Now we reach the notes to Zmeskall, the first of which is endorsed

by the recipient as having been received on April 18, 1810. From

Beethoven’s lodgings in the Walfischgasse it was but a few steps

around the corner in the Kärnthnerthorstrasse to an entrance of the

Bürgerspital where Zmeskall lived, of whose readiness to oblige him

he could and did avail himself to an extent which at length excited

misgivings in his own mind that he was really going too far and abusing

his friend’s kindness. This time Beethoven’s want was of a very

peculiar nature, namely a looking-glass; that it was not for shaving

purposes but for a more general control of his toilet is indicated by

the second note:

(April 18, 1810.)

Dear Zmeskall do send me your looking-glass which hangs beside your

window for a few hours, mine is broken, if you would be so kind as

to buy me one like it to-day it would be a great favor, I’ll recoup

you for your expenditure at once--forgive my importunity dear Z.

Dear Z. do not get angry at my little note--think of the situation

which I am in, like Hercules once at Queen Omphale’s??? I asked

you to buy me a looking-glass like yours, and beg you as soon as

you are not using yours which I am returning to send it back to

me for mine is broken--farewell and don’t again write to me about

the great man--for I never felt the strength or weakness of human

nature as I feel it just now.

Remain fond of me.

(Without date--the original in Boston.)

Do not get vexed, dear Z. because of my continued demands upon

you--let me know how much you paid for the looking-glass?

Farewell we shall see each other soon in the Swan as the food is

daily growing worse in the (illegible)--I have had another violent

attack of colic since day before yesterday, but it is better to-day.

Your friend

Beethoven.

[Sidenote: INTERCOURSE WITH THE MALFATTI FAMILY]

The date of the first note (April 18) is important as showing that at

the time Beethoven was not in the country but still in Vienna and that,

consequently, the 8th mentioned in the letter to Therese Malfatti which

follows, was not the 8th of April, but of May. From this letter we

deduce that Beethoven’s intercourse with the Malfatti family in Vienna

had become more animated and intimate, that Beethoven improvised at

the pianoforte and that at the punchbowl his spirits rose rather high

(“forget the nonsense”). The conclusion points pretty plainly towards

a desire to be united with the family in closer bonds. The Malfattis

had probably gone to their country home towards the end of April or

beginning of May. The following letter to Gleichenstein was probably

written on the day after the merry evening of which the letter to

Therese speaks:

Your report plunged me from the regions of happiness into the

depths. Why the adjunction, You would let me know when there would

be another musicale, am I nothing more than your musician or

that of the others?--that at least is the interpretation, I can

therefore seek support only in my own breast, there is none for me

outside of it; no, nothing but wounds has friendship and kindred

feelings for me. So be it then, for you, poor B. there is no

happiness in the outer world, you must create it in yourself, only

in the world of ideality will you find friends.

I beg of you to set my mind at rest as to whether I was guilty of

any impropriety yesterday, or if you cannot do that then tell me

the truth, I hear it as willingly as I speak it--there is still

time, the truth may yet help me. Farewell--don’t let your only

friend Dorner know anything of this.

The letter to Therese reads:

With this you are receiving, honored Therese, what I promised,

and if there were not the best of reasons against it, you would

receive more in order to show that I always do more for my friends

than I promise--I hope and have no doubt that you keep yourself

as well occupied as pleasantly entertained--but not so much that

you cannot also think of me. It would perhaps be presuming upon

your kindness or placing too high a value upon myself if I were to

write you: “people are only together when they are in each other’s

company, even the distant one, the absent one lives for us,” who

would dare to write such a sentiment to the volatile T. who handles

everything in this world so lightly? Do not forget, in laying out

your occupation, the pianoforte, or music generally; you have so

beautiful a talent for it, why not cultivate it exclusively, you

who have so much feeling for everything that is beautiful and good,

why will you not make use of it in order to learn the more perfect

things in so beautiful an art, which always reflects its light

upon us--I live very solitarily and quietly, although now and then

lights try to arouse me there is still for me a void which cannot

be filled since you are all gone and which defies even my art which

has always been so faithful to me--your pianoforte is ordered and

you will have it soon--explain for yourself the difference between

the treatment of a theme which I invented one evening and the

manner in which I finally wrote it down, but don’t get the punch

to help you--how lucky you were to be able to go to the country so

soon, I shall not have this pleasure until the 8th, I rejoice in

the prospect like a child, how joyous I am when I can walk amongst

bushes and trees, herbs, rocks, nobody can love the country as I

do--since woods, trees, rocks, return the answer which man wants to

hear.

(Four lines stricken out).

You will soon receive four of my compositions whereat you should

not have to complain too much about the difficulties--have you read

Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister,” Shakespeare translated by Schlegel, one

has so much leisure in the country it might be agreeable if I were

to send you these works. Chance has brought it about that I have

an acquaintance in your neighborhood, perhaps you will see me at

your home early some morning for half an hour and then away, you

see I wish to be as little tedious as possible. Commend me to the

good will of your father, your mother, although I have no right as

yet to ask it of them, also to your aunt M. Farewell, honored T. I

wish you all that is good and beautiful in life, think of me and

willingly--forget the nonsense--be convinced no one can wish that

your life may be more joyous and more happy than I, even if you

have no sympathy for

Your devoted servant and friend

Beethoven.

N. B. It would really be very nice of you if you were to write a

few lines to say what I can do for you here?

[Sidenote: PREPARATIONS FOR MARRIAGE]

Under such circumstances Beethoven wrote the famous letter of May

2, 1810 to Wegeler in Coblenz, asking him to procure a copy of his

baptismal certificate for him. In this letter he says:

A few years ago my quiet, retired mode of life ceased, and I was

forcibly drawn into activities of the world; I have not yet formed

a favorable opinion of it but rather one against it--but who is

there could escape the influence of the external storms? Yet I

should be happy, perhaps one of the happiest of men, if the demon

had not taken possession of my ears. If I had not read somewhere

that a man may not voluntarily part with his life so long as a good

deed remains for him to perform, I should long ago have been no

more--and indeed by my own hands. O, life is so beautiful, but to

me it is poisoned.

You will not decline to accede to my friendly request if I beg of

you to secure my baptismal certificate for me. Whatever expense

may attach to the matter, since you have an account with Steffen

Breuning, you can recoup yourself at once from that source and I

will make it good at once to Steffen here. If you should yourself

think it worth while to investigate the matter and make the trip

from Coblenz to Bonn, charge everything to me. But one thing must

be borne in mind, namely, that ~there was a brother born before~

I was, who was also named Ludwig with the addition Maria, but

who died. To fix my age beyond doubt, this brother must first be

found, inasmuch as I already know that in this respect a mistake

has been made by others, and I have been said to be older than I

am. Unfortunately I myself lived for a time without knowing my age.

I had a family register but it has been lost heaven knows how.

Therefore do not be bored if I urge you to attend to this matter,

to find Maria and the present Ludwig who was born after him. The

sooner you send me the baptismal certificate the greater will be my

obligation.

To the “Notizen” (1838) Wegeler published a few pages of appendix on

the occasion of the Beethoven festival at Bonn (1845), giving therein a

most valuable paragraph explanatory of this important letter:

It seems that Beethoven, once in his life, entertained the idea

of marrying, after having been in love many times, as is related

in the “Notizen” (pp. 40, 42 ~et seq.~ and 117 ~et seq.~). Many

persons as well as myself were impressed by the urgency with

which in his letter of May 10 [~sic~] he besought me to secure

his baptismal certificate for him. He wants to pay all the

expenditures, even a journey from Coblenz to Bonn. And then he adds

explicit instructions which I was to observe in looking up the

certificate in order to get the right one. I found the solution

of the riddle in a letter written to me three months later by

my brother-in-law St. v. Breuning. In this he says: “Beethoven

tells me at least once a week that he intends to write to you;

but I believe his marriage project has fallen through, and for

this reason he no longer feels the lively desire to thank you for

your trouble in getting him the baptismal certificate.” In the

thirty-ninth year of his life Beethoven had not given up thoughts

of marriage.

We know now that the marriage project fell through early in May, soon

after he had written the letter to Wegeler. Two short letters to

Gleichenstein instruct us slightly touching the conclusion of this

psychological drama which, no doubt, tore the heart of Beethoven. It

would seem as if at first Beethoven wanted to visit the Malfattis at

their country home, but at the last preferred to send a formal proposal

of marriage by the hands of Gleichenstein. We have no testimony

concerning the refusal beyond the utterance of the niece and the

cessation of all correspondence on the subject. Here are the letters:

You are living on a calm and peaceful sea or, possibly, are

already in a safe harbor--you do not feel the distress of the

friend who is still in the storm--or you dare not feel it--what

will they think of me in the star Venus Urania, how will they

judge me without seeing me--my pride is so humbled, I would go

there with you uninvited--let me see you at my lodging to-morrow

morning, I shall expect you at about 9 o’clock at breakfast--Dorner

can come with you at another time--if you were but franker with

me, you are certainly concealing something from me, you want

to spare me and this uncertainty is more painful than the most

fatal certainty--Farewell if you cannot come let me know in

advance--think and act for me--I cannot entrust to paper more of

what is going on within me.

Dear friend, so cursedly late--press them all warmly to your

heart--why can I not be with you? Farewell, I will be with you on

Wednesday morning--the letter is written so that the whole world

may read it--if you find that the paper covering is not clean

enough, put another one on, I cannot tell at night whether it is

clean--farewell, dear friend, think and act also for your faithful

friend.

Beethoven’s relations with another fair friend now demand attention.

In the Vienna suburban road Erdbeergasse stands the lofty house then

numbered 98, its rear windows overlooking Rasoumowsky’s gardens, the

Donau canal and the Prater, whence on May 15, 1810, Elizabeth Brentano

(Bettina) wrote to Goethe:

Here I live in the house of the deceased Birkenstock, surrounded

by two thousand copperplate engravings, as many hand-drawings,

as many hundred old ash urns and Etruscan lamps, marble vases,

antique fragments of hands and feet, paintings, Chinese garments,

coins, geological collections, sea insects, telescopes and

numberless maps, plans of ancient empires and cities sunk in ruin,

artistically carved walking-sticks, precious documents, and finally

the sword of Emperor Carolus.

Joseph Melchior von Birkenstock (born in 1738), the honored, trusted

and valued servant of Maria Theresia and Kaiser Joseph, the friend and

brother-in-law of the celebrated Sonnenfels--the esteemed correspondent

of so many of the noblest men of his time, including the American

philosopher Franklin and the Scotch historian Robertson, the reformer

of the Austrian school system, the promoter of all liberal ideas so

long as in those days progress was allowed--was pensioned in 1803,

and thenceforth lived for science, art and literature until his

death, October 30, 1809. His house, filled almost to repletion with

the artistic, archæological, scientific collections of which Bettina

speaks, was one of those truly noble seats of learning, high culture

and refinement, where Beethoven, to his manifest intellectual gain, was

a welcome guest.

[Sidenote: INTIMATE RELATIONS WITH THE BRENTANOS]

Sophie Brentano, older than Bettina, very beautiful notwithstanding

the loss of an eye, and, like all the members of that remarkable

family, very highly talented and accomplished, had made a long visit

to Vienna as Count Heberstein’s bride--their marriage being prevented

by her untimely death. “She brought about the marriage of her brother

Franz with Antonie von Birkenstock,” says Jahn. “The young wife, who

did not feel at home in Frankfort”--and also because of the precarious

health of her father, we may add--“persuaded Brentano to remove to

Vienna, where for several years she occupied a home in the Birkenstock

house which Bettina describes so beautifully. In this house, where

music was cultivated, Beethoven came and went in friendly fashion.

His ‘little friend,’ for whose encouragement in pianoforte playing he

wrote the little trio in a single movement in 1812, was her daughter

Maximiliane Brentano, later Madame Plittersdorf, to whom ten years

later he dedicated the Sonata in E major (Op. 109). After Birkenstock’s

death he tried to give a practical turn to his friendship by seeking

to persuade Archduke Rudolph to buy a part of his collection. More

effective, evidently was the help which Brentano extended to him, who,

when he came into financial straits and needed a loan, always found

an open purse. Madame Antonie Brentano was frequently ill for weeks

at a time during her sojourn in Vienna, so that she had to remain in

her room inaccessible to all visitors. At such times Beethoven used to

come regularly, seat himself at a pianoforte in her anteroom without a

word and improvise; after he had finished ‘telling her everything and

bringing comfort,’ in his language, he would go as he had come without

taking notice of another person.”

