’s association with Varnhagen in the summer of 1812, and much that is new about Beethoven’s meetings with Goethe, is Dr. Riemann’s contribution to Thayer’s biography. It is based on the correspondence between Varnhagen and Rahel Levin, a study: “Beethoven, Goethe und Varnhagen von Ense mit ungedruckten Briefen an Beethoven, Oliva, Varnhagen, etc.,” by Dr. Emil Jacobs, published in the second December installment of “Die Musik,” 1904, and the Weimar Collection of Goethe’s letters.

[99] Giovanni Battista Polledro (1781-1853), violinist, concertmaster in Dresden in 1814, Court Chapelmaster in Turin in 1824.

[100] By Turkish music is meant military music with drums, cymbals, etc.

[101] Dr. Riemann adds: “perhaps because he had heard that the Sebalds were in Teplitz”; but, as the letter to the Archduke shows, he was already expecting to be ordered back to Teplitz on August 12.

[102] Meaning Rudolph.

[103] The credit of suggesting this crushing argument against the authenticity of the letter belongs to Dr. Deiters.—A.W.T.

[104] An album once owned by Amalie Sebald contains this inscription:

Ludwig van Beethoven
Den Sie, wenn Sie auch wollten,
Doch nicht vergessen sollten.

Teplitz, August 8, 1812.

The couplet might be rudely translated:

Whom, even if you would
Forget, you never should.

“At that date,” says Thayer, Beethoven “was not in Teplitz; the 1812 should doubtless be 1811, and was probably added long afterwards by some one who knew nothing of their meeting the previous year.”

[105] A bass trombone in F, a fourth lower than the tenor trombone.

[106] A slip of memory; the composition, which was used at Beethoven’s funeral, is for 4 trombones.

[107] Beethoven had begun to work industriously on the Eighth Symphony before he went to Teplitz; indeed, he seems to have reported to Breitkopf and Härtel in a letter which has not been preserved, but which was sent from Franzensbrunn, that he had finished two symphonies; for the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of September 2, 1812, says: “L. van Beethoven, who took the cures first at Töplitz, then in Karlsbad and is now in Eger, has ... again composed two new symphonies.” But the autograph bears the inscription: “Linz in October, 1812.”

[108] Correct. Mälzel was then for a few months again in Vienna.

[109] Thayer is writing from the point of view touching Beethoven’s love-affairs which was justified by all the evidence that had been discovered up to the time of his writing and, in fact, up to the time of his death. He thought that the object of the love-letters, which he insisted in placing in 1806, was “in greatest probability” Countess Brunswick; he knew that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti, but plainly thought the passion for her neither profound nor lasting; he was inclined to believe that the broken marriage engagement of 1810, was with the Countess Brunswick and that she dropped out of his life with the failure of his marriage project. The discovery of the letter of February, 1811, from Therese to her sister in which his letter to her about the portrait is quoted, shows Thayer to have been in error in this. In his revision of the chapter before us, Dr. Riemann proceeded from an entirely different point of view. In his belief the love-letters were written in 1812, and to Therese Brunswick. In place of the opening passages which the English Editor has thought proper to retain, he substituted the following:

“The convincing reasons advanced in the preceding chapter for placing the love-letter of July 6-7 in the year 1812, give an entirely different light to the so-called ‘Journal’ in the Fischoff manuscript. If that day, in the beginning of July, 1812, which led to a mutual confession of love forms a climax in Beethoven’s heart-history, which can scarcely be doubted, the entry in the journal makes it sure that the obstacles to a conjugal union which are intimated have not disappeared, but, on the contrary, have proved to be insuperable. The first entry is dated merely 1812, and in likelihood was written at the end of the year. Whether or not the initial which shows a flourish is really an A is a fair question. Those who see more than superficial playfulness in the relations between Beethoven and Amalie Sebald will of course see her name in the letter.” It should be observed here that in the chapter devoted to the year 1812, Dr. Riemann interpolated an extended argument, following the lines of Dr. San-Galli’s brochure, to show that the letters were written in 1812 from Teplitz—Dr. San-Galli says to Amalie Sebald, Dr. Riemann to Countess Brunswick.

[110] Here is Dr. Riemann’s interpretation: “That the reference is to the obstacles standing in the way of a marriage, can scarcely be controverted. Compare with this what Fanny Giannatasio del Rio says on September 16, 1816, in her journal: Five years before he had got acquainted with a person, union with whom would have been to him the greatest happiness of his life. ‘It is still as on the first day, I have not been able to get it out of my mind.’ The words ‘got acquainted five years ago’ apply rather to Amalie Sebald or Bettina von Arnim than to Therese Brunswick; but it should be borne in mind that the young woman is reporting a conversation overheard from some distance between Beethoven and her father.”

[111] This document is signed and sealed by Karl v. Beethoven, R. I. Cashier, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Baron Johann von Pasqualati, Peter von Leben and Fr. Oliva as witnesses.

[112] This date is obviously an error of the copyists. The letter was written to Oliva who, on January 27, 1813, recalling it to Varnhagen’s mind, copies it as “your letter of June 9, of last year.” Moreover, Beethoven was in Prague several days before July 9, 1812.

[113] Thus the title in the first edition; Dr. Riemann changes the word to “The highly esteemed Society” and says that it meant the Association of the Friends of Art and Music for the purpose of giving the charity concerts.

[114] The celebrated dancer and ballet-master.

[115] In a foot-note to Schindler’s account of the performance of the battle-piece, Moscheles, the English translator, says: “I must claim for my friend Meyerbeer the place here assigned to Hummel, who had to act in the cannonade; and this I may the more firmly assert as the cymbals having been intrusted to me, Meyerbeer and I had to play from one and the same part.” At the repetitions of the work on January 2 and 24 ensuing, Hummel directed what may well be called the “battery.” As there were two large drums, one on one side of the stage and one on the other, Hummel no doubt played one and Meyerbeer the other. Being pianists, nothing but instruments of percussion could have been assigned them.

[116] Concerning the revision of “Fidelio” there is much information in the so-called Dessauer sketchbook (now in the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna), which unquestionably belongs in the year 1814. This sketchbook contains first of all the two new finales for the opera. On page 72 is the remark: “For Milder, B-flat above,” which no doubt refers to the measure before the last in Leonore’s aria. Then follow, p. 82, Florestan’s air, p. 90 the melodrama, p. 108 the recitative “Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin,” p. 112 “Un lieto Brindisi,” p. 123 sketches for a symphony “2nd movement Corni,” p. 133 “Sanft wie du lebtest” (the “Elegiac song”), p. 141 “Symphony, 2nd movement,” p. 142 “Sanft wie du lebtest,” again, p. 148 “Ihr weisen Gründer” (Homage Cantata), p. 160 “Europa steht” (“Der glorreiche Augenblick”) with only two or three measures of music, pp. 161-164 again “Ihr weisen Gründer.” Besides these, Nottebohm recognized sketches for the Farewell song for Tuscher (“Die Stunde schlägt”), for the first movement of the Sonata, Op. 90, and to the overtures to “Fidelio” and “Namensfeier.”

