CHAPTER IV

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Form and formalism--Beethoven’s life--His relations with his family,

teachers, friends, and other contemporaries--His character--The man

and the artist--Determining factors in his development--The three

periods in his work and their characteristics--His place in the

history of music.

The most important contributions of the eighteenth century to the

history of music--the establishment of harmony and the new tonalities,

the technical growth of the various forms, especially of the sonata and

the development of opera--have been treated in preceding chapters; and

we now only glance at them momentarily in order to point out that they

typify and illustrate two of the predominating forces of the century,

the desire for form and the reaction against mere formality. The first

is well illustrated in the history of the sonata, which, at the middle

of the century, was comparatively unimportant as a form of composition

and often without special significance in its musical ideas. By

1796 Mozart had lived and died, and the symphonic work of Haydn was

done; with the result that the principles of design, so strongly

characteristic of eighteenth century art, were in full operation in

the realm of music; the sonata form, as illustrated in the quartet and

symphony, was lifted to noble position among the types of pure music;

and the orchestra was vastly improved.

The second of these forces, the reaction against formality and

conservatism, is connected with one of the most interesting phases

of the history of art. For a large part of the century France held a

dominating place in drama, literature, and the opera. The art of the

theatre and of letters had become merely a suave obedience to rule,

and even the genius of a Voltaire, with his dramatic instinct and

boldness, could not lift it entirely out of the frigid zone in which

it had become fixed. Germany and England, however, were preparing to

overthrow the traditions of French classicism. Popular interest in

legends, folk-lore, and ballads revived. ‘Ossian’ (published 1760-63)

and Percy’s ‘Reliques’ (1765) aroused great enthusiasm both in England

and on the continent. Before the end of the century Lessing, Goethe,

and Schiller had placed new landmarks in the progress of literature in

Germany; and in England, by 1810, much of Wordsworth’s best poetry had

been written. The study of early national history and an appreciation

of Nature took the place of logic and the cold niceties of wit and

epigram. The comfortable acquiescence in the existing state of things,

the objectiveness, the decorous veiling of personal and subjective

elements, which characterize so many eighteenth century writers,

gave place to a passionate, lyrical outburst of rapture over nature,

expression of personal desire, melancholy visions, or romantic love.

In politics and social life there was a strong revival of republican

ideas, a loosening of many of the more orthodox tenets of religion, and

again a strong note of individualism.

That this counter-current against conventionality and mere formalism

should find expression in music was but natural. The new development,

however, in so far as pure instrumental music is concerned, was a

change, not in form, but in content and style, an increase in richness

and depth, which took place within the boundaries already laid out by

earlier masters, especially Haydn and Mozart. The musician in whom we

are to trace these developments is, of course, Ludwig van Beethoven,

who stands, like a colossus, bridging the gulf between eighteenth

century classicism and nineteenth century romanticism. He was in a

profound sense the child of his age and nation. He summed up the wisdom

of the older contrapuntists, as well as that of Mozart and Haydn; and

he also gave the impulse to what is most modern in musical achievement.

‘The most powerful currents in nineteenth century music (the

romanticism of Liszt, Berlioz; the Wagnerian music drama) to a large

extent take their point of departure from Beethoven,’ writes Dickinson;

and the same author goes on to say: ‘No one disputes his preëminence

as sonata and symphony writer. In these two departments he completes

the movements of the eighteenth century in the development of the

cyclical homophonic form, and is the first and greatest exponent of

that principle of individualism which has given the later instrumental

music its special character. He must always be studied in the light of

this double significance.’[50]

I

Although born in Germany and of German parents, Beethoven belonged

partly to that nation whose work forms so large a chapter in the

history of music, the Netherlanders. His paternal grandfather, Louis

van Beethoven, early in the century emigrated from Antwerp to Bonn,

taking a position first as bass singer then as chapel master in the

court band of the Elector of Cologne. He was an unusually capable man,

highly esteemed as a musician, and, although he died when Ludwig was

but three years of age, left an indelible impression on his character.

The father, Johann or Jean, also a singer in the court chapel, was

lacking in the excellent qualities of the elder Beethoven. The mother

was of humble family, a woman with soft manners and frail health,

who bore her many sorrows with quiet stoicism. Ludwig, the composer,

christened in the Roman Catholic Church in Bonn, December 17, 1770, was

the second of a family of seven, only three of whom lived to maturity.

The house of his birth is in the Bonngasse, now marked with a memorial

tablet.

At a very early age the father put little Ludwig at his music, and,

upon perceiving his ability, kept him practising in spite of tears.

Violin and piano were studied at home, while the rudiments of education

were followed in a public school until the lad was about thirteen.

As early as the age of nine, however, he had learned all his father

could teach him and was turned over, first to a tenor singer named

Pfeiffer and later to the court organist, van den Eeden, a friend

of the grandfather. In 1781 Christian Gottlieb Neefe (1748-1798)

succeeded van den Eeden and took Beethoven as his pupil. It is said

that during an absence he left his scholar, who had now reached the

age of eleven and a half years, to take his place at the organ, and

that a few months later this same pupil was playing the larger part

of Bach’s _Wohltemperiertes Klavier_. There seems to be abundant

evidence, indeed, that not only Neefe but others were convinced of the

boy’s genius and disposed to assist him. At the age of fifteen he was

studying the violin with Franz Ries, the father of Ferdinand, and at

seventeen he made his first journey to Vienna, where he had the famous

interview with Mozart. His return to Bonn was hastened by the illness

of his mother, who died shortly after.

Domestic affairs with the Beethovens went from bad to worse, what

with poverty, the loss of the mother, and the irregular habits of the

father. At nineteen Ludwig was virtually in the position of head of the

family, earning money, dictating the expenditures, and looking after

the education of the younger brothers. At this time he was assistant

court organist and viola player, both in the opera and chapel, and

associated with such men as Ries, the two Rombergs, Simrock, and

Stumpff. In July, 1792, when Haydn passed through Bonn on his return

from the first London visit, Beethoven showed him a composition and

was warmly praised; and, in the course of this very year, the Elector

arranged for him to go again to Vienna, this time for a longer stay and

for the purpose of further study.

His life thenceforth was in Vienna, varied only by visits to nearby

villages or country places. His first public appearance in Vienna

as pianist was in 1795, and from that time on his life was one of

successful musical activity. As improviser at the pianoforte he was

especially gifted, even at a time when there were marvellous feats

in extempore playing. By the year 1798 there appeared symptoms of

deafness, which gradually increased in spite of the efforts of

physicians to arrest or cure it, and finally forced him to give up

his playing. His last appearance in public as actual participant in

concerted work took place in 1814, when he played his trio in B flat,

though he conducted the orchestra until 1822. At last this activity was

also denied him; and when the Choral Symphony was first performed, in

1824, he was totally unaware of the applause of the audience until he

turned and saw it.

During these years, however, Beethoven had established himself in favor

with the musical public with an independence such as no musician up

to that time ever achieved. From 1800 on he was in receipt of a small

annuity from Prince Lichnowsky, which was increased by the sale of many

compositions. In 1809 Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, appears to

have offered him the post of master of the chapel at Cassel, with a

salary of $1,500 a year and very easy duties. The prospect of losing

Beethoven, however, aroused the lovers of music in Vienna to such an

extent that three of the nobility--Princes Kinsky and Lobkowitz and

Archduke Rudolph, brother of the emperor--guaranteed him a regular

stipend in order to insure his continued residence among them. This

maintenance, moreover, was given absolutely free from conditions

of any sort. In 1815 his brother Caspar Carl died, charging the

composer with the care of his son Carl, then a lad about nine years

of age. The responsibility was assumed by Beethoven with fervor and

enthusiasm, though the boy, as it proved, was far from being worthy of

the affectionate care of his distinguished uncle. Moreover, Beethoven

was now constantly in ill health, and often in trouble over lodgings,

servants, and the like.

In spite of these preoccupations the composition of masterpieces went

on, though undoubtedly with difficulty and pain, since their author

was robbed of that peace of mind so necessary to health and great

achievements. The nephew kept his hold on his uncle’s affection to the

end, was made heir to his property, and at the last commended to the

care of Beethoven’s old advocate, Dr. Bach. In November, 1826, the

master, while making a journey from his brother’s house at Gneixendorf,

took cold and arrived at his home in Vienna, the Swarzspanierhaus,

mortally ill with inflammation of the stomach and dropsy. The disease

abated for a time and Beethoven, though still confined to his bed,

was again eager for work. In March of the following year, however,

he grew steadily worse, received the sacraments of the Roman Church

on the twenty-fourth, and two days later, at evening during a

tremendous thunder storm, he breathed his last. Stephan von Breuning

and Anton Schindler, who had attended him, had gone to the cemetery

to choose a burial place, and only Anselm Hüttenbrenner, the friend

of both Schubert and Beethoven, was by his side. His funeral, March

twenty-ninth, was attended by an immense concourse of people,

including all the musicians and many of the nobility of Vienna. In the

procession to the church the coffin was borne by eight distinguished

members of the opera; thirty-two musicians carried torches, and at the

gate of the cemetery there was an address from the pen of the most

distinguished Austrian writer of the time, Grillparzer, recited by the

actor Anschütz. The grave was on the south side of the cemetery near

the spot where, a little more than a year later, Schubert was buried.

In 1863 the bodies of both Schubert and Beethoven were exhumed and

reburied after the tombs were put in repair, the work being carried out

by _Die Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde_ of Vienna.

Such is the bare outline of a life filled with passionate earnestness

and continuous striving after unattainable ideals of happiness.

