80. “I haven’t a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that
God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him
without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have
no fear for my music,--it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it
must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them.”
(To Bettina von Arnim. [Bettina’s letter to Goethe, May 28, 1810.])
81. “The variations will prove a little difficult to play, particularly
the trills in the coda; but let that not frighten you. It is so disposed
that you need play only the trills, omitting the other notes because
they are also in the violin part. I would never have written a thing
of this kind had I not often noticed here and there in Vienna a man
who after I had improvised of an evening would write down some of my
peculiarities and make boast of them next day. Foreseeing that these
things would soon appear in print I made up my mind to anticipate
them. Another purpose which I had was to embarrass the local pianoforte
masters. Many of them are my mortal enemies, and I wanted to have my
revenge in this way, for I knew in advance that the variations would be
put before them, and that they would make exhibitions of themselves.”
(Vienna, November 2, 1793, to Eleonore von Breuning, in dedicating to
her the variations in F major, “Se vuol ballare.” [The pianist whom
Beethoven accuses of stealing his thunder was Abbe Gelinek.])
82. “The time in which I wrote my sonatas (the first ones of the second
period) was more poetical than the present (1823); such hints were
therefore unnecessary. Every one at that time felt in the Largo of the
third sonata in D (op. 10) the pictured soulstate of a melancholy being,
with all the nuances of light and shade which occur in a delineation
of melancholy and its phases, without requiring a key in the shape of a
superscription; and everybody then saw in the two sonatas (op. 14) the
picture of a contest between two principles, or a dialogue between two
persons, because it was so obvious.”
(In answer to Schindler’s question why he had not indicated the poetical
conceits underlying his sonatas by superscriptions or titles.)
83. “This sonata has a clean face (literally: ‘has washed itself’), my
dear brother!”
(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, publisher in Leipzig to whom he offers
the sonata, op. 22, for 20 ducats.)
84. “They are incessantly talking about the C-sharp minor sonata (op.
27, No. 2); on my word I have written better ones. The F-sharp major
sonata (op. 78) is a different thing!”
(A remark to Czerny.)
[The C-sharp minor sonata is that popularly known as the “Moonlight
Sonata,” a title which is wholly without warrant. Its origin is due to
Rellstab, who, in describing the first movement, drew a picture of a
small boat in the moonlight on Lake Lucerne. In Vienna a tradition that
Beethoven had composed it in an arbor gave rise to the title “Arbor
sonata.” Titles of this character work much mischief in the amateur mind
by giving rise to fantastic conceptions of the contents of the music. H.
E. K.]
85. “The thing which my brother can have from me is 1, a Septett per il
Violino, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabasso, Clarinetto, Cornto, Fagotto,
tutti obligati; for I can not write anything that is not obligato,
having come into the world with obligato accompaniment.”
(December 15, 1800, to Hofmeister, publisher, in Leipzig.)
86. “I am but little satisfied with my works thus far; from today I
shall adopt a new course.”
(Reported by Carl Czerny in his autobiography in 1842. Concerning the
time at which the remark was made, Czerny says: “It was said about 1803,
when B. had composed op. 28 (the pianoforte sonata in D) to his friend
Krumpholz (a violinist). Shortly afterward there appeared the sonatas
(now op. 31) in which a partial fulfillment of his resolution may be
observed.”)