[117] Beethoven here, of course, alludes only to the arrears in payments on his annuity of Lobkowitz and Kinsky.

[118] Johann Alois Michalcovics, “Königl. Stadthaltereiagent” in Ofen, had been some years before in the same office with Zmeskall in Vienna, and a member of that jovial musical circle of which young Beethoven was the prominent figure. Like Zmeskall and Brunswick, he was a fine violoncellist.

[119] The Archduke was so troubled with gout in his hands that he had to abandon pianoforte playing.

[120] Schuppanzigh.

[121] At this time Moscheles was a regular listener at the quartet performances at Schuppanzigh’s. Concerning one of them, he writes (“Aus Moscheles’ Leben,” I, p. 18): “I sat beside Spohr, we exchanged opinions about what we heard: Spohr spoke with great heat against Beethoven and his imitators.”

[122] “In April, 1814, Beethoven received from Munich news of the performance of the Battle Symphony in that city by Mälzel, and also a report that the latter had said that he had to recompense himself with this work for a debt of 400 ducats which Beethoven owed him.” Schindler I, 3rd ed., p. 236.

[123] The documents in the controversy between Beethoven and Mälzel alluded to, together with Mr. Thayer’s comments on them, are appended in this foot-note to prevent a too long interruption of the biographical narrative:

Deposition

Of my own volition I had composed a Battle Symphony for Mälzel for his Panharmonica without pay. After he had had it for a while he brought me the score, the engraving of which he had already begun—[Beethoven probably meant that Mälzel had begun the preparation of the cylinder—H.E.K.] and wanted it arranged for full orchestra. I had previously formed the idea of a Battle (Music) which, however, was not applicable to his Panharmonica. We agreed to perform this work and others of mine in a concert for the benefit of the soldiers. Meanwhile I got into the most terrible financial embarrassment. Deserted by the whole world here in Vienna, in expectation of a bill of exchange, etc., Mälzel offered me 50 ducats in gold. I took them and told him that I would give them back to him here, or would let him take the work with him to London in case I did not go with him—in which latter case I would refer him to an English publisher who would pay him these 50 ducats. The Academies were now given. In the meantime Mälzel’s plan and character were developed. Without my consent he printed on the placards that it was his property. Incensed at this he had to have these torn down. Now he printed: “Out of friendship for his journey to London”; to this I consented, because I thought that I was still at liberty to fix the conditions on which I would let him have the work. I remember that I quarrelled violently with him while the notices were printing, but the too short time—I was still writing on the work. In the heat of my inspiration, immersed in my work, I scarcely thought of Mälzel. Immediately after the first Academy in the University Hall, I was told on all hands by trustworthy persons that Mälzel was spreading it broadcast that he had loaned me 400 ducats in gold. I thereupon had the following printed in the newspaper, but the newspaper writers did not print it as Mälzel is befriended with all of them. Immediately after the first Academy I gave back to Mälzel his 50 ducats, telling him that having learned his character here, I would never travel with him, righteously enraged because he had printed on the placards, without my consent, that all the arrangements for the Academy were badly made and his bad patriotic character showed itself in the following expressions—I [unprintable]—if only they will say in London that the public here paid 10 florins; not for the wounded but for this did I do this—and also that I would not let him have the work for London except on conditions concerning which I would let him know. He now asserted that it was a gift of friendship and had this expression printed in the newspaper without asking me about it in the least. Inasmuch as Mälzel is a coarse fellow, entirely without education, or culture, it may easily be imagined how he conducted himself toward me during this period and increased my anger more and more. And who would force a gift of friendship upon such a fellow? I was now offered an opportunity to send the work to the Prince Regent. It was now impossible to give him the work unconditionally. He then came to you and made proposals. He was told on what day to come for his answer; but he did not come, went away and performed the work in Munich. How did he get it? Theft was impossible—Herr Mälzel had a few of the parts at home for a few days and from these he had the whole put together by some musical handicraftsman, and with this he is now trading around in the world. Herr Mälzel promised me hearing machines. To encourage him I composed the Victory Symphony for his Panharmonica. His machines were finally finished, but were useless for me. For this small trouble Herr Mälzel thinks that after I had set the Victory Symphony for grand orchestra and composed the Battle for it, I ought to have him the sole owner of this work. Now, assuming that I really felt under some obligation for the hearing machines, it is cancelled by the fact that he made at least 500 florins convention coin, out of the Battle stolen from me or compiled in a mutilated manner. He has therefore paid himself. He had the audacity to say here that he had the Battle; indeed he showed it in writing to several persons—but I did not believe it, and I was right, inasmuch as the whole was not compiled by me but by another. Moreover, the honor which he credits to himself alone might be a reward. I was not mentioned at all by the Court War Council, and yet everything in the two academies was of my composition. If, as he said, Herr Mälzel delayed his journey to London because of the Battle, it was merely a hoax. Herr Mälzel remained until he had finished his patchwork (?), the first attempts not being successful.

Beethoven, m. p.

II.

Explanation and Appeal to the Musicians of London by Ludwig van Beethoven

Herr Mälzel, who is at present in London, on his way thither performed my Victory Symphony and Wellington’s Battle at Vittoria in Munich, and, according to report, will also give concert performances of it in London as he was also willing to do in Frankfort. This leads me publicly to declare: that I never under any circumstances yielded or gave these works to Herr Mälzel, that nobody possesses a copy of them, and that the only one which I gave out was sent to his Royal Highness, the Prince Regent of England.

The performance of these works on the part of Herrn Mälzel, therefore, is a fraud on the public, inasmuch as according to this explanation he is not in possession of them, or if he is in possession of them an infringement on my rights, as he has obtained them in an illegal manner.

But even in the latter case the public will be deceived, for that which Herr Mälzel will give them to hear under the title: Wellington’s Battle at Vittoria and Victory Symphony, must obviously be a spurious or mutilated work, since he never received anything of these works from me except a single part for a few days.