Beethoven’s character was a strange combination of forces, and is not

to be gauged by the measuring rod of the average man. Some writers

have made too much of the accidents of his disposition, such as his

violent temper and rough manners; and others have apparently been

most concerned with his affairs of the heart. What really matters in

connection with any biography has been noted by the great countryman

and contemporary of Beethoven, Goethe: ‘To present the man in relation

to his times, and to show how far as a whole they are opposed to him,

in how far they are favorable to him, and how, if he be an artist,

poet, or writer, he reflects them outwardly.’[51]

It is the purpose of this chapter to present a few of the more

salient qualities of this great man, as they have appeared to those

contemporaneous and later writers best fitted to understand him; and

to indicate the path by which he was led to his achievements in music.

More than this is impossible within the limitations of the present

volume, but it is the writer’s hope that this chapter may serve

at least as an introduction to one or more of the excellent longer

works--biographies, volumes of criticism, editions of letters--which

set forth more in detail the character of the man and artist.

II

In relation to the members of his family it cannot be said that

Beethoven’s life was happy or even comfortable. Two amiable and gentle

figures emerge from the domestic group, the fine old grandfather,

Louis, and the mother. For these Beethoven cherished till his death

a tender and reverent memory. In the autumn of 1787 he writes to the

Councillor, Dr. von Schaden, at Augsburg, with whom he had become

acquainted on his return journey from Vienna: ‘I found my mother still

alive, but in the worst possible state; she was dying of consumption,

and the end came about seven weeks ago, after she had endured much

pain and suffering. She was to me such a good, lovable mother, my best

friend. Oh! who was happier than I when I could still utter the sweet

name of mother, and heed was paid to it.’ The gentle soul suffered

much, not only in her last illness, but throughout her married life,

for her husband, the tenor singer, was a drunkard and worse than a

nonentity in the family life. He died soon after the composer’s removal

to Vienna. The two brothers contributed little to his happiness or

welfare. Johann was selfish and narrow-minded, penurious and mean,

with a dash of egotistic arrogance which had nothing in common with the

fierce pride of the older brother, Ludwig. Acquiring some property and

living on it, Johann was capable of leaving at his brother’s house his

card inscribed _Johann van Beethoven, Gutsbesitzer_ (land proprietor).

This was promptly returned by the composer who had endorsed it with

the counter inscription, _L. van Beethoven, Hirnbesitzer_ (brain

proprietor). The brother Caspar Carl was a less positive character, and

seems to have shown some loyalty and affection for Ludwig at certain

periods of his life, sometimes acting virtually as his secretary and

business manager. But, though he was more tolerable to Ludwig than the

_Gutsbesitzer_, his character was anything but admirable. Both brothers

borrowed freely of the composer when he was affluent and neglected him

when he most needed attention. ‘Heaven keep me from having to receive

favors from my brothers!’ he writes. And in the ‘Heiligenstadt Will,’

written in 1802, before his fame as a composer was firmly established,

his bitterness against them overflows. ‘O ye men who regard or

declare me to be malignant, stubborn, or cynical, how unjust are ye

towards me.... What you have done against me has, as you know, long

been forgiven. And you, brother Carl, I especially thank you for the

attachment you have shown toward me of late ... I should much like one

of you to keep as an heirloom the instruments given to me by Prince L.,

but let no strife arise between you concerning them; if money should

be of more service to you, just sell them.’ This passage throws light

on the characters of the brothers, as well as on Beethoven himself.

It was at the house of the brother Johann, where the composer and his

nephew Carl were visiting in 1826, near the end of his life, that he

received such scant courtesy in respect to fires, attendance and the

like (being also asked to pay board) that he was forced to return to

his home in Vienna. The use of the family carriage was denied him and

he was therefore compelled to ride in an open carriage to the nearest

post station--an exposure which resulted in his fatal illness.

Young Carl, who became the precious charge of the composer upon

Caspar’s death, was intolerable. Beethoven sought, with an almost

desperate courage, to bring the boy into paths of manhood and virtue,

making plans for his schooling, for his proper acquaintance, and for

his advancement. Carl was deaf, apparently, to all accents of affection

and devotion, as well as to the occasional outbursts of fury from

his uncle. He perpetually harassed him by his looseness, frivolity,

continual demands for money, and lack of sensibility; and finally he

attempted to take his own life. This last stroke was almost too much

for the uncle, who gave way to his grief. Beethoven was, doubtless, but

poorly adapted to the task of schoolmaster or disciplinarian; but he

was generous, forgiving to a fault, and devoted to the ideal of duty

which he conceived to be his. But the charge was from the beginning a

constant source of anxiety and sorrow, altering his nature, causing

trouble with his friends, and embittering his existence by constant

disappointments and contentions.

Some uncertainties exist concerning Beethoven’s relations with his

teachers. The court organist, van den Eeden, was an old man, and could

scarcely have taught the boy more than a year before he was handed over

to Neefe, who was a good musician, a composer, and a writer on musical

matters. He undoubtedly gave his pupil a thoroughly honest grounding

in essentials, and, what was of even greater importance, he showed a

confidence in the boy’s powers that must have left a strong impression

upon his sensitive nature. ‘This young genius,’ he writes, when

Beethoven was about twelve years old, ‘deserves some assistance that

he may travel. If he goes on as he has begun, he will certainly become

a second Mozart.’ During Neefe’s tutelage Beethoven was appointed

accompanist to the opera band--an office which involved a good deal

of responsibility and no pay--and later assistant court organist. His

compositions, however, even up to the time of his departure for Vienna,

do not at all compare, either in number or significance, with those

belonging to the first twenty-two years of Mozart’s life. This fact,

however, did not dampen the confidence of the teacher, who seems to

have exerted the strongest influence of an academic nature which ever

came into the composer’s life. Upon leaving Bonn, Beethoven expresses

his obligation. ‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘for the counsel you have so

often given me in my progress in my divine art. Should I ever become a

great man, you will certainly have assisted in it.’[52]

His relations with Haydn have been a fruitful source of discussion

and explanation. On his second arrival in Vienna, 1792, Beethoven

became Haydn’s pupil. Feeling, however, that his progress was slow,

and finding that errors in counterpoint had been overlooked in

his exercises, he quietly placed himself under the instruction of

Schenck, a composer well known in Beethoven’s day. There was at the

time no rupture with Haydn, and he did not actually withdraw from his

tutorship until the older master’s second visit to London, in 1794.

Beethoven then took up work with Albrechtsberger, but the relationship

was mutually unsatisfactory. The pupil felt a lack of sympathy and

Albrechtsberger expressed himself in regard to Beethoven with something

like contempt. ‘Have nothing to do with him,’ he advises another pupil.

‘He has learned nothing and will never do anything in decent style.’

Although in later years Beethoven would not call himself a pupil of

Haydn, yet there were many occasions when he showed a genuine and

cordial appreciation for the chapel master of Esterhàzy. The natures of

the two men, however, were fundamentally different, and could scarcely

fail to be antagonistic. Haydn was by nature and court discipline

schooled to habits of good temper and self-control; he was pious,

submissive to the control of church and state, kindly and cheerful in

disposition. Beethoven, on the contrary, was individualistic to the

core, rough often to the point of rudeness in manner, deeply affected

by the revolutionary spirit of the times, scornful of ritual and

priest, melancholy and passionate in temperament. Is it strange that

two such diverse natures found no common ground of meeting?

Beethoven, however, aside from his formal instruction, found

nourishment for his genius, as all great men do, in the work of the

masters of his own and other arts. He probably learned more from an

independent study of Haydn’s works than from all the stated lessons;

for his early compositions begin precisely where those of Haydn and

Mozart leave off. They show, also, that he knew the worth of the

earlier masters. Concerning Emanuel Bach he writes: ‘Of his pianoforte

works I have only a few things, yet a few by that true artist serve

not only for high enjoyment but also for study.’ In 1803 he writes

to his publishers, Breitkopf and Härtel: ‘I thank you heartily for

the beautiful things of Sebastian Bach. I will keep and study them.’

Elsewhere he calls Sebastian Bach ‘the forefather of harmony,’ and

in his characteristic vein said that his name should be Meer (Sea),

instead of Bach (Brook). According to Wagner, this great master was

Beethoven’s guide in his artistic self-development.

The only other art with which he had any acquaintance was poetry, and

for this he shows a lifelong and steadily growing appreciation. In

the home circle of his early friends, the Breunings, he first learned

something of German and English literature. Shakespeare was familiar to

him, and he had a great admiration for Ossian, just then very popular

in Germany. Homer and Plutarch he knew, though only in translation. In

1809 we find him ordering complete sets of Goethe and Schiller, and in

a letter to Bettina Brentano he says: ‘When you write to Goethe about

me, select all words which will express to him my inmost reverence and

admiration.’ At the time of his interest in his physician’s daughter,

Therese Malfatti, he sends her as a gift Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meister_ and

Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare, and speaks to her of reading

Tacitus. Elsewhere he writes: ‘I have always tried from childhood

onward to grasp the meaning of the better and the wise of every age. It

is a disgrace for any artist who does not think it his duty at least to

do that much.’ These instances of deliberate selection show the strong

tendency of his mind toward the powerful, epic, and ‘grand’ style of

literature, and an almost complete indifference toward the light and

ephemeral. His own language, as shown in the letters, show many minor

inaccuracies, but is, nevertheless, strongly characteristic, forceful,

and natural, and often trenchant or sardonic.

