Rossini could write best when he was under the influence of Italian wine
and sparkling champagne. Paesiello liked the warm bed in which to jot
down his musical notions, and we are told that "it was between the
sheets that he planned the 'Barber of Seville,' the 'Molinara,' and so
many other _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of ease and gracefulness." Mozart could chat
and play at billiards or bowls at the same time that he composed the
most beautiful music. Sacchini found it impossible to write anything of
any beauty unless a pretty woman was by his side, and he was surrounded
by his cats, whose graceful antics stimulated and affected him in a
marked fashion. "Gluck," Bombet says, "in order to warm his imagination
and to transport himself to Aulis or Sparta, was accustomed to place
himself in the middle of a beautiful meadow. In this situation, with his
piano before him, and a bottle of champagne on each side, he wrote in
the open air his two 'Iphigenias,' his 'Orpheus,' and some other
works." The agencies which stimulated Beethoven's grandest thoughts
are eminently characteristic of the man. He loved to let the winds
and storms beat on his bare head, and see the dazzling play of the
lightning. Or, failing the sublimer moods of Nature, it was his
delight to walk in the woods and fields, and take in at every pore the
influences which she so lavishly bestows on her favorites. His true life
was his ideal life in art. To him it was a mission and an inspiration,
the end and object of all things; for these had value only as they fed
the divine craving within.
"Nothing can be more sublime," he writes, "than to draw nearer to the
Godhead than other men, and to diffuse here on earth these Godlike rays
among mortals." Again: "What is all this compared to the grandest of all
Masters of Harmony--above, above?"
"All experience seemed an arch, wherethrough
Gleamed that untraveled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever as we move."
The last four years of our composer's life were passed amid great
distress from poverty and feebleness. He could compose but little; and,
though his friends solaced his latter days with attention and kindness,
his sturdy independence would not accept more. It is a touching fact
that Beethoven voluntarily suffered want and privation in his last
years, that he might leave the more to his selfish and ungrateful
nephew. He died in 1827, in his fifty-seventh year, and is buried in
the Wahring Cemetery near Vienna. Let these extracts from a testamentary
paper addressed to his brothers in 1802, in expectation of death, speak
more eloquently of the hidden life of a heroic soul than any other words
could:
"O ye, who consider or declare me to be hostile, obstinate, or
misanthropic, what injustice ye do me! Ye know not the secret causes of
that which to you wears such an appearance. My heart and my mind were
from childhood prone to the tender feelings of affection. Nay, I was
always disposed even to perform great actions. But, only consider that,
for the last six years, I have been attacked by an incurable complaint,
aggravated by the unskillful treatment of medical men, disappointed from
year to year in the hope of relief, and at last obliged to submit to the
endurance of an evil the cure of which may last perhaps for years, if
it is practicable at all. Born with a lively, ardent disposition,
susceptible to to the diversions of society, I was forced at an early
age to renounce them, and to pass my life in seclusion. If I strove at
any time to set myself above all this, oh how cruelly was I driven back
by the doubly painful experience of my defective hearing! and yet it
was not possible for me to say to people, 'Speak louder--bawl--for I
am deaf!' Ah! how could I proclaim the defect of a sense that I once
possessed in the highest perfection--in a perfection in which few of my
colleagues possess or ever did possess it? Indeed, I cannot! Forgive
me, then, if ye see me draw back when I would gladly mingle among you.
Doubly mortifying is my misfortune to me, as it must tend to cause me to
be misconceived. From recreation in the society of my fellow-creatures,
from the pleasures of conversation, from the effusions of friendship, I
am cut off. Almost alone in the world, I dare not venture into society
more than absolute necessity requires. I am obliged to live as an
exile. If I go into company, a painful anxiety comes over me, since I am
apprehensive of being exposed to the danger of betraying my situation.
Such has been my state, too, during this half year that I have spent in
the country. Enjoined by my intelligent physician to spare my hearing
as much as possible, I have been almost encouraged by him in my present
natural disposition, though, hurried away by my fondness for society, I
sometimes suffered myself to be enticed into it. But what a humiliation
when any one standing beside me could hear at a distance a flute that I
could not hear, or any one heard the shepherd singing, and I could
not distinguish a sound! Such circumstances brought me to the brink of
despair, and had well-nigh made me put an end to my life: nothing but
my art held my hand. Ah! it seemed to me impossible to quit the world
before I had produced all that I felt myself called to accomplish. And
so I endured this wretched life--so truly wretched, that a somewhat
speedy change is capable of transporting me from the best into the
worst condition. Patience--so I am told--I must choose for my guide.
Steadfast, I hope, will be my resolution to persevere, till it shall
please the inexorable Fates to cut the thread. Perhaps there may be an
amendment--perhaps not; I am prepared for the worst--I, who so early
as my twenty-eighth year was forced to become a philosopher--it is not
easy--for the artist more difficult than for any other. O God! thou
lookest down upon my misery; thou knowest that it is accompanied with
love of my fellow-creatures, and a disposition to do good! O men! when
ye shall read this, think that ye have wronged me; and let the child of
affliction take comfort on finding one like himself, who, in spite of
all the impediments of Nature, yet did all that lay in his power to
obtain admittance into the rank of worthy artists and men.... I go to
meet death with joy. If he comes before I have had occasion to develop
all my professional abilities, he will come too soon for me, in spite
of my hard fate, and I should wish that he had delayed his arrival. But
even then I am content, for he will release me from a state of endless
suffering. Come when thou wilt, I shall meet thee with firmness.
Farewell, and do not quite forget me after I am dead; I have deserved
that you should think of me, for in my lifetime I have often thought of
you to make you happy. May you ever be so!"