This suspicion becomes certainty when I add the assurance of musicians of this city whose names I am empowered to mention in case of necessity, that Herr Mälzel said to them on leaving Vienna that he was in possession of the work and showed them parts of it, which, however, as I have already proved, could be nothing else than mutilated and spurious parts.

Whether Herr Mälzel is capable of doing me such an injury?—is answered by the circumstance that he had himself announced as the sole undertaker of my two concerts given here in Vienna for the benefit of the soldiers wounded in the war, at which only works of mine were performed, in the public prints, without an allusion to my name.

I therefore call upon the musical artists of London not to suffer such an injury to me, their colleague, by a performance arranged by Herrn Mälzel of the Battle of Vittoria and the Victory Symphony, and to prevent such an imposition on the London public in the manner set forth.

Vienna, July 25, 1814.

III.

Certificate

We, the undersigned, certify in the interest of truth and can vouch under oath if necessary: that there were several conferences between Herrn Louis van Beethoven and the Court Mechanician, Herrn Mälzel of this city, at the house of the undersigned. Dr. Carl v. Adlersburg, the which had for their subject the musical composition called: “The Battle of Vittoria” and the visit to England; at these, Herr Mälzel made several propositions to Herrn van Beethoven to secure the work aforementioned, or at least the right of first performance for himself. But as Herr Mälzel did not appear at the last meeting arranged for, nothing came of the matter, the propositions made to the former not having been accepted by him.

Vienna, October 20, 1814.

Joh. Freiherr v. Pasqualati,
[L. S.]
K. K. priv. Grosshändler.

Carl Edler von Adlersburg,
Hof-und Gerichts-Advocat
[L. S.]
K. K. Öffentlicher Notar.

The so-called “Deposition” is, says Thayer, in truth, nothing more than an ex-parte statement prepared for the use of his lawyer by a very angry man, in whom a tendency to suspicion and jealousy had strengthened with advancing years and with the increase of an incurable infirmity. Mälzel’s contra-statement to his lawyer is lost. He had no young disciple planning with zeal to preserve it and give it, with his version of the story, to posterity.

The Merits of Mälzel’s Case

No one, who is ignorant of Schindler’s honestly meant, but partisan representations, or who, knowing them, can disabuse his mind of any prejudgment thence arising, can read Beethoven’s statement without misgivings; all the more, if the facts proved by Moscheles and Stein—tacitly admitted, though utterly suppressed, in the document—are known to him. Nor will he be convinced by all the force of the harsh language of denunciation, that Mälzel did not act honestly and in good faith, when he called the “Victory” his property.

There is nothing in the first part of the statement that requires comment; though in passing it may be observed, that the pathos of “deserted by the whole world here in Vienna” would be increased if one could forget the Archduke, the Brentanos, the Streichers, Breitkopf and Härtel, Zmeskall, and others. It must be borne in mind (in Beethoven’s favor) that the paper was written several months after the events of which it speaks; that it was drawn up at a time when its writer was excessively busy; that it bears all the marks of haste and want of reflection; that it was obviously intended for his lawyer’s eye alone; that there is evident confusion of memory as to times and events; and that—be it repeated—it is the ex-parte statement of an angry man. Take the “400 ducats in gold”; here Beethoven’s memory must have played him false, certainly as to the time, probably as to the substance of what he heard from the “trustworthy persons.” Mälzel could have had no possible motive to utter so glaring a falsehood; but every motive not to do so. A few weeks later, he might and very probably did assert, that the damages to him arising from the sacrifice of the “Victory” as a piece for his Panharmonicon, from the expense of his prolonged stay in Vienna, from the loss of the holiday season in Munich, from the time, study and labor spent in experiments on Beethoven’s ear-trumpets, and from his exclusion from all share in these profitable concerts, which he alone had made possible—that these damages were not less than 400 ducats. Nor does such an estimate appear to be a gross exaggeration. “I therefore had the following printed in the newspaper,” continues Beethoven. If the passage which follows be what he desired to have printed, the reasons why the editors refused are sufficiently obvious; if they had cherished no regard for Mälzel and had believed him in the wrong, they must have suppressed such a communication for Beethoven’s own sake.

The character of Mälzel—drawn in a few dark lines by his opponent—has no bearing on the real point at issue; it may, however, be observed as remarkable, that Beethoven alone made the discovery, and this not until—after some years of close intimacy and friendship—he had quarrelled with him. There are not many, who having so sagaciously planted and seen the harvest gathered in by another—who, smarting under the disappointment, and irritated by the loss of so much time, pains and labor—would sit down quietly, exhibit Job’s patience, and refrain from all expressions of feeling not suited to a lady’s boudoir; nor is it to be supposed that Mälzel acted this Christian part; but then Beethoven was hardly the man to cast the first stone at the sinner.

The sudden resolution to send the “Wellington’s Victory” to the Prince Regent of England, was obviously part and parcel of the proceedings against Mälzel, the object being to defeat there any production of the work by him. Beethoven himself was the only loser by it. The prince never said “thank you” for it.

In the argument against the correctness of Mälzel’s copy of the work, Beethoven is, to say the least, unfortunate. His opponent may have had, from him, only single parts (in the second paper it stands “a single part”!); but the circumstances were such that Mälzel could have had no difficulty in obtaining temporary use of most if not all the parts, and there were plenty of “musical handicraftsmen” amply capable, after so many rehearsals and public performances, of producing a copy in the main correct.

It is painful to one who loves and reveres the memory of Beethoven, to peruse the closing passages of this document; it is, fortunately, not necessary to comment upon their character. It was not necessary for Beethoven to speak of Mälzel’s share in the composition of the work, in the first of these papers; the opposing lawyer would attend to that; but was it just and ingenuous to suppress it entirely in the appeal to the London musicians? Schindler asserts that this appeal prevented Mälzel from producing it. It could have had no such effect. The simple truth is, that in those days for a stranger like Mälzel to undertake orchestral concerts in London would have been madness. The new Philharmonic Society, composed of all the best resident musicians, had hardly achieved an assured existence.

The third paper is testimony to a single fact and is so impartially drawn, so skilfully worded, as not to afford a point for or against either of the parties. Schindler closes his history of the affair thus: “The legal proceedings in Vienna were without result, however, the defendant being far away and his representatives knowing how to protract the case unduly, whereby the plaintiff was subjected to considerable expense and ever new annoyances. For this reason our master refrained from prosecuting the case further, since meanwhile the facts had become widely known and had frightened the false friend from making new attempts. The court costs were divided evenly by the litigants. Mälzel never returned to Vienna, but at a later period appealed in a letter to the friend whom he had swindled when he thought that he needed his recommendation for the metronome. This letter, dated Paris, April 19, 1818, is here. In it he represents to Beethoven that he was at work for him upon a hearing machine for use in conducting; he even invites him to accompany him on a journey to England. The master expressed his satisfaction with the metronome to the mechanician; but he never heard more concerning the machines.”