In his relation to his friends, happily his life shows many richer and

more grateful experiences than with his own immediate family. Besides

the Breunings, his first and perhaps most important friend was Count

Waldstein, who recognized his genius and was undoubtedly of service to

him in Bonn as well as in Vienna. In the album in which his friends

inscribed their farewells upon his departure from Bonn Waldstein’s

entry is this: ‘Dear Beethoven, you are travelling to Vienna in

fulfillment of your long cherished wish. The genius of Mozart is still

weeping and bewailing the death of her favorite. With the inexhaustible

Haydn she found a refuge, but no occupation, and is now waiting to

leave him and join herself to someone else. Labor assiduously and

receive Mozart’s spirit from the hands of Haydn. Your true friend,

Waldstein. Bonn, October 29, 1792.’[53]

From the time of his arrival in Vienna, his biography is one long story

of his connection with this or that group of charming and fashionable

people. Vienna was then in a very special sense the musical centre of

Europe. There Mozart had just ended his marvellous career, and there

was the home of Haydn, the most distinguished living musician. Many

worthy representatives of the art of music--Salieri, Gyrowetz, Eybler,

Weigl, Hummel, Woelfl, Steibelt, Ries--as well as a host of fashionable

and titled people who possessed knowledge and a sincere love of music,

called Vienna their home. Many people of rank and fashion were pleased

to count themselves among Beethoven’s friends. ‘My art wins for me

friends and esteem,’ he writes, and from these friends he received

hospitality, money, and countless favors. To them, in return, he

dedicated one after another of his noble works. To Count Waldstein

was inscribed the pianoforte sonata in C, opus 53; to Baron von

Zmeskall the quartet in F minor, opus 95; to Countess Giulia Guicciardi

the _Sonata quasi una fantasia_ in C sharp minor (often called the

Moonlight Sonata); the second symphony to Prince Carl Lobkowitz, and so

on through the long, illustrious tale. He enjoyed the society of the

polite world. ‘It is good,’ he says, ‘to be with the aristocracy, but

one must be able to impress them.’

The old order of princely patronage, however, under which nearly all

musicians lived up to the close of the eighteenth century, had no

part nor lot in Beethoven’s career. Haydn, living until 1809, spent

nearly all his life as a paid employee in the service of the prince

of Esterhàzy, and even his London symphonies and the famous Austrian

Hymn were composed ‘to order.’ Mozart, whose career began later and

ended earlier than Haydn’s, had the hardihood to throw off his yoke of

servitude to the archbishop of Salzburg; but Beethoven was never under

such a yoke. He accepted no conditions as to the time or character of

his compositions; and, although he received a maintenance from some of

his princely friends, he was never on the footing of a paid servant. On

the contrary, he mingled with nobility on a basis of perfect equality

and shows no trace of humiliation or submission. He was furiously

proud, and would accept nothing save on his own terms. Nine years

before his death he welcomed joyfully a commission from the London

Philharmonic Society to visit England and bring with him a symphony

(it would have been the Ninth). Upon receiving an intimation, however,

that the Philharmonic would be pleased to have something written in his

earlier style, he indignantly rejected the whole proposition. For him

there was no turning back and his art was too sacred to be subject to

the lighter preferences of a chance patron. Though the plan to go to

England was again raised shortly before his last illness (this time by

the composer himself) it never came to a realization.

A special place among his friends should be given to a few whose

appreciation of the master was singularly disinterested and deep.

First among these were the von Breunings, who encouraged his genius,

bore with the peculiar awkwardness and uncouthness of his youth, and

managed, for the most part, to escape his suspicion and anger. It was

in their house at the age of sixteen or seventeen that he literally

first discovered what personal friendship meant; and it was Stephen von

Breuning and his son Gerhart who, with Schindler, waited on him during

his final illness. No others are to be compared with the Breunings; but

more than one showed a capacity for genuine and unselfish devotion.

Nanette Streicher, the daughter of the piano manufacturer, Stein, was

among these. Often in his letters Beethoven declares that he does

not wish to trouble anyone; and yet he complains to this amiable and

capable woman about servants, dusters, spoons, scissors, neckties,

stays, and blames the Austrian government, both for his bad servants

and smoking chimneys. It is evident that she repeatedly helped him

over his difficulties, as did also Baron von Zmeskall, court secretary

and distinguished violoncellist, to whom he applied numberless times

for such things as quills, a looking glass, and the exchanging of a

torn hat, and whom he sent about like an errand boy. Schuppanzigh, the

celebrated violinist and founder of the Rasoumowsky quartet, which

produced for the first time many of the Beethoven compositions, was

a trustworthy and valuable friend. Princes Lichnowsky and Lobkowitz,

Count von Brunswick, the Archbishop Rudolph, Countesses Ertmann,

Erdödy, Therese von Brunswick, and Bettina Brentano (afterward von

Arnim)--the list of titled and fashionable friends is long and all

of them seem to have borne with patience his eccentricities and

delinquencies in a genuine appreciation of his fine character and

genius. Among the few friends who proved faithful to the last, however,

was a young musician, Anton Schindler, who for a time was Beethoven’s

housemate and devoted slave, and became his literary executor and

biographer. Schindler has been the object of much detraction and

censure, but both Grove and Thayer regard him as trustworthy, in

character as well as in intelligence. He had much to bear from his

adored master, who tired of him, treated him with violence and

injustice, and finally banished him from his house. But when Beethoven

returned to Vienna from the ill-fated visit to Johann in 1826, sick

unto death, Schindler resumed his old position as house companion.

Both Schindler and Baron von Zmeskall collected notes, memoranda, and

letters which have been of great service to later biographers of the

composer.

Beethoven’s friendships were often marked by periods of storm, and many

who were once proud to be in his favored circle afterward became weary

of his eccentricities, or were led away to newer interests. It was

hard for him to understand some of the most obvious rules of social

conduct, and impossible for him to control his tongue or temper. Close

and well-tried friends, falling under his suspicion or arousing his

anger, were in the morning forbidden his house, roundly denounced, and

treated almost like felons; in the afternoon, with a return of calmness

and reason, he would write to them remorseful letters, beg their

forgiveness, and plead for a continuance of their affection. Often

the remorse was out of all proportion to his crime. After a quarrel

with Stephan von Breuning he sends his portrait with the following

message: ‘My dear, good Stephan--Let what for a time passed between us

lie forever hidden behind this picture. I know it, I have broken _your

heart_. The emotion which you must certainly have noticed in me was

sufficient punishment for it. It was not a feeling of _malice_ against

you; no, for then I should be no longer worthy of your friendship.

It was passion on your part and on mine--but mistrust of you arose

in me. Men came between us who are not worthy either of you or of me

... faithful, good, and noble Stephan. Forgive me if I did hurt your

feelings; I was not less a sufferer myself through not having you near

me during such a long period; then only did I really feel how dear to

my heart you are and ever will be.’ Too apologetic and remorseful,

maybe; but still breathing a kind of stubborn pride under its genuine

and sincere affection.

Although Goethe and Beethoven met at least once, they did not become

friends. The poet was twenty-one years the elder, and was too much the

gentleman of the world to like outward roughness and uncouth manners in

his associates. He had, moreover, no sympathy with Beethoven’s rather

republican opinions. On the other hand, Beethoven had something of the

peasant’s intolerance for the courtier and fine gentleman. ‘Court air,’

he writes in 1812, ‘suits Goethe more than becomes a poet. One cannot

laugh much at the ridiculous things that virtuosi do, when poets, who

ought to be looked upon as the principal teachers of the nation, forget

everything else amidst this glitter.’

In spite of his deafness, rudeness, and eccentricity Beethoven

seems to have had no small degree of fascination for women. He was

continually in love, writing sincere and charming letters to his

‘immortal Beloved,’ and planning more than once, with almost pathetic

tenderness, for marriage and a home. There is a genuine infatuation,

an ardent young-lover-like exultation in courtship that lifts him

for a time even out of his art and leaves him wholly a man--a man,

however, whose passion was always stayed and ennobled by spiritual

bonds. License and immorality had no attraction for him, even when

all his hopes of marriage were frustrated. Talented and lovely women

accepted his admiration--Magdelena Willman, the singer, Countess Giulia

Guicciardi, Therese Malfatti, Countess von Brunswick, Bettina Brentano,

the ‘Sybil of romantic literature’--one after another received his

addresses, possibly returned in a measure his love, and, presently,

married someone else. Beethoven was undoubtedly deeply moved at these

successive disappointments. ‘Oh, God!’ he writes, ‘let me at last find

her who is destined to be mine, and who shall strengthen me in virtue.’

But, though he was destined never to be happy in this way, his thwarted

love wrecked neither his art nor his happiness. He writes to Ries

in 1812, in a tone almost of contentment and resignation: ‘All kind

messages to your wife, unfortunately I have none. I found one who will

probably never be mine, nevertheless, I am not on that account a woman

hater.’ The truth is, music was in reality his only mistress, and his

plans for a more practical domesticity were like clouds temporarily

illumined by the sun of his own imagination, and predestined to be as

fleeting.

As has been noted, toward the end of his life most of the intimacies

and associations with the fashionable circles of Vienna gradually

ceased. During the early part of his last illness the brother Johann,

a few musicians and an occasional stranger were among his visitors,

and until December of the year 1826 the nephew made his home with

Beethoven. But Johann returned to his property, Carl rejoined his

regiment, much to the added comfort of the sick man, and the visits

from outsiders grew fewer in number. The friends of earlier days--those

whom he had honored by his dedications or who had profited by the

production of his works, as well as those who had suffered from his

violence and abuse--nearly all were either dead or unable to attend

him in his failing strength. Only the Breunings and Schindler remained

actively faithful till the last.

