Letters of 1801--The Beginning of Beethoven’s Deafness--The
Criticisms of a Leipsic Journal--Bonn Friends in Vienna--Reicha,
Breuning, Ries, Czerny--Chronology Adjusted.
Let us now turn back to the important letters written in the summer of
1801, beginning with two written to his friend Amenda, which were first
published in the “Signale” of 1852, No. 5. The first, without date or
record of place, is as follows:
How can Amenda doubt that I shall always remember him[109] because
I do not write or have not written to him--as if memory could only
be preserved in such a manner.
A thousand times the best of all men that I ever learned to know
comes into my mind--yes, of the two men who had my entire love, of
which one still lives, you are the third--how can recollection of
you die out of my mind. You shall soon receive a long letter from
me concerning my present condition and everything about me that
might interest you. Farewell, dear, good, noble friend, keep me
always in your love, your friendship, as I shall forever remain
Your faithful
Beethoven.
The longer letter which he had promised to send to his friend is dated
June 1, 1801:
THE COMPOSER’S HEALTH IN 1801
My dear, good Amenda, my cordial friend, I received and read your
last letter with mixed pain and pleasure. To what shall I compare
your fidelity, your attachment to me. Oh, it is so beautiful that
you have always been true to me and I know how to single you out
and keep you above all others. You are not a Viennese friend,
no, you are one of those who spring from the ground of my native
land. How often do I wish you were with me, for your Beethoven is
living an unhappy life, quarreling with nature and its creator,
often cursing the latter because he surrendered his creatures to
the merest accident which sometimes broke or destroyed the most
beautiful blossoms. Know that my noblest faculty, my hearing,
has greatly deteriorated. When you were still with me I felt the
symptoms but kept silent; now it is continually growing worse, and
whether or not a cure is possible has become a question; but it
is said to be due to my bowels and so far as they are concerned
I am nearly restored to health. I hope, indeed that my hearing
will also improve, but I am dubious because such diseases are the
most incurable. How sad is my lot! I must avoid all things that
are dear to me and live amongst such miserable and egotistical
men as ... and ... and others. I must say that amongst them all
Lichnowsky is the most satisfactory, since last year he has
settled an income of 600 florins on me and the good sale of my
works enables me to live without care. I could sell everything
that I compose five times over and at a good price. I have written
considerably of late, and as I hear that you have ordered a
pianoforte from ... I will send you various things in the box of
the instrument so that it need not cost you much. To my comfort
there has lately come a man with whom I can share the pleasures
of association, an unselfish friendship; he is one of the friends
of my youth. I have often spoken of you to him and told him that
since I left my fatherland you have been the only choice of my
heart. ... is not very satisfactory to him--he is and always will
be too weak for friendship. I use him and ... only as instruments
on which I play when I please but they can never become witnesses
of my whole internal and external activities or real participants
(in my feelings). I estimate them at only what they are worth
to me. Oh, how happy would I be if my hearing were completely
restored; then would I hurry to you, but as it is I must refrain
from everything and the most beautiful years of my life must pass
without accomplishing the promise of my talent and powers. A sad
resignation to which I must resort although, indeed, I am resolved
to rise superior to every obstacle. But how will that be possible?
Yes, Amenda, if my infirmity shows itself to be incurable in half
a year, I shall appeal to you; you must abandon everything and
come to me. My affliction causes me the least trouble in playing
and composing, the most in association with others, and you must
be my companion. I am sure my fortune will not desert me. What
might I not essay? Since you have been gone I have composed
everything except operas and church-music. You will not deny me;
you will help your friend bear his cares and affliction. I have
also greatly bettered my pianoforte playing and I hope the journey
will, perhaps, make your fortune; afterward you will remain with
me. I have received all of your letters and despite the fact that
I answered so few you were always with me and my heart still beats
as tenderly for you as ever it did. I beg of you to keep the
matter of my deafness a profound secret to _be confided to nobody
no matter who it is_. Write to me very often. Your letters, no
matter how short, comfort me, do me good, and I shall soon expect
another from you, my dear fellow. Do not lend your quartet to
anybody because I have changed it greatly having just learned how
properly to write quartets, as you will observe when you receive
it. Now, farewell, my dear, good fellow; if you think I can do
something for you here, command me as a matter of course.
Your faithful, and truly affectionate
L. v. Beethoven.
In the same month Beethoven wrote again to the publisher Hoffmeister to
this effect:
I am a little amazed at what you have communicated to me through
the local representative of your business. I am almost vexed to
think that you consider me capable of such a trick.
It would be a different matter if I had sold my wares only
to avaricious tradesmen hoping that they would make a good
speculation on the sly, but _as artist towards artist_ it is a bit
harsh to think such things of me. It looks to me as if the whole
matter had been planned to test me or to be merely a suspicion;
in either case I inform you that before you received the Septet
from me I sent it to London to Mr. Salomon (for performance at
his concerts out of mere friendship) but with the understanding
that he should have a care that it should not fall into the hands
of strangers, because I intended that it should be published in
Germany, concerning which, if you think it necessary, you may
make inquiry of him. But in order to prove my honesty _I give you
the assurance herewith that I have not sold the Septet, Concerto,
the Symphony and the Sonata to anybody but you, Hoffmeister and
Kühnel, and that you may consider it (sic) as your exclusive
property and to this I pledge my honor_. You may make such use of
this assurance as you please.
As for the rest I believe as little that Salomon is capable of
being guilty of having the Septet printed as I am of having
sold it to him. I am so conscientious that I have denied the
applications of _various publishers_ to print the pianoforte
arrangement of the Septet, and yet I do not know whether or not
you intend to make such use of it.
On June 29, he sent the following longer letter to Wegeler, who
published it in his “Notizen”:
Vienna, June 29.
My good, dear Wegeler!