Now Schindler’s own account of the first two occasions when he spoke with Beethoven, copied into the text, partly with a view to this, shows that he could have no personal knowledge of the Mälzel affair, except its issue; and an examination of his pages proves further, that his account of it is but a paraphrase of Beethoven’s statement. His own words, written in a Conversation Book, demonstrate that the greater portion of the above citation is nonsense; for those words inform us that Mälzel returned to Vienna in the autumn of 1817; that, then and there, peace was made between the parties, and the old friendship restored; and that thereupon they passed a jovial evening together in the “Kamehl,” where Schindler himself sang soprano in the “Ta, ta, ta,” canon to the bass of Mälzel! What is the historic value of a narrative so made up and ending with such an astounding lapse of memory?

Mälzel spent his last years mostly in Philadelphia and other American cities. A few men of advanced years are still living there, unless recently passed away—(Thayer is writing in the eighth decade of the nineteenth century)—who retain an affectionate and respectful memory of him as a gentleman and man of culture; they will rejoice in this, at the least, partial vindication of their old friend. Candor and justice compel the painful admission that Beethoven’s course with Mälzel is a blot—one of the few—upon his character, which no amount of misrepresentation of the facts can wholly efface; whoever can convince himself that the composer’s conduct was legally and technically just and right, must still feel that it was neither noble nor generous.

Mälzel died suddenly on July 21, 1838, on an American brig, while on a voyage between the United States and the West Indies.

[124] Eselshaut—“Ass’s Skin.”—A fairy play of that name with music by Hummel was performed on March 10, 1814, in the Theater-an-der-Wien.

[125] Dr. Leopold Sonnleithner, in the “Recensionen” of Vienna (1861. p. 592), corrects a mistake in an obituary notice of Chapelmaster Gläser with the remark: “I can very well remember that the opera (‘Fidelio’) was rehearsed and conducted by Josef Weigl.” Dr. Sonnleithner’s authority is justly so decisive in all matters pertaining to the musical annals of Vienna, and even the slightest errors are so very rare in his writings, that if one occurs it must be corrected upon unimpeachable authority, to prevent its passing into history. Now, in the manuscript text-book above cited, is written below the list of properties: “Herr Umlauf, conducts”; and near the end of the manuscript overture to “Fidelio” stands in Beethoven’s hand: “Indicate to Umlauf where the trombones enter.” Treitschke is thus so fully confirmed as to leave no doubt that in this instance Dr. Sonnleithner’s memory played him false.

[126] Beethoven’s play on words cannot be reproduced in translation.

[127] He had forgotten, evidently, that he no longer lived in the fourth storey.

[128] It should be 1808.

[129] Probably on account of his deafness; for Moscheles adds: “I had seen Artaria speaking close to his ear.”

[130] Can there be any doubt now that Beethoven took Bettina to one of the rehearsals?

[131] In August Schmidt’s “Musikalisches Taschenbuch, Orpheus,” for 1841.

[132] Judging from the internal evidence this letter is of date, July 10. On Saturday, July 2, “Coriolan” was given, and Beethoven may well have been present. The note was written on a Sunday. July 10 was a Sunday.

[133] Seyfried had long been accustomed to write for four horns. Speaking of his own compositions in 1806, he says: “Moreover I wrote ... for my excellent horn-players several divertimenti for four obbligati French horns.”

[134] Dr. Riemann opines that the confusion of opinion concerning the air sprang from the erroneous statement of the reporter of the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” that the new air of the benefit performance was accompanied by four horns; and that the error was pardonable, inasmuch as the three horns actually used are supplemented by a fourth obbligato part for the bassoon. Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” pp. 302-306), is of the opinion that Beethoven did not compose the scena anew for the benefit performance of 1814. But what shall we say to Beethoven’s announcement: “For this performance two new pieces have been added”?

[135] Another untranslatable play on words: “Diese Einnahme ist wohl mehr eine Ausnahme,” etc.

[136] June 23rd, 1860, in Salzburg.

[137] Received July 4, 1859. The venerable man was then eighty-seven years of age.

[138] The letters written by Beethoven to Dr. Kanka, Archduke Rudolph and Baron Pasqualati, relative to this subject, are printed in full in the German editions of this biography: Appendix VIII to Vol. III in the first edition, Appendix III to Vol. III in the second. As they contribute nothing to the facts in the controversy with Prince Kinsky’s heirs, the English Editor felt himself justified in omitting them here with this direction to the curious student where they may be found.

[139] See the Laybach Circular of May, 1821.

[140] See Nottebohm’s “Beethoveniana,” Chap. XIV.

[141] Since this was written, Herr Nottebohm has kindly communicated a supplementary article on this overture containing portions of newly discovered sketches with the remark by Beethoven: “Overture for any occasion—or for concert use” and closing thus: “The last sketches were written about March, 1815.” “This seems a contradiction of the date given at the beginning of the autograph (October 1, 1814). This contradiction can be explained. Beethoven evidently noted the date when he began writing out the score, but interrupted the work (because the overture was not performed on the name-day of the Emperor?) and did not take it up again until several months had passed, when the sketches and hints for passages which occur later may have originated.” Certainly this is possible; but the different dates assigned to the Petter sketchbook (1809 in this work, 1812 in the “Beethoveniana”) necessarily lead to an irreconcilable divergence of opinion. A studious reconsideration of the subject ends in the conviction that the historic evidence, as it now stands, renders unnecessary any alterations in the text.

[142] Meyerbeer.

[143] That Beethoven transcribed the march in the Sonata, Op. 26, for orchestra is confirmed by the following letter of Chapelmaster Ad. Müller (père) written to the author in answer to a note of inquiry:

“Highly respected Sir!

“To your valued letter I have to make reply as follows: I certainly have in my autograph collection the autograph of the orchestral score of the funeral march contained in the great Sonata for Pianoforte, Op. 26: The score consists of six sheets and twelve pages—written throughout in Beethoven’s hand. On the 1st, 8th and 12th pages there are marginal notes for the copyist.

“The piece is orchestrated for 2 flutes, 2 clarinets in C, 2 horns in D, 2 horns in E, to which are added four staves for instruments which are not named, probably for trumpets and trombones. [To judge by the setting rather for the string quartet.]