The credibility of Madame von Arnim’s contribution to Beethoven

literature has been questioned in all degrees of severity, from simple

doubts as to particular passages to broad denunciation of the whole

as gross distortions of fact, or even as figments of the imagination.

Dogmatism is rarely in proportion to knowledge, unless, perhaps, in

inverse ratio. The bitterest attacks upon the veracity of Mme. von

Arnim have been made by those whose ignorance of the subject is most

conspicuous; but among the doubters are people of candor, good judgment

and wide knowledge of Beethoven’s history; and a decent respect for

the opinions of such renders it just and proper to explain why so

much of these contributions has been admitted into the text as being

substantially true.

At the very outset we are met by a statement in Schindler’s book

(Ed. 1840) which if correct destroys at once the credibility of

Mme. von Arnim’s account of her first interview with Beethoven.

It is this: “Beethoven became acquainted with the Brentano family

in Frankfort through her [Bettina].” A later writer, Ludwig Nohl,

supports the assertion on the authority of “Frau Brentano, now 87

years old”--Birkenstock’s daughter. But Schindler, after his long

residence in and near Frankfort, writes (1860): “There still lives one

of the oldest friends of our master during life, with whom he became

acquainted already on his arrival in Vienna (1792) in the house of her

father.” This was the above-mentioned lady “now 87 years old.” The

other writer also withdraws his statement in a later publication where

he speaks of this aged lady’s daughter, “Maxe, who as a child in 1808

[?] in Vienna, often sat at Birkenstock’s on his (Beethoven’s) knees.”

Any possible doubt on the subject is dispelled by a communication made

to this author in 1872, by the then head of the Brentano family living

in Frankfort, who wrote:

The friendly relations between Beethoven and the family Brentano in

Frankfort already existed when Frau von Brentano (Antonie) visited

her father in Vienna, whither she went with her older children

for an extended period because her father, Court Councillor

Birkenstock, had been ailing for a considerable time. This friendly

intercourse was continued after the death of Councillor Birkenstock

on October 30, 1809, and during the three years’ sojourn of the

Brentano family in Vienna. Beethoven often came to the house of

Birkenstock, later of Brentano, attended the quartet concerts

which were given there by the best musicians of Vienna, and often

rejoiced his friends with his glorious pianoforte playing. The

Brentano children occasionally carried fruit and flowers to him in

his lodging; he in return gave them bonbons and always exhibited

great friendship for them.

[Sidenote: MME. VON ARNIM’S LETTER TO GOETHE]

Beethoven, through his familiar intercourse with the Brentanos, must,

of course, have known of the expected visit of Bettina and of her

relations to Goethe. Her account of their first meeting, therefore,

is in all respects credible; nor has it been, so far as is known,

questioned. It is twice given by her own pen in the “Briefwechsel”

with Goethe under date 1810, and in the Pückler-Muskau correspondence

as belonging to 1832. At this last-named date she had not yet received

from Chancellor von Müller her letter to Goethe, and wrote from

memory, confining her narrative to the minor incidents of the meeting.

The two accounts differ, but they do not contradict, they only

supplement each other.

[Sidenote: AUTHENTICITY OF THE BETTINA LETTERS]

The present writer had the honor of an interview or two with Mme. von

Arnim in 1849-50, and heard the story from her lips; in 1854-5, it was

his good fortune to meet her often in two charming family circles--her

own and that of the brothers Grimm. Thus at an interval of five years

he had the opportunity of comparing her statements, of questioning

her freely and of convincing himself, up to this point, of her simple

honesty and truth.

But the rock of offense does not lie here; it is in the long discourse

of Beethoven which will presently be given in these pages. Schindler

objects to this, both in its matter and form, on the ground that he had

never heard “the master” talk in this manner. But the Beethoven whom

Schindler knew in his last years was not the Beethoven of 1810, and

Anton Schindler certainly was not an Elizabeth Brentano. There happens

to be proof that just in the former period the composer could talk

freely and eloquently. Jahn says: “Beethoven’s personality and nature,

moreover, were calculated to make a significant but winning impression

upon women,” and cites Mme. Hummel (Elizabeth Röckel) in proof. “As

a matron advanced in years,” says he, “and still winning because of

her charming graciousness, she spoke with ingratiating warmth of

the good fortune of having been observed by Beethoven and to have

been on friendly relations with him. ‘Whoever saw him in good humor,

intellectually animated, when he gave utterance to his thoughts in such

a mood,’ said she with glowing eyes, ‘can never forget the impression

which he made.’”

There are two hypotheses as to the genesis of this letter to Goethe.

The one: that Mme. von Arnim in preparing the “Briefwechsel” for

publication wrote out her own crude and nebulous thoughts and gave them

to the public in the form of a fictitious report of a conversation

of Beethoven. The other: that she found Beethoven fresh from the

composition of the “Egmont” music, full of enthusiasm for Goethe and

vehemently desirous that his, the great composer’s, views upon music

should be known and comprehended by the great poet; that he, happening

to get upon this topic at their first interview, imparted those views

to her with that express purpose; and that she, so far as she was able

to follow and understand the speaker, and so far as her memory could

recall his words a few hours after, correctly records and reports them.

The first hypothesis rests now on precisely the same foundation as when

Schindler wrote, namely, on the presumption that Beethoven could not

have spoken thus; but a discourse uttered under such circumstances and

with such a purpose, poured into the willing ear of a beautiful, highly

cultivated and remarkably fascinating young woman, one who possessed

the higher artistic and intellectual qualities of character in an

extraordinary degree--such a discourse might well abound in thoughts

and expressions which the prosaic Schindler in the most prosaic period

of his master’s life never drew from him.

Two significant minor points may be noted: there was a Latin word in

use by the Breuning family in the old Bonn days with a meaning not

given in the dictionaries. This we learn from Wegeler’s “Notizen,” and

~only~ there. Yet Mme. v. Arnim puts this word, ~raptus~, in precisely

this local sense into Beethoven’s mouth several years before the

publication of the “Notizen”! Again: when the discoveries of Galvani

and Volta were still a novel topic of general interest, when, through

them, physiologists, as Dubois-Raymond expressed it, “believed that

at length they should realize their visions of a vital power”; and

when the semi-scientific world was full of the theories of Mesmer

and his disciples--at that time, the first years of the nineteenth

century, custom gave the word ~elektrisch~ (electrical) a significance

long since lost, which well conveyed the thought Beethoven is made

to express. But in 1834-5, to introduce this word in that sense,

retrospectively, into a fictitious conversation purporting to be of the

year 1810, shows, no less than the ~raptus~, an exquisite tact so rare,

that it might well be termed a most felicitous stroke of genius, one of

which any writer of romance might be vain.

Julius Merz, in his “Athenæum für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben”

(Nuremberg, January, 1839), printed for the opening article “Drei

Briefe von Beethoven an Bettina.” The third of these letters was

copied the next July into Schilling’s ephemeral musical periodical

the “Jahrbücher” (Carlsruhe), with remarks by the editor expressing

doubts of its authenticity. But Schindler, whose book was just then

going to press, copied a large portion of it as genuine; and in his

second edition (1845) reprinted all three entire, without adding a word

of doubt or misgiving. They had appeared in English in 1841, from a

copy given to Mr. Henry F. Chorley by Mme. von Arnim; and since then

have been reprinted in various languages probably more frequently, and

become more universally known, than any other chapter in Beethoven

literature. Here and there a reader shared in Schilling’s doubts;

but twenty years elapsed before these doubts were put into such form,

and by an author of such position, that a reasonable self-respect

could allow Mme. von Arnim to take notice of them; and then it was too

late--she lay upon her death-bed. Her silence under the attacks made

upon her veracity is therefore no evidence against her.

A. B. Marx, the author here referred to, produces but one argument

which demands notice here, and this is the occurrence of certain

“repetitions”: “liebe, liebste,” “liebe, gute,” “bald, bald” which

he declared to be “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian.” Now, on

the contrary, in the text of this volume there is abundant proof that

just these expressions are very Beethovenian and characteristic of his

letters to favorite women at the precise period in question.

It is true, as he says, that when Marx wrote, nothing of the kind

had ever been published; ~a fortiori~, nothing twenty years before;

but this fact, on which he laid such stress, instead of supporting

really demolishes his argument. It was in the autumn of 1838 that

Mr. Merz received the letters. At that time specimens of Beethoven’s

correspondence had been published by Seyfried in the pseudo-“Studien,”

by Schumann in the “Neue Zeitschrift,” by Gottfried Weber in the

“Cäcilia,” by Wegeler in the “Notizen”; and a few others were scattered

in books and periodicals. Imitators, counterfeiters, fabricators of

false documents, must have samples, patterns, models; but all the

Beethoven letters then in print were so far from being the patterns

or models of the Bettina letters that the contrast between them was

the main argument against the authenticity of the latter. If, then,

Mme. von Arnim introduced so many expressions which we know (but she

could not) are ~not~ “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian” into a

fictitious correspondence, she did so not only without a pattern or

model, but against ~all~ patterns and models. ~Credat Judæeus Apella,

non ego.~

There are points of doubt and difficulty in the third letter which

the warmest advocates of its authenticity have not been able fully to

overcome; but as Marx had not sufficient knowledge of his subject to

perceive them, and the question of the acceptance or rejection of this

letter will rest upon grounds to be given in the text, these points

need not be noticed here. Another one must be, namely: suppose that

letter should be proved counterfeit, does it follow that the others are

so? Not at all; but that they are the authentic letters whose manner

and style are imitated.

In 1848, Mme. von Arnim published two volumes of characteristic

correspondence with Herr Nathusius under the title: “Ilius Pamphilius

und die Ambrosia.” In one of his letters ~Pamphilius~ requests

autographs of Goethe’s mother and Beethoven, for a collection which

he is making. This gives her occasion in various letters to express

her admiration and reverence for the composer in terms which come warm

from the heart. At length (Vol. II, p. 205) she writes: “Herewith

I am sending you the letters of Goethe and Beethoven for your

autograph collection.” She prints all three in the pages following;

but a comparison of the several passages relating to them leads

to the inference, that only one autograph was sent. Is all this a

mystification? Was there no ~Pamphilius~? No autograph collection? No

contribution of a letter in Beethoven’s hand to it? Herr Nathusius

knows.

Mme. von Arnim, then, gave the letters to the public three times; in

the “Athenæum,” January, 1839; in English translation, through Chorley,

1841; in the “Pamphilius und Ambrosia,” in 1848. It is patent to the

feeblest common sense, that, if not genuine, either the same copy, or

copies carefully collated so as to avoid all suspicious variations,

would have been sent to the printer; and that the two German

publications would differ only by such small errors as compositors

make and proof-readers overlook--such as are found in Schindler’s

reprint from the “Athenæum,” and in Marx’s from Schindler. But the

variations of the “Pamphilius” copy from that in the “Athenæum” are

such as cannot be printer’s errors, but precisely such as two persons,

inexperienced in the task, would make in deciphering Beethoven’s very

illegible writing; one (Mr. Merz) correcting the punctuation and faults

in the use of capital letters (as Wegeler has evidently done), and

the other (Mme. von Arnim) retaining these striking characteristics

of the composer’s letters. The change of the familiar “Bettine,”

which Beethoven learned in her brother’s family, to the more formal

“Freundin,” can hardly be made a point of objection. Marx’s argument

had been so completely upset, that, in renewing (1863) his attack upon

the then deceased Mme. von Arnim, he was compelled to base it upon

other considerations. It was then that the present writer compared the

letters printed in the “Athenæum” with the copies in the “Pamphilius,”

which convinced him, on the grounds above noted, of their authenticity,

at least in part, and led to a correspondence, of which an abstract

here follows: On July 9, 1863, the present author requested Mr.

Wheeler, American Consul at Nuremberg, to see Mr. Merz, learn from him

the circumstances under which he obtained the letters, and whether

he printed from Beethoven’s autograph. Mr. Wheeler replied on August

9th: “He [Mr. Merz] states, that he enjoyed the personal acquaintance

of that lady (Mme. von Arnim), and was at the time in Berlin on a

visit; and being at her residence on a certain occasion, she gave him

these letters, remarking: ‘There is something for the Athenæum.’ After

publishing the letters, Mr. Merz feels confident, he returned the

letters to Mme. v. Arnim.” The author now, on August 25th, requested

Mr. Wheeler if possible to obtain from Mr. Merz his written statement

that he had printed the letters from the original autographs. Mr.