GREETINGS TO OLD FRIENDS IN BONN
How greatly do I thank you for thinking of me; I have so little
deserved it and so little tried to deserve anything from you, and
yet you are so very good and refuse to be held aloof by anything,
not even by my unpardonable remissness, remaining always my true,
good, brave friend. Do not believe that I could forget you who
were always so dear to me. No. There are moments when I long for
you and would like to be with you. My fatherland, the beautiful
region in which I first saw the light, is still as clear and
beautiful before my eyes as when I left you. In short, I shall
look upon that period as one of the happiest incidents of my
life when I shall see you again and greet Father Rhine. When
this shall be I cannot now tell you--but I want to say that you
will see me again only as a great man. Yon shall receive me as
a great artist but as a better and more perfect man, and if the
conditions are improved in our fatherland my art shall be employed
in the service of the poor. O happy moment! How happy am I that I
created thee--can invoke thee!... You want to know something about
my situation. It is not so bad. Since last year, unbelievable as
it may sound, even after I tell you, Lichnowsky, who has always
remained my warmest friend (there were little quarrels between
us, but they only served to strengthen our friendship), set aside
a fixed sum of 600 florins for me to draw against so long as I
remained without a position worthy of me. From my compositions I
have a large income and I may say that I have more commissions
than it is possible for me to fill. Besides, I have 6 or 7
publishers and might have more if I chose; they no longer bargain
with me--I ask, and they pay. You see it is very convenient. For
instance, I see a friend in need and my purse does not permit
me to help him at once. I have only to sit down and in a short
time help is at hand. Moreover, I am a better business man than
formerly. If I remain here always I shall bring it to pass that I
shall always reserve a day for my concert of which I give several.
The only pity is that my evil demon, my bad health, is continually
putting a spoke in my wheel, by which I mean that my hearing has
grown steadily worse for three years for which my bowels, which
you know were always wretched and have been getting worse, since
I am always troubled with a dysentery, in addition to unusual
weakness, are said to be responsible. Frank wanted to tone up my
body by tonic medicines and restore my hearing with almond oil,
but, _prosit_, nothing came of the effort; my hearing grew worse
and worse, and my bowels remained as they had been. This lasted
until the autumn of last year and I was often in despair. Then
came a medical ass who advised me to take cold baths, a more
sensible one to take the usual lukewarm Danube bath. That worked
wonders; my bowels improved, my hearing remained, or became
worse. I was really miserable during this winter; I had frightful
attacks of colic and I fell back into my previous condition, and
so things remained until about four weeks ago, when I went to
Vering, thinking that my condition demanded a surgeon, and having
great confidence in him. He succeeded almost wholly in stopping
the awful diarrhœa. He prescribed the lukewarm Danube bath, into
which I had each time to pour a little bottle of strengthening
stuff, gave me no medicine of any kind until about four weeks
ago, when he prescribed pills for my stomach and a kind of tea
for my ear. Since then I can say I am stronger and better; only
my ears whistle and buzz continually, day and night. I can say I
am living a wretched life; for two years I have avoided almost
all social gatherings because it is impossible for me to say to
people: “I am deaf.” If I belonged to any other profession it
would be easier, but in my profession it is an awful state, the
more since my enemies, who are not few, what would they say? In
order to give you an idea of this singular deafness of mine I
must tell you that in the theatre I must get very close to the
orchestra in order to understand the actor. If I am a little
distant I do not hear the high tones of the instruments, singers,
and if I be but a little farther away I do not hear at all.
Frequently I can hear the tones of a low conversation, but not the
words, and as soon as anybody shouts it is intolerable. It seems
singular that in conversation there are people who do not notice
my condition at all, attributing it to my absent-mindedness.[110]
Heaven knows what will happen to me. _Vering says that there will
be an improvement if no complete cure._ I have often--cursed my
existence; _Plutarch_ taught me resignation. If possible I will
bid defiance to my fate, although there will be moments in my life
when I shall be the unhappiest of God’s creatures. I beg of you to
say nothing of my condition to anybody, not even to Lorchen;[111]
I entrust the secret only to you; I would be glad if you were to
correspond with Vering on the subject. If my condition continues
I will go to you next spring; you could hire a house for me in
some pretty place in the country and for half a year I would be
a farmer. This might bring about a change. Resignation! What a
wretched refuge--and yet the only one open to me. Forgive me that
I add these cares of friendship to yours which is sorrowful enough
as it is. Steffen Breuning is here now and we are together almost
daily; it does me so much good to revive the old emotions. He is
really become a good, splendid youngster, who knows a thing or
two, and like us all has his heart in the right place. I have a
pretty domicile on the bastion which is doubly valuable because
of my health. I believe I shall make it possible for Breuning to
come to me. You shall have your Antioch[112] and also many musical
compositions of mine if you do not think they will cost you too
much. Honestly, your love for art still delights me much. Write to
me how it is to be done and I will send you all my compositions,
already a goodly number and increasing daily.... In return for the
portrait of my grandfather which I beg of you to send me as soon
as possible by mail-coach, I am sending you that of his grandson,
your good and affectionate Beethoven, which is to be published
here by Artaria, who, like many others, including art-dealers,
have often asked me for it. I shall soon write to Stoffel[113] and
give him a piece of my mind concerning his stubborn disposition.
I will make his ears ring with the old friendship, and he shall
promise me by all that is holy not to offend you further in your
present state of unhappiness. I shall also write to good Lorche.
I have never forgotten one of you good people even if I did not
write to you; but you know that writing was never my forte; the
best of my friends have not had a letter from me in years. I
live only in my notes and when one composition is scarcely ended
another is already begun. As I compose at present I frequently
work on three or four compositions at the same time. Write to
me often, hereafter. I will try occasionally to find time to
write to you. Give greetings to all, including the good Madame
Councillor,[114] and tell her that I still occasionally have a
“raptus.” As regards K. I do not at all wonder over his change.
Fortune is round, like a ball, and therefore does not always drop
on the noblest and best. A word about Ries, whom I greet heartily;
so far as his son is concerned I shall write you more in detail,
although I think that he would be more fortunate in Paris than
in Vienna. Vienna is overcrowded and the most meritorious find
it extremely difficult to maintain themselves. In the autumn or
winter I shall see what I can do for him, for at that time the
public hurries back to the city. Farewell, good, faithful Wegeler!