“I received this score of the celebrated master from the art and music dealer Tobias Haslinger in the year 1829-30 with the remark, here faithfully reported, that he gave me the manuscript with pleasure as a souvenir, inasmuch as he would by no means print or publish the composition in this form. This score therefore is unique! The piece is in B minor....

“Your ever ready
“Adolph Müller.”

Together with the other music to “Leonore Prohaska” the march is printed in the Complete Edition of Breitkopf and Härtel, Series 25, No. 272.

[144] The circumstances connected with the last postponement of this concert and the onerous conditions which Count Palffy sought to impose upon Beethoven are interestingly told by Dr. Frimmel in his “Beethoven-Studien, Vol. II,” p. 41 et seq.

[145] In Jahn’s notices these sums are doubled. This audience is doubtless the one referred to by Schindler, as being proposed by the Empress, or perhaps was a consequence of that one.

[146] “Fidelio” had its first performance in Prague on November 21, 1814. Liebich was the director of the theatre, and C. M. von Weber chapelmaster.

[147] it was Smart, who also made Beethoven’s Mass in C known in England. On April 3rd, 1816, the “Kyrie” as a “First Hymn” with an English text by Arnold, was on the programme; March 17, 1817, the “Second Hymn,” and at last the complete work.

[148] German: Stein = English: stone.

[149] No. 3, Op. 90; No. 4, “Tremate, empj, tremate,” Op. 116; No. 8, Op. 97; No. 9, Op. 96; No. 10, “King Stephen,” Op. 117; No. 11, “Namensfeier,” Op. 115; No. 12, “Ruins of Athens,” Op. 113.

[150] Dr. Riemann interprets Beethoven’s “B. M.” as standing for “Bacchus Motive.”

[151] The conversations with Neate took place in January, 1861. The writer was indebted to the late Henry F. Chorley, for the pecuniary means of making his very valuable researches in England, and one of the bitter consequences of the unavoidable delay in writing this work, is, that Chorley can never read it.—A. W. T.

[152] It is sufficient to say here, that instead of composing new ones as expected, he gave Neate the overtures to “King Stephen,” the “Ruins of Athens” and the so-called “Namensfeier,” and received for them 75 guineas.

[153] Jahn related this incident to the writer, with much humor, in the Autumn of 1860. In 1867, he allowed Dr. Alfred Schöne to edit the correspondence for publication by Breitkopf and Härtel.

[154] J. B. Cramer was associated with John Addison under the style of Cramer and Co.

[155] Mr. Birchall’s successor was C. Lonsdale, who had been his principal assistant and who had conducted the correspondence with Beethoven; and the business is at this writing in the hands of Mr. Lonsdale’s son Robert. From both these gentlemen, the author received great kindness and valuable aid in his English researches. The letter in the text was not in their possession, but has since been communicated to this work by Mr. S. Ganz. This excepted, the correspondence may be read in the “Jahrbücher für Musikalische Wissenschaft,” 1^ten Band, by Breitkopf and Härtel. 1863.

As our reading of the English paper mentioned in the text differs from that in the “Jahrbücher” it is here subjoined.

“Mr. Beethoven send word to Mr. Birchall that it is severall days past that he has sent for London, Wellington’s Battel Simphonie and that Mr. B. may send for it at Thomas Coutts. Mr. Beethoven wish Mr. Bl. would make ingrave the sayd Simphonie so soon as possible and send him word in time the day it will be published, that he may prevent in time the publisher at Vienna.

“To regard the 3 Sonatas which Mr. B. shall receive afterwards there is not wanted such a gt. hurry and Mr. B[eethoven] will take the liberty to fixe the day when the are to be published. Mr. B[eethoven] sayd tha Mr. Solomon has a good many tings to say concerning the Simphonie in (?) Mr. B[eethoven] wish for an answer so soon as possible concerning the days of publication.”

The letter here queried, does not belong to the English Alphabet, but the “Battle and Victory Symphony” is meant.

[156] This was an error, as Karl was baptized on April 8, 1774.

[157] A letter, preserved in the Beethoven House Museum at Bonn (Kalischer, “Sämmtliche Briefe” II, 310), to Madame Antonie von Brentano mentions that Karl had been pensioned, but this may have been written after an application had been made and before it had been refused. The letter says: “Among the individuals (whose number is infinite) who are suffering, is my brother who was obliged to have himself pensioned because of his ill health, conditions are very hard just now, I do all that is possible, but that is not much.” He then offers Brentano a pipe-bowl belonging to his brother, who thinks that it might be sold for 10 louis d’or, remarking: “he needs a great deal, is obliged to keep a horse and carriage in order to live (for he is as desirous to keep his life as I am willing to lose mine).”

[158] “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” by Dr. Gerhard von Breuning. Vienna, Rosner, 1874. Dr. Breuning prints the note of reconciliation (which has appeared in this work) as subsequent to this affair. We are unable to agree with him.

[159] Dr. Gerhard von Breuning places this incident in 1804, Thayer in 1815. The cause of the quarrel which was followed by a reconciliation in 1804, has been explained.

[160] Saint Peter was a rock! Bernardus was a Saint!

[161] Nottebohm’s study of the sketchbooks used by Beethoven in 1815 (See “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 314-20) discloses that he worked upon sketches for works which were never finished—a Symphony in B minor, Pianoforte Concerto in D, and several Fugues, besides experimenting with the opera “Bacchus.” There are also sketches for compositions written in 1816, such as the song-cycle “An die ferne Geliebte” and the Sonata, Op. 101.

[162] The German original was acquired in 1913 at a sale of autographs by Mr. Richard Aldrich.

[163] Also in score.

[164] Published in 1909 by Leopold Schmidt in his “Beethoven Briefe an N. Simrock, etc.”

[165] Birchall.

[166] Salomon.

[167] The Prince Regent had never ordered this work nor had his permission to present and dedicate it to him been asked before sending it. Beethoven resented the fact that he had not been recompensed until the day of his death.

[168] Dr. Riemann, holding to his theory that the love-letter to the “Immortal Beloved” was written on July 6, 1812, changes Thayer’s concluding words to make them read: “That this cycle, which advances Beethoven so greatly as a song composer, was directed to the addressee of the love-letter of July 6, 1812, can be accepted as certain.”

[169] To the Quartet in F minor, Op. 95.

[170] This composition, solo and chorus, E-flat major, 4-4, forty-three measures long, had for a text only these words:

“Long life to our dear Prince
May he live!
May noble deeds be his loveliest calling,
Then shall he not forgo the loveliest reward.
May he live, etc.”