With his publishers his relations were, on the whole, of a calmer and

more stable nature than with his princely friends. It must be noted

that Beethoven is the first composer whose works were placed before

the public in the manner which has now become universal. Although

music printing had been practised since the sixteenth century, the

publisher in the modern sense did not arrive until about Beethoven’s

time. The works of the eighteenth century composers were often

produced from manuscript and kept in that state in the libraries of

private houses, and whatever copies were made were generally at the

express order of some musical patron. Neither Mozart nor Haydn had a

‘publisher’ in the modern sense--a man who purchases the author’s work

outright or on royalties, taking his own risk in printing and selling

it. The greater part of Beethoven’s compositions were sold outright

to the distinguished house of Breitkopf and Härtel, and, all things

considered, he was well paid. In those days it took a week for a letter

to travel from Vienna to Leipzig, and Beethoven’s patience was often

sorely tried by delays not due to tardiness of post. The correspondence

is not lacking in those frantic calls for proof, questions about dates

of publication, alarms over errors, and other matters so familiar to

every composer and author. In earlier days, Simrock of Bonn undertook

the publication of some of the master’s work, but did not come up to

his ideas in respect to time. The following letter, concerning the

Sonata in A, opus 47, shows that even the impatient Beethoven could

bear good-naturedly with a certain amount of irritating trouble:

‘Dear, best Herr Simrock: I have been all the time waiting anxiously

for my sonata which I gave you--but in vain. Do please write and tell

me the reason of the delay--whether you have taken it from me merely

to give it as food to the moths or do you wish to claim it by special

imperial privilege? Well, I thought that might have happened long ago.

This slow devil who was to beat out this sonata, where is he hiding?

As a rule you are a quick devil, it is known that, like Faust, you are

in league with the black one, and on that very account _so beloved_ by

your comrades.’

It is said that Nägeli of Zürich on receiving for publication the

Sonata in G (opus 31, No. 1), undertook to improve a passage which he

considered too abrupt or heterodox, and added four measures of his own.

The liberty was discovered in proof, and the publication immediately

transferred to Simrock, who produced a correct version. Nägeli,

however, still retained and adhered to his own version, copies of which

are still occasionally met with.

More than once Beethoven shows himself to be reasonable and even

patient with troublesome conditions. In regard to some corrections in

the C minor symphony he writes to Breitkopf and Härtel: ‘One must not

pretend to be so divine as not to make improvements here and there

in one’s creations’--and surely the following is a mild protest,

considering the cause: ‘How in heaven’s name did my Fantasia with

orchestra come to be dedicated to the King of Bavaria?’ This was no

slip of memory on Beethoven’s part, for he was very particular about

dedications. Again he writes to his publishers, after citing a list

of errors: ‘Make as many faults as you like, leave out as much as you

like--you are still highly esteemed by me; that is the way with men,

they are esteemed because they have not made still greater faults.’

His letters reveal the fact, not that he was disorderly and careless,

but that, on the contrary, when he had time to give attention, he

could manage his business affairs very sensibly indeed. Usually he

is exact in stating his terms and conditions for any given piece of

work; but occasionally he was also somewhat free in promising the

same composition to more than one publisher, and in setting off one

bid against another in order to get his price. But it is impossible

to see, even in such acts, any very deep-seated selfish or mercenary

quality. Full of ideas, pushed from within as well as from without,

he knew himself capable of replacing one composition with another of

even richer value. He was always in need of money, not because he

lived luxuriously, but because of the many demands made upon him from

his family and by reason of the fact that absorption in composition,

frequent illness, and deafness rendered him incapable of ordering his

affairs with any degree of economy. Whenever it was possible he gave

his services generously for needy causes, such as a benefit for sick

soldiers, or for the indigent daughter of Bach. Writing to Dr. Wegeler,

the husband of Eleanore von Breuning, he says: ‘If in our native land

there are any signs of returning prosperity, I will only use my art for

the benefit of the poor.’

In respect to other musicians Beethoven was in a state of more or less

open warfare. Bitterly resentful of any slight, it was not easy for

him to forgive even an innocent or kindly criticism, much less the

open sneers that invariably attend the progress of a new and somewhat

heretical genius. If, however, he considered other musicians worthy, he

was glad of their recognition. Although he did not care for the subject

of _Don Giovanni_, he writes that Mozart’s success gave him as much

pleasure as if it were his own work. To his publishers he addresses

these wise words concerning young musicians: ‘Advise your critics

to exercise more care and good sense with regard to the productions

of young authors, for many a one may become thereby dispirited, who

otherwise might have risen to higher things.’

III

Perhaps the most obvious element of his character was his essential

innocence and simplicity, with all the curious secondary traits that

accompany a nature fundamentally incapable of becoming sophisticated.

Love of nature was one part of it. To an exceptional degree he loved

to walk in the woods and to make long sojourns in the country. Lying

on his back in the fields, staring into the sky, he forgot himself

and his anxieties in a kind of ecstatic delight. Klober, the painter,

writes: ‘He would stand still, as if listening, with a piece of paper

in his hand, look up and down, and then write something.’ Not always

was he quiet, but often strode impatiently along, humming, singing,

or roaring, with an occasional pause for the purpose of making notes.

In this manner dozens of sketch books were filled with ideas which

enable the student to trace, step by step, the evolution of his

themes. An Englishman who lived in intimate friendship with him for

some months asserts that he never ‘met anyone who so delighted in

nature, or so thoroughly enjoyed flowers, clouds, or other natural

subjects. Nature was almost meat and drink to him; he seems positively

to exist upon it.’ This quality is emphasized by Beethoven’s letter

to Therese Malfatti, in which he says: ‘No man on earth can love the

country as I do. It is trees, woods, and rocks that return to us the

echo of our own thought.’ Like the Greeks, he could turn the dancing

of the Satyrs into an acceptable offering on the altar of art. Of this

part of his nature, the Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony is the monument.

It is as if he took special occasion, once for all, to let speak the

immediate voice of Pan within him. It is full of the sights and sounds

of nature, not, however, as Beethoven himself says, a painting, but an

expression of feeling. In an analysis of the _allegro_, referring to

the constant repetition of short phrases, Grove says: ‘I believe that

the delicious, natural, May-day, out-of-doors feeling of this movement

arises in a great measure from this kind of repetition. It causes a

monotony--which, however, is never monotonous--and which, though no

_imitation_, is akin to the constant sounds of nature--the monotony

of rustling leaves and swaying trees, and running brooks and blowing

wind, the call of birds and the hum of insects.’ And he adds, as a

summing up of its beauty: ‘However abstruse or characteristic the mood

of Beethoven, the expression of his mind is never dry or repulsive. To

hear one of his great compositions is like contemplating, not a work of

art or man’s device, but a mountain, a forest, or other immense product

of nature--at once so complex and so simple; the whole so great and

overpowering; the parts so minute, so lovely, and so consistent; and

the effect so inspiring, so beneficial, and so elevating.’

Another phase of this deep, unworldly innocence was the very exhibition

of temper that so often brought him into trouble. Sophistication and

conformity remove these violences from men’s conduct, and rightly

so; often with them is also removed much of the earnestness, the

spontaneous tenderness, and the trustfulness of innocence. What but a

deeply innocent, unsophisticated mind could have dictated words like

these, which were written to Dr. Wegeler, after a misunderstanding: ‘My

only consolation is that you knew me almost from my childhood, and--oh,

let me say it myself--I was really always of good disposition, and in

my dealings always strove to be upright and honest; how, otherwise,

could you have loved me.’ Together with this yearning for understanding

from his friends was a consciousness also of genius, which was humble,

the very opposite of vanity and self-conceit: ‘You will only see me

again when I am truly great; not only greater as an artist, but as a

man you shall find me better, more perfect’; and again, ‘I am convinced

good fortune will not fail me; with whom need I be afraid of measuring

my strength?’ This is the language of self-confidence, and also of a

nature thoroughly innocent and simple.

Still another, and perhaps the most remarkable, phase of his character

was a certain boisterous love of fun and high spirits, which betrayed

itself on the most unexpected occasions, often in puns, jests,

practical jokes, and satiric comment. He was, in fact, an invincible

humorist, ready, in season or out of season, with or without decorum,

to expend his jocose or facetious pleasantry upon friend or enemy.

If he could deliver a home thrust, it was often accompanied with a

roar of laughter, and his sense of a joke often overthrew every other

consideration. Throwing books, plates, eggs, at the servants, pouring a

dish of stew over the head of the waiter who had served him improperly;

sending the wisp of goat’s hair to the lady who had asked him for a

lock of his own--these were his sardonically jesting retorts to what

he considered to be clumsiness or sentimentality. The estimable

Schuppanzigh, who in later life grew very fat, was the subject of many

a joke. ‘My lord Falstaff’ was one of his nicknames, and a piece of

musical drollery exists, scrawled by Beethoven on a blank page of the

end of his sonata, opus 28, entitled _Lob an den Dicken_ (Praise to the

fat one), which consists of a sort of canon to the words, _Schuppanzigh

ist ein Lump, Lump, Lump_, and so on. Beethoven writes to Count von

Brunswick: ‘Schuppanzigh is married--they say his wife is as fat as

himself--what a family!’ Nicknames are invented for friend and foe:

Johann, the _Gutsbesitzer_, is the ‘Brain-eater’ or ‘Pseudo-brother’;

his brother’s widow is ‘Queen of the Night,’ and a canon written to

Count Moritz Lichnowsky is set to the words, _Bester Herr Graf, du

bist ein Schaf!_ Often his humor is in bad taste and frequently out

of season, but it is always on call, a boisterous, biting, shrewd

eighteenth century gift for ridicule and jest.