Be assured of the love and friendship of
Your
Beethoven.
On November 16, he wrote in greater detail to Wegeler:
My good Wegeler!
I thank you for the new evidence of concern in my behalf, all the
more since I deserve so little at your hands. You want to know
how it goes with me, what I need; as little as I like to discuss
such matters I would rather do it with you than with others.
DEAFNESS AND A ROMANTIC ATTACHMENT
For several months Vering has had vesicatories placed on both
arms, which consist, as you know, of a certain bark.[115] This is
a very unpleasant remedy, inasmuch as I am robbed of the free use
of my arms (for a few days, until the bark has had its effect), to
say nothing of the pain. It is true I cannot deny that the ringing
and sounding in my ears has become less than usual, especially in
the left ear, where my deafness began; but my hearing has not been
improved and I dare not say that it has not grown worse rather
than better. My bowels are in a better condition, especially after
the lukewarm baths for a few days when I feel quite well for 8 or
10 days, seldom needing a tonic for my stomach. I am beginning
to use the herbs on the belly as suggested by you. Vering will
hear nothing of plunge baths, and I am thoroughly dissatisfied
with him; he has much too little care and consideration for such
a disease; if I did not go to him, which costs me a great deal
of trouble, I should not see him at all. What do you think of
Schmidt? I do not like to change, but it seems to me Vering is
too much of a practitioner to acquire new ideas. Schmidt seems
to me a very different sort of man and, perhaps, would not be so
negligent. Miracles are told of _galvanism_; what have you to say
about it? A doctor told me that he had seen a deaf and dumb child
recover his hearing (in Berlin) again--and a man who had been
deaf 7 years got well. I am living more pleasantly since I live
more amongst men. You will scarcely believe how lonely and sad my
life was for two years; my bad hearing haunted me everywhere like
a ghost and I fled from mankind and seemed like a misanthrope,
though far from being one. This change has been wrought by a
_dear, fascinating_ girl who loves me and whom I love. There have
been a few blessed moments within the last two years and it is the
first time that I feel that marriage might bring me happiness.
Alas! she is not of my station--and now--it would be impossible
for me to marry. I must still hustle about most actively. If it
were not for my deafness, I should before now have travelled over
half the world, and that I must do. There is no greater delight
for me than to practise and show my art. Do not believe that I
would be happy with you. What is there that could make me happier?
Even your care would give me pain. I would see pity on your faces
every minute and be only the unhappier. What did those beautiful
native regions bestow upon me? Nothing except the hope of a better
state of health, which would have come had not this affliction
seized upon me. Oh, if I were rid of this affliction I could
embrace the world! I feel that my youth is just beginning and
have I not always been ill? My physical strength has for a short
time past been steadily growing more than ever and also my mental
powers. Day by day I am approaching the goal which I apprehend
but cannot describe. It is only in this that your Beethoven can
live. Tell me nothing of rest. I know of none but sleep, and woe
is me that I must give up more time to it than usual. Grant me but
half freedom from my affliction and then--as a complete, ripe man
I shall return to you and renew the old feelings of friendship.
You must see me as happy as it is possible to be here below--not
unhappy. No! I cannot endure it. I will take Fate by the throat;
it shall not wholly overcome me. Oh, it is so beautiful to
live--to live a thousand times! I feel that I am not made for a
quiet life. You will write to me as soon as you can. See that
Steffen secures an appointment of some kind in the _Teutonic
Order_. Life here is connected with too many hardships for his
health. Besides, he lives so isolated an existence that I cannot
see how he is to get along in this manner. You know the state of
affairs here. I will not say that social life may not lessen his
moodiness; but it is impossible to persuade him to go anywhere.
A short time ago I had a _musicale_ at my home; yet our friend
Steffen did not come. Advise him to seek more rest and composure.
I have done my best in this direction; without these he will never
be again happy or well. Tell me in your next letter whether or not
it will matter if I send you a great deal of my music; you can
sell what you do not need and so get back the post-money--and my
portrait. All possible lovely and necessary greetings to Lorchen,
Mama and Christoph. You love me a little, do you not? Be assured
of the love and friendship of
Your
Beethoven.
A commentary upon these letters--the first two excepted, which need
none--might be made, by a moderate indulgence of poetic fancy, to fill
a volume of respectable size; but rigidly confined to prosaic fact may
be reduced to reasonable dimensions. Taking up the letters in their
order, the first is that to Hoffmeister of April 22nd.
I. One of the earliest projects of the new firm of Hoffmeister and
Kühnel was the publication of “J. Sebastian Bach’s Theoretical and
Practical Clavier and Organ Works.” The first number contained: 1,
Toccata in D-flat; 2, fifteen inventions; 3, “The Well-Tempered
Clavichord”--in part; the second number: 1, 15 symphonies in three
voices; 2, continuation of “The Well-Tempered Clavichord.” Now compare
what Schindler says (third edition, II, 184):
Of the archfather Johann Sebastian Bach the stock was a very
small one except for a few motets which had been sung at the
house of van Swieten; besides these the majority of pieces were
those familiarly known, namely, the “Well-Tempered Clavichord,”
which showed signs of diligent study, three volumes of exercises,
fifteen inventions, fifteen symphonies and a toccata in D minor.
This collection of pieces in _a single volume_ is to be found in
my possession. Attached to these was a sheet of paper on which, in
a strange handwriting, was to be read the following passage from
J. N. Forkel’s book “On the Life and Artwork of Johann Sebastian
Bach”: “The pretence that the musical art is an art for _all_ ears
cannot be substantiated by Bach, but is disproved by the mere
existence and uniqueness of his works, which seem to be destined
only for connoisseurs. Only the connoisseur who can surmise the
inner organization and feel it and penetrate to the intention of
the artist, which does nothing needlessly, is privileged to judge
here; indeed, the judgment of a musical connoisseur can scarcely
be better tested than by seeing how rightly he has learned
the works of Bach.” On both sides of this passage there were
interrogation points from the thickest note-pen of Beethoven as a
gloss on the learned historian and most eminent of all Bachians.
