Chapter X

The Last Days in Gneixendorf--A Brother’s Warning--Beethoven

and his Kinspeople--The Fateful Journey to

Vienna--Sickness--Schindler’s Disingenuousness--Conduct of the

Physicians--Death and Burial.

The Conversation Books add nothing to the picturesque side of the

account of Beethoven’s sojourn in Gneixendorf as it has been drawn from

other sources. They indicate that there were some days of peace and

tranquility, and that not only Johann, but his wife and nephew also,

were concerned with making the composer comfortable and providing him

with such diversion as place and opportunity afforded. At the outset

Beethoven seems to have been in a conciliatory mood even towards the

woman whom he so heartily despised; and her willingness to please him

is obvious. She talks with him about various things, praises Karl’s

musical skill, which the nephew demonstrates by playing four-hand

marches with his great uncle. She discusses his food with him, and

if he ever was suspicious of the honesty in money matters of herself

and her family, he hides his distrust and permits her brother, the

baker, to collect money for him in Vienna, and the woman to go thither

to fetch it. There are frequent walks into the country round about

and drives to neighboring villages, and it would seem from one of

Karl’s speeches that sometimes argument and warning were necessary to

dissuade Beethoven from undertaking promenades in inclement weather.

Characteristic of the suspicious nature which his dreadful malady

had developed in him to an abnormal degree, and confirmatory also

of Michael Krenn’s remark that he was always called upon to give an

account of the conversations at table, is the evidence that the wife,

Karl and even a woman boarder are questioned as to the goings-out and

comings-in of the inmates of the house. Before the departure from

Gneixendorf, Karl begins to chafe under his uncle’s discipline. Johann

is occupied with the affairs of the estate and Karl does errands for

him as well as his greater uncle in Krems, whither he is willing to

journey on foot as often as necessary, perhaps oftener, for there are

soldiers stationed at the village, there is a theatre, English circus

riders give an exhibition (to which Karl offers to accompany the

composer) and, what is perhaps more to the young man’s liking, there

is a billiard-room. Of this fact, however, we are informed later by a

remark recorded in the Conversation Books by Johann after the return

to Vienna. The old suspicions touching the reasons for Karl’s absence

from Wasserhof again arise to plague Beethoven’s mind, nor are they

dissipated by Madame van Beethoven’s repeated assurances that he will

return soon. It is plain that the young man is taken to task, not only

for these absences, but also for what his uncle looked upon as moody

and defiant silences when suffering rebuke. Thus we read:

You ask me why I do not talk. Because I have enough. Yours is the

right to command; I must endure everything.... I can give no answer

as to what you say; the best I can do is to hear and remain silent,

as is my duty.

At a later period, when Beethoven has apparently upbraided the young

man for his unwillingness to return to Vienna, Karl retorts:

If you want to go, good; if not, good again. But I beg of you once

more not to torment me as you are doing; you might regret it, for I

can endure much, but not too much. You treated your brother in the

same way to-day without cause. You must remember that other people

are also human beings.--These everlastingly unjust reproaches!--Why

do you make such a disturbance? Will you let me go out a bit

to-day? I need recreation. I’ll come again later.--I only want to

go to my room.--I am not going out, I want only to be alone for a

little while.--Will you not let me go to my room?

[Sidenote: A RETURN TO VIENNA PRECIPITATED]

Karl was a young man of nearly twenty years; thriftless, no doubt;

indolent, no doubt; fond of his ease and addicted to idle pleasures,

no doubt--but still a man; and no matter how much he ought to have

been willing to sacrifice himself to make his uncle happy, it is a

question if there was any way in the world to that sure and permanent

result. He was not wise enough, nor self-sacrificing enough, to do

that which not a single one of the composer’s maturer friends, not

even Stephan von Breuning, had been able to do. Once in the Books he

shows a disposition to resort to the wheedling tactics which had been

frequently successful in earlier years, and urges as a reason for

tarrying longer in Gneixendorf that it will make possible their longer

companionship. He is pleading for a week’s longer stay: Breuning had

said that he should not present himself to the Fieldmarshal until

no evidences of the recent “incident” were longer visible; in a week

more the scar would not be noticeable, nor would a stay be necessary

had he provided himself with pomade; then he remarks: “The longer we

are here the longer we shall be together; for when we are in Vienna

I shall, of course, have to go away soon.” It was after this speech

that he made the remark already referred to about the cheapness of

fire-wood. Karl had plainly grown more than content with his life in

Gneixendorf and there is evidence to show that Beethoven had begun

to fear that he was wavering in his determination to enter the army.

Some drastic measure or occurrence was necessary to change the native

irresolution of Beethoven’s mind. Schindler, in his desire to paint

all the Beethovens, with the exception of the composer, with the

blackest pigments on his imaginative palette, does not scruple to

accuse Karl of undue intimacy with his aunt and offers this as a reason

for the departure. To this no reference can be found in the pages of

the Conversation Books, unless it be a remark which preceded Karl’s

outburst, last recorded. Here he tells his uncle that all his “talk

about intrigues needs no refutation.” The reference is vague and it

is extremely unlikely that the intrigues meant were those involved in

the vile insinuation of Schindler, for a reason which will be made

apparent presently. The house at Gneixendorf was not fitted for tenancy

in winter; the weather was growing boisterous; Madame van Beethoven had

left the men to their own devices and gone to her town-house. This,

apparently, was the state of affairs when Johann handed a letter to his

brother which could have no other result than to bring about a decision

to go back to Vienna at the earliest possible moment, and to carry

with him a heart full of bitterness which could only be intensified by

the sufferings which attended upon his journey. The letter bears no

date, but an allusion to the fact that von Breuning had allowed Karl

a fortnight for recuperation and he had already been two months at

Gneixendorf, is proof that it was written near the end of November.

That the brothers discussed it and cognate matters while it was in

their hands is evidenced by the fact that it contains on its back the

words in Johann’s writing: “Let us leave this until the day you go.--An

old woman.--She has her share and will get no more.” The letter was as

follows:

My dear Brother:

I can not possibly remain silent concerning the future fate of

Karl. He is abandoning all activity and, grown accustomed to this

life, the longer he lives as at present, the more difficult will

it be to bring him back to work. At his departure Breuning gave

him a fortnight to recuperate in, and now it is two months. You see

from Breuning’s letter that it is his decided wish that Karl _shall

hasten_ to his calling; the longer he is here the more unfortunate

will it be for him, for the harder will it be for him to get to

work, and it may be that we shall suffer harm.

It is an infinite pity that this talented young man so wastes his

time; and on whom if not on us two will the blame be laid? for he

is still too young to direct his own course; for which reason it

is your duty, if you do not wish to be reproached by yourself and

others hereafter, to put him to work at his profession as soon as

possible. Once he is occupied it will be easy to do much for him

now and in the future; but under present conditions nothing can be

done.

I see from his actions that he would like to remain with us, but if

he did so it would be all over with his future, and therefore this

is impossible. The longer we hesitate the more difficult will it be

for him to go away; I therefore adjure you--make up your mind, do

not permit yourself to be dissuaded by Karl. I think it ought to

be by _next Monday_, for in no event can you wait for me, inasmuch

as I cannot go away from here without money, and it will be a long

time before I collect enough to enable me to go to Vienna.

How Beethoven received this letter must be left to the imagination.

Its wisdom temporarily disarmed Schindler, who forgot all of his

frequently wicked charges against Johann long enough to admit that

the document proved that he was not utterly without good qualities of

character. He adds that he was in a position to assert that Ludwig took

his brother’s suggestion with bad grace and that before his departure

from Gneixendorf there was an exceedingly acrimonious quarrel between

the brothers, growing out of Ludwig’s demand that Johann make a will

in favor of Karl, thus cutting off his wife. It is to this that the

penciled endorsement on the letter refers. This subject, Schindler

says, was the real cause of the estrangement between the brothers

during the last five or six years of Ludwig’s life. The blame, he adds,

rested with Ludwig, who, “constantly at odds with himself and all the

world, loved and hated without reason.” Weeks afterward, while he lay

dying in Vienna, Beethoven’s thoughts were still occupied with the

purpose of persuading his brother to make a will in Karl’s favor.[162]

A moment’s reflection on a single fact will serve to give the quietus

to Schindler’s insinuation as to improper relationship between the

young man of 19 and his aunt of 40; at the time that Karl is pleading

to stay in the country, Johann is urging his brother to send him about

his duty, and Beethoven is halting in irresolution, the woman is in

Vienna.

[Sidenote: THE FATEFUL JOURNEY FROM GNEIXENDORF]

It must be assumed that the Monday referred to in Johann’s letter

was Monday, November 27; but several days must have elapsed between

this date and the time when Beethoven and Karl set out on the fateful

journey to Vienna. A determination seems to have been reached when

the Book shows Johann as saying: “If you are to start on Monday the

carriage must be ordered on Sunday.” There is no recorded conversation

touching the use of Johann’s carriage, which, so far as anything is

known to the contrary, may have still been in Vienna, whither, it is

safe to assume, it had carried Johann’s wife, and whither it was to

carry its owner as soon as he could make a satisfactory adjustment

of his financial affairs. That means of conveyance were discussed is

proved by Johann’s remark and also by a report made by Karl to the

composer: “There is no postchaise to Vienna, but only to St. Pölten....

From here there is no opportunity except by a stagecoach.”

Exactly when and how the travellers set out it is not possible to

determine. Schindler says that owing to Johann’s refusal to let his

brother use his closed carriage, Beethoven was obliged to make the

journey in an “open calash.” This is his statement in the first edition

of the biography, but in the third, for an unexplained reason, the

“open calash” is the vehicle used from Gneixendorf to Krems only, a

distance which was easily traversed on foot inside of an hour. If Dr.

Wawruch, Beethoven’s attending physician during the illness which

ended in his death, is correct, Beethoven told him that he had made

the journey “in the devil’s most wretched vehicle, a milk-wagon.”

Later Dr. Wawruch calls the vehicle in which he arrived in Vienna

a “Leiterwagen,” from which we might gather, which is utterly

preposterous, that it was a rack vehicle. Beethoven arrived in Vienna

on Saturday, December 2, and as there is a reference to only one night

spent in transit (as there had been one on the journey from Vienna

to Gneixendorf), it is likely that he left Gneixendorf early in the

morning of Friday, December 1. “That December,” says Dr. Wawruch, “was

raw, wet and frosty; Beethoven’s clothing anything but adapted to the

unfriendly season of the year, and yet he was urged on by an internal

unrest and a gloomy foreboding of misfortune. He was compelled to

spend a night in a village tavern where, besides wretched shelter, he

found an unwarmed room without winter shutters. Towards midnight he

experienced his first fever-chill, a dry hacking cough accompanied by

violent thirst and cutting pains in the sides. When seized with the

fever he drank a few measures of ice-cold water and longed, helplessly,

for the first rays of the morning light. Weak and ill, he permitted

himself to be lifted into the _Leiterwagen_ and arrived, at last,

weak, exhausted and without strength, in Vienna.” Wawruch derived his

information from Beethoven, possibly in part also from Karl, the only

witness from whom a succinct and absolutely correct account was to have

been expected; unhappily the tale, which Karl must have been called

upon to tell many times, was never reported. The untrustworthiness

of Schindler’s statements about the incidents of which he had no

personal knowledge is emphasized by obvious efforts made to falsify and

emasculate the record in the Conversation Books, concerning which it

will soon become necessary to speak.

[Sidenote: ONE OF SCHINDLER’S SLANDERS REFUTED]

It was Saturday, December 2nd, 1826, then, that Beethoven arrived

in Vienna from Gneixendorf and went to his lodgings in the

Schwarzspanierhaus. It does not appear that he considered himself

seriously ill, for in a letter to Holz which must have been written

two, or more likely three, days later, he says merely that he is

“unpässlich,” that is, indisposed. The letter was the second of its

kind, the first having been mislaid. In this letter he asked Holz to

come to him. It was written from dictation, but before appending his

signature Beethoven wrote, “Finally, I add to this ‘We all err, only

each in a different way’,” setting the quoted words to music for a

canon. This canon, of which an autograph copy on a separate sheet

of paper is preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin, points to a

possibility that some misunderstanding had arisen between Beethoven

and Holz just before the former started for Gneixendorf. Inasmuch as

Holz is at Beethoven’s side at least ten days before Schindler appears

there, and gives his services to the sick man until the end, though

not to the extent that Schindler does after his coming, the latter’s

efforts to create the impression that Beethoven had sent Holz away

from him is disingenuous, to say the least. Holz’s first act convicts

Schindler of an error which can scarcely be set down as an innocent

one. The story involves one of the slanders against Karl which has

been repeated from Schindler’s day to this, although its refutation

needed only a glance into the Conversation Books of December, 1826.

Schindler says that he did not learn of Beethoven’s condition until

“several days” after his return to Vienna. That he then hurried to

him and learned that neither Dr. Braunhofer nor Dr. Staudenheimer,

though sent for by Beethoven, had answered the summons and that Dr.

Wawruch’s coming was due to something only a little better than an

accident. Karl, though charged with the duty of summoning a physician,

had forgotten, or neglected, to so do, for several days. His commission

occurred to him while playing at billiards, and he incidentally asked

a _marqueur_ (scorer) in the billiard-room to send a physician to his

uncle. The _marqueur_, not being well, could not do it at the time, but

mentioned the matter some time later to Dr. Wawruch at the hospital

to which he had been taken. This story of unexampled heartlessness,

to which Dr. Gerhard von Breuning also gave currency, Schindler said

he had heard from Dr. Wawruch; but it is branded as a shameless

fabrication by Dr. Wawruch’s published statement and the evidence of

the Conversation Book. Dr. Wawruch wrote a history of Beethoven’s

illness entitled “Ärztlicher Rückblick auf Ludwig van Beethoven’s

letzte Lebensepoche” under date of May 20, 1827, which was published

by Aloys Fuchs in the “Wiener Zeitschrift” of April 30, 1842. In

this report Dr. Wawruch says, “I was not called in until the third

day.” This third day would be December 5th, and the date has twofold

confirmation in the Conversation Book. A fortnight after Beethoven’s

return to Vienna there is an entry in Karl’s handwriting of the

physician’s visits beginning with December 5th and ending with December

14, which shows that within this period Dr. Wawruch made daily visits

and on one day came twice. Schindler’s name does not appear until some

time after this entry, and it is recorded in a manner which indicates

plainly that it was his first meeting with the sick man. As the book

was folded and renumbered by Schindler the page on which this entry

appears is made to look as if it preceded others which are filled with

evidences of Holz’s helpfulness, but the records of the first call of

the physician are plain and undisputable. It was Holz who sent for him

and he did so on December 5, the day on which the first visit is noted.

Evidently Holz had hastened to Beethoven on receiving the letter asking

him to come which Karl seems to have delivered to him on the 4th or

5th. What passed at the first meeting does not appear, but this remark

in the handwriting of Holz does:

I have had Professor Wawruch called for you; Vivenot is himself

sick. I do not know Wawruch personally, but he is known here as one

of the most skillful physicians.--He is Bogner’s doctor.--He is

professor in the hospital.--He will come after dinner.

Vivenot was a physician. In all probability Beethoven had exhausted the

list of physicians of his acquaintance (Smetana, a surgeon, may not

have been considered and Malfatti could not be at the time for reasons

which Beethoven knew and was made painfully to feel later), before

Holz succeeded in securing the attendance of Wawruch.[163] According

to the accepted story, Braunhofer, who had been the last physician to

treat Beethoven before the misfortunes of the summer, had declined

the call because of the too great distance between his house and

Beethoven’s, and Staudenheimer, whom Braunhofer had displaced, promised

to come but did not. The latter, probably both, took part later in the

consultations. Wawruch was an amateur violoncello player and an ardent

admirer of Beethoven’s music. When he comes to his august patient,

though he permits Karl to write the questions, he takes the pencil

himself to tell who he is: “One who greatly reveres your name will do

everything possible to give you speedy relief--Prof. Wawruch.” In his

history of the case Wawruch writes:

I found Beethoven afflicted with serious symptoms of inflammation

of the lungs. His face glowed, he spat blood, his respiration

threatened suffocation and a painful stitch in the side made lying

on the back a torment. A severe counter-treatment for inflammation

soon brought the desired relief; his constitution triumphed and by

a lucky crisis he was freed from apparent mortal danger, so that on

the fifth day he was able, in a sitting posture, to tell me, amid

profound emotion, of the discomforts which he had suffered. On the

seventh day he felt considerably better, so that he was able to get

out of bed, walk about, read and write.

Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, who was concerned in proving that Dr.

Wawruch was a bungling practitioner, protests that Beethoven was not

suffering from inflammation of the lungs but from inflammation of the

peritoneum, which alone, he says, could have brought on the dropsy of

the belly from which it has been thought until recently Beethoven died.

He based his opinion on the fact, which, though only a boy of 13, he may

have observed in the sick-room, that the patient did not cough, had no

difficulty in breathing, and that afterwards his lungs were found to be

sound. Wawruch, however, an experienced physician, is speaking of what

he observed on his first visit and is not likely to have erred in so

obvious a matter as incipient lobar pneumonia, the general history of

which as now understood agrees with the recorded account of Beethoven’s

case, even in such details as the critical period reached on the fifth

day. The subsequent strength of the lungs is not inconsistent with

the theory that in the first week Beethoven weathered an attack of

pneumonia.

[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN’S HEALTH IN THE COUNTRY]

There are few references to the state of Beethoven’s health during the

sojourn at Gneixendorf, but that he was ill when he arrived there is

indicated by an early remark by Johann attributing an improvement in

the condition of his eyes to the good air “without rosewater.” Johann

wrote later that, when with him, Beethoven ate little. When the food

was not prepared to his taste he ate soft-boiled eggs for dinner “and

drank all the more wine.” He had frequent attacks of diarrhœa. His

abdomen also became distended so that he wore a bandage for comfort.

Wawruch had no knowledge of his patient’s previous medical history and

was compelled to discover for himself what his colleagues, to whom the

sick man’s call was first extended, would have known from their earlier

experiences with him. Schindler attacks Wawruch on the ground that he

had said that Beethoven was addicted to the use of spirituous liquors.

The Conversation Books and other testimony plentifully indicate that

the great composer was fond of wine and that his physicians had

difficulty in enforcing abstinence upon him; but the only one who, by

indirection, accused Beethoven of drinking to excess, was Schindler,

whose statements on that point are not free from the suspicion that

they were made only for the purpose of hitting Holz over Wawruch’s

shoulders.[164]

Wawruch’s report continues:

But on the eighth day I was alarmed not a little. At the morning

visit I found him greatly disturbed and jaundiced all over

his body. A frightful choleraic attack (_Brechdurchfall_) had

threatened in the preceding night. A violent rage, a great grief

because of ingratitude and undeserved humiliation, was the cause

of the mighty explosion. Trembling and shivering he bent double

because of the pains which raged in his liver and intestines, and

his feet, thitherto moderately inflated, were tremendously swollen.

From this time on dropsy developed, the segregation of urine became

less, the liver showed plain indication of hard nodules, there

was an increase of jaundice. Gentle entreaties from his friends

quieted the threatening mental tempest, and the forgiving man

forgot all the humiliation which had been put upon him. But the

disease moved onward with gigantic strides. Already in the third

week there came incidents of nocturnal suffocation; the enormous

volume of collected water demanded speedy relief and I found myself

compelled to advise tapping in order to guard against the danger of

bursting.

After Dr. Wawruch had reached this decision, Dr. Staudenheimer was

called in consultation and he confirmed the attending physician’s

opinion as to the necessity of an operation. Beethoven was told.

“After a few moments of serious thought he gave his consent.” The

servant Thekla, who had, apparently, come from Gneixendorf (as her

name appears in the Conversation Book used there), in the midst of

the preparations for the operation had been found to be dishonest and

dismissed. The composer’s brother had arrived in Vienna about December

10 and thereafter is found constant in his attendance, a fact which it

becomes necessary to mention because of the obvious effort of Schindler

to create the impression that the burden of the care of Beethoven had

been assumed by him, von Breuning and the latter’s son Gerhard. Wawruch

had retained Dr. Seibert, principal surgeon (_Primärwundarzt_) at the

hospital, to perform the operation. The date was December 20 (not 18,

as Schindler says). Those present were Johann, Karl and Schindler.

Beethoven’s sense of humor did not desert him. When, the incision

having been made, Dr. Seibert introduced the tube and the water spurted

out, Beethoven said: “Professor, you remind me of Moses striking the

rock with his staff.”[165] Wawruch writes in the Conversation Book:

Thank God, it is happily over!--Do you already feel relief?--If

you feel ill you must tell me.--Did the incision give you any

pain?--From to-day the sun will continue to ascend higher.--God

save you! [_This in English._] Lukewarm almond milk.--Do you

not now feel pain?--Continue to lie quietly on your side.--Five

measures and a half.--I hope that you will sleep more quietly

to-night.... You bore yourself like a knight.

[Sidenote: MULTIPLICATION AND HANDEL’S SCORES]

In the early days after Beethoven’s return to Vienna there is a

continuation of the correspondence with Schott and Sons concerning the

publication of the works which they had purchased, and before the end

of December, probably in the third week, occurs the incident of the

disappointing gift from the King of Prussia which makes its appearance

in the record with something like a shout of “Good news!” from

Schindler. Karl is busily occupied in preparations for his military

career and upon him, until the arrival of Holz, appears to devolve

the labor of writing and of carrying messages. The Conversation Book

used by him on the 4th of December and the two following days bears a

pathetic proof of Beethoven’s helplessness in the matter of figures. A

page or so is filled with examples in simple multiplication--tables,

without answers, of threes, fours, sevens, etc.--and the remark, “Then

backwards.” Later Karl writes an explanation: “Multiplication is a

simplified form of addition, wherefore examples are performed in the

same manner. Each product is set under its proper place. If it consists

of two digits, the left one is added to the product of the next. Here a

small illustration: 2348 multiplied by 2.” It was thus that the great

genius approaching his 56th birthday was employing his time while

waiting in vain for the physicians who would not or could not answer

his summons!

One joyful event brightened the solitary gloom of the sick-chamber in

the middle of December. From Stumpff, of London, Beethoven received the

40 volumes of Dr. Arnold’s edition of the works of Handel which the

donor had resolved to send Beethoven on his visit in 1824. Gerhard von

Breuning pictures the joy of Beethoven at the reception of the gift,

which he described as royal compared with that of the King of Prussia.

One day the boy was asked to hand the big books from the pianoforte

where they rested to the bed. “I have long wanted them,” said the

composer to his faithful little friend, “for Handel is the greatest,

the ablest composer that ever lived. I can still learn from him.” He

leaned the books against the wall, turned over the pages, and ever and

anon paused to break out into new expressions of praise. Von Breuning

places these incidents in the middle of February, 1827, but his memory

was plainly at fault. Schindler says the books arrived in December, and

he is right, for Stumpff preserved the receipt for them, a letter and

Reichardt’s “Taschenbuch für Reisende,” which is dated “December 14,

1826.” The gift was sent through the son of Stumpff’s friend Streicher.

Stephan von Breuning had called on Beethoven shortly after his arrival

and the work of making a soldier of Karl was begun at once. It was

expected that the preparations would occupy only a few days, but they

dragged themselves through the month of December, owing partly, no

doubt, to an illness which befell the Councillor. There were formal

calls to be made upon the Lieut. Field Marshal and other officers,

a physical examination to be undergone (it was most perfunctory),

uniforms to be provided, the oath of service to be taken, and his

monthly allowance to be fixed. All this was disposed of by the date

of the first tapping, and it was expected that he would set out to

join his regiment at Iglau before the Christmas holidays. There is

no evidence of a change in the attitude towards each other of uncle

and nephew. Some of Karl’s entries in the Conversation Books betray a

testiness which is in marked contrast to Beethoven’s obvious solicitude

for the young man’s position and comfort in his regiment; but the

entries also indicate that illness had not sweetened the disposition of

the sufferer. His outbursts of rage are the subject of warnings from

physicians and friends. We have Schindler’s word for it that Beethoven

became cheerful after the graceless youth’s departure for Iglau on

January 2nd, and the testimony of the Conversation Book that the old

year closed upon a quarrel between the two. Karl writes this greeting

on New Year’s day: “I wish you a happy new year, and it grieves me that

I should have been compelled already in the first night to give cause

for displeasure. It might easily have been avoided, however, if you had

but given the order to have my meal taken to my room.”

It is very possible that Beethoven’s spirits grew lighter after the

departure of his nephew. The service which Karl gave his uncle seems

frequently to have been given grudgingly and no doubt looked more

ungracious than it may really have been, when accompanied by protests

that he would not be found failing in duty and petulant requests that

he be spared upbraidings and torments. To satisfy the singular mixture

of affectionate solicitude and suspicion which filled Beethoven’s heart

and mind would perhaps have taxed the philosophy of a wiser as well

as gentler being than this young man, who, as Johann’s wife told the

composer in Gneixendorf, had inherited the testy family temper. When

open quarrels were no longer possible, it is likely that a greater

contentment than had lodged there for a long time filled Beethoven’s

soul. There is no record of the parting, and it is safe to assume

that it passed off without emotional demonstration of any kind. But

Beethoven’s thoughts went swiftly towards his self-assumed duty of

providing for the young man’s future. The very next day he wrote the

following letter to Dr. Bach:

[Sidenote: PROVIDING FOR THE NEPHEW’S FUTURE]

Vienna, Wednesday January 3, 1827.

Before my death I declare my beloved nephew my sole and universal

heir of all the property which I possess in which is included

chiefly seven bank shares and whatever money may be on hand. If

the laws prescribe a modification in this I beg of you as far as

possible to turn it to his _advantage_. I appoint you his _curator_

and beg his guardian, Court Councillor von Breuning, to take the

place of a father to him. God preserve you. A thousand thanks for

the love and friendship which you have shown me.

(L. S.) Ludwig van Beethoven.

From Gerhard von Breuning’s account of the last days of Beethoven it

would seem that this letter, though written on January 3rd, and then

addressed to his legal adviser, was not signed until shortly before

his death, and that at intervals in the interim it was the subject

of consultations between the composer, Bach, Breuning, Schindler and

Johann. Certain it is that before dispatching the letter to Bach,

Beethoven submitted it to von Breuning for an opinion. Gerhard carried

it to his father and brought back an answer which may have postponed

its formal execution and delivery till two days before Beethoven died.

Stephan von Breuning was not willing that Karl should enter upon

unrestricted possession of the property immediately upon the death of

his uncle. In his letter he pointed out that till now Karl had shown

himself frivolous and that there was no knowing what turn his character

might take as a result of the new life upon which he had entered. He

therefore advised that for the young man’s own good and future safety

he be prohibited from disposing of the capital of his inheritance,

either during his lifetime or for a term of years after he had reached

his majority, which under the Austrian law then prevailing was the age

of 24 years. He argued that the income from the legacy would suffice

for his maintenance for the time being and that to restrict him in

the disposition of the capital would ensure him against the possible

results of frivolous conduct before he should ripen into a man of solid

parts. He recommended that Beethoven talk the matter over with Bach

and wanted then to consult with both of them, as he feared that even a

temporary restriction would not suffice to restrain Karl from making

debts which in time would devour the inheritance when he should enter

upon it. How Beethoven received this advice we shall learn later.

There is little that need be added to the story of the nephew. He was

with his regiment at Iglau. Through Schindler, Beethoven wrote him

a letter. It is lost, but apparently it contained an expression of

dissatisfaction with Dr. Wawruch, for in the reply, which has been

preserved, Karl says: “Concerning yourself I am rejoiced to know that

you are in good hands. I, too, had felt some distrust of the treatment

of your former (or, perhaps, present?) physician; I hope improvement

will now follow.” He reports about his situation in the regiment, asks

for money and the flute part of the Pianoforte Concerto in B-flat

(Op. 19), which one of the officers of the regiment wished to play,

and adds in a postscript: “Do not think that the little privations

to which I am now subjected have made me dissatisfied with my lot.

On the contrary, rest assured that I am living in contentment, and

regret only that I am separated so far from you. In time, however,

this will be different.” But communications from the young man are

not many, and Schindler’s rebukes and complaints in the Conversation

Books about his undutifulness are probably only a reflex of Beethoven’s

moods and utterances. One cause of dissatisfaction was the fact that

a letter to Smart had been sent to him for translation and was not

promptly returned. But he acknowledges the receipt of money towards

the end of February, and on March 4th he writes another letter, which

has been preserved. He sends his thanks for a pair of boots, says the

translation of the letter to Smart must have been received, and adds:

To-day a cadet returned to his batallion who had been in Vienna on

a furlough; and he reports having heard that you had been saved by

an ice and are feeling well. I hope the report is true, no matter

what the means may have been... Write me very soon about the state

of your health ... I kiss you. Your loving son Charles.

Here Karl van Beethoven practically disappears from this history. He

never saw his uncle in life again, nor even in death, for he was not

present at the funeral--as indeed in those days of tardy communication

and slow conveyance he could not be.

[Sidenote: SCENES IN THE COMPOSER’S SICK-ROOM]

Notwithstanding that they do not make a complete record, since the

slate was also, and indeed largely, used by Beethoven’s visitors,

and despite the fact that they have not been left intact, but bear

evidences of mutilation and falsification, the Conversation Books

furnish a more vivid and also a more pathetic picture of Beethoven’s

sick-room than the writings of Schindler and Gerhard von Breuning.

Busy about the couch of the patient we see his brother Johann and his

nephew Karl, besides Schindler, Holz and Stephan von Breuning. The

visits of the last are interrupted by illness and his official labors,

but his son, the lad Gerhard, frequently lends a gracious touch to the

scene by his familiar mode of address, his gossip about his father’s

domestic affairs and his suggestions of intellectual pabulum for his

august friend. He is a daily message-bearer between the two households.

Even at a sacrifice of space it is necessary to recount a few incidents

of small intrinsic interest in order that some errors in history may

be rectified. Notwithstanding Schindler’s obvious efforts to have

the contrary appear, Holz continues to be faithful in attendance,

though his visits are not so numerous as they were during the weeks

of Beethoven’s great trial in the summer. The reason was obvious and

certainly not to his discredit, though Schindler attempted to belittle

it. Holz took unto himself a wife about the time that Beethoven

returned to Vienna. Thitherto he had been able to devote a large

portion of the time not given to official duties to his friend. Now,

this was no longer possible; nor was it necessary after Dr. Wawruch

had assumed care of the case. Beethoven’s brother also returned to

Vienna and Schindler found his way back to the composer’s side within

a fortnight. It is Holz, however, who looks after the correction and

publication of the last compositions, and collects his annuity; and if

it were necessary, his apologists might find evidence of Beethoven’s

confidence in his friendship and integrity in the fact that there is

no indication that he ever questioned his honesty in money matters,

while there is proof in Schindler’s own handwriting that Beethoven

thought _him_ capable of theft. It is pitiful that while Schindler is

sacrificing himself in almost menial labors, Beethoven forces him to a

pained protestation that he had returned the balance of a sum placed

in his hands wherewith to make purchases. Schindler himself records

the fact of Beethoven’s suspicion with sorrow. A livelier sense of

gratitude took possession of the sufferer later and found expression in

gifts of autograph scores (of the Ninth Symphony, for instance, now in

the Royal Library[166] at Berlin), and a promise, which he was unable

to fulfill, to take part in a concert for Schindler’s benefit.