It must be admitted, however, that he was usually blind to the jest

when it was turned on himself. There is an anecdote to the effect that

in Berlin in 1796 he interrupted Himmel, the pianist, in the midst of

an improvisation, asking him when he was intending to begin in earnest.

When, however, months afterward, Himmel attempted to even up the joke

by writing to Beethoven about the invention of a lantern for the blind,

the composer not only did not see the point but was enraged when it

was pointed out to him. Often, however, the humorous turn which he was

enabled to give must have assisted in averting difficult situations,

and not always was his jesting so heavy handed. He speaks of sending

a song to the Princess Kinsky, ‘one of the stoutest, prettiest ladies

in Vienna,’ and the following note shows his keen understanding of the

peculiarities of popular favorites. Anna Milder, a celebrated German

singer, was needed for rehearsal. ‘Manage the affair cleverly with

Milder,’ he writes; ‘only tell her that you really come in my name,

and in advance beg her not to sing anywhere else. But to-morrow I will

come myself in order to kiss the hem of her garment.’

Another phase of the essential simplicity, as well as greatness, of

his mind is in his direct grasp of the central thought of any work.

He overlooked incidental elements, in order to get at the fundamental

idea. This quality, as well as his own innate tendency toward the

heroic and grand, led him to such writers as Homer, Plutarch, and

Shakespeare, and made it impossible for him to find any interest

in trivial or frivolous themes. He was always looking for suitable

subjects for opera, but could never bring himself to regard seriously

such a subject as Figaro or Don Giovanni. The less noble impulses

were not, for him, worthy themes for art. ‘He refused with horror,’

Wagner notes, ‘to write music to ballet, shows, fireworks, sensual love

intrigues, or an opera text of a frivolous tendency.’

‘Mozart, with his divine nonchalance, snatched at any earthly

happiness, any gaiety of the flesh or spirit, and changed it instantly

into the immortal substance of his music. But Beethoven, with his

peasant seriousness, could not jest with virtue or the rhythmical

order of the world. His art was his religion and must be served

with a devotion in which there was none of the easy pleasantness of

the world.’[54] This same ability of grasping the fundamental idea,

however, led him also sometimes to set an undue valuation upon an

inferior poet, such as Klopstock, whom it is said he read habitually

for years. Something in the nobility and grandeur of the ideas at the

bottom of this poet’s work caused Beethoven to overlook its pompousness

and chaotic quality. The words meant less for him than the emotion and

conception which prompted them. Beethoven himself, however, says that

Goethe spoiled Klopstock for him, but it was only, fortunately, to

provide him with something better. His taste for whatever was noble

and grand in art never left him; and, so far as he was able, he lived

up to the idea that it was the artist’s duty to be acquainted with the

ancient and modern poets, not only so as to choose the best poetry for

his own work, but also to afford food for his inspiration.

Beethoven from the first faced the world with a defiant spirit and a

sort of wild independence. His sordid childhood nourished in him a

rugged habit of self-dependence, and the knowledge of his own powers

was like a steady beacon holding him unfalteringly to a consciousness

of his high destiny. He _believed_, with all the innocence of a great

mind, that gifts of genius were more than sufficient to raise their

possessor to a level with the highest nobility; and, with such a

belief, he could not pretend to a humility he was far from feeling

in the companionship of social superiors. This feeling was perfectly

compatible with the genuine modesty and clearness of judgment in regard

to his own work. ‘Do not snatch the laurel wreaths from Handel, Haydn,

and Mozart,’ he writes; ‘they are entitled to them; as yet I am not.’

But his modesty in things artistic was born, after all, of a sense

of his own kinship with the greatest of the masters of art. He could

face a comparison with them, knowing full well he belonged to their

court; but to courts of a more temporal nature he did not and could

not belong, however often he chanced to come under a princely roof.

The light ease of manner, the assured courtesies, the happy audacities

of speech and conduct which are native to the life of the salon and

court were foreign to his nature. The suffrage of the fashionable world

of Vienna he won by reason of qualities which were alien to them, but

yet touched their sympathies, satisfied their genuine love of music,

and pricked their sensibilities as with a goad. His is perhaps the

first historic instance of ‘artistic temperament’ dominating and

imposing itself upon society. Byron to a certain extent defied social

customs and allowed himself liberties which he expected to be excused

on account of his genius and popularity; but he was fundamentally

much more closely allied to the world of fashion than Beethoven, who

was a law unto himself and in sympathy with society only so far as it

understood and applauded his actions.

Theoretically, at least, he was an ardent revolutionist. During the

last decades of the eighteenth century the revolution in France had

dwarfed all other political events in Europe, and republicanism was in

the air. Two years after Beethoven left Bonn the Electorate of Cologne

was abolished, and during the succeeding period many other small

principalities were swallowed up by the larger kingdoms. The old order

was changed and almost all Europe was involved in warfare. In 1799

the allied European states began to make headway against the invading

French armies, and, as a consequence, the Directory fell into disfavor

in France. Confusion and disorder prevailed, the Royalists recovering

somewhat of their former power, and the Jacobins threatening another

Reign of Terror. In this desperate state of affairs Napoleon was looked

to as the liberator of his country. How he returned in all haste from

his victorious campaign in Egypt, was hailed with wild enthusiasm,

joined forces with some of the Directors, drove the Council of Five

Hundred from the Chamber of Deputies (1799) and became First Consul--in

fact, master of France--need hardly be recounted here.

Beethoven regarded Napoleon as the embodiment of the new hopes for

the freedom of mankind which had been fostered by the Revolution.

That he had also been affected by the martial spirit of the times

is revealed in the first and second symphonies. It was the third,

however, which was to prove the true monument to republicanism. The

story is one of the familiar tales of musical history. Still full of

confidence and faith in the Corsican hero, Beethoven composed his great

‘Eroica’ symphony (1804) and inscribed it with the name ‘Buonaparte.’

A fair copy had already been sent to an envoy who should present it to

Napoleon, and another finished copy was lying on the composer’s work

table when Beethoven’s friend Ries brought the news that Napoleon had

assumed the title of emperor. Forthwith the admiration of Beethoven

turned to hatred. ‘After all, then,’ he cried, ‘he is nothing but an

ordinary mortal! He will trample all the rights of man underfoot, to

indulge his ambition, and become a greater tyrant than anyone!’ The

title page was seized, torn in half and thrown on the floor; and the

symphony was rededicated to the memory of _un grand’ uomo_. It is said

that Beethoven was never heard to refer to the matter again until the

death of Napoleon in 1821, when he remarked, in allusion to the Funeral

March of his second movement, ‘I have already foreseen and provided for

that catastrophe.’ Probably nothing, however, beyond the title page

was altered. ‘It is still a portrait--and we may believe a favorable

portrait--of Napoleon, and should be listened to in that sense. Not as

a conqueror--that would not attract Beethoven’s admiration--but for

the general grandeur and loftiness of his course and of his public

character. How far the portraiture extends, whether to the first

movement only or through the entire work, there will probably be always

a difference of opinion. The first movement is certain. The March is

certain also, as is shown by Beethoven’s own remark--and the writer

believes, after the best consideration he can give to the subject, that

the other movements are also included in the picture, and that the

_poco andante_ at the end represents the apotheosis of the hero.’[55]

IV

It is in vain, however, that one looks for a parallel between the life

and the work of the master. In everyday matters he was impatient,

abrupt and often careless; while in his art his patience was such as

to become even a slow brooding, an infinite care. His life was often

distracted and melancholy; his music is never distracted or melancholy,

except in so far as great art can be melancholy with a nobly tragic,

universal depth of sadness. In political matters a revolutionist and

in social life a rebel, in his art he accepted forms as he found

them, expanding them, indeed, but not discarding them. Audacious and

impassioned not only in private conduct but in his extempore playing,

in his writing he was cautious and selective beyond all belief. The

sketch books are a curious and interesting witness to the slow and

tentative processes of his mind. More than fifty of these--books of

coarse music paper of two hundred or more pages, sixteen staves to the

page--were found among his effects after death and sold. One of these

books was constantly with him, on his walks, by his bedside, or when

travelling, and in them he wrote down his musical ideas as they came,

rewrote and elaborated them until they reached the form he desired.

They are, as Grove points out, perhaps the most remarkable relic that

any artist or literary man has left behind him. In them can be traced

the germs of his themes from crude or often trivial beginning, growing

under his hand spontaneously, as it seemed, into the distinguished and

artistic designs of his completed work. A dozen or a score attempts at

the same theme can often be found, and ‘the more they are elaborated,

the more spontaneous they become.’ In these books it can also be seen

how he often worked upon four or five different compositions at the

same time; how he sometimes kept in mind a theme or an idea for years

before finally using it, and how extraordinary was the fertility of his

genius. Nottebohm, the author of ‘Beethoveniana,’ says: ‘Had he carried

out all the symphonies which are begun in these books, we should have

at least fifty.’ Thus we see his method of work, and the stages through

which his compositions passed. ‘He took a story out of his own life,

the life of a friend, a play of Goethe or Shakespeare--and he labored,

eternally altering and improving, until at last every phrase expressed

just the emotions he himself felt. The exhibition of his themes, as

expressed in the sketch books, show how passionately and patiently he

worked.’