A copy of this, received many years ago from Dr. Edmund Schebek, is inscribed “Evening of April 12, 1822, before the birthday of His Ser. Prince Ferdinand Lobkowitz.” This young Prince completed his 25th year on April 13, 1822. It is clear, therefore, that this inscription refers to a performance, not to the composition of the little work.

[171] The anecdote told by Mendelssohn of Beethoven’s playing to relieve the sorrow of the Baroness has a complement in a document found among the posthumous papers of Thayer. On December 25, 1864, Thayer received a poem from Frau von Arneth (Antonie Adamberger) written by Gustav Frank, a production of no literary value but based upon an incident thus told in a note attached to it: After the burial of Baroness von Ertmann’s only child, the grief-stricken woman was unable to find the consolation which comes with tears. Greatly concerned thereat, her husband, General von Ertmann, took her to Beethoven, who without a word sat down to the pianoforte and played until the Baroness’s sobs testified that relief had come. Thayer endorsed on the copy of the poem which he made: “It is a fact in Beethoven’s and Frau Dorothea v. Ertmann’s intercourse.”

[172] Mr. Fry was for many years editorial writer and music critic of the “New York Tribune,” with which Mr. Thayer was also associated for a time.

[173] Since Thayer wrote, all these letters have been published in German as well as in English translation and may easily be consulted by the student.

[174] Dr. Herman Deiters, who wrote the concluding two volumes of Thayer’s biography, making use of the material and framework left by the author, devotes twenty-nine pages in the appendix of the fourth volume to Fanny Giannatasio’s notes of Beethoven’s intercourse with her father’s family and her sentiments concerning the composer. These notes, together with a number of letters, had been used by Edward Duboc (Robert Waldmüller) in the preparation of two articles which were published in the “Grenzboten” of April 3 and 10, 1857. A complete transcript of the diary was found by the editor of the present edition of this biography among Thayer’s posthumous papers and forwarded to Dr. Deiters. The circumstances under which the transcript was made deserve to be set forth here. When Thayer took up his permanent abode in Europe for the purpose of prosecuting his researches concerning Beethoven, the manuscript was owned by Frau Pessiak, granddaughter of Kajetan Giannatasio del Rio, daughter of Fanny’s sister Anna, familiarly known as “Nanni.” Through the mediation of Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, Thayer had come into possession of a copy of such passages of the diary as referred to Beethoven. On his first visit to Vienna, Thayer called upon Frau Pessiak, then a prominent teacher of singing in the Austrian capital, to thank her for her kind help. The acquaintance thus made, quickly ripened into a cordial friendship, and when Thayer was about to return to his home, the lady, to his surprise and delight, placed the manuscript into his hands and gave him permission to carry it with him to Trieste for examination at leisure. One reason for the act was, if possible, to obtain a rectification of what she considered a grievous wrong done to her aunt’s memory by Ludwig Nohl. This writer had, some time before, importuned her for the privilege of reading the diary and using it in the preparation of his biography of Beethoven. After many protestations, due to the fact that a number of letters from Beethoven to her grandfather had mysteriously disappeared from the family archives (Thayer found some of them later in the possession of a music publishing house in London), Frau Pessiak yielded to Nohl’s requests. Shortly after the manuscript had been returned to her, there appeared a booklet entitled: “Eine stille Liebe zu Beethoven. Nach dem Tagebuch einer jungen Dame. Von Ludwig Nohl.” (Second edition, Leipsic, 1902), in which excerpts, wrenched from their context, were made the foundation of a story of a romantic, but unconfessed and unrequited passion for the composer on the part of the unnamed author of the diary. Frau Pessiak felt deeply wounded that such unauthorized and unpardonable use had been made of an effusion designed only for the eyes of its writer, and wanted now to learn whether or not the deduction was consistent with the utterances of the diary as a whole. Thayer, after a study of the manuscript and all the circumstances connected with the relations between Beethoven and the family of the writer, thought not; and his conclusion, evidently, was that of Dr. Deiters also, who printed copious extracts compassing all the references to Beethoven found in the manuscript.

A Young Woman’s Sentimental Journal

In explanation of the sentimental tinge of some of the young woman’s utterances, which taken alone might easily be interpreted as secret confessions of a deeper feeling than mere admiration, friendship and sympathy, it is urged that Fanny Giannatasio del Rio began her diary, which is not a continuous record, on January 1, 1812, when she was twenty-two years old; she, therefore, was twenty-six when Beethoven became a frequent visitor at her father’s house. She was very musical (so much so that Beethoven did not hesitate to play four-hand pieces with her), and had been an admirer of his music before she met him. Two affairs of the heart, both unhappy in their outcome—(her first lover proved unworthy, her second was an invalid and like an honorable man unwilling to burden her life with his sufferings; he died in 1815)—had left her inclined to the melancholy mood, with a hunger for affection and an almost passionate longing to extend sympathy to those who seemed to her to be in need of care and love. Her outpourings frequently touch on the border of extravagant sentimentality; but calm reflection generally intervenes with its wholesome clog. So that, on the whole, they can be, perhaps ought to be, interpreted as nothing more than a disclosure of a warm interest in the great composer on the part of a generous-souled young woman filled with the literary habits of the period mixed with an overwhelming admiration for his genius and nobility of character and an impulsive desire to bring some cheer into his lonely life. Moreover, after the withdrawal of the nephew from the institute and the cessation of intercourse between Beethoven and the Giannatasio family, his name disappears from the diary, though it was continued till 1824.