Wheeler, on September 24th, replied.... “Yesterday he [Merz] was good

enough to write me the note you requested; I trust it may be found of

the tenor wished.” The note which was enclosed in this letter is this:

“I can certify that at the time in question I had in my possession

the letters referred to in the January number of the ‘Athenæum,’ but

gave them back again. Nuremberg, September 23, 1863. Julius Merz,

book publisher.” It may be said that this note does not explicitly

cover the whole ground. True, it is the testimony of a conscientious

man who, after the lapse of twenty-five years, remembers deciphering

certain letters of Beethoven which he printed, but does not venture to

declare that ~all~ that he printed lay before him in the handwriting

of the master. There is another witness who is reported to have been

less distrustful of his memory. Herr Ludwig Nohl, in a note to these

letters (“Briefe Beethoven’s,” p. 71), says: “Their authenticity

(barring, perhaps, a few words in the middle of the third letter) was

never doubtful in my mind and will not be now after Beethoven’s letters

have been made public. Though superfluous, it may yet be said for the

benefit of such as are not wholly willing to accept internal evidence,

that Prof. Moriz Carriere, in a conversation on the subject of

Beethoven’s letters in December, 1864, expressly stated that the three

letters to Bettina were genuine; he saw them himself in her house in

Berlin in 1839, read them through with the greatest interest and care,

and because of their significant contents had urged their immediate

publication. When they were printed a short time afterward, no changes

in the reprint struck his attention; on the contrary, he could still

remember that the much controverted terms, particularly the anecdote

about Goethe in the third letter, were precisely so in the original.”

[Sidenote: FIRST MEETING WITH BETTINA]

And now to the matter, the discussion of which has detained us so long.

One day in May, Beethoven, sitting at the pianoforte with a song just

composed before him, was surprised by a pair of hands being placed

upon his shoulders. He looked up “gloomily” but his face brightened

as he saw a beautiful young woman who, putting her mouth to his ear

said: “My name is Brentano.” She needed no further introduction.

He smiled, gave her his hand without rising and said: “I have just

made a beautiful song for you; do you want to hear it?” Thereupon he

sang--raspingly, incisively, not gently or sweetly (the voice was

hard), but transcending training and agreeableness by reason of the

cry of passion which reacted on the hearer--“Kennst du das Land?” He

asked: “Well, how do you like it?” She nodded. “It is beautiful, isn’t

it?” he said enthusiastically, “marvellously beautiful; I’ll sing it

again.” He sang it again, looked at her with a triumphant expression,

and seeing her cheeks and eyes glow, rejoiced over her happy approval.

“Aha!” said he, “most people are touched by a good thing; but they are

not artist-natures. Artists are fiery; they do not weep.” He then sang

another song of Goethe’s, “Trocknet nicht Thränen der ewigen Liebe.”

There was a large dinner party that day at Franz Brentano’s in the

Birkenstock house and Bettina--for it was she--told Beethoven he must

change his old coat for a better, and accompany her thither. “Oh,” said

he jokingly, “I have several good coats,” and took her to the wardrobe

to see them. Changing his coat he went down with her to the street, but

stopped there and said he must return for a moment. He came down again

laughing with the old coat on. She remonstrated; he went up again,

dressed himself properly and went with her.[78] But, notwithstanding

his rather clumsy drollery, she soon discovered a greatness in the man

for which she was wholly unprepared. His genius burst upon her with a

splendor of which she had formed no previous conception, and the sudden

revelation astonished, dazzled, enraptured her. It is just this, which

gives the tone to her letter upon Beethoven addressed to Goethe. In

fact, the Beethoven of ~our~ conceptions was not then known; the first

attempt to describe or convey in words, what the finer appreciative

spirits had begun to feel in his music, was E. T. A. Hoffmann’s article

on the C minor Symphony, in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of July 21st--five

weeks later.

[Sidenote: BETTINA’S LETTER TO GOETHE]

The essential parts of Bettina’s long communication are these:

(To Goethe) Vienna, May 28.

When I saw him of whom I shall now speak to you, I forgot the

whole world--as the world still vanishes when memory recalls the

scene--yes, it vanishes.... It is Beethoven of whom I now wish to

tell you, and who made me forget the world and you; I am still in

my nonage, it is true, but I am not mistaken when I say--what no

one, perhaps, now understands and believes--he stalks far ahead

of the culture of mankind. Shall we ever overtake him?--I doubt

it, but grant that he may live until the mighty and exalted enigma

lying in his soul is fully developed, may reach its loftiest goal,

then surely he will place the key to his heavenly knowledge in

our hands so that we may be advanced another step towards true

happiness.

To you, I am sure, I may confess I believe in a divine magic

which is the essence of intellectual life. This magic Beethoven

practises in his art. Everything that he can tell you about is pure

magic, every posture is the organization of a higher existence,

and therefore Beethoven feels himself to be the founder of a new

sensuous basis in the intellectual life; you will understand

what I am trying to say and how much of it is true. Who could

replace this mind for us? From whom could we expect so much? All

human activities toss around him like mechanism, he alone begets

independently in himself the unsuspected, uncreated. What to him is

intercourse with the world--to him who is at his sacred daily task

before sunrise and who after sunset scarcely looks about him, who

forgets sustenance for his body and who is carried in a trice, by

the stream of his enthusiasm, past the shores of work-a-day things?

He himself said: “When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see

is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which

does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom

and philosophy, the wine which inspires one to new generative

processes, and I am the Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine

for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. When they are again

become sober they have drawn from the sea all that they brought

with them, all that they can bring with them to dry land. I have

not a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is

nearer to me than to other artists; I associate with him without

fear; I have always recognized and understood him and have no fear

for my music--it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it

must be freed by it from all the miseries which the others drag

about with themselves.”

All this Beethoven said to me the first time I saw him; a feeling

of reverential awe came over me when he expressed himself to me

with such friendly frankness, seeing that I must have appeared

so utterly insignificant to him. I was surprised, too, for I had

been told that he was unsociable and would converse with nobody.

They were afraid to take me to him; I had to hunt him up alone. He

has three lodgings in which he conceals himself alternately--one

in the country, one in the city and the third on the bastion. It

was in the last that I found him in the third storey, walked in

unannounced. He was seated at the pianoforte.

He accompanied me home and on the way he said the many beautiful

things about art, speaking so loud and stopping in the street that

it took courage to listen to him. He spoke with great earnestness

and much too surprisingly not to make me forget the street.

They were greatly surprised to see him enter a large dinner

party at home with me. After dinner, without being asked, he sat

down to the instrument and played long and marvellously; there

was a simultaneous fermentation of his pride and his genius.

When he is in such a state of exaltation his spirit begets the

incomprehensible and his fingers accomplish the impossible.

In the letter to Pückler-Muskau in which Mme. von Arnim dwells more

upon the incidents of this meeting, she writes thus:

There was surprise when I entered a gathering of more than 40

people who sat at table, hand in hand with Beethoven. Without ado

he seated himself, said little (doubtless because he was deaf).

Twice he took his writing-tablet out of his pocket and made a few

marks in it. After dinner the entire company went up to the tower

of the house to look at the view; when they were gone down again

and he and I alone, he drew forth his tablet, looked at it, wrote

and elided, then said: “My song is finished.” He leaned against

the window-frame and sang it out upon the air. Then he said: “That

sounds, doesn’t it? It belongs to you if you like it, I made it

for you, you inspired it, I read it in your eyes just as it was

written.”

In the Goethe letter she continues:

Since then he comes to me every day, or I go to him. For this I

neglect social meetings, galleries, the theatre, and even the tower

of St. Stephen’s. Beethoven says “Ah! What do you want to see

there? I will call for you towards evening; we will walk through

the alleys of Schönbrunn.” Yesterday I went with him to a glorious

garden in full bloom, all the hot-beds open--the perfume was

bewildering; Beethoven stopped in the oppressive sunshine and said:

“Not only because of their contents, but also because of their

rhythm, Goethe’s poems have great power over me, I am tuned up and

stimulated to composition by this language which builds itself into

higher orders as if through the work of spirits and already bears

in itself the mystery of the harmonies.

“Then from the focus of enthusiasm I must discharge melody in all

directions; I pursue it, capture it again passionately; I see it

flying away and disappearing in the mass of varied agitations;

now I seize upon it again with renewed passion; I cannot tear

myself from it; I am impelled with hurried modulations to multiply

it, and, at length I conquer it:--behold, a symphony! Music,

verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensuous life. I

should like to talk with Goethe about this--would he understand

me?”.... “Speak to Goethe about me,” he said; “tell him to hear my

symphonies and he will say that I am right in saying that music is

the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge

which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend....

We do not know what knowledge brings us. The encased seed needs

the moist, electrically warm soil to sprout, to think, to express

itself. Music is the electrical soil in which the mind thinks,

lives, feels. Philosophy is a precipitate of the mind’s electrical

essence; its needs which seek a basis in a primeval principle are

elevated by it, and although the mind is not supreme over what it

generates through it, it is yet happy in the process. Thus every

real creation of art is independent, more powerful than the artist

himself and returns to the divine through its manifestation. It is

one with man only in this, that it bears testimony of the mediation

of the divine in him.... Everything electrical stimulates the mind

to musical, fluent, out-streaming generation.

“I am electrical in my nature. I must interrupt the flow of my

undemonstrable wisdom or I might neglect my rehearsal. Write

to Goethe if you understand what I have said, but I cannot

be answerable for anything and will gladly be instructed by

him.” I promised to write you everything to the best of my

understanding.... Last night I wrote down all that he had said;

this morning I read it over to him. He remarked: “~Did I say that?

Well, then I had a raptus!~” He read it again attentively and

struck out the above and wrote between the lines, for he is greatly

desirous that you shall understand him. Rejoice me now with a

speedy answer, which shall show Beethoven that you appreciate him.

It has always been our purpose to discuss music; it was also my

desire, but through Beethoven I feel for the first time that I am

not fit for the task.

[Sidenote: GOETHE’S REPLY TO BETTINA]

To this letter Goethe answered:

Your letter, heartily beloved child, reached me at a happy time.

You have been at great pains to picture for me a great and

beautiful nature in its achievements and its strivings, its needs

and the superabundance of its gifts. It has given me great pleasure

to accept this picture of a truly great spirit. Without desiring at

all to classify it, it yet requires a psychological feat to extract

the sum of agreement; but I feel no desire to contradict what I can

grasp of your hurried explosion; on the contrary, I should prefer

for the present to admit an agreement between my nature and that

which is recognizable in these manifold utterances. The ordinary

human mind might, perhaps, find contradictions in it; but before

that which is uttered by one possessed of such a dæmon, an ordinary

layman must stand in reverence, and it is immaterial whether he

speaks from feeling or knowledge, for here the gods are at work

strewing seeds for future discernment and we can only wish that

they may proceed undisturbedly to development. But before they

can become general, the clouds which veil the human mind must be

dispersed. Give Beethoven my heartiest greetings and tell him that

I would willingly make sacrifices to have his acquaintance, when

an exchange of thoughts and feelings would surely be beautifully

profitable; mayhap you may be able to persuade him to make a

journey to Karlsbad whither I go nearly every year and would have

the greatest leisure to listen to him and learn from him. To think

of teaching him would be an insolence even in one with greater

insight than mine, since he has the guiding light of his genius

which frequently illumines his mind like a stroke of lightning

while we sit in darkness and scarcely suspect the direction from

which daylight will break upon us.

It would give me great joy if Beethoven were to make me a present

of the two songs of mine which he has composed, but neatly and

plainly written. I am very eager to hear them. It is one of my

greatest enjoyments, for which I am very grateful, to have the

old moods of such a poem (as Beethoven very correctly says) newly

aroused in me....

June 6, 1810.

(Bettina to Goethe)

Dearest friend! I communicated your beautiful letter to Beethoven

so far as it concerned him. He was full of joy and cried: “If there

is any one who can make him understand music, I am the man!” The

idea of hunting you up at Karlsbad filled him with enthusiasm. He

struck his forehead a blow and said: “Might I not have done that

earlier?--but, in truth, I did think of it but omitted to do it

because of timidity which often torments me as if I were not a

real man: but I am no longer afraid of Goethe.” You may count,

therefore, on seeing him next year....

I am enclosing both songs by Beethoven; the other two are by me.

Beethoven has seen them and said many pretty things about them,

such as that if I had devoted myself to this lovely art I might

cherish great hopes; but I merely graze it in flight, for my art is

only to laugh and sigh in a little pocket--more than that there is

none for me.

Bettina.

By the middle of June she was in Bohemia.