Although he certainly sometimes allowed his music to be affected

by outside events, as has been traced, for example, in the Eroica

Symphony, yet in most instances his work seems to be independent of the

outward experiences of his life. One of the most striking examples of

the detachment of his artistic from his everyday life is in connection

with the Second Symphony, written in 1802, the year in which he wrote,

also, the celebrated ‘Heiligenstadt Will.’ This document was prompted

by his despair over his bad health, frequent unhappiness on account of

his brothers, and his deafness, which was now pronounced incurable. In

it he says:

‘During the last six years I have been in a wretched condition--I am

compelled to live as an exile. If I approach near to people, a feeling

of hot anxiety comes over me lest my condition should be noticed.

At times I was on the point of putting an end to my life--art alone

restrained my hand. Oh, it seemed as if I could not quit this earth

until I had produced all I felt within me, and so I continued this

wretched life--wretched, indeed, with so sensitive a body that a

somewhat sudden change can throw me from the best into the worst state.

Lasting, I hope, will be my resolution to bear up until it pleases

the inexorable Parcæ to break the thread. My prayer is that your life

may be better, less troubled by cares, than mine. Recommend to your

children _virtue_; it alone can bring happiness, not money. So let it

be. I joyfully hasten to meet death. O Providence, let me have just one

pure day of _joy_; so long is it since true joy filled my heart. Oh,

when, Divine Being, shall I be able once again to feel it in the temple

of Nature and of men.’

Such was his expression of grief at the time when the nature of his

malady became known to him; and who can doubt its depth and sincerity?

In it the man speaks from the heart; but in the same year also the

Second Symphony was written, and in this the artist speaks. What

a wonderful difference! ‘The _scherzo_ is as proudly gay in its

capricious fantasy as the _andante_ is completely happy and tranquil;

for everything is smiling in this symphony, the warlike spirit of the

_allegro_ is entirely free from violence; one can only find there

the grateful fervor of a noble heart in which are still preserved

unblemished the loveliest illusions of life.’[56]

There seem to be two periods--one from 1808 to 1811, during his love

affair with Therese Malfatti, and again after his brother’s death

in 1815--when outward circumstances prevailed against the artist

and rendered him comparatively silent. Unable to loosen the grip of

personal emotion, during these periods he wrote little of importance.

‘During all the rest of his agitated and tormented life nothing,

neither the constant series of passionate and brief loves, nor

constant bodily sickness, trouble about money, trouble about friends,

relations, and the unspeakable nephew, meant anything vital to his

deeper self. The nephew helped to kill him, but could not color a

note of his music.’[57] If, as in the case of the ‘Eroica,’ music was

sometimes the reflection of present emotion, it was still oftener, as

in the case just cited, his magic against it, his shelter from grief,

the rock-wall with which he shut out the woes of life.

V

In the development of his artistic career three circumstances may

be counted as strongly determining factors: his early experience in

the theatre at Bonn, his skill on the pianoforte, and his lifelong

preference for the sonata form.

In regard to the first, it is clearly evident that, although Beethoven

was moved least of all by operatic works, yet his constant familiarity

with the orchestra during the formative years of his life must have

left a strong impression. From 1788 to 1792 at the National Theatre

in Bonn he was playing in such works as _Die Entführung_, _Don

Giovanni_, and _Figaro_ by Mozart, _Die Pilgrime von Mekka_ by Gluck,

and productions by Salieri, Benda, Dittersdorf, and Paesiello. That

in after life he wrote but one opera was probably due to a number

of causes, one of which was his difficulty in finding a libretto to

his liking. His diary and letters show that he was frequently in

correspondence with various poets concerning a libretto, and that the

purpose of further operatic work was never dismissed from his mind.

But he always conceived his melodies and musical ideas instrumentally

rather than vocally, and never was able or willing to modify them to

suit the compass of the average voice. One consequence of this was that

he had endless trouble and difficulty in the production of his opera,

_Fidelio_, which was withdrawn after the first three performances. Upon

its revival it was played to larger and more appreciative audiences,

but was again suddenly and finally withdrawn by the composer after a

quarrel with Baron von Braun, the intendant of the theatre.

It was but natural that such difficulties and vexations should turn

the attention of the composer away from operatic production, but

he undoubtedly hoped that better fortune would sometime attend his

endeavors. In one respect, at least, he reaped encouragement from

the experience with _Fidelio_, for it helped him to overcome his

sensitiveness in regard to his deafness. On the margin of his sketch

book in 1805 he writes: ‘Struggling as you are in the vortex of

society, it is yet possible, notwithstanding all social hindrances, to

write operas. Let your deafness be no longer a secret, even in your

art.’ Great as _Fidelio_ is, it does not possess the vocal excellences

even of the commonplace Italian or French opera of its day. Its merit

lies in the greater nobility of conception, the freedom and boldness of

its orchestral score, and in its passionate emotional depth. The result

of Beethoven’s early practice with the theatre, undoubtedly, was of far

deeper significance in relation to his symphonies than to his operatic

work.

During the early days in Vienna his reputation rested almost entirely

upon his wonderful skill as player upon the pianoforte, or, more

especially, as improviser. It was a period of great feats in extempore

playing, and some of the greatest masters of the time--Himmel, Woelfl,

Lipawsky, Gelinek, Steibelt--lived in Vienna. They were at first

inclined to make sport of the newcomer, who bore himself awkwardly,

spoke in dialect, and took unheard-of liberties in his playing; but

they were presently forced to recognize the master hand. Steibelt

challenged him at the piano and was thoroughly beaten, while Gelinek

paid him the compliment of listening to his playing so carefully as to

be able to reproduce many of his harmonies and melodies and pass them

off as his own. Technically, only Himmel and Woelfl could seriously

compare with Beethoven, the first being distinguished by clearness and

elegance, and the second by the possession of unusually large hands,

which gave him a remarkable command of the keyboard. They, as well as

Beethoven, could perform wonders in transposition, reading at sight,

and memorizing, just as Mozart had done. But Beethoven’s reputation

as the ‘giant among players’ rested upon other qualities--the fire of

his imagination, nobility of style, and great range of expression.

Understanding as he did the capabilities of the pianoforte, he endowed

his compositions for this instrument with a wealth of detail and depth

of expression such as had hitherto not been achieved. Czerny, himself

an excellent pianist, thus describes his playing: ‘His improvisation

was most brilliant and striking; in whatever company he might chance

to be he knew how to produce such an effect upon every hearer that

frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out in loud

sobs; for there was something wonderful in his expression, in addition

to the beauty and originality of his ideas, and his spirited style of

rendering them.’[58] Ries and other artists have also borne testimony

to his skill, wealth of imagery and inexhaustible fertility of ideas.

Grove says: ‘He extemporized in regular form; and his variations, when

he treated a theme in that way, were not mere alterations of figure,

but real developments and elaborations of the subject.’

In close connection with his work as pianist, and exercising a

powerful influence not only upon Beethoven but also upon all later

composers, was the mechanical development of the pianoforte. The

clavichord and clavicembalo, which had occupied a modest place during

the eighteenth century merely as accompanying instruments to string

or wind music, were now gradually replaced by the _Hammer-clavier_,

as it was called, which, by the middle of the century, began to be

considered seriously as a solo instrument of remarkable powers.

Important piano manufacturers, such as Silbermann in Strassburg, Späth

in Regensburg, Stein in Augsburg, Broadwood in London, and Érard in

Paris, did much to bring about the perfection of the instrument and

so indirectly assisted in the development of pianoforte music. In

1747 Sebastian Bach had played a Silbermann piano before Frederick

the Great in Potsdam, but the important development came after the

middle of the century. In London, in 1768, Johann Christian Bach used

the pianoforte for the first time in a public concert, and we know

that Mozart possessed instruments both from Späth and Stein, and that

in 1779 some of his work was published ‘for Clavier or Pianoforte.’

An immediate consequence of this sudden rise of the pianoforte into

popularity was, of course, the appearance of a new musical literature

adapted to the peculiarities of the instrument. Among the first of the

technical students of the pianoforte was Muzio Clementi,[59] whose

_Gradus ad Parnassum_, or hundred exercises ‘upon the art of playing

the pianoforte in a severe and elegant style’ made a deep impression

upon the rising generation of musicians and are still considered of

the highest educational value. Some of these exercises were published

as early as 1784, though the collection was not made until 1817.

An extract from the writing of one of Clementi’s best pupils throws

some light upon the standard of taste in regard to pianoforte playing

which prevailed in Beethoven’s early days. He says: ‘I asked Clementi

whether, in 1781, he had begun to treat the instrument in his present

(1806) style. He answered _no_, and added that in those early days

he had cultivated a more brilliant execution, especially in double

stops, hardly known then, and in extemporized cadenzas, and that he had

subsequently achieved a more melodic and noble style of performance

after listening attentively to famous singers, and also by means of

the perfected mechanism of English pianos, the construction of which

formerly stood in the way of a cantabile and legato style of playing.’

It is evident that Beethoven came upon the scene as pianoforte player

not only when the improved instrument was almost in the first flush of

its popularity, but also when virtuosity and the ability to astonish

by difficult technical feats were sometimes mistaken for true artistic

achievement.

By the time Beethoven’s career as a composer began the sonata had

already been developed, as we have seen, especially by Haydn and

Mozart, into a model form whose validity was established for all time.