No Hogarth could have put a grimmer look, or a more crushing
expression, into an interrogation point.
Nägele, who professed long to have entertained the design to publish
Bach’s “most admirable works,” issued his proposals in February,
written with some degree of asperity against “the double competition”
which, he had already learned, “was confronting” him. Of his edition of
“The Well-Tempered Clavichord” Beethoven also possessed a part.
The names left blank in publishing this letter are easily supplied.
Baron Carl August von Liechtenstein, the same to whom, from 1825
to 1832, was confided the management of the opera in Berlin, who
died there in 1845, had been so extravagantly praised as head of
the Princely Music at Dessau that he was called to assume the
chapelmastership of the Imperial Opera in Vienna near the end of
1800. The contemporary reports of his efficiency as conductor are
highly favorable. He deserves the credit of determining to add to
the repertory of the Imperial Opera Mozart’s “Zauberflöte” which,
till then, had been heard by the Viennese only in the little theatre
Auf-den-Wieden. It is worth mentioning that Liechtenstein brought
with him from Dessau poor Neefe’s daughter Felice, now Mme. Rösner,
and that she was the _Pamina_ of this performance. In the first new
work produced (April 16th) upon the imperial stage after Beethoven’s
“Prometheus” music, Liechtenstein introduced himself to the Vienna
public in the character of a composer. It was in his opera “Bathmendi,”
completely revised. The result was a wretched failure. Hoffmeister’s
long and familiar acquaintance with Vienna, its musicians and its
theatres, would cause him readily to appreciate the fun and wit of
Beethoven’s remark that the newly engaged chapelmaster and composer
of the Imperial Opera “seems to have taken for an ideal Mr. M.
(Müller)”--the Offenbach of that time--but without reaching “even him.”
Considering that the Baron was yet a young man, at the most but three
years older than Beethoven, the somewhat bitter remark which follows
the jest appears natural enough.
THE COMPOSER AND HIS EARLY CRITICS
II. Beethoven had just cause for indignation in the treatment which
he had received at the hands of the writers for the “Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung” (the “Leipsic oxen” of his letter of January
15th). Hoffmeister had evidently written him on the subject, and
his reticence in confining himself in reply to a single contemptuous
sentence, though writing in the confidence of private correspondence,
is something unexpected; not less so is the manly, dignified and
ingenuous style of his answer to Breitkopf and Härtel upon the same
topic in the letter of April 22nd. The first number of that famous
musical journal (take it for all in all, the noblest ever published)
appeared October 3rd, 1798, edited by Rochlitz, published by Breitkopf
and Härtel. In the second number, “Z...” eulogizes the Six Fughettos
of the lad, C. M. von Weber; in the tenth young Hummel’s sonatas, Op.
3, are reviewed; in the fifteenth the name of Beethoven first appears,
viz.: in the title of three sonatas dedicated to him by Wölffl. At
length, in No. 23, March 17th, 1799, he is introduced to the readers
of the journal as an author--not of one or more of the eight Trios,
ten Sonatas, the Quintet and Serenade, which make up the _opera_ 1 to
11 then published--but as the writer of the Twelve Variations on “Ein
Mädchen oder Weibchen,” and eight on “Une fièvre brûlante.”
The criticisms are a perfect reflex of the conventional musical thought
of the period and can be read now with amused interest, at least. There
is no room here for their production in full. The writer, “M...,”
recognizes the clever pianoforte player in the Variations but cannot
see evidences in them of equal capacity as a composer. He likes some
of them and “willingly admits” that those on “Une fièvre brûlante” are
“more successful than those of Mozart, who in his early youth also
treated the same subject.” But Mozart did not write the variations
referred to, and when Grétry’s “Richard Cœur de Lion,” from which the
theme was borrowed, was first performed in Paris, Mozart was not in his
“early youth” but 28 years old. The critic descants with disapproval on
“certain harshnesses in the modulations,” illustrating them; holds up
Haydn as a model chooser of themes, and commends the comments of Vogler
on a set of variations on “God save the King” printed in a little
book on the subject. Thus Beethoven found, in the first recognition
of himself as a composer in that journal, two compositions which he
did not think worthy of opus numbers, to the neglect of all his better
works, made the subject of censure and ridicule for the purpose of
putting and advertising a pamphlet by Vogler. Were his own subsequent
Variations on “God save the King” an effect of this article?
No. 23 of the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” contains nearly two
pages from the pen of Spazier on Liechtenstein’s opera, “Die steinerne
Braut,” and a parallel between Beethoven and Wölffl as pianists. Then
in the next number the beautiful Trio, Op. 6, finds a reviewer. Here is
the whole of his article:
This Trio, which in part is not easier but more flowing than many
other pieces by the same author, makes an excellent ensemble on
the pianoforte with accompaniment. The composer with his unusual
harmonic knowledge and love for serious composition would provide
us many things which would leave many hand-organ things far in the
rear, even those composed by famous men, if he would but try to
write more naturally.
Could one say less?
The “Leipsic oxen” are now ruminating upon the noble Sonatas for
Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 12, and No. 36 (June, 1799), contains the
result:
The critic, who heretofore has been unfamiliar with the pianoforte
pieces of the author, must admit, after having looked through
these strange sonatas, overladen with difficulties, that after
diligent and strenuous labor he felt like a man who had hoped to
make a promenade with a genial friend through a tempting forest
and found himself barred every minute by inimical barriers,
returning at last exhausted and without having had any pleasure.
It is undeniable that Mr. Beethoven goes his own gait; but what
a bizarre and singular gait it is! Learned, learned and always
learned--and nothing natural, no song. Yes, to be accurate, there
is _only a mass of learning here, without good method_; obstinacy,
but for which we feel but little interest; a striving for strange
modulations, an objection to customary associations, a heaping up
of difficulties on difficulties till one loses all patience and
enjoyment. Another critic (M. Z., No. 24) has said almost the same
thing, and the present writer must agree with him completely.