There are a few letters from this period to which attention may be

paid. On July 9, 1810, Beethoven wrote to Zmeskall telling him of his

distracted state of mind: he ought to go away from Vienna for the sake

of his health, but Archduke Rudolph wanted him to remain near him; so

he was one day in Schönbrunn, the next in Vienna. “Every day there

come new inquiries from strangers, new acquaintances, new conditions

even as regards art--sometimes I feel as if I should go mad because

of my undeserved fame; fortune is seeking me and on that account I

almost apprehend a new misfortune.” On July 17th, he sent to Thomson

the Scotch songs which he had arranged, accompanied by a letter (in

French) in which he discusses business matters, gives some instructions

touching the repetitions in the songs, repeats his offer to compose

three quintets and three sonatas and to send him such arrangements

for quartet and quintet as have been made of his symphonies. Soon

thereafter he wrote to Bettina Brentano:[79]

[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN’S LETTER TO BETTINA]

Vienna, August 11, 1810.

Dearest Bettine:

No lovelier spring than this, that say I and feel it, too, because

I have made your acquaintance. You must have seen for yourself that

in society I am like a frog on the sand which flounders about and

cannot get away until some benevolent Galatea puts him into the

mighty sea again. I was right high and dry, dearest Bettine, I was

surprised by you at a moment when ill-humor had complete control

of me; but of a truth it vanished at sight of you, I knew at once

that you belonged to another world than this absurd one to which

with the best of wills one cannot open his ears. I am a miserable

man and am complaining about the others!!--Surely you will pardon

this with your good heart which looks out of your eyes and your

sense which lies in your ears--at least your ears know how to

flatter when they give heed. My ears, unfortunately, are a barrier

through which I cannot easily have friendly intercourse with

mankind--otherwise!--Perhaps!--I should have had more confidence in

you. As it is I could only understand the big, wise look of your

eyes, which did for me what I shall never forget. Dear Bettine,

dearest girl! Art!--who understands it, with whom can one converse

about this great goddess!--How dear to me are the few days in

which we chatted, or rather corresponded with each other, I have

preserved all the little bits of paper on which your bright,

dear, dearest answers are written. And so I owe it to my bad ears

that the best portion of these fleeting conversations is written

down. Since you have been gone I have had vexatious hours, hours

of shadow, in which nothing can be done; I walked about in the

Schönbrunn Alley for fully three hours after you were gone, and on

the bastion; but no angel who might fascinate me as you do, Angel.

Pardon, dearest Bettine, this departure from the key. I must have

such intervals in which to unburden my heart. You have written to

Goethe, haven’t you?--would that I might put my head in a bag so

that I could see and hear nothing of what is going on in the world.

Since you, dearest angel, cannot meet me. But I shall get a letter

from you, shall I not?--Hope sustains me, it sustains half of the

world, and I have had her as neighbor all my life, if I had not

what would have become of me?--I am sending you herewith, written

with my own hand, “Kennst du das Land,” as a souvenir of the hour

in which I learned to know you, I am sending also the other which I

have composed since I parted with you dear, dearest heart!

Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,

Was bedränget dich so sehr?

Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!

Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.

Yes, dearest Bettine, answer this, write me what it is shall happen

to me since my heart has become such a rebel. Write to your most

faithful friend--

Beethoven.

The cessation in Beethoven’s productiveness in this period is partly

explained by the vast amount of labor entailed by the preparation of

manuscripts for publication, the correction of proofs, etc. Of this

there is evidence in a number of letters to Breitkopf and Härtel. On

July 2 he wrote demanding an honorarium of 250 florins for works that

he had specified, and sending the first installment, two sonatas for

pianoforte, five variations for pianoforte and six ariettas (probably

Op. 75). The second installment, he said, should be a Concerto in

E-flat, the Choral Fantasia and three Ariettas. The third, the

Characteristic Sonata “Farewell, Absence and Return,” five Italian

ariettas and the score of “Egmont.” On August 21, 1810, he wrote to

the firm at great length. He sends a draft of a plan for a complete

edition of his works, in which Breitkopf and Härtel were to figure as

the principal publishers. He asks what they are willing to pay for “a

concerto, quartet, etc., and then you will be able to see that 250

ducats is a small honorarium.”... “I do not aim at being a musical

usurer, as you think, who composes only in order to get rich, by no

means, but I love a life of independence and cannot achieve this

without a little fortune, and then the honorarium must, like everything

else that he undertakes, bring some honor to the artist.” He gives

directions as to the dedications. Of the “Egmont” he says: “As soon as

you have received the score you will best know what use to make of it

and how to direct the attention of the public to it--I wrote it purely

out of love for the poet, and to show this I accepted nothing from

the theatre directors who accepted it, and as a reward, as ever and

always, have treated my work with great indifference. There is nothing

smaller than our great folk, but I make an exception in favor of the

archdukes--give me your opinion as to a complete edition of my works,

one of the chief obstacles seems to be in the case of new works which

I shall continue to bring into the world I shall have to suffer in the

matter of publication.”...

Without date, but endorsed by the firm as of August 21st, is the

following little note containing an important correction in the Scherzo

of the Fifth Symphony:

... I have found another error in the Symphony in C minor, namely,

in the third movement in 3/4 time where, after the ♮ ♮ ♮ the minor

returns again, it reads (I just take the bass part) thus:

[Illustration]

The two measures marked by a X are redundant and must be stricken

out, of course also in all the parts that are pausing.

[Sidenote: SORROWS BORNE IN SILENCE]

If the correspondence in this chapter seems in tone and character at

variance with the assumption that, for some reason or other, this

was a disastrous year to Beethoven, it must not be forgotten that

there are troubles and sorrows which must be borne in silence--when

to complain and lament is apter to excite ridicule than compassion.

Though the burden be almost insupportable, the sufferer must perform

his duties and pursue the business of life with a serene countenance,

and permit no outward sign to reveal the secret pain. “The setting of

a great hope is like the setting of the sun,” says Longfellow. “The

brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us and

the world seems but a dim reflection--itself a broader shadow. We look

forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself.”

When “surprised” by Bettina, Beethoven’s great hope had set and “ill

humor had complete control” of him. His “marriage project had fallen

through.” Whoever the lady was, the blow had now fallen and must be

borne in silence. Its disastrous effect upon Beethoven’s professional

energies is therefore for us the only measure of its severity. True,

he writes to Zmeskall and talks of his art as if great things were in

prospect; but he had no heart for such labor, and not until October did

he take up and finish the ~Quartetto Serioso~ for his friend. The long

bright summer days, that in other years had awakened his powers to new

and joyous activity and added annually one at least to the list of his

grandest works, came and departed, leaving no memorial but a few songs

and minor instrumental works--the latter apparently composed to order.

He took no country lodging this summer--alternating between Baden and

Vienna, and indulging in lonely rambles among the hills and forests. We

think it must have been in this period of song composition and oriental

studies that, on such an excursion, he had with him the undated paper

containing a selection from the songs in Herder’s “Morgenländische

Blumenlese” and wrote upon it in pencil:

My decree [meaning the annuity contract] says only “to remain in

the country”--perhaps this would be complied with by any spot.

My unhappy ears do not torment me here. It seems as if in the

country every tree said to me “Holy! Holy!” Who can give complete

expression to the ecstasy of the woods? If everything else fails

the country remains even in winter--such as Gaden, Unterer Brühl,

etc.--easy to hire a lodging from a peasant, certainly cheap at

this time.

Another half-sheet in the Library of the Musikfreunde in Vienna, mostly

covered with rude musical sketches, is a suitable pendant to the

above, as it contains these words: “Without the society of some loved

person it would not be possible to live even in the country.”

It is well known that Beethoven’s duties to Archduke Rudolph soon

became irksome and at last almost insupportable. It was, however, for

his good that he was compelled to perform them and be master of himself

to that extent; it was also fortunate that Elizabeth Brentano came

just at the crisis with beauty, grace and genius to turn his thoughts

into other channels. Nor was it without benefit to him that Thomson’s

melodies, which required no severe study, gave some desultory but

profitable employment to his mind. Just at the close of the year it

was rumored that he contemplated a journey into Italy “next spring, in

order to seek restoration of his health, which had suffered greatly

for several years, under southern skies.” There was some foundation

for this, for some years later Beethoven himself states in one of his

letters: “I declined a call to Naples.”

[Sidenote: WORKS PUBLISHED IN 1810]

The compositions of the year 1810 are:

1. The incidental music to Goethe’s “Egmont.” It was composed

between October, 1809 and May, 1810, and the first performance took

place on the 24th day of the latter month. There are sketches for

the song “Freudvoll und Leidvoll” in a sketchbook used in 1809;

but Nottebohm does not recognize them as having been conceived

for use in the tragedy, since there are indications that the song

was to have pianoforte accompaniment and be sung in part by two

voices. In a sketchbook begun early in January, 1810 (Nottebohm,

“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 276), on the first twenty-nine pages

there are sketches for seven numbers in the following order, viz:

7, 1, 8, 9, 2, 3, 6. Sketches for the overture are not to be found

in the book, but in other places in connection with sketches for

the Pianoforte Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, which was also in hand in

1809. Beethoven’s admiration for Goethe (stimulated, it is fair to

assume, by his intercourse with Elizabeth Brentano) is shown by the

fact that, besides the “Egmont” lyrics, others of Goethe’s poems

were sketched or completed in the year which saw the production

of the tragedy. “Egmont” was first performed on May 24, 1810.

Though Beethoven contemplated dedicating it to Archduke Rudolph,

it eventually appeared without a dedication. Beethoven offered the

music to Breitkopf and Härtel in a letter dated May 6 (1810) for

1400 florins in silver.

2. Two songs: “Kennst du das Land” and “Herz, mein Herz.”

3. Three songs: “Wonne der Wehmuth,” “Sehnsucht,” and “Mit einem

gemalten Bande.” The manuscript bears the following inscription

in Beethoven’s hand: “3 Gesänge--1810--Poesie von Goethe in Musik

gesetzt von Ludwig van Beethoven.”

4. Forty-three Irish melodies, with ritornellos and accompaniments

for pianoforte, violin and violoncello (completed).

5. Écossaise for military band.

6. Polonaise for military band.

7. March in F major for military band. “Composed in 1810, in Baden,

for Archduke Anton--3rd Summer-month.”

8. String Quartet, F minor. Op. 95. The autograph manuscript

preserved in the Royal Imperial Court Library at Vienna bears the

inscription: “~Quartetto serioso~--1810--in the month of October.

Dedicated to Herr von Zmeskall and written in the month of October

by his friend L. v. Beethoven.”

The publications of the year were:

1. “Das Lied aus der Ferne.” Published by Breitkopf and Härtel, in

February.

2. “Andenken,” song by Matthison. Breitkopf and Härtel, in March.

3. The opera “Leonore,” in two acts, etc., without overture and

finales. Breitkopf and Härtel, in March.

4. ~Sestetto pour 2 Clarinettes, 2 Cors et 2 Bassons, par L. v.

Beethoven.~ In parts, by Breitkopf and Härtel, in April.

5. ~Ouverture à grand Orchestre de l’Opéra Leonore, etc.~

(“Leonore, No. 3”), by Breitkopf and Härtel, in July.

6. Five Songs: Lied aus der Ferne (“Als mir noch die

Thräne”--thirteen pages composed stanza by stanza, newly

published); Der Liebende (“Welch’ ein wunderbares Leben”); Der

Jüngling in der Fremde (“Der Frühling entblühet”); An den fernen

Geliebten (“Einst wohnten süsse Ruh”); Der Zufriedene (“Zwar schuf

das Glück hienieden”), published in “Achtzehn deutsche Gedichte mit

Begleitung des Pianoforte von verschiedenen Meistern ... Erzherzog

Rudolph ... gewidmet von C. L. Reissig,” by Artaria and Co.,

Vienna, in July.

7. “Die Sehnsucht von Goethe, mit vier Melodien nebst

Clavierbegleitung....” No. 38, Vienna and Pesth, Kunst-und

Industrie-Comptoir, in September. A later edition bears the imprint

of S. A. Steiner and Co.

8. ~Variations pour le Pianoforte composées et dediées à son Ami

Oliva par L. v. Beethoven. Œuv. 76.~ Breitkopf and Härtel, in

October.

9. ~Quatuor pour deux Violons, etc., composé et dedié à son Altesse

le Prince régnant de Lobkowitz, Duc de Raudnitz, par, etc.~ Op. 74.

Breitkopf and Härtel, in November.

