[Footnote 1: Article in Schilling]
[Footnote 2: Article in Schilling]
[Footnote 3: Ibid.] following noticed:--1. Music to Goethe's "Jery und
Bätely,"--which, in theatrical parlance, was shockingly _damned_;--but
then "its author had made many enemies as editor of the 'Musikalische
Zeitung,'" and the singers and actors embraced this opportunity of
revenge. 2. Music to the melodrama, "Die Rache wartet," (Vengeance
waits,) by Willibald Alexis, the scenes of which are laid in Poland at
the time of Napoleon's fatal Russian expedition. "This background was
the theme of the music, which consisted of little more than the overture
and _entr'actes_, but was held by musicians of note to be both grand and
profound. The character of the campaign of 1812, especially, was given
in the overture with terrible truth of expression. Still, however, the
work _did not succeed_." 3. "Undine's Greeting," text by Fouqué, with
a festive symphony, composed on occasion of the marriage of the present
Prince Regent of Prussia. This was also damned,--but then, it was badly
executed! 4. Symphony,--"The Fall of Warsaw,"--still manuscript. "The
music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character
of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their
terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange
soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to
add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,--preferring
Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,--"one of Marx's
most interesting works." 6. "Nahib,"--a series of songs, the music of
which "is gentle, tender, and full of Oriental feeling." 7. "John the
Baptist," an oratorio,--twice performed by the University choir in one
of the churches of Berlin. "A great charm is found in the peculiar
sharpness of characterization which distinguishes this music. The solos
and choruses, being held throughout in spirited declamation,--the
music not being aggregated in conventional tone-masses, but developed
vigorously after the sense of the text,--are distinguished from those
in the works of recent composers." Unfortunately for Marx, the public
preferred the solos and choruses of such recent composers as Meyerbeer,
Mendelssohn, and Schumann to his. A few songs and hymns completed the
list of his works at that time.
"At present," (1841,) says our authority, "Marx is laboring upon an
oratorio, 'Moses,' for which he long since made studies, and which in
its profound conception of character will have but few equals."
The "Moses" was long since finished, and was performed in several
places; but the public has not proved alive to its merits, and it fares
no better than did Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in its nonage.
We have perhaps quoted somewhat too largely from the article in
Schilling; but have thought so much necessary to give the reader the
basis of the great reputation which Marx has, particularly in England
and the United States;--for, singular as the fact may appear, we are
unable to recall the name of any young composer who has appeared and
gained any considerable degree of success, since Marx began to teach,
whom he can claim as his pupil. Most of the younger generation are from
the schools of Hauptmann, Haupt, Dehn, the Schneiders, and the Vienna
and Prague professors. Marx's reputation, then, is that of an author,--a
writer upon music.
There is one fact, however, worthy of mention in regard to the article
from which we have quoted, which, while it exhibits the modesty of
Marx,--modesty, the ornament of true greatness,--may (or may not) add
weight to the extracts we have made from it,--namely, that the article
was written for Schilling by Marx himself.
We have, then, a man of three-score years, whose youth and early manhood
fell in the period of Beethoven's greatest efforts and fame; a musician
by profession, and composer, but, through "the opposition of singers and
musicians and the scandalous journalism" of Berlin, forced from the path
of composition into that of the science and literature of the art; for
thirty years lecturer on the history and philosophy of music; professor
of the art in the first of German universities, a position, both
social and professional, which gives him command of all the sources of
information; dweller in a city which possesses one of the finest musical
libraries in the world, that, too, in which the bulk of the Beethoven
papers are preserved,--a city, moreover, in which more than in any
other the more profound works of the master are studied and publicly
performed. Certainly, from no man living have we the right to expect so
much, as biographer of Beethoven, as from this man.