Whether Schindler was always as scrupulously honest in his attitude

towards the public as he was in his dealings with Beethoven may be

doubted. There are mutilations, interlineations and erasures in the

Conversation Books which it is difficult to believe were not made for

the purpose of bolstering up mistaken statements in his biography,

which had already been published when the documents passed out of his

hands into the possession of the Royal Library. Here is a case in

point: Schuppanzigh has called and reported that one of Beethoven’s

quartets had been enthusiastically received by the public at a

performance on the preceding Sunday (December 10, 1826). To what seems

to have been an oral comment, Beethovens adds the words and music of

the motto from the Quartet in F: “Muss es sein? Es muss sein.” This

moves Schuppanzigh to say: “But does he”--(Beethoven, of course, whom

Schuppanzigh addresses in the third person as usual)--“does he know

that the dirty fellow has become my enemy on that account?” Here we

have an unmistakable allusion to the anecdote about Dembscher and the

origin of the Canon on the theme of the finale of the F major Quartet.

A few pages later Schindler is the writer and has just brought the

news of the arrival of the ring presented to Beethoven by the King of

Prussia. He had been asked to carry the ring to Beethoven, but had

been unwilling to accept it unless he could give Beethoven’s receipt

for it in exchange. He adds the words “Es muss sein” as if in answer

to a question by Beethoven. Now appear squeezed in between the music

and the edge of the sheet the words: “The Old Woman (_Die Alte_) is

again in need of her weekly allowance.” The handwriting is plainly of

a different date and at the time of the conversation the “Old Woman”

was not in Beethoven’s employ.[167] It is not easy to acquit Schindler

of a sinister motive here nor to avoid the suspicion that it was his

hand which made an attempt to obliterate the entry on December 5, which

proves that Holz sent for Dr. Wawruch on that date and thus gives the

lie to the infamous story about Karl and the billiard _marqueur_. The

evidences of Schindler’s eagerness to encourage Beethoven’s detestation

of his brother and his suspicion of his nephew are too numerous to be

overlooked, and some of them may call for mention later.

An offer by Gerhard von Breuning to bring one of his school-books

containing pictures of classic antiquities is an evidence of the

lad’s familiarity with Beethoven’s literary tastes. It was Brother

Johann, however, who suggested the novels of Sir Walter Scott for his

entertainment, and the impression conveyed by the story that after

beginning “Kenilworth” Beethoven threw the volume down with the angry

remark: “To the devil with the scribbling! The fellow writes only for

money,” that the composer would have no more of the novelist, is rudely

disturbed by evidence that Beethoven read all of Scott’s works which

were to be found in translation in the circulating library. Beethoven

later himself calls for Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”; and his interest in

international politics is so keen that he is not content with an

abstract of Channing’s great speech of December 12, 1826, but expresses

a desire to read a full report.

[Sidenote: DISSATISFIED WITH HIS PHYSICIAN]

While Beethoven’s friends are discussing with Dr. Wawruch the necessity

of a second tapping, and Karl is packing his boxes for Iglau, the year

1826 ends. The surgeon Seibert seems to have advised a postponement of

the operation. In a conversation on January 6, 1827, Schindler says

to Beethoven: “Then Hr. Seibert was really right in still postponing

the second operation, for it will probably make a third unnecessary.”

There are now signs of Beethoven’s dissatisfaction with the attending

physician. Gerhard von Breuning has much to say on the point in his

little book, and Schindler joins in the criticism many years after

Beethoven’s death; but in the Conversation Books he appears more than

once as Wawruch’s defender. From von Breuning we learn that while at

a later date Malfatti’s coming was awaited with eagerness and hailed

with unfeigned gladness, Wawruch’s visits were ungraciously received,

Beethoven sometimes turning his face to the wall and exclaiming “Oh!

the ass!” when he heard his name announced. But in the first week of

January, Schindler is still concerned in keeping up the patient’s faith

in the skill of his physician. In a Conversation Book he writes shortly

after the remark about the surgeon:

He understands his profession, that is notorious, and he is right

in following a safe course.--I have a great deal of confidence in

him, but I can not speak from experience.--However, he is known as

an able man and is esteemed by his students. But as we are here

concerned with a _carum caput_ my advice from the beginning has

been always to take into consultation a physician who is familiar

with your constitution from _medical treatment_; such an one

generally adopts very different measures.

Evidently, Beethoven renews his expression of distrust. Schindler

continues:

Yet it is better and more advisable not to lose confidence in the

physician, for after all he has done a great deal.--It is a very

well-known fact that dropsy is very slow of cure.--Shall I come

when the doctor is here?

A few days later (January 8, says Schindler, who was present) the

second operation took place. There were no complications, the tapping

was accomplished without difficulty and Dr. Seibert reported that the

water was clearer and the outflow greater than the first time. Ten

measures were drawn off. On January 11 there was a consultation of

physicians to which, besides either Dr. Braunhofer or Staudenheimer,

Dr. Malfatti had been called. It had become an ardent wish of

Beethoven’s that Malfatti undertake his case, but Malfatti had refused,

pleading professional ethics, but no doubt actuated by reasons of a

more personal character. Many years before, probably as early as 1813,

he had been not only Beethoven’s physician but also his friend; indeed,

he was an uncle of the Therese Malfatti to whom the composer once made

an offer of marriage. He made, what it is easy to imagine to have been,

the experience of all the medical men who undertook the care of the

great man. Beethoven was ever a disobedient and impatient patient.

He became dissatisfied with Dr. Malfatti’s treatment and commented

upon it and him in such a manner as to cause a serious and lasting

estrangement. Ten years at least had elapsed between this incident

and the time when Beethoven’s longing went out towards his one-time

professional friend. Schindler’s story of the disappointments which

he suffered when first he tried to persuade Dr. Malfatti to take the

case in hand was printed in the “Frankfurter Konversationsblatt” of

July 14, 1842. It was a long time afterward, and we can not withhold

a suspicion that it is rather highly colored, but since the coming of

Malfatti was a matter of large moment to Beethoven and the treatment

which he recommended (strictly speaking, he can not be said to have

prescribed it, for Dr. Wawruch remained in charge of the case to the

end) has a large bearing upon Beethoven’s physical condition and its

causes, it may be told here. Schindler writes, in his communication to

the Frankfort newspaper:

Never shall I forget the harsh words of that man which he

commissioned me to bear to the friend and teacher who lay mortally

ill, when after the second operation (January 8) I repeatedly

carried to him the urgent requests of Beethoven that he come to his

help or he should die. Dr. Wawruch did not know his constitution,

was ruining him with too much medicine. He had already been

compelled to empty 75 bottles, without counting various powders,

he had no confidence in this physician, etc. To all of these

representations Malfatti answered me coldly and drily: “Say to

Beethoven that he, as a master of harmony, must know that I must

also live in harmony with my colleagues.” Beethoven wept bitter

tears when I brought him this reply, which, hard as it was, I had

to do, so that he might no longer look for help to that quarter....

Though Malfatti finally took pity on poor Beethoven and abolished

Wawruch’s medicine bottles at once and prescribed an entirely

different course of treatment, despite the pleadings of the patient

he refused to remain his _ordinarius_ and visit him often. On the

contrary, he came only at long intervals and contented himself with

occasional reports from me as to the sick man’s condition. He was

not willing even to send one of his assistants to Beethoven and

consequently Dr. Wawruch remained his daily visitor in spite of

Beethoven’s protests.

[Sidenote: RECONCILIATION WITH DR. MALFATTI]

On January 19, after a second visit to Dr. Malfatti, Schindler wrote to

Beethoven saying that the Doctor would come to him and begging him to

seek a reconciliation, inasmuch as Malfatti still cherished resentment

because of the treatment which he had received a decade before at

Beethoven’s hands. Malfatti came, a reconciliation was effected,

and under the inspiration of the changed treatment which Malfatti

introduced Beethoven’s spirits rose buoyantly, his physical condition

responded and the despair which had begun to fill the sufferer gave

way to a confident hope of recovery. The treatment was simple, but the

improvement which it brought about was not lasting. Malfatti put away

the drugs and decoctions and prescribed frozen punch, and rubbing the

patient’s abdomen with ice-cold water. Dr. Wawruch in his history of

the case confirms Schindler’s statement of the beneficial results which

were at first attained. He says:

Then Dr. Malfatti, who thenceforth supported me with his advice,

and who, as a friend of Beethoven of long years’ standing

understood his predominant inclination for spirituous liquors,

hit upon the notion of administering frozen punch. I must confess

that the treatment produced excellent effects for a few days

at least. Beethoven felt himself so refreshed by the ice with

its alcoholic contents that already in the first night he slept

quietly throughout the night and began to perspire profusely. He

grew cheerful and was full of witty conceits and even dreamed of

being able to complete the oratorio “Saul and David”[168] which

he had begun. But this joy, as was to have been foreseen, did not

last long. He began to abuse the prescription and applied himself

right bravely to the frozen punch. The spirits soon caused a

violent pressure of the blood upon the brain, he grew soporous,

breathed stertorously like an intoxicated person, began to wander

in his speech, and a few times inflammatory pains in the throat

were paired with hoarseness and even aphony. He became more

unruly and when, because of the cooling of the bowels, colic and

diarrhœa resulted, it was high time to deprive him of this precious

refreshment.

Wawruch’s remark here about Beethoven’s predilection for spirituous

liquors formed the basis for Schindler’s charge, which has already

been discussed, that the physician had slandered Beethoven and had

tried to create the impression that he had contracted dropsy by

inordinate use of alcoholic drinks. The account of the beneficial

effect of Malfatti’s coming, no less than the treatment which he

prescribed, is reasonable enough. Beethoven no doubt, in the warm

glow of a recovered friendship, gave the physician a full measure of

confidence and hailed in him much more than the ordinary professional

leech. It is also safe to assume that Malfatti knew from the beginning

that a cure was impossible and strove at once for temporary relief,

which in Beethoven’s case was the surest of means for cheering him

up and reanimating hope within him. By administering frozen punch

he stimulated the jaded organs more successfully than Wawruch had

succeeded in doing; at the same time he warned against excess in its

use and forbade the patient taking it in a liquid form. But this was

only at the beginning; when he saw the inevitable end approaching he

waived all injunctions as to quantity. Schindler says:

The quantity of frozen punch permitted in the first weeks was not

more than one glass a day. Not until after the fourth operation

(February 27th), when it was seen that the case was hopeless,

were all restrictions removed. The noble patient, feeling the

marked effects of a doubled and even trebled allowance meanwhile,

thought himself already half saved and wanted to work on his

tenth symphony, which he was allowed to do to a small extent.

From these days, so extraordinary in the sight of the friends who

surrounded him, the last lines are dated which he wrote to me on

March 17--nine days before his death--the very last page which the

immortal master wrote with his own hands:

“Miracles! Miracles! Miracles! The highly learned gentlemen are

both defeated! Only through Malfatti’s science shall I be saved. It

is necessary that you come to me for a moment this forenoon.”

The reiteration of the word “miracles” is indicated by the usual

musical sign of repetition 𝄎. There is no date in Beethoven’s

handwriting, but Schindler has endorsed it: “Beethoven’s last lines

to Schindler on March 17, 1827.” The endorsement is of a later date

and marks another obvious error of memory. It is not possible that

Beethoven wrote the letter after he had himself abandoned all hope

of recovery, as he had before the date affixed by Schindler. Most

obviously the pathetic document is an outburst of jubilation on feeling

the exhilaration consequent on Malfatti’s prescription, as mentioned

in Dr. Wawruch’s report. Schindler says that the “learned gentlemen”

referred to were Wawruch and Seibert. Wawruch says that Beethoven

abandoned hope after the fourth tapping; Johann van Beethoven records

that the physicians declared him lost on March 16. Schindler in his

biography describes a letter written in February as the last letter

actually written by the composer.

[Sidenote: TREATMENT OF THE PATIENT]

Gerhard von Breuning, prejudiced as he was against Dr. Wawruch, was yet

far from unqualified in his praise of Malfatti. He says:

But the usually brilliant physician seems to have been little

inspired in the presence of Beethoven. The frozen punch which he

prescribed to restore the tone of the digestive organs, excessively

weakened by Wawruch’s overload of medicaments, had, indeed, the

desired restorative effect; but it was too transient. On the

other hand a sort of sweat-bath prescribed a few days after the

second[169] operation was so obviously injurious to the patient,

filled with longing and hope, that it had to be abandoned at once.

Jugs filled with hot water were arranged in a bath-tub and covered

thickly with birch leaves on which the patient was seated, all of

his body but the head being covered with a sheet. Malfatti hoped

for a beneficient action upon the skin and to put the organs into

a productive perspiration. But the very opposite effect resulted.

The body of the patient, which had been emptied of its water by the

scarcely completed tapping, attracted the moisture developed by the

bath like a block of salt; it swelled visibly in the apparatus and

in a few days compelled the introduction anew of the tube into the

still unhealed puncture.

The story of this sweat-bath needs to be told, if for no other reason

than because it is the basis of another of the romances still current,

which were retailed for the single purpose of presenting Beethoven as

a sufferer from the niggardliness of Johann. On January 25 (the date

is fixed by a remark of Johann’s in the Conversation Book) Schindler

brought word to Beethoven that the mother of the singer Fräulein

Schechner had sent for him that morning to tell him about two remedies

which had proved efficacious in the case of her father, who had also

been afflicted with dropsy. One of these was Juniperberry tea, the

other a vapor bath from a decoction, the ingredients of which were

a head of cabbage, two handfuls of caraway seeds and three handfuls

of hayseed (_Heublumen_). These remedies had been prescribed by the

physician of the late King of Bavaria and had worked a cure in the case

of Madame Schechner’s father when he was 70 years old. Dr. Malfatti

seems to have been told of these remedies and to have prescribed the

bath, which, it is said in the Conversation Books, he recognized at

once as a cure used by Dr. Harz, the Royal Physician mentioned. Within

a day or two Schindler notes in the book, that he had asked Johann for

some hay and the latter had replied that his hay was not good enough

for the purpose; but the next day, on seeing the hay, which had been

procured from another source, Johann had said that he had plenty of

that sort and that his was dryer. Unwilling, apparently, to admit

that Johann might have been honest in his belief that the hay from

his stable was not fit for medicinal purposes, Schindler writes for

Beethoven’s perusal: “Is it not abominable that he is unwilling even to

give hay for a single bath!” Yet this monster of inhumanity, unwilling

to sacrifice even a wisp of hay for a dying brother, was at the time in

daily attendance upon that brother and had taken upon himself a great

deal of the onerous and disagreeable labor of the sick-room!

Among Beethoven’s visitors in February, near the end of the month,

when Beethoven was at an extremity of his suffering, was the singer

Demoiselle Schechner, who almost forced her way to the bedside to

tell him of her great admiration for his music, of her successes in

“Fidelio,” and that it was through singing his “Adelaide” that she had

won her way to the operatic stage. Under date of February there also

came to the composer a cheery letter from his old playmate Wegeler,

calling to his mind some of his early flames--Jeanette Honrath and

Fräulein Westerholt--and playfully outlining a plan by which the old

friends might enjoy a reunion: he would send, he said, one of his

patients to Carlsbad and go there with him as soon as Beethoven should

arrange also to go there for his convalescence. Then, after a three

weeks’ trip through South Germany, there should be a final visit to the

home of their childhood. And, as before, Eleonore sends a postscript

emphasizing the pleasures of the reunion. Beethoven answered the letter

on February 17, and told his old friend how he had tried to send him a

letter and portrait through Stephan von Breuning on December 10, but

the plan had miscarried. Now the matter was to be entrusted to the

Schotts.

Zmeskall, faithful to the old friendship, a bound prisoner to his room

through gout, sends greetings and inquiries through Schindler. From his

sick-bed Beethoven answers him, not in the jocular spirit which marked

his voluminous notes of old, but in terms which breathe sincerity and

real friendship:

A thousand thanks for your sympathy. I do not despair. The most

painful feature is the cessation of all activity. No evil without

its good side. May heaven but grant you amelioration of your

painful existence. Perhaps health is coming to both of us and we

shall meet again in friendly intimacy.