The friendship which existed for years between Thayer and Frau Pessiak is attested in two letters from the latter to the former in which the lady’s recollections of her grandparents and their intercourse with Beethoven are set forth. Some of the anecdotes contained in these letters deserve record here. Once, Frau Pessiak relates, there arose a serious disagreement between her grandfather and Beethoven concerning the latter’s nephew, which resulted in the boy’s dismissal from the institute. Thereupon Beethoven wrote to Anna Giannatasio begging her to intercede with her father and get his consent to Karl’s return, but at the same time to keep the fact of the writing secret and to burn the letter as soon as it had been read. The lady respected both wishes, the latter dictated by the composer’s pride, but she burned the letter with a heavy heart. “My mother’s admiration for Beethoven,” adds Frau Pessiak, “was like that of my aunt, so that his wish was to her a command.” While at a picnic party in the environs of Vienna, Beethoven stood beside the writer’s mother on the most beautiful observation point. Suddenly he took out his note-book, tore out a leaf, drew a staff upon it, jotted down the melody of the song, “Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär” (Treitschke’s “Ruf vom Berge,” No. 219, in Thayer’s “Chronological Catalogue”) and handed it to his companion with the words: “Now, Miss Nanni, do you write the bass for it.” “My mother cherished the leaf as a precious souvenir for a long time, then gave it to me because, as she said, I was the most musical one of the family, and would best appreciate the treasure. I have it preserved under a glass and frame.” One day Beethoven brought with him the song from “Faust” beginning: “Es war einmal ein König, der hatt’ einen grossen Floh” (“Once upon a time there was a king who had a large flea”). “Aunt and mother had to try it.” Then Beethoven took his seat at the pianoforte and played the conclusion in which he turned his thumb and with it struck two adjoining keys at the same time, laughed and said: “That’s the way to kill him!” On the occasion of Anna Giannatasio’s birthday, Beethoven came and offered a musical congratulation. Approaching her he sang with great solemnity the melody of a canon to the words: “Above all may you want happiness and health, too,—”. Then he stopped and the lady protested that the wish that she might fail in happiness and health was scarcely a kind one; whereupon Beethoven laughed and finished the sentiment with “at no time.” Here is the canon:

Glück fehl Dir vor allem, Gesundheit auch niemalen!

[175] This letter is dated “February 23, 1816”—another obvious blunder of the kind to which Beethoven was prone; it should of course be 1817. In the letter to Steiner last referred to he asks the publisher to keep the dedication a secret, as he intended it to be a surprise. Thayer accepted the date and explained the discrepancy with the suggestion that Beethoven had forwarded a manuscript copy to the baroness. The theory is no longer tenable. The lady could scarcely be surprised by a printed copy if she already had the Sonata in manuscript and also the letter which so plainly shows that the Sonata was written for her. It is also plain that Schindler was in error when he stated that the Sonata had been played in public in February, 1816. According to Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 344), the autograph of the Sonata bears the inscription: “Neue Sonata für Ham....., 1816, im Monath November.” Its forthcoming appearance in print was announced in Kanne’s “Musik-Zeitung” under date January 23, 1817.

[176] The principal contributions to Beethoven’s biography from Czerny’s pen are in Schmidt’s “Wiener Allg. Mus. Zeitung,” 1845, No. 113; Cock’s “Musical Miscellany,” London, 1852; and manuscript notes in Jahn’s papers.

[177] It is Thayer who is speaking here.

[178] “Mödling,” said Potter in narrating the incidents of his association with Beethoven to Mr. Thayer in 1861; but Potter was nearly 69 years old at the time and his memory of the suburbs of Vienna may have been a trifle faulty. Beethoven was in Mödling in 1818, but it has not been learned that he went thither after his sojourn in Heiligenstadt and Nussdorf in 1817. At any rate, he was in Nussdorf till late September, perhaps early October, and was then on the eve of a new experiment in housekeeping so that he might have his nephew with him, concerning which he wrote to Giannatasio in Vienna on November 12. There is nothing in his letters to Frau Streicher and others at this time to indicate a change to Mödling, whither he went in May of the next year after he had reported Potter’s visits to Ries in March.

[179] This agrees with the theory that the first meetings took place at some other place. To Ries, Beethoven wrote on March 5, 1818: “Botter [sic] visited me a few times; he appears to be a good man and has talent for composition.”

[180] Other instances of this nature have been recorded in this biography. In December, 1811, a visitor, Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee, reported to Nägeli in Zürich that Beethoven had said to him: “All Viennese, from the Emperor to the bootblack, are good for nothing.” “I asked him,” von Wartensee continues, “if he took no pupils?” “No,” he replied, “teaching is a disagreeable task; he had only one pupil who gave him a great deal of trouble and whom he would like to get rid of if he could.” “And who is he?” “Archduke Rudolph.”

[181] Treitschke had provided the libretto of “Romulus”; it does not appear that Beethoven ever began its composition.

[182] The letter, which is reproduced in facsimile in Schindler’s biography, is a more or less fantastic scrawl or flourish which may be read as an “R” as well as an “M.”

[183] The letter to Thayer is dated May 21, 1873. Mälzel, it will be remembered, lived in Philadelphia for some time before his death at sea on July 21, 1838.

[184] Thus copied by Fischoff.

[185] Beethoven does not seem always to have maintained so reverential a feeling for the instrument as is indicated by the above statement. In Thayer’s note-book the American editor of this biography found this anecdote: “Once Beethoven told Stein that some strings in his Broadwood Pf. were wanting, and caught up the bootjack and struck the keys with it to show.”

[186] We have contented ourselves with mere references to Beethoven’s letters to Madame Streicher in this period. They are mostly brief notes monotonously asking help in domestic affairs, and, though frequently interesting because of their exhibition of characteristic traits and moods, too insignificant to justify the cumbering of these pages with their literal contents. Those who wish to do so can read them in any of the German collections of Beethoven’s letters or in the English translation by Shedlock. But Kalischer’s notes and dates and sometimes Mr. Shedlock’s translation ought to be critically scrutinized. The letter referred to above, however, deserves to be given in full.

“Best Madame von Streicher!