We have no extravagant ideas of the value of the so-called
Conversation-Books of Beethoven. We are aware that they seldom contain
anything from the hand of the master himself,--being made up, of course,
of what people had to say to him; but one hundred and thirty-eight such
books--though in many cases but a sheet or two of foolscap doubled
together, generally filled with mere lead-pencil scribbling, now by his
brother, now by the nephew, then by Schindler or the old housekeeper,
upon money matters and domestic arrangements, but often by artists,
poets, and literary men, not only of Vienna, but in some cases even from
England, and in one from America--must contain a great mass of matter,
which places one amidst those by whom the master was surrounded, makes
one to "know his goings-out and his comings-in," and occasionally facts
of high importance in the study of his character, and the circumstances
in which he spent his last years. For some twelve years these books
have been in Berlin and at the disposal of Marx. The numerous files of
musical periodicals and the mass of musical biography and recent musical
history preserved in the Royal Library must be of inestimable value to
the writer on Beethoven,--a value which Marx must fully appreciate,
both from his former labors as editor, and his more recent onus as
contributor of biographical articles to Schilling's Encyclopedia.
As we take up this new life of Beethoven, then, the measure of our
expectations is the reputation of the author, plus the means, the
materials, at his command. And certainly the first impression made
by these two goodly volumes is a very favorable one; for, making due
allowance for the music scattered through them with not too lavish a
hand, by way of examples, we have still some six hundred solid pages of
reading matter,--space enough in which to answer many a vexed question,
clear up many a dark point, give us the results of widely extended
researches, and place Beethoven the Man and the Composer before us in
"Leben und Schaffen,"--in his life and his labors.
In the first cursory glance through the work, we were struck by an
apparent disproportion of space allotted to different topics, and have
taken some pains to examine to how great an extent this disproportion
really exists. We find that in the first volume, four works,--the First,
Second, and Third Symphonies and the opera "Leonore" or "Fidelio" occupy
136 of the 875 pages; in the second, that the other five Symphonies and
the "Missa Solemnis" fill out 123 of the 330 pages. Bearing in mind that
the works of Beethoven which have _Opus_ numbers--not to speak of the
others--amount to 137, and that, in some cases, three and even six
compositions, so important as the Rasoumowsky Quartetts, for instance,
are included in a single _Opus_, the disproportion really appears
very great. We notice, moreover, that just those works which are most
familiar to the public, which have for thirty years or more been
subjects of never-ending discussion, and which one would naturally
suppose might be dismissed in fewest words,--that these are the works
which occupy so much space. What is there so new to be said of the
"Heroic Symphony" that fifty pages should be allotted to it, while the
ballet "Prometheus," still strange to nearly every reader, should be
dismissed in three?
We find it also somewhat remarkable that Marx thinks it necessary to
give his own notions of musical form to the extent of nineteen pages,
(Vol. I. pp. 79 _et seq_.,) preparatory to his discussion of the
greater works of the master, and yet is able to condense the history of
Beethoven's first twenty-two years--the period, in our view, the most
important in making him what he was--in sixteen! We have not space to
follow this out farther, and only add, that, were this work a mere
catch-penny affair by an unknown writer, we should suspect him of
"drawing out the thread of his verbosity" on topics where materials are
plenty and talk is easy, in preference to the labor of original research
on points less known.
In reading the work carefully, two points strike us in relation to his
printed authorities: first, that the list of those quoted by Lenz in his
"Catalogue" and "Leben des Meisters" comprises nearly all those cited by
Marx; the principal additions being the works of Lenz, Oulibichef, and
A. B. Marx,--the latter of which he exhibits great skill in finding
and making opportunities to advertise;--and secondly, that, where the
Russian writer, through haste, carelessness, or the want of means
to verify facts and correct errors, falls into mistakes, the Berlin
Professor generally agrees with him. As it is impossible to suppose that
a gentleman who for nearly thirty years "writes himself, in any bill,
warrant, quittance, or obligation," Extraordinary Professor of a great
German University, should simply adopt the labors of an obscure Russian
writer without acknowledgment, we can only suppose these resemblances to
be coincidences. These coincidences are, nevertheless, so numerous,
that we may say in general, what Lenz knew of the history of the man
Beethoven and his works is known to Marx,--what was unknown to the
former is equally unknown to the latter. Marx, however, occasionally
quotes passages from Schindler, Wegeler, and Ries at length, to which
Lenz only gives references. We will note a few of the coincidences
between the two writers.