[Sidenote: COMFORT RECEIVED FROM ENGLAND]

Though Beethoven had received the Handel scores in December, he does

not seem to have had an opportunity to enjoy Stumpff’s gift thoroughly

until he turned to them for intellectual refreshment on his bed of

pain. He had signed the receipt for them in December, but it was

not until his thoughts turned to his English friends in the hope of

pecuniary relief that he wrote a letter to Stumpff under date of

February 8.[170]

How great a joy the sending of the works of Handel of which you

made me a present--for me a royal present!--this my pen cannot

describe. An article about it was even printed by the newspaper,

which I enclose. Unfortunately I have been down with the dropsy

since the 3rd of December. You can imagine in what a situation this

places me! I live generally only from the proceeds of my brain,

to make provision of all things for myself and my Carl. Unhappily

for a month and a half I have not been able to write a note. My

salary suffices only to pay my semi-annual rent, after which there

remains only a few hundred florins. Reflect now that it cannot

yet be determined when my illness will end, I again be able to

sail through the air on Pegasus under full sail. Doctor, surgeon,

everything must be paid.

I recall right well that several years ago the Philharmonic Society

wanted to give a concert for my benefit. It would be fortunate for

me if they would come to this determination now. It might save me

from all the needs which confront me. On this account I am writing

to Mr. S. [Smart] and if you, my dear friend, can do anything

toward this end I beg of you to coöperate with Mr. S. Moscheles

will also be written to about it and if all my friends unite I

believe that something can be done for me in this matter.

Concerning the Handel works for H. Imperial Highness Archduke

Rudolph, I cannot as yet say anything with certainty. But I will

write to him in a few days and remind him of it.

While thanking you again for your glorious gift, I beg of you to

command me if I can be of service to you here in any way, I shall

do it with all my heart. I again place my condition as I have

described it close to your benevolent heart and while wishing you

all things good and beautiful, I commend myself to you.

Stumpff had already been informed of Beethoven’s illness by Streicher.

It is evident that he went at once to Smart and Moscheles, and

knowledge of Beethoven’s condition and request was communicated to the

directors of the Philharmonic Society forthwith. Beethoven, meanwhile,

had written to both Smart and Moscheles, enclosing the letter of the

former in the letter to the latter; but the quick and sympathetic

action of the Society was no doubt due primarily to the initiative of

Stumpff, for the letters could by no means have reached London when the

directors held a meeting on February 28. Mr. Dance presided, and those

present, as recorded in the Society’s minutes, were F. Cramer, Horsley,

Moralt, Dragonetti, Neate, Dizi, Beale, T. Cooke, Sir G. Smart, Welsh,

Latour, Spagnoletti, Calkin, J. B. Cramer, Cipriani Potter and Watts.

The minutes continue:

It was moved by Mr. Neate, and seconded by Mr. Latour:

“That this Society do lend the sum of One Hundred Pounds to its

own members to be sent through the hands of Mr. Moscheles to some

confidential friend of Beethoven, to be applied to his comforts and

necessities during his illness.”

Carried unanimously.

Both Stumpff and Moscheles wrote the good news to Beethoven the

next day. Moscheles’s letter appears in his translation, or rather

paraphrase, of Schindler’s biography. In it he said:

The Philharmonic Society resolved to express their good will

and lively sympathy by requesting your acceptance of 100 pounds

sterling (1,000 florins) to provide the necessary comforts and

conveniences during your illness. This money will be paid to your

order by Mr. Rau, of the house of Eskeles, either in separate sums

or all at once as you desire.

He added an expression of the Philharmonic Society’s willingness to aid

him further whenever he should inform it of his need of assistance.

Beethoven’s impatience was so great that, having found Smart’s address

among his papers, he wrote him a second letter on March 6th, being

able now to mention the fact of the fourth tapping on February 27th

and to utter the apprehension that the operation might have to be

repeated--perhaps more than once. On March 14th he was still without

the answer of his English friends and he wrote again to Moscheles

telling him of the two letters sent to Smart, urging action and

concluding with

Whither is this to lead, and what is to become of me if this

continues for a while longer? Verily, a hard lot has befallen me!

But I yield to the will of fate and only pray God so to order it in

his Divine Will that so long as I must endure this death in life I

may be protected against want. This will give me strength to endure

my lot, hard and terrible as it may be, with submission to the will

of the Most High.... Hummel is here and has already visited me a

few times.

Schindler says that the appeal to London, which had been suggested

by Beethoven, had been discussed with the composer by himself and

Breuning, who agreed in questioning the advisability of the step

which, they said, would make a bad impression if it became known. They

reminded Beethoven of his bank-shares, but he protested vigorously

against their being touched; he had set them apart as a legacy for his

nephew which must not be encroached upon. The letters to Smart and

Moscheles are mentioned several times in the Conversation Books, but

there is no record of a protest by Schindler or Breuning. Inasmuch,

however, as much of the conversation with Beethoven was at this time

carried on with the help of a slate, it is very likely that Schindler’s

statement is correct. At any rate it serves to give a quietus to the

fantastic notion of the romancers that Beethoven had forgotten that

he had the shares. Not only were they talked about by his friends,

but they were the subject of discussion in the correspondence and

congratulations between Beethoven, Bach and Breuning on the subject of

the will.

The last letters to Smart and Moscheles were scarcely dispatched before

advices were received from London. Beethoven dictated the following

acknowledgment which Schindler, though he held the pen, did not

reproduce in full in his biography:

[Sidenote: MONEY FROM THE LONDON PHILHARMONIC]

Vienna, March 18, 1827.

My dear good Moscheles:

I can not describe to you in words with what feelings I read your

letter of March 1. The generosity with which the Philharmonic

Society anticipated my petition has touched me in the innermost

depth of my soul. I beg you, therefore, my dear Moscheles, to be

the agency through which I transmit my sincerest thanks for the

particular sympathy and help, to the Philharmonic Society.

I found myself constrained to collect at once the entire sum of

1,000 florins C. M. being in the unpleasant position of raising

money which would have brought new embarrassments.

Concerning the concert which the Philharmonic Society has resolved

to give, I beg the Society not to abandon this noble purpose, and

to deduct the 1,000 florins already sent to me from the proceeds of

the concert. And if the Society is disposed graciously to send me

the balance I pledge myself to return my heartiest thanks to the

Society by binding myself to compose for it either a new symphony,

which lies already sketched in my desk, a new overture or whatever

else the Society shall wish.

May heaven very soon restore me again to health, and I will prove

to the generous Englishmen how greatly I appreciate their interest

in my sad fate. Their noble act will never be forgotten by me and I

shall follow this with especial thanks to Sir Smart and Mr. Stumpff.

Schindler relates that Beethoven on March 24, whispered to him, “write

to Smart and Stumpff,” and that he would have done so on the morrow had

Beethoven been able to sign his name. In a translation of the letter to

Moscheles printed in a pamphlet published by the Philharmonic Society

in 1871,[171] it concluded as follows:

Farewell! with the kindest remembrances and highest esteem

From your friend

Ludwig van Beethoven.

Kindest regards to your wife. I have to thank you and the

Philharmonic Society for a new friend in Mr. Rau. I enclose for the

Philharmonic Society a metronomic list of the movements of my ninth

Symphony.

Allegro ma non troppo 88 = 𝅘𝅥

Molto vivace 116 = 𝅗𝅥

Presto 116 = 𝅗𝅥

Adagio primo 60 = 𝅘𝅥

Andante moderato 63 = 𝅗𝅥

Finale presto 96 = 𝅘𝅥

Allegro ma non tanto 88 = 𝅘𝅥

Allegro assai 80 = 𝅗𝅥

Alla marcia 84 = 𝅘𝅥

Andante maestoso 72 = 𝅗𝅥

Adagio divoto 60 = 𝅗𝅥

Allegro energico 84 = 𝅗𝅥

Allegro ma non tanto 120 = 𝅗𝅥

Prestissimo 132 = 𝅗𝅥

Maestoso 60 = 𝅘𝅥

The history of the Philharmonic Society’s benefaction may properly be

completed at this point. The money, as is to be seen from Beethoven’s

acknowledgment, was collected by the composer at once. Herr Rau, of the

banking-house of Eskeles to whom it had been entrusted, called upon

Beethoven immediately on receiving advices from London. It was on March

15, and two days later he enclosed Beethoven’s receipt (dated March 16)

in a letter to Moscheles which the latter transmitted to Mr. W. Watts,

Secretary of the Philharmonic Society. Rau wrote:

I have with the greatest surprise heard from you, who reside in

London, that the universally admired Beethoven is so dangerously

ill and in want of pecuniary assistance, while we, here at Vienna,

are totally ignorant of it. I went to him immediately after having

read your letter to ascertain his state, and to announce to him

the approaching relief. This made a deep impression upon him, and

called forth true expressions of gratitude. What a satisfactory

sight would it have been for those who so generously relieved him

to witness such a touching scene! I found poor Beethoven in a sad

way, more like a skeleton than a living being. He is suffering

from dropsy, and has already been tapped four times; he is under

the care of our clever physician Malfatti, who unfortunately gives

little hope of his recovery.

How long he may remain in his present state, or if he can at all

be saved, can not yet be ascertained. The joyous sensation at the

sudden relief from London has, however, had a wonderful effect upon

him; it made one of the wounds (which since the last operation had

healed) suddenly burst open during the night, and all the water

which had gathered since a fortnight ran out freely. When I came to

see him on the following day he was in remarkably good spirits and

felt himself much relieved. I hastened to Malfatti to inform him of

this alteration and he considers the event as very consolatory. He

will contrive to keep the wound open for some time and thus leave a

channel for the water which gathers continually. Beethoven is fully

satisfied with his attendants, who consist of a cook and housemaid.

His friend and ours, Mr. Schindler, dines with him every day

and thus proves his sincere attachment to him. S. also manages

his correspondence and superintends his expenses. You will find

enclosed a receipt from Beethoven for the 1,000 florins (or 100

pounds). When I proposed to him to take half of the sum at present,

and to leave the rest with Baron Eskeles, where he might have it

safely deposited, he acknowledged to me openly that he considered

this money as a relief sent him from heaven; and that 500 florins

would not suffice for his present want. I therefore gave him,

according to his wish, the whole sum at once. Beethoven will soon

address a letter to the Philharmonic Society by which he means to

express his gratitude. I hope you will again accept my services

whenever they can be of any use to Beethoven. I am, etc.

In a letter, dated March 24, Schindler wrote to Moscheles:

I much regret that you did not express more decidedly in your

letter the wish that he should draw the 100 pounds by installments,

and I agreed with Rau to recommend this course, but he (Beethoven)

preferred acting on the last part of your letter. Care and anxiety

seemed at once to vanish when he had received the money, and he

said to me quite happily, “Now we can again look forward to some

comfortable days.” We had only 340 florins, W. W. remaining and

we had been obliged to be very economical for some time in our

housekeeping.... His delight on receiving this gift from the

Philharmonic Society resembled that of a child. A letter from that

worthy man Stumpff arrived here two days before yours and all this

affected Beethoven very much. Numberless times during the day he

exclaimed. “May God reward them a thousandfold.”

On March 28 Rau wrote again to Moscheles:

Beethoven is no more; he died on the 26th inst. at five o’clock

in the afternoon, in the most dreadful agonies of pain. He was,

as I mentioned to you in my last letter, according to his own

statement, without any relief, without any money, consequently in

the most painful circumstances; but on taking an inventory of his

property after his death, at which I was present, we found in an

old half-mouldy chest, seven Austrian bank bills which amount to

about 1,000 pounds. Whether Beethoven concealed these purposely,

for he was very mistrusting, and hoped for a speedy recovery,

or whether he was himself ignorant of his possession, remains a

riddle. We found the whole of the 100 pounds which the Philharmonic

Society sent him, and I reclaimed them according to your former

orders.[172] but was compelled to deposit them with the magistrate

until a further communication from that Society arrives. I could,

of course, not permit the expenses of the burial to be paid out of

this money without the consent of the Society. Beethoven’s nephew

now succeeds to all his property. I hope to hear from you soon and

explicitly what I am to do, and you may rest perfectly assured of

my promptness and exactitude.

[Sidenote: MOSCHELES REPORTS TO LONDON]

Moscheles, “by return post,” as he assures Mr. Watts, asked Rau to send

the £100 back to the Philharmonic Society “according to the conditions

under which the money was sent.” A correspondence ensued between

Moscheles and Hotschevar, who was appointed guardian of the nephew

after Breuning’s death (on June 4, 1827), which ended in Moscheles’ (as

he himself says) laying before the Philharmonic Society the case of

young Beethoven (then under age) and soliciting them “not to reclaim

the £100, but, in honor of the great deceased, to allow the small

patrimony to remain untouched.” Meanwhile it appears from a letter from

Schindler to Smart dated March 31,[173] that Schindler and Breuning

applied a portion of the sum to the payment of the funeral expenses;

“otherwise,” says the letter, “we could not have had him decently

buried without selling one of the seven bank-shares which constitute

his entire estate.” The sum thus expended is shown to have been 650

florins C. M. by the inventory preserved by Fischoff.

There are evidences outside of the importunate letters to London that

Beethoven had frequent spells of melancholy during the period between

the crises of his disease, which culminated in the third operation on

February 2,[174] and the fourth. Some of them were, no doubt, due to

forebodings touching the outcome of his illness; some to the anxiety

which his financial condition gave him (more imaginary than real in

view of the easily convertible bank-shares), and some presumably to

disappointment and chagrin at the conduct of his nephew, who had not

answered his letter to Iglau. Breuning explained that the negligence

might be due to Karl’s time and attention being engrossed by the

carnival gayeties at the military post, and warned Beethoven that

to give way to melancholy was to stand in the way of recovery. We

learn this from the Conversation Books, which also give glimpses of

friendly visits calculated to divert the sick man’s mind and keep

him in touch with the affairs of the city, theatre and the world at

large. Doležalek, Schuppanzigh, and apparently Linke also, came in a

group; Beethoven showed them the Handel scores and the conversation

ran out into a discussion of international politics. Moritz Lichnowsky

made a call and entertained him with the gossip of the theatres.

Gleichenstein made several visits, and once brought with him his

wife and son. The Countess was a sister of Therese Malfatti, to whom

Beethoven had once made an offer of marriage, and was disappointed

when Beethoven did not recognize her. About the middle of February

Diabelli gave Beethoven a print-picture of Haydn’s birthplace, which

he had published; Beethoven showed it to his little friend Gerhard von

Breuning and said: “Look, I got this to-day. See this little house, and

in it so great a man was born!”

[Sidenote: FRIENDS AROUND THE DEATH-BED]

On February 25 Holz is called by letter to look after the collection

of Beethoven’s annuity. His visits have been infrequent, but evidently

there are some things which Beethoven either cannot or will not

entrust to anybody else. Schindler is ceaselessly and tirelessly busy

with Beethoven’s affairs, but his statement that Breuning and he were

the only persons who were much with the composer during his illness,

except the lad, Gerhard von Breuning, must be taken with some grains

of allowance. On 123 pages of the Conversation Books, covering the

months of January and February, 1827 (the evidence of which can not be

gainsaid, since the books were long in the hand of Schindler to do with

as he willed), there are forty-eight entries by Johann van Beethoven,

forty-six by Gerhard von Breuning and thirty by Breuning the elder.

Schindler’s entries number 103. Other writers in the Books are Bernhard

(1), Holz (7), Bach (2), Piringer (6), Haslinger (11), Schikh (1),

Doležalek (4), Schuppanzigh (6), Moritz Lichnowsky (1), Gleichenstein

(1), Jekel (1), Marie Schindler, Anton’s sister (1) and Wolfmayer (1).