10. Six Songs with accompaniment for the Pianoforte. Op. 75.

Dedicated to Princess Kinsky. Breitkopf and Härtel, in November.

Mignon (“Kennst du das Land”); Neue Liebe, neues Leben (“Herz, mein

Herz”); Aus Goethe’s Faust (“Es war einmal ein König”); Gretel’s

Warnung (“Mit Liebesblick und Spiel und Sang”); An den fernen

Geliebten (“Einst wohnten süsse Ruh”); Der Zufriedene (“Zwar schuf

das Glück hienieden”). The last two had been published in July in

Reissig’s Collection (see No. 6).

11. ~Fantaisie pour le Pianoforte composée et dediée à son Ami

Monsieur le Conte François de Brunswick par L. v. Beethoven.~ Op.

77. Breitkopf and Härtel, in November.

12. ~Sonate pour le Pianoforte composée et dediée à Madame la

Comtesse Thérèse de Brunswick, etc.~ Op. 78. Breitkopf and Härtel,

in November.

13. ~Sonatine pour le Pianoforte, etc.~ Op. 79. Breitkopf and

Härtel, in November.

14. ~Sextuor pour 2 Violons, Alto, Violoncello et 2 Cors obligés.~

Op. 81 (81b), by Simrock, Bonn, in the spring.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him

by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and

incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum

than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven

had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker,

connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi

and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which

were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument

which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven

expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for

a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that

the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has

thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the

year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in

favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge

that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride

of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal

Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the

date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick

came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have

seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage

to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence

introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not

unearthed until five years after his death.

[78] This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is

compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of

her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions

of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents,

remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth,

when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by

hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former

to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and

satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the

letter renders it nearly worthless.

[79] From the “Athenæum.” There are a few variations in the letter as

printed in the Nuremburg journal and in “Ilius Pamphilius”--“Bettine”

is changed to “friend,” “frog” to “fish,” “and on the bastion” is

omitted, “fascinated” (gebannt) is altered to “seized” (gepackt). A few

other differences are grammatical errors.

It seems proper at this place for the English Editor to remark that Mr.

Thayer’s argument in favor of the authenticity of the Bettina letters

was printed in the Appendix to Vol. III of the original edition with a

concluding foot-note by Dr. Deiters in which he said that he had not

been convinced by his author’s painstaking exposition that the letters

are genuine. Dr. Riemann in the second German edition prints the

letters and the argument in the text, distributing the latter in two

chapters and appending a foot-note in which he gives it as his opinion

that only the second (that dated February 10, 1811, the autograph of

which is in existence) is authentic ~as a letter~, while the other two,

though probably based on observations made by Beethoven to Bettina,

were put into epistolary shape by her. One of Bettina’s letters to

Pückler-Muskau, which tells of Beethoven’s rudeness to Goethe as

illustrated in the anecdote which plays so important a rôle in the

third letter, would seem to bear out this theory. But it is also likely

that Beethoven’s original letters were tricked out by her for literary

effect, which would help to explain the disappearance of the autographs

of the letters of 1810 and 1812. The second letter, which was printed

in ~facsimile~ in the Marx-Behncke critical biography of Beethoven (4th

ed., 1884), was in possession of Pastor Nathusius in Quedlinburg in

1902.

Chapter XI

Bettina Brentano Again--Letters Between Beethoven and Goethe--The

B-flat Trio--The Theatre in Pesth--Opera Projects--Therese

Malfatti--Sojourn in Teplitz.

Beethoven’s intercourse with the Brentanos kept his interest in Bettina

alive and to this we owe a characteristic and welcome letter which,

like the first, is here taken from the Nuremberg “Athenæum”:

Vienna, February 10, 1811.

Beloved, dear Bettine!

I have already received two letters from you and observe from your

letters to your brother [“to Tonie” in the “Ilius Pamphilius,”

Tonie being her sister-in-law], that you still think of me and

much too favorably. I carried your first letter around with me

all summer and it often made me happy; even if I do not write to

you often and you never see me I yet write you a thousand times

a thousand letters in my thoughts. I could have imagined how you

feel amidst the cosmopolitan rabble in Berlin even if you had not

written about it to me; much chatter without deeds about art!!!!!

The best description of it is in Schiller’s poem “Die Flüsse,”

where the Spree speaks.

You are to be married, dear Bettine, or have already been, and I

could not see you once more before then; may all happiness with

which marriage blesses the married, flow upon you. What shall I

tell you about myself? “Pity my fate,” I cry with Johanna; if I can

save a few years for myself for that and all other weal and woe I

shall thank Him the all-comprehending and Exalted. If you write to

Goethe, hunt out all the words to express my deepest reverence and

admiration for him. I am about to write to him myself concerning

Egmont for which I have composed music and, indeed, purely out of

love for his poems which make me happy, but who can sufficiently

thank a great poet, the most precious jewel of a nation? And now no

more, dear good Bettine. It was 4 o’clock before I got home this

morning from a bacchanalian feast at which I had to laugh so much

that I shall have to weep correspondingly to-day; boisterous joy

often forces me in upon myself powerfully. As to Clemens,[80] many

thanks for his kind offer. As to the cantata, the subject is not

sufficiently important for us here, it is a different matter in

Berlin, and as concerns affection, the sister has monopolized it

so much that little will be left for the brother, does that suffice

him?

Now, farewell dear, dear Bettine, I kiss you upon your forehead and

thus impress upon you as with a seal all my thoughts of you. Write

soon, soon, often to your friend

Beethoven.

Beethoven lives on the Mölker

Bastei in the Pascolati House.

This letter invites attention to several erroneous comments which

have been made on the Bettina letters and the history of the “Egmont”

music. Czerny’s statement that Beethoven did not compose the music to

the tragedy out of love for Goethe’s poems but would have preferred a

commission for Schiller’s “Tell” is contradicted by Beethoven himself

in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel which was written six weeks before

the letter to Bettina. In his book “Die Briefe Beethovens an Bettina

von Arnim” (1882), Dr. Deiters expressed a doubt that Beethoven would

have written in February, 1811, that he was “about to write to Goethe”

about his work which was finished early in 1810; but this objection to

the authenticity of the letter is removed by the fact that it was two

months more before the purpose thus expressed was carried out. In the

Goethe archives in Weimar there is a letter from Beethoven which was

first given to the world in 1890, by Dr. Theodor Frimmel in his “Neue

Beethoveniana” (p. 345). It runs as follows:

[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN WRITES TO GOETHE]

Vienna, April 12, 1811.

Only a moment’s time offers me the urgent opportunity inasmuch as

a friend of mine who is a great admirer of yours (like myself) is

hastily departing from here, to thank you for the long time that

I have known you (for I know you since my childhood)--that is

so little for so much--Bettine Brentano has assured me that you

will graciously, even kindly receive me, but how can I think of

such a reception when I can only approach you with the greatest

reverence and with an unutterably deep feeling for your glorious

creations--you will soon receive the music to Egmont from Leipsic

through Breitkopf and Härtel, this glorious Egmont which I read

so ardently, thought over and experienced again and gave out in

music--I would greatly like to have your judgment on it and your

blame, too ... will be beneficial to me and my art, and be accepted

as gladly as the highest praise.

Your Excellency’s

Great admirer

Ludwig van Beethoven.[81]

The music to “Egmont” was not published till January, 1812, and

Goethe had to wait a long time before he was able to form an opinion

concerning it. This was not Beethoven’s fault, however; on October 9,

1811, we find him writing to Breitkopf and Härtel:

Do send the whole whole [~sic~] score copied at my expense for

aught I care (the score, that is) to Goethe, how can a German

publisher be so discourteous, so rude to the first of German poets?

Therefore, quick with the score to Weimar.

This injunction was not obeyed, and on January 28, 1812, Beethoven

makes another urgent request:

I therefore again beg of you humbly to take care of these

letters--and with the letter to Goethe[82] to send the Egmont

(score), but not in the customary way with here and there a piece

wanting, etc., but properly, this cannot be postponed longer, I

have pledged my word and am the more particular to have the pledge

redeemed when I can compel somebody else, like you, to do it--ha,

ha, ha! You deserve that I employ such language towards you,

towards such a sinner who if I had my way would walk in a hairy

shirt of penance for all the flagitiousness practised on my works.

Beethoven had had the intention of sending the score of the “Egmont”

music to Goethe from the moment he began on it, as appears from a

memorandum on the autograph manuscript of the Quartet in E-flat, Op.

74, written in 1809: “Score of Egmont to Goethe at once.”

On the 28th of February, Beethoven sent his friend Mähler an invitation

to a concert. Mähler accepted the invitation and received a ticket

“extra-ordinaire,” signed “B^r. de Neuwirth,” admitting him free

to three midday concerts on Thursdays, February 28, March 14 and

28. Beethoven’s elasticity of temperament therefore was doing him

good service in enabling him to recover from the crushing blow of

the preceding year; he was now able not only to find diversion and

amusement in society, the theatre and the concertroom, but the spirit

of composition was again awakened. In three weeks--March 3rd to the

26th--he produced the glorious B-flat Trio, Op. 97, which had been

sketched in 1810.

There were now, or soon to be, in the hands of Breitkopf and Härtel’s

engravers the Pianoforte Concerto, Op. 73, the Fantasia, Op. 80, the

Sonate “Les Adieux,” Op. 81a, the Ariettes and Songs, Op. 82 and

83, and the “Christus am Ölberg.” The revision of these works for

the press, with the correction of the proofs and his duties to the

Archduke, are all the professional labors of Beethoven in these months

of which we find any trace. Hence, that high appreciation of his

greatness, which induced his admirers and friends even then to attach

such value to the most trivial written communications from him as to

secure their preservation, now does us excellent service; for--the

dates of the Trio excepted--his correspondence furnishes the only

materials for the history of the first half of this year. To this we

turn.

[Sidenote: THE PIANOFORTE TRIO IN B-FLAT]

There is a note, which may be dated about the end of March, apologizing

to the Archduke for his absence, on the ground of having been for two

weeks again with his “tormenting headache.” “During the festivities for

the Princess of Baden (March 5-12), and because of the sore finger of

Your Imp. Highness,” he adds, “I began to work somewhat industriously,

of which, among other things, a new Trio for the piano is a fruit.”

Soon after he sends the new Trio to the Archduke to have it copied,

“but only in your palace, as otherwise one is never safe from theft.”

He proceeds thus:

I am improving and in a few days I shall again have the honor to

wait upon you for the purpose of making up for lost time. I am

always anxiously concerned when I cannot be as zealously and as

often as I should wish with Your Imperial Highness. It is surely

true when I say that it causes me much suffering, but I am not

likely to have so bad an attack again soon. Keep me graciously

in your memory. Times will come when I shall show you two and

threefold that I am worthy of it.

These professions may well excite a smile; for “it is surely true” when

~we~ say, that his duties to the Archduke had already become extremely

irksome; and that the necessity of sacrificing in some small degree to

them his previous independence grew daily more annoying and vexatious;

so much so that, in fact, he availed himself of any and every

excuse to avoid them. The Archduke made a point of adding a complete

collection of Beethoven’s music to his library; and the master lent his

aid in this both by presenting all his new productions in manuscript

and in giving titles of older printed works--gaining thereby a secure

depository for his compositions, where they were ever at his service.

Thus (May 18) he sends for the Sonata “Das Lebewohl, etc.,” “as I

haven’t it myself and must send the corrections”; some time after for

the Scottish songs, “as two numbers, one in my handwriting, have been

lost and they must be copied again so that they may be sent away.”[83]

Here is the place for a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel:

Vienna, May 6th.

Errors--errors--you yourselves are one large error--here I must

send my copyist, there I must go myself if I wish that my works

shall not appear--as a mere error--it appears as if the musical

tribunal at L. was unable to produce a single decent proof-reader,

besides which you send out the works before you receive the

corrections--at least in the case of larger works with various

parts you might count the measures--but the Fantasia shows how this

is done--look in the overture to Egmont, where a whole measure is

missing.

--Here the list of errors ( ).... Make as many errors as you

please, permit as many errors as you please--you are still highly

esteemed by me, it is the custom of men that we esteem them because

they have not made still greater errors.

About this time Gottfried Chr. Härtel’s wife died, and on May 20th

Beethoven wrote to him a letter of condolence in which he said: “It

appears to me that in view of such a separation which confronts nearly

every husband one ought to be dissuaded from entering this state.” To

a suggestion made by his publishers he replies: “What you say about an

opera would surely be desirable, the directors, too, would pay ~well~

for one, the conditions are just now unfavorable, it is true, but if

you will write me what the poet demands I will make inquiry concerning

the matter; I have written to Paris for books, successful melodramas,

comedies, etc. (for I do not dare to write an original opera with any

of our local poets), which I shall then have adapted--O, poverty of

intellect--and pocket!”

