Maria Theresia--Appearance and Character of Elector Max
Franz--Musical Culture in the Austrian Imperial Family--A Royal
Violinist--His Admiration for Mozart--His Court Music.
Maria Theresia was a tender mother, much concerned to see all her
children well provided for in her lifetime and as independent as
possible of her eldest son, the heir to the throne. This wish
had already been fulfilled in the case of several of them....
The youngest son, Maximilian (born in Vienna, December 8, 1756),
was already chosen coadjutor to his paternal uncle, Duke Karl of
Lorraine, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. But to provide a
more bountiful and significant support, Prince Kaunitz formulated
a plan which pleased the maternal heart of the monarch, and whose
execution was calculated to extend the influence of the Court of
Vienna in the German Empire. It was to bestow more ecclesiastical
principalities upon the Archduke Maximilian. His eyes fell
first upon the Archbishopric and Electorate of Cologne and the
Archbishopric and Principality of Münster. These two countries
had one and the same Regent, Maximilian Friedrich, descended
from the Suabian family of Königseck-Rothenfels, Counts of the
Empire. In view of the advanced age of this ruler his death did
not seem far distant; but it was thought best not to wait for
that contingency, but to secure the right of succession at once
by having the Archduke elected Coadjutor in Cologne and Münster.
Their possession was looked upon as a provision worthy of the son
of an Empress-Queen. As Elector and Lord of the Rhenish shore,
simultaneously co-director of the Westphalian Circuit (a dignity
associated with the archbishopric of Münster), he could be useful
to his house, and oppose the Prussian influence in the very part
of Germany where it was largest.
Thus Dohm begins the seventh chapter of his “Denkwürdigkeiten”
where, in a calm and passionless style, he relates the history of
the intrigues and negotiations which ended in the election of Maria
Theresia’s youngest son on August 7, 1780, as coadjutor to the Elector
of Cologne and, on the 16th of the same month, to that of Münster, and
secured him the peaceful and immediate succession when Max Friedrich’s
functions should cease. The news of the election at Cologne reached
Bonn on the same day about 1 o’clock p. m. The Elector proceeded at
once to the Church of the Franciscans (used as the chapel since
the conflagration of 1777), where a “musical ‘Te Deum’” was sung,
while all the city bells were ringing. Von Kleist’s regiment fired a
triple salvo, which the cannon on the city walls answered. At noon a
public dinner was spread in the palace, one table setting 54, another
24 covers. In the evening at 8-1/2 o’clock, followed the finest
illumination ever seen in Bonn, which the Elector enjoyed riding about
in his carriage. After this came a grand supper of 82 covers, then
a masked ball “to which every decently clad subject as well as any
stranger was admitted, and which did not come to an end till nearly 7
o’clock.”
MAX FRANZ, THE NEW ELECTOR
Max Franz was in his twenty-eighth year when he came to Bonn. He was of
middle stature, strongly built and already inclining to that corpulence
which in his last years made him a prodigy of obesity. If all the
absurdities of his eulogists be taken for truth, the last Elector of
Cologne was endowed with every grace of mind and character that ever
adorned human nature. In fact, however, he was a good-looking, kindly,
indolent, somewhat choleric man; fond of a joke; affable; a hater of
stiff ceremony; easy of access; an honest, amiable, conscientious
ruler, who had the wisdom and will to supply his own deficiencies with
enlightened and skilful ministers, and the good sense to rule, through
their political foresight and sagacity, with an eye as much to the
interests of his subjects as his own.
In his boyhood he was rather stupid. Swinburne dismisses him in two
lines: “Maximilian is a good-natured, neither here-nor-there kind of
youth.” The brilliant, witty, shrewdly observant Mozart wrote to his
father (Nov. 17, 1781): “To whom God gives an office he also gives an
understanding. This is really the case with the Archduke. Before he
became a priest he was much wittier and more intellectual and talked
less, but more sensibly. You ought to see him now! Stupidity looks out
of his eyes; he talks eternally, always in falsetto; he has a swollen
neck--in a word, the man is completely transformed.” His mother had
supplied him with the best instructors that Vienna afforded, and
had sent him travelling pretty extensively for an archduke in those
days. One of his journeys was to visit his sister Marie Antoinette
in Paris, where his awkwardness and breaches of etiquette caused as
much amusement to the anti-Austrian party as they did annoyance to the
Queen, and afterwards to his brother Joseph, when they came to his ears.