Sometime in February--it was probably at the time when Beethoven’s

mind was so fixedly bent on obtaining help from London--Schindler was

either ill or suffering from an accident which kept him for a brief

space from Beethoven’s bedside. The composer sent him a gift--a repast,

evidently--and a letter of sympathy so disjointed in phrase as to give

pitiful confirmation of Schindler’s statement that it was the last

letter which Beethoven wrote with his own hand, and that at the time he

could no longer think connectedly. It ran:

Concerning your accident, since it has happened, as soon as we see

each other I can send to you somebody without inconvenience--accept

this--here is something--Moscheles, Cramer--without your having

received a letter--There will be a new occasion to write one

Wednesday and lay my affairs to his heart, if you are not well by

that time one of my--can take it to the post against a receipt.

_Vale et fave_, there is no need of my assuring you of my sympathy

in your accident--do take the meal from me, it is given with all my

heart--Heaven be with you.

More pathetic than even this letter is the picture of the sufferer

in his sick-room at the time of the fourth operation (February 27).

So wretched are his surroundings that it is scarcely impossible

to avoid the conviction that not poverty alone but ignorance and

carelessness were contributary to the woeful lack of ordinary sick-room

conveniences. Gerhard von Breuning says that after the operation

the fluid which was drained from the patient’s body flowed half-way

across the floor to the middle of the room; and in the C. B. there is

a mention of saturated bedclothing and the physician suggests that

oilcloth be procured and spread over the couch. Beethoven now gave

up hope. Dr. Wawruch says: “No words of comfort could brace him up,

and when I promised him alleviation of his sufferings with the coming

of the vitalizing weather of Spring he answered with a smile: ‘My

day’s work is finished. If there were a physician could help me his

name should be called Wonderful.’ This pathetic allusion to Handel’s

‘Messiah’ touched me so deeply that I had to confess its correctness

to myself with profound emotion.” The incident so sympathetically

described bears evidence of veracity on its face; Handel’s scores were

always in Beethoven’s mind during the last weeks of his life.

Among Beethoven’s visitors in February was Wolfmayer, whose coming must

have called up a sense of a long-standing obligation and purpose in

the composer’s mind.[175] On February 22nd he dictated a letter to the

Schotts asking that the Quartet in C-sharp minor be dedicated to “my

friend Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer.” The letter then proceeds:

Now, however, I come with a very important request.--My doctor

orders me to drink very good old Rhinewine. To get a thing of that

kind unadulterated is not possible at any price. If, therefore, I

were to receive a few small bottles I would show my gratitude to

you in the Cæcilia. I think something would be done for me at the

customs so that the transport would not cost too much. As soon as

my strength allows you shall receive the metronomic marks for the

Mass, for I am just in the period when the fourth operation is

about to be performed. The sooner, therefore, that I receive the

Rhinewine, or Moselle, the more beneficial it may be to me in my

present condition; and I beg of you most heartily to do me this

favor for which I shall be under an obligation of gratitude to you.

On March 1st he repeated his request:

I am under the necessity of becoming burdensome to you again,

inasmuch as I am sending you a packet for the Royal Government

Councillor Wegeler at Coblenz, which you will have the kindness to

transmit from Mayence to Coblenz. You know without more ado that I

am too unselfish to ask you to do all these things gratuitously.

I repeat my former request, that, namely, concerning old white

Rhinewine or Moselle. It is infinitely difficult to get any here

which is genuine and unadulterated, even at the highest price. A

few days ago, on February 27, I had my fourth operation, and yet I

am unable to look forward to my complete recovery and restoration.

Pity your devoted friend

Beethoven.

[Sidenote: WINE AND DELICACIES FOR THE SUFFERER]

On March 8 the Schotts answered that they had forwarded a case of

twelve bottles of Rüdesheimer Berg of the vintage of 1806, _via_

Frankfort, but in order that he might the sooner receive a slight

refreshment, they had sent that day four bottles of the same wine, two

pure and two mixed with herbs, to be used as a medicine which had been

prescribed for his disease. The prescription had come, they said, from

a friend who had cured many persons of dropsy with it. Before the wine

reached Vienna, on March 10, Beethoven wrote again to the Schotts:

According to my letter the Quartet was to be dedicated to one

whose name I have already sent to you. Since then there has been

an occurrence which has led me to make a change in this. It must

be dedicated to Lieut.-Fieldmarshal von Stutterheim to whom I am

deeply indebted. If you have already engraved the first dedication

I beg of you, by everything in this world, to change it and I

will gladly pay the cost. Do not accept this as an empty promise;

I attach so much importance to it that I am ready to make any

compensation for it. I enclose the title. As regards the shipment

to my friend, the Royal Prussian Government Councillor v. Wegeler

in Coblenz, I am glad to be able to relieve you wholly. Another

opportunity has offered itself. My health, which will not be

restored for a long time, pleads for the wines which I have asked

for and which will certainly bring me refreshment, strength and

health.

There are evidences that the wine was received on March 24. On March

29 the Schotts, under the impression that Beethoven was still alive,

wrote him again. Baron Pasqualati, in whose house he had lived for a

long time, an old friend, joined his new friends, the publishers, in

an effort to contribute to his physical comfort and well-being. There

are several little letters in which Beethoven acknowledges the receipt

of contributions from his cellar and larder. One of these, most likely

the first, has been endorsed by a strange hand as having been sent or

received on March 6. It reads:

Hearty thanks for your health-gift; as soon as I have found out

which of the wines is the most suitable I will let you know, but I

shall abuse your kindness as little as possible. I am rejoicing

in the expectation of the compotes and will appeal to you often

for them. Even this costs me an exertion. _Sapienta pauca_--Your

grateful friend

Beethoven.

And a little while afterwards he writes:

I beg you again to-day for a cherry compote, but without lemons,

entirely simple; also I should be glad to have a light pudding,

almost a suggestion of a gruel--my good cook is not yet adept in

food for the sick. I am allowed to drink _champagne_, but for

the time being I beg you to send a champagne glass with it. Now

as regards the wine: At first Malfatti wanted only Moselle; but

he asserted that there was none genuine to be obtained here; he

therefore himself gave me several bottles of Krumpholz-Kirchner and

claims that this is the best for my health, since no Moselle is to

be had. Pardon me for being a burden and ascribe it to my helpless

condition.

And again:

How shall I thank you enough for the glorious champagne? How

greatly has it refreshed me and will continue to do so! I need

nothing to-day and thank you for everything--whatever conclusions

you may draw in regard to the wines I beg of you to note that I

would gladly recompense you to the extent of my ability.--I can

write no more to-day. Heaven bless you for everything and for your

affectionate sympathy.

Still another:

Many thanks for the food of yesterday, which will also serve

for to-day.--I am allowed to eat game; the doctor thinks that

_Krametsvögel_ (Fieldfares) are good and wholesome for me. This for

your information, but it need not be to-day. Pardon my senseless

writing--Weary of night vigils--I embrace and reverence you.

And finally this, presumably last, letter:

My thanks for the food sent yesterday. A sick man longs for

such things like a child and therefore I beg you to-day for the

peach compote. As regards other food I must get the advice of

the physicians. Concerning the wine they consider the Grinzinger

beneficial but prefer old Krumpholz Kirchener over all others.--I

hope this statement will not cause you to misunderstand me.

Others who sent him gifts of wine were Streicher and Breuning, and, as

we see from one of the letters, Malfatti himself. There is considerable

talk in the C. B. about wine. His days were numbered--why should any

comfort be denied him?

[Sidenote: THE REPUTED VISIT BY SCHUBERT]

Concerning the last few days of his life the Conversation Books provide

absolutely no information. There is no record of the visit of Schubert

to the bedside of the dying man, but the account given by Schindler is

probably correct in the main. On page 136 of the second volume of his

biography of Beethoven, Schindler says:

As only a few of Franz Schubert’s compositions were known to him

and obsequious persons had always been busily engaged in throwing

suspicion on his talent, I took advantage of the favorable moment

to place before him several of the greater songs, such as “Die

junge Nonne,” “Die Bürgschaft,” “Der Taucher,” “Elysium” and the

Ossianic songs, acquaintance with which gave the master great

pleasure; so much, indeed, that he spoke his judgment in these

words: “Truly, the divine spark lives in Schubert,” and so forth.

At the time, however, only a small number of Schubert’s works had

appeared in print.

Here no date is fixed for the incident and a little suspicion was cast

upon the story because of the fact that only “Die junge Nonne” of all

the songs mentioned had been published at the time of Beethoven’s

death. Schindler helped himself measurably out of the dilemma by saying

in an article published in the “Theaterzeitung” of May 3, 1831, that

many of the songs which he laid before Beethoven were in manuscript. He

contradicts his statement made in the biography, however, by saying:

“What would the great master have said had he seen, for instance

the Ossianic songs, ‘Die Bürgschaft,’ ‘Elysium,’ ‘Der Taucher’ and

other great ones which have only recently been published?” As usual,

Schindler becomes more explicit when he comes to explain one of his

utterances. Now he says:

As the illness to which Beethoven finally succumbed after four

months of suffering from the beginning made his ordinary mental

activity impossible, a diversion had to be thought of which would

fit his mind and inclinations. And so it came about that I placed

before him a collection of Schubert’s songs, about 60 in number,

among them many which were then still in manuscript. This was done

not only to provide him with a pleasant entertainment, but also

to give him an opportunity to get acquainted with Schubert in his

essence in order to get from him a favorable opinion of Schubert’s

talent, which had been impugned, as had that of others by some of

the exalted ones. The great master, who before then had not known

five songs of Schubert’s, was amazed at their number and refused

to believe that up to that time (February, 1827) he had already

composed over 500 of them. But if he was astonished at the number

he was filled with the highest admiration as soon as he discovered

their contents. For several days he could not separate himself from

them, and every day he spent hours with Iphigenia’s monologue,

“Die Grenzen der Menschheit,” “Die Allmacht,” “Die junge Nonne,”

“Viola,” the “Müllerlieder,” and others. With joyous enthusiasm he

cried out repeatedly: “Truly, a divine spark dwells in Schubert;

if I had had this poem I would have set it to music”; this in the

case of the majority of poems whose material contents and original

treatment by Schubert he could not praise sufficiently. Nor could

he understand how Schubert had time to “take in hand such long

poems, many of which contained ten others,” as he expressed it....

What would the master have said had he seen, for instance, the

Ossianic songs, “Die Bürgschaft,” “Elysium,” “Der Taucher” and

other great ones which have only recently been published? In short,

the respect which Beethoven acquired for Schubert’s talent was so

great that he now wanted to see his operas and pianoforte pieces;

but his illness had now become so severe that he could no longer

gratify this wish. But he often spoke of Schubert and predicted of

him that he “would make a great sensation in the world,” and often

regretted that he had not learned to know him earlier.

It is likely that the remark, “Truly, the divine spark dwells in

Schubert,” as Schindler quoted it in his biography, came more than

once from Beethoven’s lips. Luib heard Hüttenbrenner say that one day

Beethoven said of Schubert, “He has the divine spark!” Schindler’s

article in the “Theaterzeitung” was a defense of the opinion which he

had expressed that Schubert was a greater song-composer than Beethoven,

and for this reason it may be assumed that it was a little high-pitched

in expression. Beethoven knew a little about Schubert, but not much, as

appears from a remark quoted from Holz in one of the Conversation Books

of 1826. It may have been Schindler’s ambition to appear as having

stood sponsor for Schubert before Beethoven which led him to ignore

Holz’s remark concerning Schubert’s unique genius as a writer of songs,

his interest in Handel and his patronage of Schuppanzigh’s quartet

parties. Beethoven and Schubert had met. Anselm Hüttenbrenner wrote to

Luib:[176]

But this I know positively, that about eight days before

Beethoven’s death Prof. Schindler, Schubert and I visited the sick

man, Schindler announced us two and asked Beethoven whom he would

see first. He said: “Let Schubert come first.”

It is characteristic of Schindler that he makes no mention of this

incident. Another incident recorded by Gerhard von Breuning deserves

to be told here. When Beethoven’s friends called they usually reported

to Beethoven about the performances of his works. One day Gerhard von

Breuning found that a visitor had written in the Conversation Book:

“Your Quartet which Schuppanzigh played yesterday did not please.”

Beethoven was asleep when Gerhard came and when he awoke the lad

pointed to the entry. Beethoven remarked, laconically: “It will please

them some day,” adding that he wrote only as he thought best and would

not permit himself to be deceived by the judgment of the day, saying at

the end: “I know that I am an artist.”

[Sidenote: FERDINAND HILLER’S LAST VISIT]

In a letter which Schindler wrote to Moscheles, forwarding Beethoven’s,

he said: “Hummel and his wife are here; he came in haste to see

Beethoven once again alive, for it is generally reported in Germany

that he is on his deathbed. It was a most touching sight last Thursday

to see these two friends meet again.” The letter was written on March

14 and the “last Thursday” was March 8th. We have an account of this

meeting in Ferdinand Hiller’s “Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit.”[177]

Hiller was then fifteen years old and had come to the Austrian Capital

with Hummel, who was his teacher. Hummel had heard in Weimar that

Beethoven was hopelessly ill and had reached Vienna on March 6; two

days later he visited his dying friend. Hiller writes:

Through a spacious anteroom in which high cabinets were piled

with thick, tied-up parcels of music we reached--how my heart

beat!--Beethoven’s living-room, and were not a little astonished

to find the master sitting in apparent comfort at the window. He

wore a long, gray sleeping-robe, open at the time, and high boots

reaching to his knees. Emaciated by long and severe illness he

seemed to me, when he arose, of tall stature; he was unshaven,

his thick, half-gray hair fell in disorder over his temples. The

expression of his features heightened when he caught sight of

Hummel, and he seemed to be extraordinarily glad to meet him. The

two men embraced each other most cordially. Hummel introduced

me. Beethoven showed himself extremely kind and I was permitted

to sit opposite him at the window. It is known that conversation

with Beethoven was carried on in part in writing; he spoke, but

those with whom he conversed had to write their questions and

answers. For this purpose thick sheets of ordinary writing-paper

in quarto form and lead-pencils always lay near him. How painful

it must have been for the animated, easily impatient man to be

obliged to wait for every answer, to make a pause in every moment

of conversation, during which, as it were, thought was condemned

to come to a standstill! He always followed the hand of the

writer with hungry eyes and comprehended what was written at a

glance instead of reading it. The liveliness of the conversation

naturally interfered with the continual writing of the visitor. I

can scarcely blame myself, much as I regret it, for not taking down

more extended notes than I did; indeed, I rejoice that a lad of

fifteen years who found himself in a great city for the first time,

was self-possessed enough to regard any details. I can vouch with

the best conscience for the perfect accuracy of all that I am able

to repeat.

The conversation at first turned, as is usual, on domestic

affair,--the journey and sojourn, my relations with Hummel and

matters of that kind. Beethoven asked about Goethe’s health with

extraordinary solicitude and we were able to make the best of

reports, since only a few days before the great poet had written

in my album. Concerning his own state, poor Beethoven complained

much. “Here I have been lying for four months,” he cried out,

“one must at last lose patience!” Other things in Vienna did not

seem to be to his liking and he spoke with the utmost severity

of “the present taste in art,” and “the dilettantism which is

ruining everything.” Nor did he spare the government, up to the

most exalted regions. “Write a volume of penitential hymns and

dedicate it to the Empress,” he remarked with a gloomy smile to

Hummel, who, however, made no use of the well-meant advice. Hummel,

who was a practical man, took advantage of Beethoven’s condition

to ask his attention to a matter which occupied a long time. It

was about the theft of one of Hummel’s concertos, which had been

printed illicitly before it had been brought out by the lawful

publisher. Hummel wanted to appeal to the Bundestag against this

wretched business, and to this end desired to have Beethoven’s

signature, which seemed to him of great value. He sat down to

explain the matter in writing and meanwhile I was permitted to

carry on the conversation with Beethoven. I did my best, and the

master continued to give free rein to his moody and passionate

utterances in the most confidential manner. In part they referred

to his nephew, whom he had loved greatly, who, as is known, caused

him much trouble and at that time, because of a few trifles (thus

Beethoven at least seemed to consider them), had gotten into

trouble with the officials. “Little thieves are hanged, but big

ones are allowed to go free!” he exclaimed ill-humoredly. He

asked about my studies and, encouraging me, said: “Art must be

propagated ceaselessly,” and when I spoke of the exclusive interest

in Italian opera which then prevailed in Vienna, he gave utterance

to the memorable words: “It is said _vox populi, vox dei_. I never

believed it.”