Nevertheless, the present work must not be rejected wholly. It
has its value and may be of excellent use for already practised
pianoforte players. There are always many who love difficulties
in invention and composition, what we might call perversities,
and if they play these Sonatas with great precision they may
derive delight in the music as well as an agreeable feeling of
satisfaction. If Mr. v. B. wished to deny himself a bit more
and follow the course of nature he might, with his talent and
industry, do a great deal for an instrument which he seems to have
so wonderfully under his control.
Let us pass on to No. 38 of the journal, where we find half a dozen
notices to arrest our attention. Variations by Schuppanzigh for
two violins are “written in good taste and conveniently for the
instrument”; variations for the pianoforte by Philip Freund are very
satisfactory and “some among them belong to the best of their kind”;
variations by Heinrich Eppinger for violin and violoncello “deserve
honorable mention”; but “X Variations pour le clavecin sur le Duo
‘La stessa, la stessissima’ par L. v. Beethoven” the critic “cannot
at all be satisfied with, because they are stiff and strained; and
what awkward passages are in them, where harsh tirades in continuous
semitones create an ugly relationship and the reverse! No; it is true;
Mr. van Beethoven may be able to improvise, but he does not know how to
write variations.”
CHANGE IN THE TONE OF CRITICISM
Now, however, the tide begins to turn. After an interval of nearly four
months, in No. 2 of Vol. II (October, 1799), the Sonatas, Op. 12, for
Pianoforte and Violin have a page allotted to them. A few sentences to
show the tone of the article will suffice; for the praise of Beethoven
needs no repetition:
It is not to be denied that Mr. v. B. is a man of genius,
possessed of originality and who goes his own way. In this he is
assured by his extraordinary thoroughness in the higher style
of writing and his unusual command of the instrument for which
he writes, he being unquestionably one of the best pianoforte
composers and players of our time. His abundance of ideas, of
which a striving genius never seems to be able to let go so soon
as it has got possession of a subject worthy of his fancy, only
too frequently leads him to pile up ideas, etc. Fancy, in the
extraordinary degree which Beethoven possesses, supported, too, by
extraordinary knowledge, is a valuable possession, and, indeed,
an indispensable one for a composer, etc. The critic, who, after
he has tried to accustom himself more and more to Mr. Beethoven’s
manner, has learned to admire him more than he did at first,
can scarcely suppress the wish that ... it might occur to this
fanciful composer to practise a certain economy in his labors....
This tenth collection, as the critic has said, seems deserving
of high praise. Good invention, an earnest, manly style, ...
well-ordered thoughts in every part, difficulties not carried to
an excess, an entertaining treatment of the harmony--lift these
Sonatas above the many.
In No. 21 (February, 1800) justice is done to the “Sonate pathétique.”
Except a passing notice of the publication of the Quartets, Op. 18,
made by a correspondent, Vol. III of the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” contains
_nothing_ on the works of Beethoven. So that more than a year passed
between the favorable review of the “Sonate pathétique” and the letter
to Breitkopf and Härtel of April 22nd. The mild tone of that missive
is, therefore, easily explained. The tone of the journal had completely
changed; this fact, and time, had assuaged Beethoven’s wrath, and
finally the publishers in applying to him for manuscripts had made the
_amende honorable_.
In the number of May 26th begins, with a notice of the two Sonatas for
Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 23 and Op. 24, that long series of fair,
candid and generously eulogistic articles on Beethoven’s works which
culminated in July, 1810, in the magnificent review of the C minor
Symphony by E. T. A. Hoffmann--a labor of love that laid the foundation
of a new school of musical criticism.
III. Upon the last topic of the letter to Breitkopf and Härtel
something remains to be said. It was in the “Intelligenzblatt” of the
“Allg. Mus. Zeit.” for May, 1800, that Rochlitz made a touching appeal
for aid for the last survivor of Sebastian Bach’s children. “This
family,” says he, “has now died out down to the single daughter of
the great Sebastian Bach, and this daughter is now very old.... This
daughter is starving.... The publishers of the ‘Musik Zeitung’ and I
offer to obligate if anybody shall entrust us with money to forward it
in the most expeditious and careful manner, and to give account of it
in the ‘Intelligenzblätter’.” The first account is in the paper for
December. Regina Susanna Bach publishes her “thanks” for 96 thalers
and 5 silbergroschens contributed, as the “careful account” which is
appended shows, by sixteen persons, four of whom, in Vienna, sent more
than 80 florins, leaving certainly but a small sum as the offering of
“her Germany.” One other--and only one--account appears, in June, 1801.
It is an acknowledgment by Rochlitz, Breitkopf and Härtel and Fräulein
Bach of having received on May 10th the considerable sum of 307 florins
Viennese (the equal of 200 thalers)
through the Viennese musician Andreas Streicher, collected by
Streicher and Count Fries. At the same time the famous Viennese
composer Herr van Beethoven declares that he will publish one of
his newest works solely for the benefit of the daughter of Bach
... so that the good old lady may derive the benefit of it from
time to time. Therefore he nobly urges that the publication be
hastened as much as possible lest the daughter of Bach die before
his object be attained.
Whether or not any such work was published is not known. Unsupported
conjectures as to the names left blank in the letter to Amenda when
originally printed in the “Signale” are of no use, and if made might
hereafter expose the conjecturer to just ridicule; there remain, then,
but two topics which require a word of comment--the year omitted in
the date, and the friend of his youth of whom Beethoven speaks in
such strong terms of affection--both of which, however, may better be
disposed of, in what is to be said upon the letter to Wegeler of June
29th.