[Sidenote: MUSIC FOR “THE RUINS OF ATHENS”]

The new theatre at Pesth was so far advanced in 1810, that the

authorities began their preliminary arrangements for its formal opening

on the Emperor’s name-day, October 4th, 1811, by applying to Heinrich

von Collin to write an appropriate drama, on some subject drawn from

Hungarian history, for the occasion. “The piece was to be associated

with a lyrical prologue and a musical epilogue.” “The fear that he

could not complete the work within the prescribed time and that his

labors would be disturbed, compelled Collin to decline the commission

with thanks.” The order was then given to Kotzebue, who accepted

it and, with characteristic rapidity, responded with the prologue

“Ungarn’s erster Wohltäter” (Hungary’s first Benefactor), the drama

“Bela’s Flucht” (Bela’s Flight), and the epilogue “Die Ruinen von

Athen” (The Ruins of Athens). As Emperor Franz had twice fled from his

capital within five years, it is not surprising that “‘Bela’s Flight’

for various reasons cannot be given” and gave place to a local piece

(“The Elevation of Pesth into a Royal Free City”). Kotzebue’s other two

pieces were accepted and sent to Beethoven in May of this year. The

composition of the music to them was the engagement above mentioned,

and, of course, formed his principal employment during the summer.

Hartl had now retired from the direction of the Court Theatres, and

Lobkowitz and Palffy were again at the helms respectively of the

theatre next to the Kärnthnerthor and that An-der-Wien. Beethoven was

busy with dramatic compositions and so, very naturally, the project of

another operatic work was revived. He had also obtained a subject that

pleased him--a French melodrama. “Les Ruines de Babylon”--probably

from the Prussian Baron Friedr. Joh. Drieberg. This composer, much more

favorably known for his researches into ancient Greek music than for

his operas, had been five years in Paris, “where he studied composition

under Spontini and probably for a short time also under Cherubini,” and

now for two years in Vienna.

A series of notes from Beethoven to Drieberg, Treitschke and Count

Palffy, written in June and July, 1811, show how the operatic project

was shaping itself in his mind. On June 6, he is anxious to know if

Treitschke has read the book, and wishes to re-read it himself before

beginning work on it; to the same on July 13, he writes that he has now

received the translation of the melodrama with directions from Palffy

to discuss it with him. He expresses dismay to Palffy on July 11,

because he has heard that a benefit performance of the melodrama “Les

ruines de Babilone” is projected, sets forth how hard he had worked

to find a suitable libretto, as he had in this, and how much more

desirable it would be to have it given as an opera; and finally hopes

that Palffy will forbid the intended performance.

“It is said,” writes the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” under

date January 8, “that Beethoven may next Spring undertake a journey

to Italy for the purpose of restoring his health, which has suffered

severely during the last few years.” One effect of his maladies was to

produce long-continued pains in the head, and it was finally thought

best by his physician, Malfatti, to abandon the journey and try the

waters of Teplitz. This Beethoven decided to do and to take with him

as friend and companion young Oliva. In a letter to Count Brunswick he

thanks him for agreeing to make the journey with him, and tells him

that on the advice of his physician he must spend two whole months at

Teplitz until the middle of August, wherefore he could not accompany

the Count. He adds: “I pray you so to arrange your affairs as to be

here [i. e., Vienna] at the latest by July 2 or 3, as otherwise it

will be too late for me, and the doctor is already grumbling that I

am waiting so long, although he himself says that the companionship

of such a dear good friend would benefit me.” In another letter he

says: “I cannot accept your refusal; I have permitted Oliva to go away

alone, and on your account; I must have some trusted one at my side if

everyday life is not to become burdensome.... As I do not know how you

came to have the portrait[84] it would be best if you were to bring it

with you, no doubt a sympathetic artist will be found who will copy it

for friendship’s sake.”

[Sidenote: WORK ON THOMSON’S COMMISSION]

Brunswick did not come to Vienna, where Beethoven remained till the

end of July, as we see from a note to Zmeskall after the return from

Teplitz and a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel after he had been at the

watering-place three weeks. Meanwhile Beethoven worked on the Scottish

Songs for Thomson and announced their completion on July 20, in a

letter in which he complains that, because the three copies of the 53

songs which he had previously sent to Thomson had not been received, he

had been obliged practically to rewrite them from his sketches--which

may have been a somewhat exaggerated statement of the facts. In it,

furthermore, he says: “Your offer of 100 ducats in gold for the three

sonatas is accepted for your sake and I am also willing to compose

three quintets for 100 gold ducats; but for the dozen English songs my

price is 60 ducats in gold (for four songs the price is 25 ducats). For

the cantata on the naval battle in the Baltic sea, I ask 50 ducats; but

on condition that the text contains no invectives against the Danes,

otherwise I cannot undertake it....[85] I will not fail to send you

the arrangements of my symphonies in a very short time, and will gladly

undertake the composition of an oratorio if the words be noble and

distinguished and the honorarium of 600 ducats in gold be agreeable to

you.”

Beethoven arrived in Teplitz about August 1, possibly a day or two

earlier, and for three weeks was chiefly concerned with his cure and

the correction of proofs, as appears from a letter, dated on August

23, to Breitkopf and Härtel. In this, speaking about the “Christus am

Ölberg,” he says:

Here and there the text must remain as in the original. I know

that the text is extremely bad, but after one has conceived a unit

out of even a bad text, it is difficult to avoid spoiling it by

individual changes, and if great stress be laid upon a single word

it must be left, and he is a bad composer who does not know how or

try to make the best possible thing out of a bad text, and if this

is the case a few changes will certainly not improve the whole.

He has words of approval for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and of dispraise

for Italian musicians in general, as see:

The favorable reception of Mozart’s “Don Juan” rejoices me as much

as if it were my own work. Although I know plenty of unprejudiced

Italians who render justice to the German, the backwardness and

easy-going disposition of the Italian musicians are no doubt

responsible for the same deficiencies in the nation; but I have

become acquainted with many Italian amateurs who prefer our music

to their Paisiello, etc. (I have been more just to him than his own

countrymen.)

Varnhagen von Ense, then a young man of 25 years and lieutenant in the

Austrian service, came from Prague to Teplitz this summer to pass a few

weeks with “The goddess of his heart’s most dear delight,” Rahel Levin.

In his “Denkwürdigkeiten” we first meet Beethoven since his letter to

Thomson--a solitary rambler in the Schlossgarten at Teplitz, whither,

as Brunswick could not or would not accompany him, he had journeyed

alone. Varnhagen was with Beethoven every day and came into more

intimate relations with him through his eager desire to write texts

for him for dramatic compositions or to revise such texts. With Tiedge

and the Countess von der Recke, Beethoven formed a warm friendship.

Varnhagen wrote to Rahel: “Only Oliva could I endure about me for any

length of time; he was sympathetic, but deeply depressed because of

violent altercations which he had with Beethoven.” From the source of

these communications we also learn that Varnhagen was expected to adapt

an opera text for Beethoven and to revise and improve another. In a

letter of September 18, Varnhagen himself wrote to Rahel as follows

on the subject: “I may translate a French piece as an opera for

Beethoven; the other text might be written later, but this contains

the entire scenic arrangement. It is entitled ‘Giafar’ and might bring

me from 8 to 10 ducats.” But later, “Of Beethoven and Oliva I hear and

see nothing; the latter must have been unable to make anything out

of the opera which I was to make from a French melodrama and which,

unfortunately, another had begun.”

[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN AS CUPID’S MESSENGER]

Soon after Beethoven’s arrival in Teplitz there must have occurred the

incident of Beethoven’s visit to the grave of Seume, which was referred

to in a previous chapter in connection with the C-sharp minor Sonata.

Seume had died on June 13, 1810, at Teplitz. There were other visitors,

not mentioned by Varnhagen, with whom Beethoven formed relations more

or less cordial and intimate. One was the Royal Imperial Gubernialrath

and Steyermärkischer Kammerprokurator Ritter von Varena of Gratz;

another was Ludwig Loewe, the actor, just then engaged for the theatre

at Prague. “Thereby hangs a tale.”

Loewe had an honorable love-affair with Therese, the daughter

of the landlord of the inn “Zum Stern” in Teplitz. For “~this

reason~,” as Loewe told this author’s informant, “he always came

to the inn after the guests had departed; Beethoven, being hard

of hearing and melancholy, for ~this reason~ always came later,

so that he would meet nobody. The landlord, father of the girl,

discovered their relations, took Loewe to task, and the latter

voluntarily agreed to remain away in order to spare the girl, whom

he dearly loved. After a time he met Beethoven in the Augarten,

and the latter, who was warmly attached to him, asked him why he

no longer came to the Stern. Loewe told him of his misfortune and

asked the composer if he would carry a letter to Therese. Beethoven

not only agreed in the friendliest manner to do so, but also

offered to see that he got an answer, and thereafter cared for the

correspondence.” Loewe did not know when Beethoven departed from

Teplitz; he himself went to fill his engagement at Prague. “The

lovers pledged each other to fidelity, but a few weeks later Loewe

received intelligence of the death of his Therese.”

Another visitor at Teplitz was Prince Kinsky; and this gave the

composer an opportunity to obtain the arrears of his annuity. On the

still existing envelope of the contract of 1809 is written: “Kinsky am

letzten August behoben.” Another was Amalie Sebald, who had come with

Countess von der Recke from Berlin, a member of a family who for years

had furnished members to Fasch’s Singakademie, where she had appeared

as a solo singer. She was said to have “a fascinatingly lovely singing

voice.” Among the friends of Carl Maria von Weber when he was in Berlin

in 1812, were Amalie Sebald and her sister Auguste, also “highly

musical” and a singer. For Amalie, Weber conceived a warm and deep

affection; and now Beethoven was taken an unresisting captive by her

charms. She is mentioned--the reader will note how familiarly--in this

letter to Tiedge, dated Teplitz, September 6, 1811:

Every day the following letter to you, you, you, has floated in my

mind; I wanted only two words at parting, but not a single word

did I receive; the Countess sends (through another) a feminine

handgrasp; that at least is something to talk about and for it I

kiss her hands in my thoughts, but the poet is dumb. Concerning

Amalie, I know at least that she is alive. Every day I give myself

a drubbing for not having made your acquaintance earlier in

Teplitz. It is abominable to know the good for a short time and

at once to lose it again. Nothing is more insufferable than to be

obliged to reproach one’s self with one’s own mistakes. I tell you

that I shall probably be obliged to stay here till the end of this

month; write me only how long you will still stay in Dresden; I

may feel disposed to take a jump to the Saxon capital; on the day

that you went away from here I received a letter from my gracious

Wiesbadenian Archduke, that he will not remain long in Moravia

and has left it for me to say whether or not I will come; this I

interpreted to the best of my wishes and desires and so you see me

still within these walls where I sinned so deeply against you and

myself; but I comfort myself with the thought that if you call it

a sin I am at least a downright sinner and not a poor one.... Now

fare as well as poor humanity may; to the Countess a right tender

yet reverential handgrasp, to Amalie an ardent kiss when no one

sees us, and we two embrace each other like men who are permitted

to love and honor each other; I expect at least a word without

reserve, and for this I am a man.

[Sidenote: BREITKOPF AND HÄRTEL ARRAIGNED]

The desire here expressed to visit his new friends in Dresden, could

not be gratified, owing to the necessity of completing and forwarding

the music composed for the opening of the Pesth theatre. How long

Beethoven remained in Teplitz cannot be said with exactness, though

there is evidence in a couple of letters to Breitkopf and Härtel and

Countess von der Recke which, taken in connection with an established

incident of his journey, fixes the date approximately. The letter to

Breitkopf and Härtel of October 9, 1811, has so large an interest on

other accounts as to merit translation and publication:

From here a thousand excuses and a thousand thanks for your

pleasant invitation to Leipsic; it pained me greatly not to be able

to follow my inclination to go there and to surrounding places, but

this time there was work in every direction, the Hungarian Diet is

(in session), there is already talk that the Archduke is to become

~primas~ of Hungary and abandon the Bishopric of Olmütz; I have

offered to the Archduke, who as ~primas~ of Hungary will have an

income of not less than 3 millions, to go through a clean million

on my own account (it is understood that I would therewith set all

the good musical spirits into action in my behalf); in Teplitz

I received no further news, as nothing was known of my purpose

to leave the place, I think concerning the journey which I am

contemplating that in view of my attachment for him I must yield

(though not without some unwillingness), the more since I may be

needed at festivities; therefore, having chosen the ~pro~, quick to

Vienna, where the first thunderous proclamation that I heard was

that my gracious lord had given up all thoughts of priesthood and

priestly activities and nothing is to come of the whole business.