On March 13 Hummel took me with him a second time to Beethoven. We

found his condition to be materially worse. He lay in bed, seemed

to suffer great pains, and at intervals groaned deeply despite the

fact that he spoke much and animatedly. Now he seemed to take it

much to heart that he had not married. Already at our first visit

he had joked about it with Hummel, whose wife he had known as a

young and beautiful maiden. “You are a lucky man,” he said to him

now smilingly, “you have a wife who takes care of you, who is in

love with you--but poor me!” and he sighed heavily. He also begged

of Hummel to bring his wife to see him, she not having been able

to persuade herself to see in his present state the man whom she

had known at the zenith of his powers. A short time before he had

received a present of a picture of the house in which Haydn was

born. He kept it close at hand and showed it to us. “It gave me a

childish pleasure,” he said, “the cradle of so great a man!” Then

he appealed to Hummel in behalf of Schindler, of whom so much was

spoken afterwards. “He is a good man,” he said, “who has taken a

great deal of trouble on my account. He is to give a concert soon

at which I promised my coöperation. But now nothing is likely

to come of that. Now I should like to have you do me the favor

of playing. We must always help poor artists.” As a matter of

course, Hummel consented. The concert took place--ten days after

Beethoven’s death--in the Josephstadt-Theater. Hummel improvised

in an obviously exalted mood on the Allegretto of the A major

Symphony; the public knew why he participated and the performance

and its reception formed a truly inspiring incident.

Shortly after our second visit the report spread throughout Vienna

that the Philharmonic Society of London had sent Beethoven £100

in order to ease his sick-bed. It was added that this surprise

had made so great an impression on the great poor man that it had

also brought physical relief. When we stood again at his bedside,

on the 20th, we could educe from his utterances how greatly he had

been rejoiced by this altruism; but he was very weak and spoke

only in faint and disconnected phrases. “I shall, no doubt, soon

be going above,” he whispered after our first greeting. Similar

remarks recurred frequently. In the intervals, however, he spoke of

projects and hopes which were destined not to be realized. Speaking

of the noble conduct of the Philharmonic Society and in praise of

the English people, he expressed the intention, as soon as matters

were better with him, to undertake the journey to London. “I will

compose a grand overture for them and a grand symphony.” Then, too,

he would visit Madame Hummel (she had come along with her husband)

and go to I do not know how many places. It did not occur to us to

write anything for him. His eyes, which were still lively when we

saw him last, dropped and closed to-day and it was difficult from

time to time for him to raise himself. It was no longer possible to

deceive one’s self--the worst was to be feared.

Hopeless was the picture presented by the extraordinary man when

we sought him again on March 23rd. It was to be the last time. He

lay, weak and miserable, sighing deeply at intervals. Not a word

fell from his lips; sweat stood upon his forehead. His handkerchief

not being conveniently at hand, Hummel’s wife took her fine cambric

handkerchief and dried his face several times. Never shall I forget

the grateful glance with which his broken eye looked upon her. On

March 26, while we were with a merry company in the art-loving

house of Herr von Liebenberg (who had formerly been a pupil of

Hummel’s), we were surprised by a severe storm between five and

six o’clock. A thick snow-flurry was accompanied by loud peals of

thunder and flashes of lightning, which lighted up the room. A few

hours later guests arrived with the intelligence that Ludwig van

Beethoven was no more;--he had died at 4:45 o’clock.

[Sidenote: THE SIGNING OF THE WILL]

The consultations between Beethoven and his legal advisers, Bach,

Breuning and others, concerning the proper disposition of his estate

by will, which had begun soon after Karl’s departure for Iglau, had

not been brought to a conclusion when it became apparent to all that

it was high time that the document formally be executed. Dr. Bach does

not seem to have been consulted at this crisis; haste was necessary,

and on March 23 von Breuning made a draft of a will which, free from

unnecessary verbiage, set forth the wishes of the testator in three

lines of writing. Beethoven had protested against the proposition of

his friends that provision be made that Karl should not be able to

dissipate the capital or surrender any portion of it to his mother. To

this end a trust was to be created and he was to have the income during

life, the reversion being to his legitimate heirs. With this Beethoven

at length declared himself satisfied; but when Breuning placed the

draft before the dying man, who had yielded unwillingly, he copied

it laboriously but substituted the word “natural” for “legitimate.”

Schindler says the copying was a labor, and when Beethoven finished it

and appended his signature he said: “There; now I’ll write no more.”

Breuning called his attention to the fact that controversy would ensue

from his change in the text, but Beethoven insisted that the words

meant the same thing and there should be no change. “This,” says

Schindler, “was his last contradiction.” Hiller’s description of the

last visit of Hummel, pictures the condition of the dying man on this

day, and Schindler’s statement that it was laborious for Beethoven to

copy even the few words of the will is pathetically verified by the

orthography of the document which, _verb. et lit._, is as follows:

Mein Neffe Karl Soll alleiniger Erbe seyn, das Kapital meines

Nachlasses soll jedoch Seinen natürlichen oder testamentarischen

Erben zufallen.

Wien am 23 März 1827.

Ludwig van Beethoven mp.

According to Gerhard von Breuning, signatures were necessary to

several documents--the will, the transfer of the guardianship of the

nephew to von Breuning and the letter of January 3, which also made a

testamentary disposition of Beethoven’s property. These signatures were

all obtained with great difficulty. The younger von Breuning places

the date on March 24th. After von Breuning, Schindler and the dying

man’s brother had indicated to Beethoven, who lay in a half-stupor,

that his signature was required they raised him as much as possible and

pushed pillows under him for support. Then the documents, one after the

other, were laid before him and von Breuning put the inked pen in his

hand. “The dying man, who ordinarily wrote boldly in a lapidary style,

repeatedly signed his immortal name, laboriously, with trembling hand,

for the last time; still legibly, indeed, but each time forgetting one

of the middle letters--once an _h_, another time an_e_.”

[Sidenote: “COMŒDIA FINITA EST.”]

On the day which saw the signing of the will, Beethoven made an

utterance, eminently characteristic of him, but which, because of an

interpretation which it has received, has caused no small amount of

comment. The date is fixed as March 23rd by Schindler’s letter to

Moscheles of March 24th in which he says: “Yesterday he said to me and

Breuning, ‘Plaudite, amici, comœdia finita est’.” Though the phrase

does not seem to be a literal quotation from any author known to have

been familiar to Beethoven, it is obviously a paraphrase of something

which he had read. According to Schindler and Gerhard von Breuning

the words were uttered in a tone of sarcastic humor. Schindler and

Dr. Wawruch (though the latter was not present) agree in saying that

he made the speech after receiving the viaticum, and it is this

circumstance, coupled with the deduction that the dying man referred to

the sacred function just performed, which greatly disturbed the minds

of some of his devout admirers. It needed not have done so; the phrase

is almost a literary commonplace and its significance has never been in

question.[178]

When Beethoven’s friends saw the end approaching, they were naturally

desirous that he receive the spiritual comfort which the offices of the

Roman Catholic church offer to the dying and it was equally natural

that Beethoven, brought up as a child of the church though careless of

his duties toward it, should, at the last, be ready to accept them.

Johann van Beethoven relates that a few days after the 16th of March,

when the physicians gave him up for lost, he had begged his brother to

make his peace with God, to which request he acceded “with the greatest

readiness.” Confirmation of this is found in Dr. Wawruch’s report.

Wawruch, it will be remembered, had, at the beginning of his studies,

intended to enter the priesthood. At the crisis described by Johann he

says he called Beethoven’s attention to his impending dissolution “so

that he might do his duty as a citizen and to religion.” He continues:

With the greatest delicacy I wrote the words of admonition on a

sheet of paper.... Beethoven read the writing with unexampled

composure, slowly and thoughtfully, his countenance like that of

one transfigured; cordially and solemnly he held out his hand to

me and said: “Have the priest called.” Then he lay quietly lost in

thought and amiably indicated by a nod his “I shall soon see you

again.” Soon thereafter Beethoven performed his devotions with a

pious resignation which looked confidently into eternity and turned

to the friends around him with the words, “Plaudite, amici, finita

est comœdia!”

Wawruch was not present at the time when the words were spoken.

Schindler’s account, in a letter to the “Cäcilia” dated April 12, 1827,

and printed in that journal in May, is as follows:

On the day before (the 23rd) there remained with us only one

ardent wish--to reconcile him with heaven and to show the world

at the same time that he had ended his life a true Christian. The

Professor in Ordinary [Wawruch] therefore wrote and begged him

in the name of all his friends to receive the holy sacrament; to

which he replied quietly and firmly (_gefasst_), “I wish it.” The

physician went away and left us to care for it.

Schindler describes the administration of the sacrament, which

Beethoven received with edification, and adds that now for the first

time he seemed to believe that he was about to die; for “scarcely

had the priest left the room before he said to me and young von

Breuning, ‘Plaudite, amici, comœdia finita est. Did I not always

say that it would end thus?’” (“_Habe ich nicht immer gesagt, dass

es so kommen wird?_”) Here there is agreement with Wawruch, but, to

Gerhard von Breuning, Schindler said that Beethoven made the remark at

the conclusion of a long consultation after the physicians had gone

away; and this is confirmed by Gerhard von Breuning. In 1860 Anselm

Hüttenbrenner wrote:[179]

It is not true, as has been reported, that I begged Beethoven to

receive the sacrament for the dying; but I did bring it about at

the request of the wife of the music-publisher Tobias Haslinger,

now deceased, that Beethoven was asked in the gentlest manner by

Herr Johann Baptist Jenger and Madame van Beethoven, wife of the

landowner, to strengthen himself by receiving holy communion. It

is a pure invention that Beethoven spoke the words “Plaudite,

amici! Comœdia finita est!” to me, for I was not present when

the rite was administered in the forenoon of March 24, 1827. And

surely Beethoven did not make to others an utterance so completely

at variance with his sturdy character. But on the day of her

brother-in-law’s death Frau v. Beethoven told me that after

receiving the viaticum he said to the priest, “I thank you, ghostly

sir! You have brought me comfort!”

Hüttenbrenner is confirmed by Johann van Beethoven, who wrote in his

brief review of his brother’s last illness that when the priest was

leaving the room Beethoven said to him, “I thank you for this last

service.”

[Sidenote: INCIDENTS OF THE FINAL STRUGGLE]

Beethoven received the viaticum in the presence of Schindler, von

Breuning, Jenger and the wife of his brother Johann. After the priest

had taken his departure he reminded his friends of the necessity of

sending a document ceding the proprietary rights of the C-sharp minor

Quartet to the Schotts. It was drawn up and his signature to it, the

last which he wrote, was attested by Schindler and Breuning. He also

spoke of a letter of thanks to the Philharmonic Society of London and

in suggesting its tenor, comprehended the whole English people with a

fervent “God bless them!” About one o’clock the special shipment of

wine and wine mixed with herbs came from Mayence, and Schindler placed

the bottles upon the table near the bed. Beethoven looked at them and

murmured, “Pity, pity--too late!” He spoke no more. A little of the

wine was administered to him in spoonfuls at intervals, as long as

he could swallow it. Towards evening he lost consciousness and the

death-struggle began. It lasted two days. “From towards the evening of

the 24th to his last breath he was almost continually _in delirio_,”

wrote Schindler to Moscheles. We have a description from Gerhard von

Breuning:[180]

During the next day and the day following the strong man lay

completely unconscious, in the process of dissolution, breathing

so stertorously that the rattle could be heard at a distance. His

powerful frame, his unweakened lungs, fought like giants with

approaching death. The spectacle was a fearful one. Although it

was known that the poor man suffered no more it was yet appalling

to observe that the noble being, now irredeemably a prey to the

powers of dissolution, was beyond all mental communication.

It was expected as early as the 25th that he would pass away

in the following night; yet we found him still alive on the

26th--breathing, if that was possible, more stertorously than on

the day before.

The only witnesses of Beethoven’s death were his sister-in-law and

Anselm Hüttenbrenner. From the latter we have a description of the last

scene.[181]

When I entered Beethoven’s bedroom on March 26, 1827 at about 3

o’clock in the afternoon, I found there Court Councillor Breuning,

his son, Frau van Beethoven, wife of Johann van Beethoven,

landowner and apothecary of Lenz, and my friend Joseph Teltscher,

portrait painter. I think that Prof. Schindler was also present.

Gerhard von Breuning says that Beethoven’s brother was in the room, and

also the housekeeper Sali; Schindler adds a nurse from Dr. Wawruch’s

clinic. No doubt all were present at one moment or another; they came

and went as occasion or duty called. Hüttenbrenner says that Teltscher

began drawing the face of the dying man, which grated on Breuning’s

feelings and he made a remonstrance, whereupon the painter left the

room. Then Breuning and Schindler went away to choose a spot for the

grave. Hüttenbrenner continues:

Frau van Beethoven and I only were in the death-chamber during

the last moments of Beethoven’s life. After Beethoven had lain

unconscious, the death-rattle in his throat from 3 o’clock in the

afternoon till after 5, there came a flash of lightning accompanied

by a violent clap of thunder, which garishly illuminated the

death-chamber. (Snow lay before Beethoven’s dwelling.) After

this unexpected phenomenon of nature, which startled me greatly,

Beethoven opened his eyes, lifted his right hand and looked up

for several seconds with his fist clenched and a very serious,

threatening expression as if he wanted to say: “Inimical powers,

I defy you! Away with you! God is with me!” It also seemed as if,

like a brave commander, he wished to call out to his wavering

troops: “Courage, soldiers! Forward! Trust in me! Victory is

assured!”[182]. When he let the raised hand sink to the bed, his

eyes closed half-way. My right hand was under his head, my left

rested on his breast. Not another breath, not a heartbeat more!

The genius of the great master of tones fled from this world of

delusion into the realm of truth!--I pressed down the half-open

eyelids of the dead man, kissed them, then his forehead, mouth and

hands.--At my request Frau van Beethoven cut a lock of hair from

his head and handed it to me as a sacred souvenir of Beethoven’s

last hour. Thereupon I hurried, deeply moved, into the city,

carried the intelligence of Beethoven’s death to Herr Tobias

Haslinger, and after a few hours returned to my home in Styria.

