(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)
69. “These pianoforte players have their coteries whom they often join;
there they are praised continually,--and there’s an end of art!”
(Conversation with Tomaschek, October, 1814.)
70. “We Germans have too few dramatically trained singers for the part
of Leonore. They are too cold and unfeeling; the Italians sing and act
with body and soul.”
(1824, in Baden, to Freudenberg, an organist from Breslau.)
71. “If he is a master of his instrument I rank an organist amongst
the first of virtuosi. I too, played the organ a great deal when I
was young, but my nerves would not stand the power of the gigantic
instrument.”
(To Freudenberg, in Baden.)
72. “I never wrote noisy music. For my instrumental works I need an
orchestra of about sixty good musicians. I am convinced that only such a
number can bring out the quickly changing graduations in performance.”
(Reported by Schindler.)
73. “A Requiem ought to be quiet music,--it needs no trump of doom;
memories of the dead require no hubbub.”
(Reported by Holz to Fanny von Ponsing, in Baden, summer of 1858.
According to the same authority Beethoven valued Cherubini’s “Requiem”
more highly than any other.)
74. “No metronome at all! He who has sound feeling needs none, and he
who has not will get no help from the metronome;--he’ll run away with
the orchestra anyway.”
(Reported by Schindler. It had been found that Beethoven himself
had sent different metronomic indications to the publisher and the
Philharmonic Society of London.)
75. “In reading rapidly a multitude of misprints may pass unnoticed
because you are familiar with the language.”
(To Wegeler, who had expressed wonder at Beethoven’s rapid primavista
playing, when it was impossible to see each individual note.)
76. “The poet writes his monologue or dialogue in a certain, continuous
rhythm, but the elocutionist in order to insure an understanding of the
sense of the lines, must make pauses and interruptions at places where
the poet was not permitted to indicate it by punctuation. The
same manner of declamation can be applied to music, and admits of
modification only according to the number of performers.”
(Reported by Schindler, Beethoven’s faithful factotum.)
77. “With respect to his playing with you, when he has acquired the
proper mode of fingering and plays in time and plays the notes with
tolerable correctness, only then direct his attention to the matter
of interpretation; and when he has gotten this far do not stop him for
little mistakes, but point them out at the end of the piece. Although
I have myself given very little instruction I have always followed this
method which quickly makes musicians, and that, after all, is one of the
first objects of art.”
(To Czerny, who was teaching music to Beethoven’s nephew Karl.)
78. “Always place the hands at the key-board so that the fingers can not
be raised higher than is necessary; only in this way is it possible to
produce a singing tone.”
(Reported by Schindler as Beethoven’s view on pianoforte instruction.
He hated a staccato style of playing and dubbed it “finger dancing” and
“throwing the hands in the air.”)
[PG Editor’s Note: #79 was skipped in the 1905 edition--error?]