(Reported by Schindler as Beethoven’s explanation of the opening of the
symphony in C minor.)
[“Hofrath Kueffner told him (Krenn) that he once lived with Beethoven in
Heiligenstadt, and that they were in the habit evenings of going down
to Nussdorf to eat a fish supper in the Gasthaus ‘Zur Rose.’ One evening
when B. was in a good humor, Kueffner began: `Tell me frankly which is
your favorite among your symphonies?’ B. (in good humor) ‘Eh! Eh! The
Eroica.’ K. ‘I should have guessed the C minor.’ B. ‘No; the Eroica.’”
From Thayer’s notebook. See “Music and Manners in the Classical Period.”
H.E.K.]
91. “The solo sonatas (op. 109-ll?) are perhaps the best, but also the
last, music that I composed for the pianoforte. It is and always will be
an unsatisfactory instrument. I shall hereafter follow the example of my
grandmaster Handel, and every year write only an oratorio and a concerto
for some string or wind instrument, provided I shall have finished my
tenth symphony (C minor) and Requiem.”
(Reported by Holz. As to the tenth symphony see note to No. 95.)
92. “God knows why it is that my pianoforte music always makes the worst
impression on me, especially when it is played badly.”
(June 2, 1804. A note among the sketches for the “Leonore” overture.)
93. “Never did my own music produce such an effect upon me; even now
when I recall this work it still costs me a tear.”
(Reported by Holz. The reference is to the Cavatina from the quartet
in B-flat, op. 130, which Beethoven thought the crown of all quartet
movements and his favorite composition. When alone and undisturbed
he was fond of playing his favorite pianoforte Andante--that from the
sonata op. 28.)
94. “I do not write what I most desire to, but that which I need to
because of money. But this is not saying that I write only for money.
When the present period is past, I hope at last to write that which is
the highest thing for me as well as art,--‘Faust.’”
(From a conversation-book used in 1823. To Buhler, tutor in the house
of a merchant, who was seeking information about an oratorio which
Beethoven had been commissioned to write by the Handel and Haydn Society
of Boston.)
95. “Ha! ‘Faust;’ that would be a piece of work! Something might come
out of that! But for some time I have been big with three other large
works. Much is already sketched out, that is, in my head. I must be rid
of them first:--two large symphonies differing from each other, and each
differing from all the others, and an oratorio. And this will take a
long time, you see, for a considerable time I have had trouble to get
myself to write. I sit and think, and think I’ve long had the thing, but
it will not on the paper. I dread the beginning of these large works.
Once into the work, and it goes.”
(In the summer of 1822, to Rochlitz, at Baden. The symphonies referred
to are the ninth and tenth. They existed only in Beethoven’s mind and a
few sketches. In it he intended to combine antique and modern views of
life.)
[“In the text Greek mythology, cantique ecclesiastique; in the Allegro,
a Bacchic festival.” (Sketchbook of 1818)]
[The oratorio was to have been called “The Victory of the Cross.” It was
not written. Schindler wrote to Moscheles in London about Beethoven in
the last weeks of his life: “He said much about the plan of the tenth
symphony. As the work had shaped itself in his imagination it might have
become a musical monstrosity, compared with which his other symphonies
would have been mere opuscula.”]