Technically, it was a compromise between the German effort toward a

logical and coherent harmonic expression, as represented by Emanuel

Bach and others, and the Italian tendency toward melodic beauty and

grace. The first thirty-one published instrumental compositions of

Beethoven, as well as the great majority of all his works, are in

this form, which seemed, indeed, to be the ‘veil-like tissue through

which he gazed into the realm of tones.’[60] With Haydn this form

had reached a plane where structural lucidity was almost the first

consideration. ‘Musicians had arrived at that artificial state of mind

which deliberately chose to be conscious of formal elements,’ says

Parry, ‘and it was only by breathing a new and mightier spirit into the

framework that the structure would escape becoming merely a collection

of lifeless bones.’ It was this spirit which Beethoven brought not only

to the pianoforte sonata, but also to the symphony and quartet. His

spirit, as we have seen, both in daily intercourse and in art, was of

the sort to scoff at needless restrictions and defy conventionality.

While, however, his rebellion against conventionality of conduct and

artificiality in society was often somewhat excessive and superfluous,

in his art it led him unerringly, not toward iconoclasm or even

disregard of form, but toward the realities of human feeling.

VI

Beethoven’s works extend to every field of composition. They include

five concertos for piano and orchestra, one concerto for violin and

orchestra, sixteen quartets for strings, ten sonatas for piano and

violin, thirty-eight sonatas for piano, one opera, two masses, nine

overtures and nine symphonies--about forty vocal and less than two

hundred instrumental compositions in all. The division of the work into

three periods, made by von Lenz in 1852 is, on the whole, a useful

and just classification, when due allowance is made for the periods

overlapping and merging into each other according to the different

species of composition. The ideas of his mature life expressed

themselves earlier in the sonatas than in the symphonies; therefore the

first period, so far as the sonatas are concerned, ends with opus 22

(1801), while it includes the Second Symphony, composed, as has been

noted, in 1802. Individual exceptions to the classification also occur,

as, for example, the Quartet in F minor, which, though composed during

the first period, shows strongly many of the characteristics of the

second. In general, however, the early works may be said to spring from

the pattern set by Haydn and Mozart. In regard to this Grove says: ‘He

began, as it was natural and inevitable he should, with, the best style

of his day--the style of Mozart and Haydn, with melodies and passages

that might be almost mistaken for theirs, with compositions apparently

molded in intention on them. And yet even during this Mozartian epoch

we meet with works or single movements which are not Mozart, which

Mozart perhaps could not have written, and which very fully reveal the

future Beethoven.’

In spite of being fully conscious of himself and knowing the power

that was in him, Beethoven never was an iconoclast or radical. He was

rather a builder whose architectural traditions came from ancient,

well-accredited sources, in kinship probably somewhat closer to Haydn

than to Mozart, though traces of Mozart are clearly evident. ‘The

topics are different, the eloquence is more vivid, more nervous, more

full-blooded--there is far greater use of rhythmic gesture, a far

more intimate and telling appeal to emotion, but in point of actual

phraseology there is little that could not have been written by an

unusually adult, virile, and self-willed follower of the accepted

school. It is eighteenth century music raised to a higher power.’[61]

The promise of a change in style, evident in the Kreutzer Sonata

(1803) and in the pianoforte concerto in C minor, is practically

completed in the Eroica Symphony (1804)--a change of which Beethoven

was fully conscious and which he described in a letter as ‘something

new.’ It began the second period, lasting until 1814, to which belongs

a striking and remarkable group of works. In the long list are six

symphonies, the third to the eighth inclusive, the opera _Fidelio_

with its four overtures, the Coriolan overture, the Egmont music,

the pianoforte concertos in G and E flat, the violin concerto, the

Rasoumowsky quartets, and a dozen sonatas for the piano, among which

are the D minor and the Appassionata. It was a period characterized

by maturity, wealth of imagination, humor, power, and individuality

to a marvellous degree. If Beethoven had done nothing after 1814, he

would still be one of the very greatest composers in the field of

pure instrumental music. His ideas increase in breadth and variety,

the designs grow to magnificent proportions, the work becomes more

harmonious and significant, touching many sides of thought and emotion.

In this period he broke through many of the conventions of composition,

as, for example, the idea that certain musical forms required certain

kinds of treatment. The rondo and scherzo, formerly always of a certain

stated character, were made by him to express what he wished, according

to his conception of the requirements of the piece. Likewise the number

of his movements was determined by the character and content of the

work, and the conventional repetition of themes was made a matter of

choice. Moreover, the usual method of key succession was used only if

agreeable to his idea of fitness. In the great majority of sonatas by

Haydn and Mozart, if the first theme be given out in a major key, the

second is placed in the dominant; or, if the first is in minor, the

second would be in the relative major. Beethoven makes the transition

to the dominant only three times out of eighty-one examples, using

instead the subdominant, the third above, or the third below. He

changes also from tonic major to tonic minor, and _vice versa_. With

him the stereotyped restriction as to key succession was no longer

valid when it conflicted with the necessity for greater freedom.

Again, Beethoven ignored the well-established convention of separating

different sections from one another by well-defined breaks. It was

the custom with earlier masters to stop at the end of a passage,

‘to present arms, as it were,’ with a series of chords or other

conventional stop; with Beethoven this gives place to a method of

subtly connecting, instead of separating, the different sections, for

which he used parts of the main theme or phrases akin to it, thus

making the connecting link an inherent part of the piece. He also

makes use of episodes in the working-out section, introduces even

new themes, and expands both the coda and the introduction. These

modifications are of the nature of enlargements or developments of a

plan already accepted, and seem, as Grove points out, ‘to have sprung

from the fact of his regarding his music less as a piece of technical

performance than his predecessors had perhaps done, and more as the

expression of the ideas with which his mind was charged.’ These ideas

were too wide and too various to be contained within the usual limits,

and, therefore, the limits had to be enlarged. The thing of first

importance to him was the idea, to be expressed exactly as he wished,

without regard to theoretical formulæ, which too often had become dry

and meaningless. Therefore he allows himself liberties--such as the

use of consecutive fifths--if they convey the exact impression he

wishes to convey. Other musicians had also allowed themselves such

liberties, but not with the same high-handed individualistic confidence

that Beethoven betrays. ‘In Beethoven the fact was connected with the

peculiar position he had taken in society, and with the new ideas which

the general movement of freedom at the end of the eighteenth century,

and the French Revolution in particular, had forced even into such

strongholds as the Austrian courts.... What he felt he said, both in

society and in his music.... The great difference is that, whereas

in his ordinary intercourse he was extremely abrupt and careless

of effect, in his music he was exactly the reverse--painstaking,

laborious, and never satisfied till he had conveyed his ideas in

unmistakable language.’[62]

In other words, conventional rules and regulations of composition which

had formerly been the dominating factor were made subservient to what

he considered the essentials--consistency of mood and the development

of the poetic idea. He becomes the tone poet whose versatility and

beauty of expression increase with the increasing power of his thought.

Technical accessories of art were elevated to their highest importance,

not for the sake of mere ornamentation, but because they were of use in

enlarging and developing the idea.

During these years of rich achievement the staunch qualities of his

genius, his delicacy and accuracy of sensation, his sound common sense

and wisdom, his breadth of imagination, joy, humor, sanity, and moral

earnestness--these qualities radiate from his work as if it were

illuminated by an inward phosphorescent glow. He creates or translates

for the listener a whole world of truth which cannot be expressed by

speech, canvas, or marble, but is only capable of being revealed in the

realm of sound. The gaiety of his music is large and beneficent; its

humor is that of the gods at play; its sorrow is never whimpering; its

cry of passion is never that of earthly desire. ‘It is the gaiety which

cries in the bird, rustles in the reeds, shines in spray; it is a voice

as immediate as sunlight. Some new epithet must be invented for this

music which narrates nothing, yet is epic; sings no articulate message,

yet is lyric; moves to no distinguishable action, yet is already awake

in the wide waters out of which a world is to awaken.’[63]

The transition to the third period is even more definitely marked than

that to the second. To it belong the pianoforte sonatas opus 101 to

111, the quartets opus 127 to 135, the Ninth Symphony, composed nearly

eleven years after the eighth, and the mass in D--works built on even

a grander scale than those of the second epoch. It would almost seem

as if the form, enlarged and extended, ceased to exist as such and

became a principle of growth, comparable only to the roots and fibres

of a tree. The polyphony, quite unlike the old type of counterpoint,

yet like that in that it is made up of distinct strands, is free and

varied. Like the other artifices of technique, it serves only to

repeat, intensify, or contrast the poetic idea. The usual medium of

the orchestra is now insufficient to express his thought, therefore he

adds a choral part for the full completion of the idea which had been

germinating in his consciousness for more than twenty years. Moreover,

these later works are touched with a mysticism almost beyond any words

to define, as if the musician had ceased to speak in order to let the

prophet have utterance. ‘He passes beyond the horizon of a mere singer

and poet and touches upon the domain of the seer and the prophet;

where, in unison with all genuine mystics and ethical teachers, he

delivers a message of religious love and resignation, identification

with the sufferings of all living creatures, depreciation of self,

negation of personality, release from the world.’[64]

More radical than the modifications mentioned above were the

substitution of the scherzo for the minuet, and the introduction of

a chorus into the symphony. It will be remembered that the third

symphonic movement, the minuet, originally a slow, stately dance, had

already been modified in spirit and tempo by Mozart and Haydn for the

purpose of contrast. In his symphonies, however, Beethoven abandoned

the dance tune almost entirely, using it only in the Eighth. Even in

the First, where the third movement is entitled ‘menuetto,’ it is in

fact not a dance but a scherzo, and offers almost a miniature model of

the longer and grander scherzos in such works as the Fifth and Ninth

Symphonies, where, as elsewhere, he made the form subservient to his

mood.