“It was not possible to reply to your last letter sooner. I would have written to you a few days ago when the servants were sent away, but hesitated in my determination until I learned that it was Frau D. in particular who hindered Karl to make full confession. “He ought to spare his mother,” she told him; and Peppi coöperated with her; naturally they did not want to be discovered; they worked together shamefully and permitted themselves to be used by Frau v. Beethoven; both received coffee and sugar from her, Peppi money and the old one probably also; for there can be no doubt that she was herself at the house of Karl’s mother; she said to Karl that if I drove her away from my service she would go straight to his mother. This happened at a time when I had reproved her for her conduct with which I had frequent occasion to be dissatisfied; Peppi who often played the eavesdropper when I spoke with Karl appears to have tried to tell the truth, but the old one accused her of stupidity and scolded her stoutly—and so she remained silent and tried to throw me off the trail. The story of this abominable deception may have lasted about six weeks—they would not have got off so easy with a less magnanimous man. Peppi borrowed 9 or 10 florins for stuff for shirts and I afterwards made her a present of the money and instead of 60 she got 70 florins; she might have denied herself these wretched bribes. In the case of the old woman, who was always the worse, hate may have played a part as she always thought herself neglected (although she got more than she deserved) for the scornful smile on her face one day when Karl embraced me, made me suspect treachery and how shameless and deceitful such an old woman could be. Just imagine, 2 days before I came here K. went to his mother one afternoon without my knowledge and both the old woman and P. knew it. But now listen to the triumph of a hoary-headed traitress; on the way hither with K. and her, I spoke with K. about the matter in the carriage, although I did not know all, and when I expressed the fear that we should not be safe in Mödling, she exclaimed “I should only rely upon her.” O the infamy of it! This was only the 2nd time in the case of a person of such venerable age that such a thing happened to me. A few days before I sent both away I had told them in writing that under no circumstances were they to accept anything for Karl from his mother. Instead of repenting, Peppi tried secretly to take revenge on Karl, after he had confessed all which they knew from the fact that in writing, I had said that all had been discovered—I expected that they would both beg my pardon after this, instead of which they played me one wicked trick after the other. As no betterment was to be expected in such obstinate sinners and I had every moment to fear another piece of treachery, I decided to sacrifice my body, my comfort to better self, my poor, misguided Karl and out of the house they went as a warning example to all those who may come after. I might have made their certificates of character a little less favorable; I set down the time of service of each at full six months although it was not true. I never practise vengeance; in cases where I oppose myself to other people, I never do more against them than is necessary to protect myself against them or to prevent them from doing further harm. On account of Peppi’s honesty in general I am sorry to have lost her for which reason I made her certificate more favorable than that of the old woman, and she appears to have been led astray by the old woman but that P.’s conscience was not at ease she showed by saying to Karl that “she did not dare go back to her parents,” and, in fact I believe she is still here—I had suspected treachery for a long time until one evening before my departure I received an anonymous letter the contents of which filled me with dread; but they were only suspicions. Karl, whom I took to task at once in the evening confessed but not all. As I often treat him harshly and not without cause, he was too greatly afraid to admit everything at once. In the midst of the struggle we reached here. As I often questioned him, the servants noticed it and the old woman in particular tried to persuade him not to admit the truth. But when I gave Karl my sacred assurance that all would be forgiven if he would but confess the truth, while lying would plunge him into a deeper abyss than that in which he already was, everything came to the light of day—add to this the other data which I gave you before concerning the servants and you will have the shameful story of the two traitresses clearly before you. K. did wrong, but—mother—mother—even a bad one remains a mother. To this extent he is to be excused, particularly by me who know his intriguing, passionate mother too well. The priest here knows already that I know about him for K. had already told me. It is likely that he was not fully informed and that he will be careful; but to guard against K.’s being mistreated by him, since he appears to be rather a rude man, the matter may rest for the nonce. But as K.’s virtue was put to the test for there is no virtue without temptation, I purposely pass the matter by until it happens again (which I do not expect) in which case I will so bethwack his reverence with such spiritual cudgels, amulets with my sole guardianship and consequent privileges that the whole parish will shake. My heart has been terribly shaken up by this affair and I can scarcely recover myself. Now to my housekeeping; it needs your help; how necessary it is to us you already know; do not be frightened away, such a thing might happen anywhere, but if it has once happened and one is in a position to hold it up to one’s new servants, it is not likely that it will occur again. You know what we need—perhaps the French woman, and whatever can be found in the way of a chambermaid, good cooking remains the principal thing, even in the matter of economy, for the present we have a person who cooks for us, but badly. I cannot write you more to-day, you will perceive that in this matter I could not act differently; it had gone too far. I do not yet invite you to visit me here for everything is still in confusion; nevertheless it will not be necessary to send me to a lunatic asylum. I can say that I already suffered from this thing fearfully while I was yet in Vienna, though I kept silent. Farewell; do not make anything of this known as some one might think prejudicially of K.; only I who know all the driving wheels here can testify for him that he was terribly misled. I beg of you soon to write us something comforting, touching the art of cooking, washing and sewing.

“I am very ill and in need of a stomach restorative.

“Mödling, June 18 (10?), 1818.”

[187] It was this priest, evidently, against whom Beethoven threatened to launch the thunderbolts of his wrath so as to shake the earth in a certain event, as he told Madame Streicher.

[188] In the letter to Ries.

[189] Evidently Joseph Valentine, a violoncello player, father of Jacob Dont, the violinist, chiefly famous as a teacher of his instrument in Vienna.

[190] Mr. Thayer made or procured transcripts of the records of the tribunals in which the struggle for the possession of Karl van Beethoven were made. Students whose curiosity is not satisfied by these pages are referred to Appendix III of Vol. IV of the German edition of this biography.

[191] In one of the Conversation Books used by Beethoven in 1820, there occurs this remark in Beethoven’s handwriting: “... when it learned that my brother was not of the nobility. It is singular, so far as I know, that there is a hiatus here which ought to be filled, for my nature shows that I do not belong among these plebs”; and, in February, 1820, when Peters had observed his dissatisfaction: “The common citizen should be excluded from higher men, and I have gotten amongst them.” “In three weeks,” Peters wrote, he would have nothing to do with citizens and magistracy. He would yet be asked for assistance and receive the most favorable report concerning his appeal. Not long afterward the Appellate Court brought in its decision in his favor in the guardianship matter.

[192] Hotschevar’s accusation was evidently rankling in his breast.

[193] It is the short piece in B-flat published as a supplement to the Berlin “Allgem. Musik. Zeit.” on December 8, 1824, under the title “Dernière pensée musicale.” Beethoven’s autograph inscription runs: “Auf Aufforderung geschrieben Nachmittags am 14. August 1818, von Beethoven.” “Letzter musikalischer Gedanke.”

[194] Beethoven had written: “To the two pieces which I wrote down on the name-day of Y. R. H., two others have been added, the last of which is a large Fugato, so that the whole constitutes a grand sonata which will soon be published and long ago in my heart was designed for you; the latest happening to Y. R. H., is not in the least responsible for this.”

[195] Nor even, as Thayer opined, that they had been delivered in manuscript to the Archduke on that day.

[196] “Notizen,” p. 149.

[197] This letter was first printed in Vol. IV of the German edition of Thayer’s biography—not, as Mr. Shedlock says, in his translation of Kalischer’s collection. Vol. IV appeared in 1907; Mr. Shedlock’s translation in 1909. Dr. Deiters found a transcript of the letter among the posthumous papers of Mr. Thayer, who had it from Mr. J. Marshall, of London. Its pages had been separated by some vandal who probably wanted to sell two autographs instead of one. Mr. Marshall bought the sheets at two different autograph sales and, recognizing their relationship, united them. The letter appears afterwards to have come into the hands of Mr. A. F. Hill, who loaned it to Mr. Shedlock.

[198] Beethoven had sketched a promising Trio in F minor, in 1816, along with the song-cycle and the Sonata in A major, and this, probably, was in his mind.