It is said that he is to become a general (an easy thing to

understand, you know) and I am to be Quartermaster-General in the

Battle which I do not intend to lose--what do you say to that? The

Hungarians provided me with another incident; in stepping into my

carriage to go to Teplitz, I received a parcel from Ofen (Buda)

with the request to compose something for the opening of the new

theatre at Pesth; after spending three weeks in Teplitz, feeling

fairly well I sat down, in defiance of my doctor’s orders, to

help the Mustachios, who are heartily well disposed towards me,

sent my packet thither on September 13, under the impression that

the performance was to come off on the 1st of 8ber, whereas the

matter is put off for a whole month.[86] I received the letter in

which this was intimated, through a misunderstanding, only after

my arrival here, and yet this theatrical incident determined me to

go to Vienna. Meanwhile, postponed is not abandoned, I have tasted

of travel, it has done me great good, now I should like at once

to go away again--I have just received the Lebewohl, etc., I see

after all you have given French titles to other copies, why, lebe

wohl[87] is surely something very different from ~les adieux~, the

former we say heartily to a single person, the latter to whole

congregations, whole cities--since you permit me to be criticized

so shamefully you must submit to the same treatment, you would also

have needed fewer plates and the turning of the pages which has

now been made very difficult would have been easier, and with this

~Basta--But how in the name of heaven did you come to dedicate my

Fantasia with Orchestra to the King of Bavaria?~ Do answer me that

at once; if you are thereby going to procure me an honorable gift,

I will thank you, such a thing is hardly agreeable to me, did you,

possibly, dedicate it yourself? what is the connection, one is not

permitted to dedicate things to kings without being requested--~and

then there was no dedication of the Lebewohl to the Archduke~, why

were not the year, day and date printed as I wrote them, in the

future you will agree in writing to retain all superscriptions

unchanged as I write them. Let whomsoever you please review the

oratorio and everything else, I am sorry that I ever said a word

about the miserable business, who can mind what such a reviewer

says when he sees how the most wretched scribblers are elevated

by them and how they treat most insultingly art works to which

they cannot at once apply their standard as the shoemaker does his

last, as indeed they must do because of their unfitness--if there

is anything to be considered in connection with the oratorio it is

that it is my first and early work in this form, was composed in

14 days amidst all possible ~tumult~ and other unpleasant alarming

circumstances (my brother was mortally ill).

Rochlitz, if I am not mistaken, spoke unfavorably concerning the

chorus of disciples “Wir haben ihn gesehen” in C major even before

it had been given to you for publication; he called it comic, an

impression which here at least was not shown by the local public

and amongst my friends there are also critics; that I should write

a very different oratorio now, than then, is certain--and now

criticize as long as you please, I wish you much pleasure, and if

it should hurt a little like the sting of a gnat it will soon be

over, and then the whole thing is a little joke ~cri- cri- cri-

cri- cri- crit- i- i- i- i- size- size. Not in all eternity, that

you cannot do~, herewith God be with you....

Two days later he wrote letters of apology for his sudden departure to

Elise von der Recke and Tiedge, promising the former a setting of one

of her poems. From the letters to Breitkopf and Härtel and Tiedge, it

would appear that Beethoven composed the music to “The Ruins of Athens”

and “King Stephen” within a month and sent it to its destination on

Monday, September 16, and then departed from Teplitz without saying

farewell to his friends. From Varnhagen’s “Denkwürdigkeiten” we

learn that “Beethoven, who returned to Vienna from Teplitz with his

friend and mine, Oliva, did not remain long in Prague”; and from the

correspondence with Rahel (II, p. 154), that Oliva went on to Vienna

on September 23, without Beethoven, who made a rather wide detour to

visit Lichnowsky. Of this visit we learn in one of Jahn’s notices,

namely: “In the year 1811, B. was at Prince Lichnowsky’s on his estate

Grätz near Troppau. The Mass in C was performed at Troppau, for which

everything possible was drummed up; the master of athletics was put at

the tympani; in the Sanctus, Beethoven himself had to show him how to

play the solo. The rehearsals lasted three days. After the performance

Beethoven improvised on the organ for half an hour to the astonishment

of every one; Fuchs was the soprano soloist.” Beethoven returned to

Vienna refreshed and invigorated both in body and mind; and something

of his old frolicsome humor again enlivens his notes to Zmeskall:

He expects him to dine with him at the Swan (which was at that time

exceptional, as Beethoven had his own cook); he begs for more quills,

and promises shortly a whole parcel of them, so that Zmeskall “will not

have to pull out his own”; he may receive “the great decoration of the

Order of the ’Cello”; and so on.

Beethoven’s notes to Zmeskall are a barometer that indicates very

correctly the rising and sinking of his spirits; they were now high--at

composition point--and, as the Archduke did not return from Pressburg

until the 7th November, he had at least one month for continuing

without hindrance the studies, whatever they were, that followed the

completion of the music for Pesth. In our judgment they are those,

which occupy the last leaves of the sketchbook (Petter’s) partly filled

in the Spring of 1809.[88]

[Sidenote: A SEASON IN FINANCIAL DOLDRUMS]

There was no call nor special inducement for the immediate completion

of any orchestral work. Since the “Egmont” Overture and the “Pastoral”

Symphony, produced by Schuppanzigh in May, and the “Coriolan” Overture

at a charity concert on July 14, there is but one notice of the

performance of any one of Beethoven’s greater compositions, and even

this (November 15) is very doubtful. In truth, this was no season for

grand musical entertainments with a view to private emolument. The

Finance Patent of February shed its baleful influence on the just

and the unjust and compelled all classes alike to study and practise

economy. Even the old favorite of the Vienna public, Franz Clement,

returning from a musical tour in Russia, and Sebastian Meier, “although

Handel’s ‘Acis and Galatea’ was performed” in their annual Akademies,

“had few hearers.” Two or three virtuosos were able to fill small

halls; but no performances on a grand scale were ventured, except for

charities; at these the wealthy appeared in force, it being a pleasant

and fashionable method of doing something to alleviate the general

distress. Beethoven was not the man to hasten his works to completion

when there was no prospect of making either in public or in private any

present use of them.

The ascertained compositions of this year were:

I. Trio in B-flat major, Op. 97.

II. Music to “Die Ruinen von Athen,” Epilogue by A. von Kotzebue.

III. Music to “König Stephan, Ungarn’s erster Wohlthäter,” a

Prologue by A. von Kotzebue.

IV. Song by Stoll, “An die Geliebte.”

The publications:

I. ~Grand Concerto four le Pianoforte avec accompagnement de

l’Orchestre composé et dédié à son Altesse Impériale Rodolphe

Archiduc, etc.~ Op. 73. E-flat. Breitkopf and Härtel, in February.

II. Four Ariettas and a Duet. Op. 82. (With Italian and German

words: “Dimmi ben mio,” “T’intendo,” “Che fa, che fa il mio bene,”

“Che fa il mio bene” and “Odi l’aura.”) Breitkopf and Härtel, March.

III. Overture to Goethe’s “Egmont.” Op. 84. Orchestral parts.

Breitkopf and Härtel, March.

IV. Fantasia for Pianoforte, Orchestra and Chorus; dedicated to

Maximilian Joseph, King of Bavaria. Op. 80. Breitkopf and Härtel,

July.

V. ~Les Adieux, l’Absence et le Retour. Sonate pour le Pianoforte

composée et dédiée à son Altesse Impériale l’Archiduc Rodolphe,

etc.~ Op. 81. E-flat. Breitkopf and Härtel, July.

VI. Three Songs by Goethe with Pianoforte accompaniment. Dedicated

to Princess Kinsky. (“Trocknet nicht,” “Was zieht mir das Herz,”

“Kleine Blumen, kleine Blätter.”) Op. 83. Breitkopf and Härtel,

October.

VII. “Christus am Ölberg.” Oratorio. Op. 85. Score. Breitkopf and

Härtel, October.

FOOTNOTES:

[80] Clemens Brentano, brother of Bettina and Franz, who had written

the text of a cantata on the death of Queen Louise.

[81] Goethe’s answer to this letter is printed in the Weimar Collection

of the poet’s correspondence. Vol. XXII, No. 615. It is worth producing

here:

Carlsbad, June 25, 1811.

Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received

through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings

which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can

assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard

any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without

wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you

at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents.

Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy

which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most

affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the

happiest of her life.

I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont

when I return home and am thankful in advance--for I have heard

it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in

connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when

I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in

our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly

to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a

journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope

it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical

public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find

worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can

be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well

with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most

sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us.

[82] This second letter does not seem to have been preserved.

[83] At this point in the biography, Thayer, believing that the

broken marriage engagement which had had so powerful an effect on

Beethoven’s spirits and intellectual energies in 1810 had been one

entered into with Countess Therese Brunswick, introduces the letters

to Gleichenstein and makes the following comments, which the English

Editor prefers to introduce in a foot-note rather than to put them in

the body of the text, as is done in the second German edition, and give

them a false interpretation: “The allusion to Gleichenstein’s marriage

with the younger of the sisters Malfatti, which took place near the

end of May, sufficiently indicates the date of these notes; and the

statement made in a former chapter--that Beethoven once offered his

hand in marriage to the elder, Therese--accounts satisfactorily for the

strong excitement under which they were written; for, that this offer

was not made ~before~ this time (1811) has been--nor ~after~, soon will

be--made clear.

“There is nothing inconsistent with ordinary experience and

observation--certainly not with Beethoven’s character as a lover--in

placing this occurrence here, a year after the failure of the marriage

project. His weakness was not in seeking a wife, for this was wise and

prudent, but in the selection of the person; in imagining that the

young girl’s admiration for the artist--her respect and regard for

the friend of her parents and of Gleichenstein--had with increasing

years (she was now nineteen) grown into a warmer feeling; and in

misconceiving the attentions, civilities and courtesies extended to

him by all the members of the family, as encouragement to a suit, the

possibility of which had, probably, never entered the mind of any one

of them. As Gleichenstein could not have been ignorant of his friend’s

recent love-troubles, one may well conceive the surprise, dismay and

perplexity, which this sudden whim must have caused him. It placed him

in a dilemma of singular difficulty. ~How~ he escaped from it, there

are no means of knowing; the affair was, however, so managed, that the

rejection of Beethoven’s proposal caused no interruption--or at most a

temporary one--in the friendly relations of all the parties immediately

concerned. At this distance of time and in the feeble light afforded

us, the whole matter has all the appearance of a mere whimsical

episode in the composer’s life causing him some fleeting disquiet and

mortification; but there is no reason to infer that his disappointment

was either very severe or very lasting. If, however, this be a mistaken

view, it was all the more fortunate that a previous engagement now

forced him to turn his thoughts again to composition and gave him no

leisure to play the love-lorn Corydon.”

[84] It is not a violent presumption that the portrait referred to here

was that of Count Brunswick’s sister Therese; at least there is strong

support for it in a letter published by Marie Lipsius (La Mara) in

Breitkopf and Härtel’s “Mittheilungen” for March, 1910 (p. 4102). It is

from Beethoven to Therese Brunswick, the original of which has not been

found, but which exists in the form of a transcript in a letter written

by Therese to her sister Josephine, dated February 2, 1811, now in the

possession of Therese’s grandniece, Irene de Gerando-Teleki. The letter

reads as follows:

“Through Franz I have also received a souvenir of our noble

Beethoven which gave me much joy; I do not mean his sonatas, which

are very beautiful, but a little writing which I will immediately

copy literally:

“‘Even without prompting, people of the better kind think of each

other, this is the case with you and me, dear and honored Therese;

I still owe you grateful thanks for your beautiful picture and

while accusing myself as your debtor I must at the same time appear

before you in the character of a beggar in asking you if perchance

you feel the genius of painting stirring within you to duplicate

the little hand-drawing which I was unlucky enough to lose. It was

an eagle looking into the sun, I cannot forget it; but do not think

that I think of myself in such a connection, although it has been

ascribed to me, many look upon a heroic play without being in the

least like it. Farewell, dear Therese, and think occasionally of

your truly revering friend

Beethoven.’”