This long, important and very interesting paper affords an illustration
of the readiness with which a conjecture may be accepted as a truth,
until one is compelled to subject it to rigid examination. Thus,
in using this letter for a particular purpose,[116] Wegeler’s date
“most probably 1800” was accepted, as it had universally been for
forty years, without question; but the moment it became necessary
to subject its entire contents to careful scrutiny, for the purposes
of this biography, the error became at once so apparent as really to
awaken a feeling of mortification for the temporary blindness that
allowed it to pass unquestioned. The allusions to Susanna Bach (“You
see it is very convenient, etc.”), to his change of lodgings, to the
publication of his portrait by Artaria, and (in the second letter)
to the change of his physicians, are all more or less indicative
of the true date, 1801, while the mention of Breuning’s return to
Vienna is proof positive. Finally, the similarity, almost identity,
of passages in the Amenda letter to portions of this, shows that the
two belong to the same June. Thus we at last have the gratification
of seeing these two valuable documents fall easily and naturally into
their true place in Beethoven’s history. It is worth noting that this
Wegeler letter offers--at the least, appears to offer--an example of
Beethoven’s occasional loose way of making statements; as in the letter
to Breitkopf and Härtel he writes as if he had half a dozen unpublished
concertos on hand, so now he speaks of having “already given several”
_Akademien_; and yet the most careful research has failed to show that
his concerts were at this time more than three in number in all; or
that he had ever even given more than one public concert in Vienna.
Perhaps, however, he may have included those given in Prague in his
“several.” As nothing can be added to his account of his bad health and
incipient deafness, we pass to the passages upon Breuning and Ries.
ARRIVAL IN VIENNA OF ANTON REICHA
IV. The opinion was before expressed, that the “man” spoken of in the
Amenda letter as having come to Vienna, to Beethoven’s comfort, was
Anton Reicha.[117] They were alike in age--Reicha being but a few
months the elder--and alike in tastes and pursuits. Reicha was superior
in the culture of schools and in what is called musical learning;
Beethoven in genius and originality as a composer and in skill as a
pianist. The talents of each commanded the respect of the other. Both
were aspiring, ambitious, yet diverged sufficiently in their views of
art to prevent all invidious rivalry. Reicha gained a reputation which,
in process of time, secured him the high position which he held during
the last twenty years of his life--that of Méhul’s successor in the
Paris Conservatoire.
To Beethoven, who was still digesting plans for musical tours, the
experience of his friend must have been of great value; not less to
Reicha the experience of Beethoven in Vienna. But he was by no means
dependent upon Beethoven for an introduction into the highest musical
circles of the capital. It has been shown in a previous chapter how
freely the salons were opened to every talented young musician, but
beyond this he bore a well-known name and the veteran Haydn kindly
remembered him as one of the promising young men who had paid him
their respects in Bonn. His opera “Ubaldi” was performed in Prince
Lobkowitz’s palace, and this probably led to his introduction to the
Empress Maria Theresia, who gave him an Italian libretto, “Argene
Regina di Granata,” for composition, in which the Empress herself sang
a part at the private performance in the palace.
Thus Beethoven and Reicha again met and lived on equal terms. “We spent
fourteen years together,”[118] said the latter, “as closely united as
Orestes and Pylades, and were always together in our youth. After an
eight years’ separation we met each other again in Vienna and confided
all our experiences to each other.”
BEETHOVEN AND STEPHAN VON BREUNING
V. When Wegeler says of Stephan von Breuning, “But he had, with short
interruptions, spent his life in closest association with Beethoven
from his tenth year to his death,” he says too much; and too little
when he writes that Beethoven “had once broken for a considerable
space with Breuning (and with what friend did he not?)” For besides
the quarrel, which Ries describes, there came at last so decided a
separation that Breuning’s name disappears from our history for a
period of eight to ten years--and that, too, not from _his_ fault.
It was impossible that the two should have met in 1801 on such terms
as those on which they had parted in 1796. Breuning had passed this
interval of five years in a small provincial town, Mergentheim,
in the monotonous routine of a petty office, in the service of a
semi-military, semi-religious institution which had so sunk in grandeur
and power as to be little more than a venerable name--a relic of the
past. In the same service he had now returned to Vienna. How Beethoven
had been employed, and how he had risen, we have seen. Thus, their
relative positions in society had completely changed. Beethoven now
moved familiarly in circles to which Breuning could have access only by
his or some other friend’s protection.
In view of the relation in which Wegeler stood to the Breuning family,
Beethoven might well have said more about “Steffen,” but not easily
less. Even here something of patronizing condescension in the tone
makes itself felt, which becomes far too pronounced when he speaks of
him in the second letter--that of November. Reading these passages in
connection with those unlucky sentences in the Amenda letter, which
have been censured in another place, one feels that Breuning had been
made sensible, to a painful degree, how great his friend had grown.
Wegeler himself is struck by Breuning’s non-appearance at Beethoven’s
private concert, and remarks: “He must have felt his disappointment
with this old friend all the more, since Breuning had been developed
by Father Ries from an amateur to a most admirable violinist, and had
several times played in electoral concerts.”
The more thoroughly the character of Breuning is examined, not only
in his subsequent relations to Beethoven but also in the light of
all that is known of him as a public official, as a husband, father
and friend, the higher he stands as a man. Under circumstances, in
his office, fitted to try his patience beyond the ordinary limits of
endurance, he never failed to bear himself nobly, as a man of high
principle, ever ready to sacrifice private and personal considerations
to the call of duty. In private life he was invariably just, generous,
tenacious of the right. Whatever causes he may have had on divers
occasions to complain of Beethoven, we learn nothing of them from his
correspondence so far as it has been made public, unless a single
passage cited by Wegeler be thought an exception; yet this is but
the expression of heartfelt sorrow and compassion--not one word of
anger. And we know that Beethoven, when in distress, never turned
to him in vain for sympathy nor for such aid as was in his power to
give. In the miserable years to come the reader will learn enough
of Breuning, though by no means a prominent figure, to feel respect
and admiration for his character, and to see for himself how unjust
to him were those letters--written by Beethoven under the impulse of
short-lived choler--which Ries has contributed to the “Notizen.” There
is some temptation to think that Breuning was of those whom Beethoven
“estimated at only what they were worth to him”; but let us trust
that, should ever the blanks in the Amenda letter be filled from the
autograph, his name will not be found--certainly not, if the conjecture
as to the time of Amenda’s residence in Vienna prove correct. It is
difficult to avoid saying either too much or too little on such a
topic as this of Breuning and Beethoven--to strike the just medium in
the strength of the language used; but the subject has been made the
occasion of so much injudicious comment, it was not possible to pass it
over.