Of the second innovation mentioned, the finale of the Ninth Symphony

remains as the sole, but lasting and stupendous, monument. This whole

work, the only symphony of his last period, deserves to be studied not

only as the crowning achievement of a remarkable career and the logical

outcome of the eight earlier symphonies with their steadily increasing

breadth and power, but also as in itself voicing the last and best

message of the master. Its arrangement, consisting of five parts, is

rather irregular. The _allegro_ is followed by the scherzo, which in

turn is followed by a slow movement. The finale consists of a theme

with variations and a choral movement to the setting of Schiller’s

‘Ode to Joy.’ The thought of composing a work which should express

his ideals of universal peace and love had been in his mind since the

year 1792. It seems as if he conceived the use of the chorus as an

enlargement and enrichment of the forces of the orchestra, rather than

as an extraneous addition--as if human voices were but another group of

instruments swelling that great orchestral hymn which forms the poetic

and dramatic climax to the work, ‘carrying sentiment to the extremest

pitch of exaltation.’ The melody itself is far above the merely

æsthetic or beautiful, it reaches the highest possible simplicity and

nobility. ‘Beethoven has emancipated this melody from all influences of

fashion and fluctuating taste, and elevated it to an eternally valid

type of pure humanity.’[65]

The changes in technical features inaugurated by Beethoven are of far

less importance, comparatively, than the increase in æsthetic content,

individuality, and expression. As has been noted, he was no iconoclast;

seeking new effects in a striving for mere originality or altering

forms for the mere sake of trying something new. On the contrary, his

innovations were always undertaken with extreme discretion and only

as necessity required; and even to the last the sonata form, ‘that

triune symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,’ can be

discerned as the basis upon which his most extensive work was built.

Even when this basis is not at first clearly apparent, the details

which seemed to obscure it are found, upon study, to be the organic and

logical amplification of the structure itself, never mere additions. It

should be pointed out, however, that the last works, especially those

for the piano, are of so transcendental or mystic a nature as to make

it impossible for the average listener to appreciate them to their

fullest extent; indeed, they provide a severe test even for a mature

interpreter and for that reason they will hardly ever become popular.

VII

In spite of Beethoven’s own assertion that his work is not meant to

be ‘program music,’ his name will no doubt always be connected with

that special phase of modern art. We have seen how distinctly he

grasped the true principles of program or delineative music in his

words, _Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei_ (the expression of

feeling, not a painting); never an imitation, but a reproduction of

the effect. More than any musician of his own or earlier times was he

able to saturate his composition with the mood which prompted it. For

this reason the whole world sees pictures in his sonatas and reads

stories into his symphonies, as it has not done with the work of Haydn,

Emanuel Bach, or Mozart. With the last-named composer it was sufficient

to bring all the devices of art--balance, light and shade, contrast,

repetition, surprise--to the perfection of an artistic ensemble, with

a result which satisfies the æsthetic demands of the most fastidious.

Beethoven’s achievement was art plus mood or emotion; therefore the

popular habit of calling the favorite sonata in C sharp minor the

‘Moonlight Sonata,’ unscholarly though it may be, is striking witness

to one of the most fundamental of Beethoven’s qualities--the power by

which he imbued a given composition with a certain mood recognizable

at once by imaginative minds. The aim at realism, however, is only

apparent. That he is not a ‘programmist,’ in the accepted sense, is

evident from the fact that he gave descriptive names to only the two

symphonies, the _Eroica_ and _Pastoral_. He does not tell a story, he

produces a feeling, an impression. His work is the notable embodiment

of Schopenhauer’s idea: ‘Music is not a representation of the world,

but an immediate voice of the world.’ Unlike the artist who complained

that he disliked working out of doors because Nature ‘put him out,’

Beethoven was most himself when Nature spoke through him. This is

the new element in music which was to germinate so variously in the

music drama, tone poems and the like of the romantic writers of the

nineteenth century.

In judging his operatic work, it has seemed to critics that Beethoven

remained almost insensible to the requirements and limitations of a

vocal style and was impatient of the restraints necessarily imposed

upon all writing for the stage; with the result that his work spread

out into something neither exactly dramatic nor oratorical. In spite of

the obvious greatness of _Fidelio_, these charges have some validity.

With his two masses, again, he went far beyond the boundaries

allotted by circumstance to any ecclesiastical production and arrived

at something like a ‘shapeless oratorio.’ His variations, also, so

far exceed the limit of form usually maintained by this species of

composition that they are scarcely to be classed with those of any

other composer. For the pianoforte, solo and in connection with other

instruments, there are twenty-nine sets of this species of music,

besides many brilliant instances of its use in larger works, such as

the slow movement in the ‘Appassionata,’ and the slow movements of the

Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. Sometimes he keeps the melody unchanged,

weaving a varied accompaniment above, below, or around it; again he

preserves the harmonic basis and embellishes the melody itself, these

being types of variation well known also to other composers. Another

method, however, peculiar to himself, is to subject each part--melody,

rhythm, and harmony--to an interesting change, and yet with such skill

and art that the individual theme still remains clearly recognizable.

‘In no other form than that of the variation,’ remarks Dannreuther,

‘does Beethoven’s creative power appear more wonderful and its effect

on the art more difficult to measure.’

It is, however, primarily as symphonist and sonata writer that

Beethoven stands preëminent. At the risk of another repetition we must

again say that with Beethoven’s treatment the sonata form assumes a new

aspect, in that it serves as the golden bowl into which the intensity

of his thought is poured, rather than the limiting framework of his

art. He was disdainful of the attitude of the Viennese public which

caused the virtuoso often to be confused with the artist. Brilliant

passages were to him merely so much bombast and fury, unless there

was a thought sufficiently intense to justify the extra vigor; and

to him cleverness of fingers could not disguise emptiness of soul.

‘Such is the vital germ from which spring the real peculiarities and

individualities of Beethoven’s instrumental compositions. It must now

be a form of spirit as well as a form of the framework; it is to become

internal as well as external.’ A musical movement in Beethoven is a

continuous and complete poem; an organism which is gradually unfolded

before us, rarely weakened by the purely conventional passages which

were part of the _form_ of his predecessors.

It must be noted, however, that Beethoven’s subtle modifications in

regard to form were possible only because Mozart and Haydn had so well

prepared the way by their very insistence upon the exact divisions

of any given piece. Audiences of that day enjoyed the well-defined

structure, which enabled them to follow and know just where they were.

Perhaps for that very reason they sooner grew tired of the obviously

constructed piece, but in any case they were educated to a familiarity

with form, and were habituated to the effort of following its general

outlines. Beethoven profited by this circumstance, taking liberties,

especially in his pianoforte compositions, which would have caused

mental confusion and bewilderment to earlier audiences, but were

understood and accepted with delight by his own. His mastery of musical

design and logical accuracy enabled him so to express himself as to

be universally understood. He demonstrated both the supremacy and the

elasticity of the sonata form, taking his mechanism from the eighteenth

century, and in return bequeathing a new style to the nineteenth--a

style which separated the later school of Vienna from any that had

preceded it, spread rapidly over Europe, and exercised its authority

upon every succeeding composer.

His great service was twofold: to free the art from formalism and

spirit-killing laws; and to lift it beyond the level of fashionable

taste. In this service he typifies that spirit which, in the persons

of Wordsworth, Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, has rescued literary

art from similar deadening influences. Wagner expressed this feeling

when he said, ‘For inasmuch as he elevated music, conformably to its

utmost nature, out of its degradation as a merely diverting art to the

height of its sublime calling, he has opened to us the understanding

of that art in which the world explains itself.’ Herein lies his

true relation to the world of art and the secret of his greatness;

for almost unchallenged he takes the supreme place in the realm of

pure instrumental music. His power is that of intellect combined with

greatness of character. ‘He loves love rather than any of the images of

love. He loves nature with the same, or even a more constant, passion.

He loves God, whom he cannot name, whom he worships in no church built

with hands, with an equal rapture. Virtue appears to him with the same

loveliness as beauty.... There are times when he despairs for himself,

never for the world. Law, order, a faultless celestial music, alone

exist for him; and these he believed to have been settled before time

was, in the heavens. Thus his music was neither revolt nor melancholy,’

and it is this, the noblest expression of a strange and otherwise

inarticulate soul, which lives for the eternal glory of the art of

music.

F. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Edward Dickinson: ‘The Study of the History of Music.’

[51] _Dichtung und Wahrheit._

[52] Thayer, Vol. I, p. 227.

[53] Nottebohm: _Beethoveniana_, XXVII.

[54] Arthur Symons, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[55] Grove: ‘Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies,’ pp. 55-56.

[56] Berlioz: _Étude critique des symphonies de Beethoven_.

[57] Arthur Symons, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[58] Thayer: Vol. II, p. 10.

[59] Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) is now remembered chiefly by his

technical studies for the pianoforte, though a much greater portion of

his work deserves recognition. He was a great concert pianist, a rival

of whom Mozart was a little unwilling to admit the ability. A great

part of his life was spent in England. He composed a great amount of

music for the pianoforte which has little by little been displaced by

that of Mozart; and in his own lifetime symphonies which once were

hailed with acclaim fell into neglect before Haydn’s. His pianoforte

works expanded keyboard technique, especially in the direction of

double notes and octaves, and were the first distinctly pianoforte

works in distinction to works for the harpsichord.

[60] Wagner, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[61] ‘Oxford History of Music,’ Vol. V.

[62] Grove, Vol. I, p. 204.

[63] Arthur Symons, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[64] Dannreuther, ‘Beethoven,’ Macmillan’s Magazine, July, 1876.

[65] Richard Wagner, Essay ‘Beethoven.’