Therese complied with Beethoven’s request. On February 23 she

admonished her sister: “My request to you, dear Josephine, is to

reproduce that picture which you alone are able to do; it would not

be possible for me to create anything of the kind.” And later she

repeats in French: “You have told me nothing about Beethoven’s eagle.

May I answer that he shall receive it?” If the picture referred to by

Beethoven in his letter to the Countess was in his possession before

February 11, 1811, as appears from the Countess’ letter to her sister,

how came it to be in the hands of Count Brunswick in July? Here is

another unsolved riddle.

[85] This letter, in French with Beethoven’s autograph signature, is

preserved in the British Museum. The cantata referred to was to have

been a setting of Campbell’s “Battle of the Baltic.” Returning to

England from the Continent in 1801, the poet saw the preparations for

the Battle of Copenhagen. Campbell was highly esteemed in Germany,

especially by Goethe and Freiligrath, the latter of whom imitated his

“The Last Man.”

[86] It was four months before the performance took place.

[87] Fare well.

[88] Nottebohm contends that the book extends from the end of 1811 to

the beginning of 1813. See “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 289, 290.

Chapter XII

The Year 1812--Beethoven’s Finances--The Austrian

“Finanzpatent”--Beethoven and Graz--Second Sojourn in

Teplitz--Beethoven and Goethe--Amalie Sebald--Beethoven in

Linz--Meddles with his Brother’s Domestic Affairs--Rode and the

Sonata, Op. 96--Spohr--Mälzel and his Metronome--The Canon to

Mälzel.

Beethoven must again, for the present, be made his own biographer. The

selections from his correspondence taken for this purpose will all

gain in interest and perspicuity by first giving the notes to Zmeskall

and the Archduke so as to afford a sort of background for the more

important ones, and by introducing here the explanations which numerous

allusions demand in a short series of observations. Schindler writes in

1840:

In 1811, the Austrian ~Finanzpatent~ reduced these 4000 florins

to one-fifth [the reference being to Beethoven’s annuity]; [and

in 1860]: How severely our composer was hit by it is seen in the

circumstance that also all contracts which had to do with paper

money were reduced to one-fifth of the specified sum. In accordance

with this Beethoven’s annuity of 4000 florins in bank-notes became

subject to reduction. It was reduced to 800 florins in paper money.

An error of some kind must be here involved. This seems so obvious and

palpable, as to render it hardly credible that, in all the long years

since 1840, it has not caught the attention of some one writer on

Beethoven and induced him to cast his eye for a moment upon the Patent

itself. The depreciation of a national paper currency to null and its

subsequent repudiation by the Government that emitted it is, in effect,

a domestic forced loan equal in amount to the sum issued; and the more

gradual its depreciation, so much the more likely is the public burden

to be general and in some degree equalized. Such a forced loan was the

“Continental Currency” issued by the American Congress to sustain the

war against England in 1775-83; and such were the French “Assignats”

a few years later; and such, to the amount of 80 ~per centum~ of all

the paper in circulation, was the substitution of notes of redemption

for the bank-notes at the rate of one for five, by the Austrian

~Finanz-Patent~, promulgated February 20th, and put in force March

15th, 1811. But if Schindler be correct, the Imperial Royal Government

went farther and committed the folly and injustice--with little or

no advantage to itself--of issuing and enforcing a decree which,

in its effect, simply confiscated 80 ~per centum~ of all domestic

indebtedness--where the payment in specie or its equivalent was not

stipulated--to the gain of the debtor and the loss of the creditor!

According to more modern ideas of national economy, those ordinances

of the ~Finanz-Patent~ of February 20, which relate to “continuing,

periodically recurring payments of interest, incomes, farm-rents,

pensions, maintenance moneys, annuities, etc.,” were certainly unwise

and uncalled-for; but they involved no such blunder as that. The

Government assumed that every contract of pecuniary obligation between

Austrian subjects, wherein special payment or its equivalent was not

stipulated, was payable in bank-notes; and that the real indebtedness

under any such contract was in justice and equity to be determined

and measured by the value in silver of the bank-notes at the date of

the instrument. This second proposition is fallacious and deceptive,

because such contracts rested upon the necessary presumptions that the

faith and honor of the supreme authority were pledged to the future

redemption of its paper at par and that the pledge would be redeemed.

But this was not seen or was not regarded. Consequently, there was

annexed to the ~Finanz-Patent~ a table showing decimally the average

equivalent of the silver florin in the bank-notes, month by month, from

January, 1799 to March, 1811. This table was made a “Scala über den

Cours der Bancozettel nach welchem die Zahlungen zufolge des Paragraphs

13 und 14 des Patents vom 20 Hornung, 1811, zu leisten sind.” (“Scale

of the rate of exchange according to which payments are to be made in

accordance with paragraphs 13 and 14 of the Patent of February 20,

1811.”) We copy two of the months as examples:

1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811

Jan. 1.03 1.13 1.16 1.19 1.30 1.34 1.33 1.47 1.90 2.04 2.21 4.69 5.00

Mar. 1.05 1.14 1.14 1.18 1.27 1.34 1.29 1.49 2.06 2.10 2.48 3.31 5.00

[Sidenote: LEGAL ASPECT OF THE ANNUITY CONTRACT]

Beethoven’s annuity contract bore date March 1, 1809, when one florin

in silver was equal to two and forty-eight hundredths in bank-notes.

Hence his 4000 did not shrink to 800 but to 1612-9/10[89] in paper

money; but ~this~ paper money then was intended to be, and for some

time was, equal to silver. More than this he could not ~legally~

demand; but the original reasons for the contract, the intentions of

the donors and the mutual understanding of the parties gave him a

perfect claim ~in equity~ for the full amount of 4000 florins in notes

of redemption. Nor did the princes hesitate to admit its justice.

They were men of honor and this was a debt of honor. Archduke Rudolph

immediately gave the necessary order and instructions in writing; and

Beethoven’s anxiety because the others had not yet given him the same

security was justified by the event, although he might have expressed

it rather more delicately.[90]

The opening of the new theatre in Pesth not having taken place in

October as proposed, was deferred to Sunday, February 9th, that it

might bear the character of a festivity in honor of the Emperor’s

birthday (October 12th). The performances were repeated on the 10th and

11th to crowded audiences which received Beethoven’s music to “King

Stephen” and “The Ruins of Athens” (reported to be “very original,

excellent and worthy of its master”) with clamorous applause. Beethoven

had been so favorably impressed with Kotzebue’s texts that in January,

1812, he applied to him for an opera text:

Highly respected, highly honored Sir:

While writing music for the Hungarians to your prologue and

epilogue, I could not refrain from the lively wish to possess an

opera from your unique talent, romantic, serious, heroico-comic

or sentimental, as you please; in short, anything to your liking

I would accept with pleasure. True, I should prefer a big subject

from history and particularly one from the darker periods, Attila,

etc., for instance; but I should accept with thanks anything and

any subject coming from you, from your poetical spirit, which I

could translate into my musical.

Prince Lobkowitz, who sends his greetings, and who now has the sole

direction of the opera, will certainly grant you an honorarium

commensurate with your deserts. Do not refuse my request, you will

find that I shall always be deeply grateful for your compliance.

Awaiting your favorable and speedy answer, I subscribe myself

Your admirer

Ludwig van Beethoven.

Vienna, January 28, 1812.

As the date of this letter plainly shows, it was sent to Breitkopf and

Härtel together with one to Goethe, with the request that the two be

forwarded to their destinations.

Vienna, January 28, 1812.

As a punishment for your absolute silence I charge you with the

immediate delivery of these two letters; a windbag of a Livonian

promised to look after a letter to K. for me, but probably, the

Livonians like the Russians being windbags and braggarts, he did

nothing of the sort, although he gave himself out to be a great

friend of his.... If the 3 songs by Goethe are not yet printed

hurry with them; I should like soon to present them to Princess

Kynsky, one of the handsomest, stoutest women in Vienna--and the

songs from Egmont, why are they not yet out, in fact why not out,

out, out with the whole of E?--do you perhaps want a close tacked

on to an entreacte here and there, that might be, but have it done

by a Leipsic ~Corrector~ of the Music. Zeitung, that kind of thing

they understand like a slap in the face. Please charge the postage

to me--it seems to me, I hear a whisper, that you are looking out

for a new wife, to this I ascribe all the confusion mentioned

above. I wish you a Xantippe like the wife of the holy Greek

Socrates, so that I might see a German Verleger, which is saying a

great deal, ~verlegen, ja recht in Verlegenheit~.[91]

Among the sufferers by the ~Finanz-Patent~ were the Ursuline nuns at

Graz, whose institution, since 1802, had at no time less than 50 wards

and always more than 350 pupils. At this juncture they were excessively

poor and in debt. In the hope of gaining them some substantial aid

Beethoven’s new friend, Varena, now wrote to him offering to pay him

properly for the use of some of his compositions in a concert for their

benefit to be given on Easter Sunday, March 29. Beethoven at once

presented two of his new compositions to the Art Society of Graz for

gratuitous use at charity concerts. At the concert on Easter Sunday

there were eight numbers, Beethoven being represented by the overture

to “King Stephen,” the march with chorus from “The Ruins of Athens,”

the overture to “Egmont,” and the Septet. The nuns gained on the

occasion the handsome sum of 1836 fl. 24k. Vienna Standard.

[Sidenote: PASSING OF OLD FRIENDS, COMING OF NEW]

Walter Scott somewhere remarks: “It is seldom that the same circle of

personages, who have surrounded an individual at his first outset in

life, continue to have an interest in his career till his fate comes

to a crisis. On the contrary, and more especially if the events of his

life be of a varied character and worth communicating to others, or to

the world, the hero’s later connections are usually totally separated

from those with whom he began the voyage, but whom the individual has

outsailed, or who have drifted astray, or foundered on the passage.”

A few years more and this will begin to be very true of Beethoven.

The old familiar names will rapidly disappear and new ones take their

places; some half a dozen perhaps will remain to the end. But this is

not yet. The old friends, Lichnowsky, Rasoumowsky, Erdödy and that

class, Streicher, Zizius, Breuning and their class, are his friends

still. We see less of them, because Beethoven is no longer the great

pianist performing in the saloons of the nobles, or playing his new

compositions in the lodgings of his untitled admirers. His astonishing

playing in the concert of December, 1808--which completed full thirty

years since his appearance in Cologne as a prodigy--proved to be, as it

happened, the splendid close of his career as a virtuoso. He had surely

earned the right to retire and leave that field to his pupils, of whom

Baroness Ertmann and Carl Czerny were preëminent as performers of his

music. In the more private concerts he had already long given place to

the Baroness; and now Czerny began to take it before the public, even

to the extent of introducing his last new composition for pianoforte

and orchestra. Theodor Körner, lately arrived in Vienna, writes home

under date February 15:

On Wednesday, for the benefit of the Society of Noble Ladies for

Charity, a concert and tableaux, representing three pictures by

Raphael, Poussin and Troyes as described by Goethe in his “Elective

Affinities,” were given. The pictures offered a glorious treat, a

new pianoforte concerto by Beethoven failed.

Castelli’s “Thalia” gives the reason, why this noble work on this, its

first public performance in Vienna, was so coldly received:

If this composition, which formed the concert which had been

announced, failed to receive the applause which it deserved,

the reason is to be sought partly in the subjective character

of the work, partly in the objective nature of the listeners.

Beethoven, full of proud confidence in himself, never writes for

the multitude; he demands understanding and feeling, and because

of the intentional difficulties, he can receive these only at the

hands of the knowing, a majority of whom is not to be found on such

occasions, etc.

That was precisely the truth. The work was out of place. The warblings

of Fräulein Sessi and Herr Siboni, and Mayseder’s variations on the

march in “Aline,” were suited to the occasion and the audience. Instead

of Beethoven’s majestic work, Chapelmaster Himmel, who had recently

been in Vienna, should have been engaged to remain and exhibit his

brilliant finger gymnastics.

The new symphony, to which there are allusions in this correspondence,

was the Seventh, which he took up and completed this spring (May

13), with the hope of producing it in a concert about the time of

Pentecost--but the project fell through.[92]

Explanatory of the Zmeskall correspondence, it is to be noted, that

with the approach of the inclement season, Beethoven ceased to cross

the wind-swept Glacis to dine with Breuning; that the “greatest thanks”

of one of the notes is merely for keeping his pens in order; and

that Zmeskall had been making experiments to determine whether the

oscillations of a simple weight and string (without lever) might not

answer as a practicable and convenient metrometer.