VI. The “Intelligenz-Blatt” of Bonn, under date of November 30, 1784,
announces the baptism, on the preceding day, of Ferdinand, son of Franz
Ries.
Like many others who have become eminent musicians, his taste
and capabilities manifested themselves very early; as, at five
years old, he began his musical education under his father, and
afterwards under Bernhard Romberg, the celebrated violoncello
player.
The French invasion, the departure of Romberg in consequence (1794)
from Bonn, and the pecuniary straits to which Franz Ries was reduced,
prevented much attention being, for some time, paid to the
instruction of his son.... At last, when he was about thirteen
(“he had reached the age of 13 years”, says the “Rheinischer
Antiquarius”), a friend of his father took him to Arnsberg
in Westphalia, for the purpose of learning thoroughbass and
composition from an organ-player in that neighborhood.... The
pupil proved so much the more able to teach of the two, that the
organist was obliged to give the matter up at once and proposed to
young Ries to teach him the violin instead. As a _pis-aller_, this
was accepted; and Ries remained at Arnsberg about nine months,
after which he returned home. Here he remained upwards of two
years, improving himself in his art with great industry.... At
length, in the year 1801, he went to Munich with the same friend
who had formerly taken him to Arnsberg. Here he was thrown upon
his own resources; and throughout the trying and dispiriting
circumstances which, with slight exception, attended the next
years of his life, he appears to have displayed a firmness, an
energy, and an independence of mind, the more honorable, perhaps,
from the very early age at which they were called into action. At
Munich, Mr. Ries was left by his friend, with little money and but
very slender prospects. He tried for some time to procure pupils,
but was at last reduced to copy music at three-pence per sheet.
With this scanty pittance, he not only continued to keep himself
free from embarrassments, but saved a few ducats to take him to
Vienna, where he had hopes of patronage and advancement from
Beethoven.... He set out from Munich with only seven ducats and
reached Vienna before they were exhausted!
The citations are from that noble musical journal the London
“Harmonicon,” and belong to an article on Ries published in March,
1824. They correspond perfectly to a sketch of Ries’s life in the
“Rheinischer Antiquarius,” although there are sufficient differences to
show that the materials of the two articles were drawn from independent
sources. The “Antiquarius” (Part III, Vol. II, p. 62), however, dates
Ries’s arrival in Munich 1800, the “Harmonicon” giving it 1801. But
the difference is rather apparent than real, since the winter of
1800-1801 includes them both, and is therefore of very little import.
But when Ries, in the “Notizen” (p. 75), says: “On my arrival in
_Vienna_ in 1800,” the discrepancy is one not to be passed over without
investigation; not that it is a matter of much interest in itself
when a boy of fifteen or sixteen years became a pupil of Beethoven,
but because of its bearing upon other and weightier questions in the
chronology of the master’s life and works. Which, then, is correct?
Ayrton, the editor of the “Harmonicon,” could have obtained (in 1824)
the date for his article only from Ries himself, as in fact the
internal evidence proves him to have done. It was published after the
announcement of Ries’s farewell concert in London, with the evident
intention of aiding in securing its success, and must have been
presented to Ries for revision before it was sent to press. Ries,
therefore, must have erred by a lapse of memory, in 1824 as he admitted
he may have done, or in December, 1837, when he wrote the “Notizen.”
As for the writer, he has no hesitation in accepting September or
October, 1801, as the date of Ries’s advent in Vienna. Thus the last
of these errors--that of Wegeler in his date of the letter of June 29;
that of Schindler (in his first editions) in the date of the “Christus
am Ölberg”; and this of Ries--which had thrown all this period of
Beethoven’s history into a confusion that seemed inextricable, is
satisfactorily rectified, and the current of the narrative now flows as
clear and unimpeded here as in any other part.
Let us return to it. The “Harmonicon” proceeds:
BEETHOVEN AND FERDINAND RIES
Ries’ hopes from his father’s early friend, were not disappointed;
Beethoven received him with a cordial kindness, too rare, alas!
from men who have risen to eminence and distinction towards those
whose claim upon them is founded on the reminiscences of their
humble state. He at once took the young man under his immediate
care and tuition; advanced him pecuniary loans, which his
subsequent conduct converted to gifts; and allowed him to be the
first to take the title of pupil and appear in public as such.
So also the “Notizen”:
In the letter of recommendation from my father there had been
opened a small credit account to be used in case of need. I never
made use of it but, when a few times Beethoven discovered that
I was short of funds, he sent me money without being asked and
never wanted to take it back. He was really very fond of me, of
which fact he once in his absent-mindedness gave me a very comical
proof. Once when I returned from Silesia, where I had spent some
time at the country-seat of Prince Lichnowsky as pianist on the
recommendation of Beethoven, and entered his room he was about
to shave himself and had lathered his face up to his eyes--for
so far his fearfully stiff beard reached. He jumped up, embraced
me cordially and thereby transferred so much of the lather from
his left cheek to my right that he had none left. Did we laugh?
Beethoven must also have learned privately how matters had gone
with me; for he was acquainted with many of my youthful escapades,
with which he only teased me. In many cases he disclosed a really
paternal interest in me.
“But with all his kindness” continues the “Harmonicon,”
Beethoven would not give Ries instruction in thoroughbass or
composition. He said it required a particular gift to explain them
with clearness and precision, and, besides that, Albrechtsberger
was the acknowledged master of all composers. This latter had
almost given up teaching, being very old, and was persuaded to
take a new pupil only by the strong recommendation of Beethoven
and by the temptation of a ducat a lesson. Poor Ries’ ducats ran
only to the number of 28; after this he was driven to his books
again.