In 1778 he was with Joseph in the campaign in Bavaria. An injury to his
knee, caused by a fall of his horse, is the reason alleged for his
abandonment of a military career; upon which he was prevailed upon,
so the “Historisches Taschenbuch” (II, Vienna, 1806) expresses it, to
become a candidate for the Coadjutorship of Cologne. If he had to be
“prevailed upon” to enter the church, the more to his credit was the
course he pursued when once his calling and election were sure.
The rigid economy which he introduced at court immediately after his
accession in 1784 gave rise to the impression that he was penurious.
It may be said in his defence that the condition of the finances
required retrenchment and reform; that he was simple in his tastes and
cared nothing for show and magnificence, except upon occasions when,
in his opinion, the electoral dignity required them. Then, like his
predecessors, he was lavish. His personal expenses were not great, and
he waited until his revenues justified it before he indulged to any
great extent his passion for the theatre, music and dancing (stout as
he was, he was a passionate dancer), and his table. He was, through
the nature of his physical constitution, an enormous eater, though his
drink was only water.
The influence of a ruler upon the tone and character of society in a
small capital is very great. A change for the better had begun during
the time of Max Friedrich, but under his successor a new life entered
Bonn. New objects of ambition were offered to the young men. The church
and cloister ceased to be all in all. One can well understand how
Wegeler in his old age, as he looked back half a century to the years
when he was student and professor--and _such_ a half-century, with its
revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, its political, religious and social
changes!--should write (“Notizen,” p. 59): “In fact, it was a beautiful
and in many ways active period in Bonn, so long as the genial Elector,
Max Franz, Maria Theresia’s youngest son and favorite, reigned there.”
How strongly the improved tone of society impressed itself upon the
characters of the young is discernible in the many of them who, in
after years, were known as men of large and liberal ideas and became
distinguished as jurists, theologians and artists, or in science and
letters. These were the years of Beethoven’s youth and early manhood;
and though his great mental powers were in the main exercised upon
his art, there is still to be observed through all his life a certain
breadth and grandeur in his intellectual character, owing in part, no
doubt, to the social influences under which it was developed.
It is highly honorable to the young Max Franz that he refused to avail
himself of a privilege granted him in a Papal bull obtained for him
by his mother--that of deferring the assumption of priestly vows for
a period of ten years--but chose rather, as soon as he had leisure
for the step, to enter the seminary in Cologne to fit himself for
consecration. He entered November 29, rigidly submitted himself to all
the discipline of the institution for the period of eight days, when,
on December 8, the nuntius, Bellisoni, ordained him sub-deacon; after
another eight days, on the 16th, deacon; and on the 21st, priest;
thus showing that if there be no royal road to mathematics, there
is a railway with express train for royal personages in pursuit of
ecclesiastical science. Returning to Bonn, he read his first mass on
Christmas eve in the Florian Chapel.
The cause of science and education the Elector had really at
heart. In 1785 he had established a botanic garden; now he opened
a public reading room in the palace library and sent a message to
the theological school in Cologne, that if the improved course of
instruction adopted in Austria was not introduced, he should found
other seminaries. On the 26th of June he was present at the opening of
a normal school; and on August 9th came the decree raising the Bonn
Hochschule to the rank of a university by authority of an Imperial
diploma.
Upon the suppression of the Jesuits in 1774, Max Friedrich devoted
their possessions and revenues to the cause of education. New
professorships were established in the gymnasium and in 1777 an
“Academy” was formed. This was the first step; the second was to found
an independent institution called the Lyceum; and at his death an
application was before the Emperor for a university charter. Max Franz
pushed the matter, obtained the charter from his brother, and Monday,
the 20th of November, 1786, was the day appointed for the solemn
inauguration of the new institution. The Court Calendar for the next
year names six professors of theology, six of jurisprudence, civil
and ecclesiastical, four of medicine, and ten of philology and other
branches of learning. In later editions new names are added; in that of
1790, Wegeler is professor of midwifery.