[Sidenote: THE CAUSE OF BEETHOVEN’S DEATH]

It remained for modern science to give the right name to the disease

which caused the death of the greatest of all tone-poets. Dropsy, said

the world for three-quarters of a century. But dropsy is not a disease;

it is only a symptom, a condition due to disease. To Dr. Theodor von

Frimmel belongs the credit of having made it clear that the fatal

malady was cirrhosis of the liver, of which _ascites_, or _hydrops

abdominalis_, was a consequence. Beethoven had suffered from disorders

of the liver years before. In 1821, as has been noted, he suffered an

attack of jaundice. In his medical history of the case, Dr. Wawruch

stated that the cause of the disease was to be found in an “antiquated”

ailment of liver as well as defects in the abdominal organs. When he

observed the first aggravation of the disease he recorded that “the

liver plainly showed traces of hard knots, the jaundice increased.” In

his report of the autopsy, Dr. Wagner said: “The liver seemed to have

shrunk to one half its normal size, to have a leathery hardness, a

greenish-blue color, and its lumpy surface, as well as its substance,

was interwoven with knots the size of a bean. All the blood-vessels

were narrow, with thickened walls and empty.” The treatment prescribed

by Dr. Wawruch and adopted empirically at the suggestion of friends was

designed, not to go to the seat of the difficulty but to relieve the

dropsical condition of the abdominal cavity;--medicaments, decoctions,

the unfortunate sweat-bath, all were intended to produce liquid

evacuations from the bowels, increase the secretion of urine and induce

perspiration; the final resort was to _paracentesis_.[183]

When Breuning and Schindler left the dying man in the care of

Hüttenbrenner and Frau van Beethoven, they went to the cemetery of the

little village of Währing, and selected a place for Beethoven’s grave

in the vicinity of the burial plot of the Vering family, to which

Breuning’s first wife had belonged. Their return was retarded by the

storm. When they reëntered the sick-room they were greeted with the

words: “It is finished!” The immediate activities of the friends were

now directed to preparations for the funeral, the preservation of the

physical likeness of the great composer and, so far as was necessary,

the safeguarding of his possessions. In respect of the latter Gerhard

von Breuning tells of a painful incident which happened on the day

after Beethoven’s death.

Breuning, Schindler, Johann van Beethoven and Holz were met in the

lodgings to gather up the dead man’s papers, particularly to look

for the seven bank-shares which the will had given to the nephew. In

spite of strenuous search they were not found and Johann let fall an

insinuation that the search was a sham. This angered von Breuning and

he left the house in a state of vexation and excitement. He returned

to the lodgings in the afternoon and the search was resumed. Then Holz

pulled out a protruding nail in a cabinet, whereupon a drawer fell

out and in it were the certificates. In later years Holz explained to

Otto Jahn: “Beethoven kept his bank-shares in a secret drawer, the

existence of which was known only to Holz. While Beethoven lay dying

his brother in vain tried to find out where it was.” On a copy of this

memorandum,[184] Schindler wrote: “First of all after the death, Johann

van Beethoven searched for the shares, and not finding them cried out:

‘Breuning and Schindler must produce them!’ Holz was requested to come

by Breuning and asked if he did not know where they were concealed. He

knew the secret drawer in an old cabinet in which they were preserved.”

Even this simple incident has given rise to contradictory stories.

Schindler, in his biography, says the place of concealment was a

secret drawer in a _Kassette_; Breuning, “in a secret compartment of

a writing-desk.” In 1863, Schindler explained to Gerhard von Breuning

that the article of furniture was an ordinary clothes-press. With the

certificates were found the letter to the “Immortal Beloved” and the

portrait of the Countess von Brunswick.[185]

On March 27th, an autopsy was performed by Dr. Johann Wagner in the

presence of Dr. Wawruch. Its significant disclosures have already been

printed here. In order to facilitate an examination of the organs of

hearing the temporal bones were sawed out and carried away. Joseph

Danhauser, a young painter who chanced to be in Vienna, received

permission from Breuning to make a plaster cast of the dead man’s face.

This he did on March 28th, but the cast has little value as a portrait,

inasmuch as it was made after the autopsy, which had greatly disfigured

the features. On the same day (not “immediately after death,” as has

incorrectly been stated) Danhauser made a drawing of the head of

Beethoven, which he reproduced by lithographic process. This picture

bears the inscription: “Beethoven, March 28, drawn at his death-bed,

1827,” and to the left, “Danhauser.” This drawing, too, was made after

the autopsy. For a bust which he modeled, the artist made use of the

cast taken by Klein in 1812. Danhauser never came in contact with

Beethoven alive.

[Sidenote: IMPOSING FUNERAL CEREMONIES]

The funeral took place at 3 o’clock in the afternoon of March 29th.

It was one of the most imposing functions of its kind ever witnessed

in Vienna.[186] Breuning and Schindler had made the arrangements.

Cards of invitation were given out at Haslinger’s music-shop. Hours

before the appointed time a multitude assembled in front of the

Schwarzspanierhaus, and the mass grew moment by moment. Into the square

in front of the house, it is said, 20,000 persons were crowded. All the

notable representatives of art were present. The schools were closed.

For the preservation of order, Breuning had asked the help of the

military. In its report “Der Sammler” said:

The crowd was so great that after the roomy court of Beethoven’s

residence could no longer hold it the gates had to be closed until

the procession moved. The coffin containing the corpse of the great

composer had been placed on view in the court. After the clergy

were come to perform their sacred office, the guests, who had been

invited to attend these solemn functions--musicians, singers,

poets, actors--all clad in complete mourning, with draped torches

and white roses fastened to bands of crape on their sleeves,

encircled the bier and the choristers sang the _Miserere_[187]

composed by the deceased. Solemnly, sublimely the pious tones of

the glorious composition floated upwards through the silent air.

The scene was imposing. The coffin, with its richly embroidered

pall, the clergy, the distinguished men who were giving the last

escort to their colleague, and the multitude round about--all this

made a stupendous picture.

On the conclusion of the canticle, the coffin was raised from the

bier and the door of the court was opened. The singers lifted the

coffin to their shoulders and carried it to the Trinity Church of the

Minorites in the Alserstrasse. It was difficult to order the procession

because of the surging multitude. Johann van Beethoven, von Breuning

and his son and Schindler, found their places with difficulty. Eight

chapelmasters--Eybler, Weigl, Hummel, Seyfried, Kreutzer, Gyrowetz,

Würfel and Gänsbacher--carried the edges of the pall. At the sides

walked the torch-bearers, among them Schubert, Castelli, Bernard,

Böhm, Czerny, Grillparzer, Haslinger, Holz, Linke, Mayseder, Piringer,

Schuppanzigh, Streicher, Steiner and Wolfmayer. In the procession

were also Mosel and the pupils of Drechsler. While passing the Rothes

Haus the sounds of the funeral march from Beethoven’s Sonata, Op.

26, were heard. The cortège moved through the crowded streets to the

parish church in the Alserstrasse, where the service for the dead

was concluded with the _Libera nos Domine_ in 16 parts _a cappella_,

composed by Seyfried, sung by the choristers.

The account of the “Sammler” continues: “The coffin was now placed in

the hearse drawn by four horses, and taken to the cemetery at Währing.

There, too, a multitude had assembled to do the last honors to the dead

man....” The rules of the cemetery prohibiting all public speaking

within its precincts, the actor Anschütz delivered a funeral oration

written by Grillparzer over the coffin at the cemetery gate. After the

coffin had been lowered into the grave, Haslinger handed three laurel

wreaths to Hummel, who placed them upon the coffin. A poem by Castelli

had been distributed at the house of mourning, and one by Baron von

Schlechta at the cemetery; but there was no more speaking or singing at

the burial.

Mozart’s “Requiem” was sung at the Church of the Augustinians, Lablache

taking part, on April 3rd, and Cherubini’s at the Karlskirche two days

later. The grave in the cemetery at Währing was marked by a simple

pyramid bearing the one word

BEETHOVEN

It fell into neglect, and on October 13th, 1863, the Gesellschaft der

Musikfreunde of Vienna caused the body to be exhumed and re-buried. On

June 21st, 1888, the remains of Beethoven and Schubert were removed to

the Central Cemetery in Vienna, where they now repose side by side.

FINIS.

FOOTNOTES:

[162] He did not live to see this wish fulfilled; but it was in the

end. Therese van Beethoven, Johann’s wife, died on November 20, 1828,

at Wasserhof; Johann died in Vienna on January 12, 1848, and though

one of Beethoven’s sensation-mongering biographers at one time printed

the monstrous falsehood that he had married his wife’s illegitimate

daughter in order to keep the family possessions in his hands, and

at another that he had invested his money so that he might use it up

during his life and leave nothing to his heirs, the fact is that Johann

made Karl his sole heir and that under the will, after paying the costs

of probate and administration and a legacy to his housekeeper, over

42,000 florins passed into his nephew’s hands.

[163] Wawruch was a native of Nemtschütz in Moravia. At Olmütz he was

a student of theology, but before consecration to the priesthood he

came to Vienna as tutor and there decided to abandon the church for

medicine. In the course of time he became assistant and also son-in-law

to Professor Hildebrand, the director of the General Hospital. Thence

he went to Prague as professor of general pathology and pharmacology

and, returning to Vienna, became professor of special pathology and

medical clinics in the surgical department of the Hospital. He died

in 1842. He was accused of adhering to old-fashioned theories in his

practice and of having been antagonistic to the determinations of

pathological anatomy, and the criticisms of von Breuning and others

have pursued him through all the books devoted to Beethoven’s life;

yet the scientific determinations of to-day offer justification of his

diagnosis and treatment of Beethoven’s case so far as it is possible to

judge at this late day.

[164] Holz’s statement on this point has already been given in an

earlier chapter. To Otto Jahn Dr. Bertolini said: “Beethoven liked to

drink a glass of wine, but he was never a drinker or a gourmand.”

[165] “Better from my belly than from my pen,” is another remark

credited to him by Seyfried.

[166] The Royal Library acquired the autograph manuscripts of the

instrumental movements of the Symphony from Schindler, and the choral

part from the Artaria Collection of Vienna when it was dispersed by

sale in 1901. The autograph is not intact, however, the coda of the

Scherzo, consisting of four pages, having been given to Moscheles by

Schindler on September 14, 1827. Moscheles in turn gave the relic to

Henry Phillips. In July, 1907, it was purchased at a public sale by Mr.

Edward Speyer, its owner at the present writing. The autograph of the

Finale, too, had been mutilated, a page containing the five measures

immediately preceding the _Allegro energico_, 6-4 time, with the words

“Über Sternen muss er wohnen,” having been removed. It was sold by an

autograph dealer of Berlin to Charles Malherbe, of Paris, who on his

death bequeathed it to the Conservatoire. As published, the _Allegro

non tanto_ contains eight measures which Beethoven did not write in the

autograph, but are, no doubt, an addition made by him in a revision. It

would be a beautiful act of piety to assemble the autograph score and

publish it in _facsimile_.

[167] Mr. Thayer, who has given expression in these pages to his

belief that Schindler was honest, in transcribing this page of the

Conversation Book writes these words: “It is to be noted, first, that

the writing (‘The Old Woman,’ etc.) does not correspond with the rest,

and secondly, that _Die Alte_ was no longer in Beethoven’s service.

It is evident on inspection and from the talk in these last books

about Thekla and other servants that Schindler inserted these words

long afterwards. The ‘Es muss sein’ can only refer here to Beethoven’s

receipt for the ring.” Whether or not Thayer suspected what may have

been Schindler’s purpose in making the interlineation does not appear.

[168] Schindler, impeaching Dr. Wawruch’s accuracy here, denies that

Beethoven worked on oratorio of “Saul and David” during his last

illness. Thayer in a note directs attention to the fact that Beethoven

was confessedly deeply absorbed in Handel’s scores, which he had

received only a short time before, and that before the end of December

Kiesewetter sent a request through Holz for a return of the pianoforte

score of “Saul” as no longer necessary, now that the scores were come.

[169] Dr. von Breuning should have said “third.”

[170] Thayer procured a copy of this letter in London along with the

other Stumpff papers already mentioned. Only a fragment of the letter

has been printed hitherto in the collections of Beethoven’s letters and

that, in great probability, from the draft preserved by Schindler. The

newspaper article referred to was printed in the “Modezeitung.”

[171] “Documents, Letters etc., relating to the Bust of Ludwig van

Beethoven, presented to the Philharmonic Society of London, by Frau

Fanny Linzbauer (_née_ Ponsing). Translated and Arranged for the

Society by Doyne C. Bell, London: Published for the Philharmonic

Society by Lamborn Cock and Co., 63 New Bond Street, W. 1871.”

[172] Schindler had accompanied Beethoven’s application to Moscheles

for relief with a personal letter in which he advised that the

Philharmonic Society, in case it should accede to his request, explain

to Beethoven that the amount would be sent to a responsible person

in Vienna from whom it might be drawn by degrees according to his

requirements; and that this precautionary step was taken “because, as

they well knew, some of his relations who are with him do not act quite

uprightly towards him”--a fling, of course, at the composer’s brother

whom he so cordially hated; the nephew was not in Vienna.

[173] Among Mr. Thayer’s papers.

[174] The third operation was performed on February 2, not January 28,

as Schindler says.

[175] Wolfmayer had commissioned him years before to write a “Requiem,”

and paid him for it.

[176] Letter among Mr. Thayer’s papers.

[177] Neue Folge, 1871, p. 169 _et seq._

[178] “Rabelais being very sick, Cardinal du Bellay sent his page to

him to have an account of his condition; his answer was, ‘Tell my Lord

in what circumstances thou findest me; I am going to leap into the

dark. He is up in the cockloft, bid him keep where he is. As for thee,

thou’lt always be a fool: let down the curtain, the farce is done.’”

... An author (Thov. His. de Jean Clopinel) who styles Rabelais a man

of excellent learning, writes, that he being importuned by some to

sign a will whereby they had made him bestow on them legacies that

exceeded his ability, he, to be no more disturbed, complied at last

with their desires; but when they came to ask him where they should

find a fund answerable to what he gave; ‘as for that,’ replied he,

‘you must do like the spaniel, look about and search’; then, adds that

author, having said, ‘Draw the curtain, the farce is over,’ he died.

Likewise a monk (P. de St. Romuald, _Rel. Feuillant_) not only tells us

that he ended his life with that jest, but that he left a paper sealed

up wherein were found three articles as his last will: ‘I owe much,

I have nothing, I give the rest to the poor.’ The last story or that

before it must undoubtedly be false; and perhaps both are so as well

as the message by the page; though Fregius (_Comment. in Orat. Cic._,

tom. I) relates also that Rabelais said when he was dying, ‘Draw the

curtain,’ etc. But if he said so, many great men have said much the

same. Thus Augustus (_Nunquid vitæ mimum commode peregisset_) near his

death, asked his friends whether he had not very well acted the farce

of life? And Demonax, one of the best philosophers, when he saw that he

could not, by reason of his great age, live any longer, without being

a burden to others, as well as to himself, said to those who were near

him what the herald used to say when the public games were ended, ‘You

may withdraw, the show is over,’ and refusing to eat, kept his usual

gaiety to the last, and set himself at ease. (Lucian)--_From Peter

Motteux’s Life of Rabelais prefaced to the English translation made by

himself and Sir Thomas Urquhart._

[179] In a letter to Mr. Thayer which was found among Hüttenbrenner’s

posthumous papers and printed in the “Gratzer Tagespost” of October

23rd, 1868.

[180] “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” p. 108.

[181] Mr. Thayer visited Hüttenbrenner in Gratz in June, 1860. His

transcript of what Hüttenbrenner told him is reprinted in “Music and

Manners in the Classical Period,” by Henry Edward Krehbiel (New York,

1898). The account in the body of the text is that contained in a

letter to Mr. Thayer.

[182] The transcript in Mr. Thayer’s note-book of Hüttenbrenner’s

oral recital is more sententious and dramatic: “At this startling,

awful, peal of thunder, the dying man suddenly raised his head

from Hüttenbrenner’s arm, stretched out his own right arm

majestically--‘like a general giving orders to an army’. This was but

for an instant; the arm sunk back; he fell back; Beethoven was dead.”

[183] The revised edition of Grove’s “Dictionary of Music and

Musicians,” 1904, says: “The cold had developed into an inflammation

of the lungs, and on this dropsy supervened.” Dr. Wawruch was

unquestionably correct in his diagnosis not only in regard to the

inflammation of the lungs but also in regard to the diseased condition

of the liver.

[184] Preserved amongst Thayer’s papers.