So it appears that he was Beethoven’s pupil only upon the pianoforte.
The manner in which he was taught is also described in the “Notizen”:
THE RECOLLECTIONS OF RIES AND CZERNY
When Beethoven gave me a lesson I must say that contrary to his
nature he was particularly patient. I was compelled to attribute
this and his friendly disposition, which was seldom interrupted,
chiefly to his great affection and love for my father. Thus,
sometimes, he would permit me to repeat a thing ten times, or even
oftener. In the Variations dedicated to the Princess Odescalchi
(Op. 34), I was obliged to repeat the last _Adagio_ variations
almost entirely seventeen times; yet he was still dissatisfied
with the expression of the little cadenza, although I thought I
played it as well as he. On this day I had a lesson which lasted
nearly two hours. If I made a mistake in passages or missed notes
and leaps which he frequently wanted emphasized he seldom said
anything; but if I was faulty in expression, in _crescendos_,
etc., or in the character of the music, he grew angry because, as
he said, the former was accidental while the latter disclosed lack
of knowledge, feeling, or attentiveness. The former slips very
frequently happened to him even when he was playing in public.
“I often played on two fortepianos with Ries,” says Czerny, “among
other things the Sonata, Op. 47, which had been arranged for two
pianofortes. Ries played very fluently, clear but cold.”[119]
Here we have a key to the identity of so many of Ries’s and Czerny’s
facts and anecdotes of those years, written out by them independently;
the latter, as he assures us, having first become acquainted with the
“Notizen” through the quotations of Court Councillor Lenz. The two
brilliant boys, thrown so much together, would never weary of talking
of their famous master. The stories of his oddities and eccentricities,
minute facts relating to his compositions, were, therefore, common
property; and it is clear that some which in this manner became
known to Ries at last assumed in his memory the aspect of personal
experiences and, as such, are related in the “Notizen.” The author
of this work once introduced an incident into something that he was
writing, under the full conviction of having been an actor in it, which
he now knows was only related to him by his brother. Yet only some six
or seven years had elapsed, whereas Ries wrote of a period which ended
thirty-five years before.
Another remark of Czerny’s is as follows:
When the French were in Vienna for the first time, in 1805,
Beethoven visited a number of officers and generals who were
musical and for whom he played Gluck’s “Iphigenia in Tauris”
from the score, to which they sang the choruses and songs not at
all ill. I begged the score from him and at home wrote out the
pianoforte score as I had heard him play it. I still have this
arrangement (November, 1852). From that time I date my style of
arranging orchestral works, and he was always wholly satisfied
with my arrangements of his symphonies, etc.
A lad who, though not yet fifteen years old, was able to write a
pianoforte score of such an opera after a single hearing, certainly
deserved the testimonial to his talent which, though written by another
hand, was signed at the time by Beethoven and sealed. The testimonial,
in the possession of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, runs
as follows:
We, the undersigned, cannot withhold from the lad Carl Czerny,
who has made such extraordinary progress on the pianoforte, far
surpassing what might be expected from a boy of fourteen years,
that for this reason, and also because of his marvelous memory, he
is deserving of all possible support, the more since his parents
have expended their fortune in the education of this promising son.
Vienna, December 7, 1805.
Ludwig van Beethoven. (Seal)
The master had early and wisely warned him against a too free use of
his extraordinary memory. “My musical memory,” Czerny writes,
enabled me to play the Beethovenian works by heart without
exception, and during the years 1801-1805 I was obliged to play
these works in this manner at Prince Lichnowsky’s once or twice
a week, he calling out only the desired opus number. Beethoven,
who was present a few times, was not pleased. “Even if he plays
correctly on the whole,” he remarked, “he will forget in this
manner the quick survey, the _a vista_-playing and, occasionally,
the correct expression.”
Very neat is the anecdote which Czerny relates in the “Wiener
Musikzeitung” of September 28th, 1845, how, after he had outgrown his
studies, he was deservedly reprimanded for a few additions which he
made on his own account in one of his master’s works.
On the whole he was pleased with my performance of his works ...
but he scolded me for every blunder with a kind freedom which I
shall never forget. When once, for instance, I played the Quintet
with Wind-Instruments with Schuppanzigh, I permitted myself, in
a spirit of youthful carelessness, many changes, in the way of
adding difficulties to the music, the use of the higher octave,
etc.--Beethoven took me severely to task in the presence of
Schuppanzigh, Linke and the other players. The next day I received
the following letter from him, which I copy carefully from the
original draft:
“Dear Czerny:
“To-day I cannot see you, but to-morrow I will call on you myself
to have a talk with you. I burst forth so yesterday that I was
sorry after it had happened; but you must pardon that in an
author who would have preferred to hear his work exactly as he
wrote it, no matter how beautifully you played in general. I will
make _loud_ amends at the Violoncello Sonata (I was to play his
Violoncello Sonata with Linke the next week). Be assured that as
an artist I have the greatest wishes for your success and will
always try to show myself,
Your
true Friend
Beethoven.”
This letter did more than anything else to cure me of the desire to
make any changes in the performance of his works, and I wish that
it might have the same influence on all pianists.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] Beethoven writes: “How can Amenda doubt that I should ever forget
him?”
[110] We shall see that even Ries took no note of his friend’s
infirmity for two years.
[111] Eleonore von Breuning, wife of Wegeler.
[112] A well-known picture by Füger, Director of the Academy of
Painting in Vienna.
[113] Christoph von Breuning.
[114] Breuning’s mother. (Wegeler.)
[115] The bark of _Daphne Mezereum_.
[116] The attempt to fix the chronology of Beethoven’s works.
[117] The German editor of Vol. II insists that it was not Reicha but
Stephan von Breuning--though he permits all of Thayer’s argument to
stand.
[118] From 1785 to the end of October, 1792; and from the winter
1800-’01 to 1808; two periods of seven years each, separated by the
eight years’ interval.
[119] From O. Jahn’s posthumous papers.