Though economical, Max Franz drew many a man of superior abilities--men
of letters and artists--to Bonn; and but for the bursting of the storm
which was even then gathering over the French border, his little
capital might well have had a place in German literary history not
inferior to that of Weimar. Nor are instances wanting in which he gave
generous aid to young talent struggling with poverty; though that he
did so much for Beethoven as is usually thought is, at least, doubtful.
This man, not a genius, not overwhelmingly great mentally, nor, on
the other hand, so stupid as the stories told of his boyhood seem to
indicate, but honest, well-meaning, ready to adopt and enforce wise
measures devised by skilful ministers; easy, jocose and careless
of appearances, very fond of music and a patron of letters and
science,--this man, to whom in that period of vast intellectual
fermentation the Index Expurgatorius was a dead letter, gave the tone
to Bonn society.
A GIFTED IMPERIAL FAMILY
That solid musical education which she had received from her father,
Maria Theresia bestowed upon her children, and their attainments in the
art seem to have justified the time and labor spent. In 1749, at the
age of seven and six, Christina and Maria Elizabeth took part in one
of the festive musical pieces; Marie Antoinette was able to appreciate
Gluck and lead the party in his favor in later years at Paris. Joseph
is as much known in musical as in civil and political history. When
Emperor he had his daily hour of music in his private apartments,
playing either of several instruments or singing, according to the whim
of the moment; and Maximilian, the youngest, acquired a good degree of
skill both in singing and in the treatment of his favorite instrument,
the viola. Beethoven once told Schindler that the Elector thought very
highly of Mattheson. In his reminiscences of a visit to Vienna in
1783, J. F. Reichardt gives high praise to the musical interest, skill
and zeal of Emperor Joseph and his brother Archduke Maximilian, and a
writer in “Cramer’s Magazine,” probably Neefe, tells of a “remarkable
concert” which took place at court in Bonn on April 5, 1786, at which
the Elector played the viola, Duke Albrecht the violin, “and the
fascinating Countess Belderbusch the clavier most charmingly.”
Maximilian had become personally acquainted with Mozart in Salzburg in
1775, where the young composer had set Metastasio’s “Il Re pastore”
to music to be performed in his honor (April 23rd); from which time,
to his credit be it said, he ever held the composer and his music in
kindest remembrance. When in 1781 Mozart determined to leave his brutal
Archbishop of Salzburg and remain in Vienna, the Archduke showed at all
events a desire to aid him.
Yesterday (writes the composer November 17, 1781) the Archduke
Maximilian summoned me to him at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
When I entered he was standing before a stove in the first room
awaiting me. He came towards me and asked if I had anything to
do to-day? “Nothing, Your Royal Highness, and if I had it would
always be a grace to wait upon Your Royal Highness.” “No; I do not
wish to constrain anyone.” Then he said that he was minded to
give a concert in the evening for the Court of Wurtemberg. Would I
play something and accompany the aria? I was to come to him again
at 6 o’clock. So I played there yesterday.
Mozart was everything to him (continues Jahn); he signalized him
at every opportunity and said, if he were Elector of Cologne,
Mozart would surely be his chapelmaster. He had also suggested to
the Princess (of Wurtemberg) that she appoint Mozart her music
teacher, but received the reply that if it rested with her she
would have chosen him; but the Emperor--“for him there is nobody
but Salieri!” cries out Mozart peevishly--had recommended Salieri
because of the singing, and she had to take him, for which she was
sorry.