[185] The attested inventory of the sale of Beethoven’s effects, which,

preserved by Fischoff, passed through the hands of Otto Jahn into those

of Mr. Thayer, showed that his estate amounted to 9,885 florins, 13

kreutzer, silver, and 600 florins, paper (Vienna standard). The market

value of the bank-shares, including an unpaid coupon attached to each,

was 1,063 florins on the day of Beethoven’s death. In the item of cash

is included the £100 received from the London Philharmonic Society,

which, as has been stated, was found intact. The official summary was

set forth as follows:

Cash 1215 fl. (C. M.) 600 fl. (W. W.)

Bank-shares 7441 fl.

Debts receivable (annuity) 144 fl. 33 k.

Jewels and silverware 314 fl. 30 k.

Clothing 37 fl.

Furniture and household

goods 156 fl.

Instruments 78 fl.

Music and manuscripts 480 fl. 30 k.

Books 18 fl. 20 k.

------------------------------

9885 fl. 13 k. 600 fl. (W. W.)

According to a statement by Aloys Fuchs to Jahn the sum realized from

the sale of the musical compositions, autographic and otherwise,

sketch-books, etc., was 1063 florins. In view of the difference

in purchasing power of money in 1827 and 1913 it may be said that

Beethoven’s estate amounted to the equivalent of £3,000, or about

$15,000.

[186] See “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” p. 113; Hiller’s “Aus dem

Tonleben, etc.” p. 177 _et seq._; “Der Sammler,” April 14, 1827;

Seyfried’s “Beethoven-Studien,” appendix, p. 50 _et seq._

[187] The _Miserere_ sung in the court of the Schwarzspanierhaus and

its complement, _Amplius lava me_, were arrangements for male chorus

made by Seyfried of the Equale for Trombones composed by Beethoven in

Linz in 1812 at the request of Glöggl for use on All Souls’ Day. They

may be found in Seyfried’s “Studien.”

INDEX

PAGE

GENERAL INDEX 315

INDEX TO COMPOSITIONS 344

(a) Works for Orchestra Alone 344

(b) Instrumental Solos with Orchestra 345

(c) Choral Works and Pieces for Soli and Chorus 345

(d) Instrumental Duos, Trios, Quartets, etc. 346

(e) Sonatas, etc., for Pianoforte and Other Instruments obbligato 347

(f) For Pianoforte Alone 348

(g) Songs with Pianoforte Accompaniment 349

General Index

~Abaco, Giuseppe dall’~: “Componimento per Musica,” I, 14.

~Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Turkey~: I, 139.

~Abercrombie, General~: Not commemorated in the “Eroica,” II, 25.

“~Abyssian Prince~”: Sobriquet of Bridgetower, II, 11.

~Achâts, Duc des~: III, 101, 232.

~Adamberger, Antonie~: Studies “Egmont” music with B., II, 171.

~Adams, Mrs. Mehetabel~: Provides funds for Thayer’s researches, I, x.

~Addison, John~: Partner of J. B. Cramer: II, 318.

~Addison, Joseph~: Quoted, I, 323.

“~Adelheit von Veltheim~”: Opera by Neefe, I, 37.

~Adler, Guido~: I, 75.

~Adlersburg, Carl, Edler von~: Affidavit against Mälzel, II, 275, 289.

“~Aerndtetanz, Der~”: Opera by Hiller, I, 32.

“~Agnes Bernauer~”: II, 61.

~Albrechtsberger~: Gives instruction to B., I, 155 _et seq._;

“Anweisung zur Composition,” 155, 190;

II, 380.

“~Alceste~”: Opera by Gluck, I, 86.

“~Alchymist, Der~”: Opera by Schuster, I, 31, 107, 108.

~Aldrich, Richard~: Dedication; II, 333.

~Alexander, Czar of Russia~: Dedication of Sonatas for Pianoforte and

Violin, I, 365;

II, 20, 305;

III, 49, 86.

“~Alexander~”: Opera-text (by Schikaneder?), II, 20.

“~Alexander’s Feast~”: Oratorio by Handel, III, 182.

“~Alfred the Great~”: Suggested to B. as subject for an opera, III,

118.

~Allègre, d’~: French Commander, I, 6.

“~Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung~”: Criticisms on B’s. works, I,

305, 306, 307;

taken to task by B., I, 282, 287. (See INDEX TO COMPOSITIONS.)

~Alstädter, Count~: Music-lover in Bonn, I, 38.

~Altmann, W.~: “Ein vergessenes Streichquartett von B.”, I, 349.

“~Amant jaloux, L’~”: Opera by Grétry, I, 31, 107.

~Ambroggio~: III, 77.

~Amenda, Karl F~.: I, 210; his life 233;

plans trip to Italy with B., 234;

death of, 234;

receives Quartet in F from B., 235, 272 _et seq._;

letter from B., 297;

II, 314.

“~Ami de la Maison, L’~”: Opera by Grétry, I, 31, 86.

“~Amitié à l’Épreuve, L’~”: Opera by Grétry, I, 31.

“~Amore artigiano, L’~”: Opera by Gassmann, I, 46.

“~Amore marinaro, L’~”: Opera by Weigl, I, 235.

“~Amor’s Guckkasten~”: Opera by Neefe, I, 36.

“~Amour filial, L’~”: Opera by Gaveaux, II, 37.

“~Analgilda~”: Opera, I, 14.

~Andante and Andantino~: B. asks difference between, II, 246.

~André~: Opera, “Der Antiquitäten-Sammler,” I, 32.

~André, Joseph~: I, 357.

~Anfossi~: Opera, “Il Geloso in Cimento,” I, 32;

“L’Avaro inamorato,” I, 108.

~Anschütz, Actor~: Delivers funeral oration for B., III, 312.

“~Antiquitäten-Sammler, Der~”: Opera by André, I, 32.

~Antoine, d’~: Operas, “Das tartarische Gesetz,” I, 31;

“Das Mädchen im Eichthale” (“Maid of the Oaks”), I, 32;

“Ende gut, Alles gut,” I, 109.

~Anton, Archduke~: Dedication of March in D, II, 160.

~Anton, Prince of Saxony~: III, 96, 141.

~Antwerp~: Beethoven families living in, I, 42.

“~Apotheke, Die~”: Opera by Neefe, I, 31, 36.

“~Apotheosis in the Temple of Jupiter Ammon~”: Drama by Sporchil,

III, 118.

~Appleby, Samuel~: I, 218;

on Rasoumowsky Quartets, II, 75.

~Appony, Count~: Asks B. for quartet, I, 187, 274.

“~Arbore di Diana, L’~”: Opera by Martini, I, 107.

“~Argene, Regina di Granata~”: Opera by Reicha, I, 310.

“~Ariadne auf Naxos~”; Musical drama by Benda, I, 29, 107, 108.

“~Ariodante~”: Opera by Méhul, II, 23.

“~Arlequino fortunato~”: Pantomime, I, 26.

“~Armida~”: Opera by Salieri, I, 86.

~Ärndtetanz.~ See AERNDTETANZ.

~Arneth, von,~ archeologist: II, 171.

~Arnim, Bettina von (Brentano)~: I, 197;

said to have been in love with B., 318;

II, her association with B. and Goethe, 178 _et seq._;

controversy over her letters, 179 _et seq._;

letters to Goethe, 180, 190;

letter to Pückler-Muskau, 180;

“Ilius Pamphilius,” 184;

makes B’s acquaintance, 185;

letter from B., 186, 190;

her admiration reported to B. by Goethe, 198;

with her husband at Teplitz, 222, 223;

describes arrival of B. and Goethe, 226, 282.

~Arnold, Samuel J.~: II, 310.

~Arrangements~: B’s opinion on, I, 349, 350.

~Artaria and Co.,~ Publishers: I, 202, 203;

charged with unauthorized publication of a quintet, 293

_et seq._, 355;

original purchasers of Heiligenstadt Will, 351;

the Mass in D, III, 65.

~Attwood, Thomas~: II, 12.

~Aubert, F. S. A.~: Opera “Esther,” I, 14.

~Auernhammer, Mme.~: II, 2.

~Auersperg~, Prima donna: I, 172.

~Augarten Concerts~: I, 238; II, 2, 42.

~Austria~: Invaded by Napoleon, I, 149;

court of, not invited to subscribe to the Mass in D, III, 103;

musical culture of the nobility in, I, 166;

dance-music of, II, 122.

~Autographs~: B’s indifference to his, I, 141.

“~Avaro inamorato~”: Opera by Anfossi, I, 108.

~Averdonk, Johanna Helena~, Court singer: I, 24;

pupil of Johann van B., 49;

sings at B’s first concert, 59, 67;

~Severin~, author of text of Funeral Cantata, I, 131.

“~Axur~”: Opera by Salieri, I, 109, 163.

~Ayrton, G.~: II, 370.

“~Azalia~”: Opera by Johann Küchler, I, 32.

“~Bacchus~”: Opera-book by Rudolph von

Berger, II, 314.

“~Bacco, Diane ed il Reno~”: Serenata, I, 26.

~Bach, C. P. E.~: I, 13, 35; “Versuch, etc.,” 70, 159;

“The Israelites in the Wilderness,” II, 388.

~Bach, Dr. Johann B.~: II, 377;

III, 24, 30, 115;

advises Schindler to write biography of B., 198;

instructed by B. to make Nephew Karl his heir, 278.

~Bach, Johann Sebastian~: I, 13, 35;

“Well-Tempered Clavichord,” 69, 143;

B. on the publication of his works, 281, 286;

B. subscribes for destitute daughter of, 287;

publication project, 303, 304;

relief for the daughter, 308;

B. offers to publish a composition for her benefit, 308;

II, 355;

“Art of Fugue,” III, 123;

“Not a brook but an ocean,” 203.

~B-a-c-h~: Overtures on, III, 123, 147.

~Baden~: B. gives concert for benefit of sufferers from conflagration,

II, 225.

~Baillot, Pierre~: Visits B., II, 55.

~Barbaja,~ Manager of operas: I, 320;

III, 77;

wants an opera from B., 119.

“~Barbiere di Siviglia, II~”: Opera by Paisiello, I, 108;

opera by Rossini, III, 77.

~Baroni~: Opera “La Moda,” I, 27.

~Bates, Joah~: Bridgetower turns music for, II, 12.

“~Bathmendi~”: Opera by Liechtenstein, I, 304.

~Bathyany, Count~: I, 168.

~Batka, Johann~: I, 342.

~Battle music~: Popularity of, II, 252.

~Bauer, Harold~: I, xviii, 140.

~Bäuerle, Adolph~: II, 359.

“~Baum der Diana, Der~” (_L’Arbore di Diana_): Opera by Martini,

I, 107.

~Baumeister~: Letters to, 218.

~Baumgarten, Major~: III, 42.

~Bavaria, King of~: Dedication of Choral Fantasia, II, 207, 209;

declines to subscribe for Mass in D, III, 99.

~Bechstein~: “Natural History of Birds”;

B. asks for, II, 148.

~Beethoven, ancestry~ of the family in Belgium: I, 42, 43, 44;

William (great-great-grandfather of the composer), 42;

Henry Adelard (great-grandfather), 42;

Louis, Louis Jacob, 42;

Beethoven families in Bonn before the arrival of the composer’s

grandfather (Cornelius, Cornelius (2nd), Michael), 44;

branch of the family in Malines, 44.

~Beethoven Association~ of New York: Promotes publication of this

work, I, xviii, 140.

~Beethoven-Haus Verein~, in Bonn: I, xii, xvii, 52;

custodian of portrait of B’s mother, 51;

B’s quartet of instruments, 277;

of the portrait of Countess Brunswick, 318.

~Beethoven, Johann~, father of the composer: Petitions for appointment

as Court Musician, I, 11;

appointed, 13;

is promised salary, 17;

petitions for salary, 18;

salary increased, 22;

petitions for allowance of grain, 25;

date of birth, 45;

displeases his father by marrying, 47;

education of, 47;

enters Electoral chapel, 48;

teaches music, 48;

addicted to drink, 49;

appearance of, 49;

marries, 49;

lodgings and neighbors in Bonn, 51, 75;

alleged portrait of, 51;

children of, 51;

falsifies the age of the composer, 55;

describes his domestic conditions, 55;

death of his mother, 56;

birth of a daughter, 67;

domestic misfortunes, 72;

length of court service, 73;

status in chapel of Max Franz, 83;

treatment of the composer, 85;

birth of a daughter, 88;

her death, 97;

death of his wife, 93;

petitions for advance on salary, 93;

helped by Franz Ries, 95;

rescued from police by the composer, 104;

part of salary assigned to the composer, 104;

embezzles money of his son, 149;

dissipation, 148;

news of his death received by the composer, 148;

his wife, Maria Magdalena Keverich, widow Laym, 49;

appearance and character of, 50;

the composer’s love for her, 50;

alleged portrait of, 51;

death mourned by the composer, 92;

record of her death, 93.

~Beethoven, Johann Nikolaus~, brother of the composer: Vol. I.

Birth of, 57;

apprenticed to an apothecary, 104, 190, 191, 265;

looks for bank shares after composer’s death, 326;

comes into possession of Heiligenstadt Will, 351;

his name omitted from the document, 352;

defended by the author, 357 _et seq._;

described by Frau Karth, 358.--Vol. II. Demands return of loan

from the composer, 114;

purchases apothecary shop in Linz, 115;

profits from dealing with the French army, 115;

visited by the composer, 230;

the composer interferes with his domestic affairs, 230 _et seq._;

defeats his brother by marrying his housekeeper, 232.--Vol. III.

Buys estate near Gneixendorf, 19;

cuts a ridiculous figure in Vienna, 66;

takes his brother’s compositions as security for loan, 66;

defense of his actions by the author, 68;

seeks reconciliation with his brother, and offers home in

Gneixendorf, 69;

letter, 72;

charged with dishonest conduct by his brother, 111, 112;

his wife’s misconduct, 132, 134;

completes transaction with Schott and Sons for his brother, 180;

B. warns a visitor against him, 182;

offers B. a home in the country, 237;

condones his wife’s licentiousness, 238;

the cause of B’s hatred of his wife, 238;

takes action against his wife, 239;

persuades B. to go to Gneixendorf, 266;

his wife accused of improper intimacy with her nephew, 269;

date of his wife’s death, 270;

makes Nephew Karl his sole heir, 270;

in constant attendance on B. during his last illness, 276;

wrongly accused by Schindler of inhuman niggardliness, 287.

~Beethoven, Karl Kaspar~, brother of the composer: Vol. I. Birth, 57;

intended for musical profession, 103, 191;

official career of, 265;

composes music, 266;

letters to publishers, 295, 348, 357;

charged with surreptitious sale of B’s works, 350;

the Heiligenstadt Will, 353;

defended from charge of wrongdoing, 357 _et seq._;

appearance of, 358;

Ries’s charge of misconduct, 361.--Vol. II. Accused by Simrock, 13;

marriage of, 65;

end of business relations with the composer, 143;

illness of, 241;

appoints the composer and his widow guardians of his son, 241;

his illness compels B. to postpone his trip to England, 251, 313;

death of, 320, 321;

will of, 320, 321;

appoints Ludwig guardian of his son, 320;

von Breuning warns B. against him, 322;

admonishes widow and brother to mutual forbearance, 321;

his wife, Theresia (Johanna) Reiss, marries, 65;

her infidelity, 65;

inherits her husband’s property, 320;

made guardian under will, 321;

appointed by court, 322;

B. secures her removal as co-guardian, 331;

court grants her permission to see her son, 332;

compelled to share in expense of her son’s education, 368;

efforts to see her son, 372, 393;

her son encouraged to revile her, 396;

seeks to gain possession of her son, 400;

her testimony in court, 406, 407.--Vol. III. Reprehensible

conduct, 67;

B. adopts conciliatory attitude towards, 170, 171. (For further

details of her contest for her son, her efforts to gain

possession of him, care for his education, etc., see

_Guardianship_ and _Karl van Beethoven_, under LUDWIG VAN

BEETHOVEN.)