Jahn gives no reason why Mozart was not engaged for Bonn. Perhaps he
would have been had Lucchesi resigned in consequence of the reduction
of his salary; but he kept his office of chapelmaster and could not
well be dismissed without cause. Mattioli’s resignation was followed by
the call of Joseph Reicha to the place of concertmaster; but for Mozart
no vacancy occurred at that time. Maximilian was in Vienna during most
of the month of October, 1785, and may have desired to secure Mozart in
some way, but just at that time the latter was, as his father wrote,
“over head and ears busy with the opera ‘Le Nozze di Figaro.’” Old
Chapelmaster Bono could not live much longer; which gave him hope,
should the opera succeed, of obtaining a permanent appointment in
Vienna; and, in short, his prospects seemed just then so good that
his determination--if he should really receive an offer from the
Elector--to remain in the great capital rather than to take his young
wife so far away from home and friends as the Rhine then was, and, in a
manner, bury himself in a small town where so few opportunities would
probably be given him for the exercise of the vast powers which he was
conscious of possessing, need not surprise us.
Was it the good or the ill fortune of the boy Beethoven that Mozart
came not to Bonn? His marvellous original talents were thus left to
be developed without the fostering care of one of the very greatest
of musical geniuses, and one of the profoundest of musical scholars;
but on the other hand it was not oppressed, perhaps crushed, by daily
intercourse with that genius and scholarship.
Maximilian, immediately after reaching Bonn as Elector, ordered full
and minute reports to be made out concerning all branches of the
administration, of the public and court service and of the cost of
their maintenance. Upon these reports were based his arrangements for
the future. Those relating to the court music are too important and
interesting to be overlooked, for they give us details which carry
us instantly into the circle which young Beethoven has just entered
and in which, through his father’s connection with it, he must from
earliest childhood have moved. They are three in number, the first
being a list of all the individuals constituting the court chapel; the
second a detailed description of the singers and players, together with
estimates of their capabilities; the third consists of recommendations
touching a reduction in salaries. A few paragraphs may be presented
here as most intimately connected with significant personages in our
history; they are combined and given in abstract from the first two
documents. Among the tenors we find
FATHER AND SON IN THE COURT CHAPEL
J. van Beethoven, age 44, born in Bonn, married; his wife is 32
years old, has three sons living in the electorate, aged 13, 10
and 8 years, who are studying music, has served 28 years, salary
315 fl. “His voice has long been stale, has been long in the
service, very poor, of fair deportment and married.”
Among the organists:
Christian Gottlob Neefe, aged 36, born at Chemnitz; married, his
wife is 32, has served 3 years, was formerly chapelmaster with
Seiler; salary 400 fl. “Christian Neffe, the organist, in my
humble opinion might well be dismissed, inasmuch as he is not
particularly versed on the organ, moreover is a foreigner, having
no _Meritten_ whatever and of the Calvinistic religion.”
Ludwig van Beethoven, aged 13, born at Bonn, has served 2 years,
no salary. “Ludwig Betthoven, a son of the Betthoven sub No. 8,
has no salary, but during the absence of the chapelmaster Luchesy
he played the organ; is of good capability, still young, of good
and quiet deportment and poor.”
One of the items of the third report, proposing reductions of salaries
and removals, has a very special interest as proving that an effort was
made to supplant Neefe and give the post of court organist to young
Beethoven. It reads:
_Item._ If Neffe were to be dismissed another organist would have
to be appointed, who, if he were to be used only in the chapel
could be had for 150 florins, the same is small, young, and a son
of a court _musici_, and in case of need has filled the place for
nearly a year very well.
The attempt to have Neefe dismissed from the service failed, but a
reduction of his salary to the pittance of 200 florins had already
led him to look about him to find an engagement for himself and wife
in some theatre, when Maximilian, having become acquainted with his
merits (notwithstanding his Calvinism), restored his former allowance
by a decree dated February 8, 1785. When Joseph Reicha came to Bonn in
Mattioli’s place is still undetermined with exactness; but a decree
raising him from the position of concertmaster to that of concert
director, and increasing his salary to 1,000 florins, bears date June
28, 1785. In the general payroll of this year Reicha’s salary is stated
to be 666 thalers 52 alb., “tenorist Beethoven’s” 200 th., “Beethoven
jun.” 100 th.