1824-27.
THE LAST QUARTETS.
Berlioz on the Lot of Artists--Beethoven Misunderstood--The Great
Concert of May, 1824--Preparation for It--Small Returns--Beethoven
Appreciated--First Performance of the Missa Solemnis and of the
Ninth Symphony--The Quartets--An “Oratorio for Boston”--Overture
on B-A-C-H--Influence of His Personal Experience on His Works--His
Brother Johann--Postponement of His Journey to London--Presentiment
of Death--The Restoration of Metternich and Gentz--His
“Son”--Troubles with the Young Man--Debility--Calls for Dr.
Malfatti--Poverty--The “Magnanimous” English--Calls a Clergyman--His
Death.
“Noble souls fall usually only because they do not know the mournful
but incontestable truth that, considering our present customs and
political institutions, the artist has more to suffer in proportion as
he is a genuine artist. The more original and gigantic his works are,
the more severely is he punished for the effects they produce. The
swifter and sublimer his thoughts, the more does he vanish from the
dim vision of the multitude.” Thus did Beethoven’s direct successor
in art, Hector Berlioz, complain at the end of his days; and to whom
can what he says here be applied with more propriety than to our
artist, especially at this period of his life, when his thoughts
took their sublimest flight? His action now seemed indeed to assure
him unconditional victory, even in his immediate environment--we are
approaching the celebrated concert of May, 1824--but how soon shall
we see him again misunderstood by the crowd and, as a consequence,
lonelier than ever before.
He had again enjoyed to the full the “higher life which art and
science imply, and which they give it to us to hope for;” and he,
in consequence, became exceedingly neglectful of himself; so that
his brother found it necessary to say to him: “You must buy yourself
a new hat to-morrow. The people make merry at your expense because
you have so bad a hat.” But now that the “colossal creation” was
finished, even to the last iota, he began to be in better humor, to
stroll about the streets gazing at the show-windows, and to salute
many an old friend, as, for instance, his former teacher, Schenk,
more warmly. His name was now more frequently on the lips of friends,
and when it was known that a great symphony, as well as the Mass, was
finished, people recalled the boundless rapture of the years 1813-14;
and a letter signed by men of the higher classes of society--men whom
Beethoven himself loved and honored--invited him, in February, 1824, to
abstain no longer from the performance of something great. And, indeed,
the Italian _roulade_ and all kinds of purely external _bravoura_
had obtained supremacy in Vienna. The “second childhood of taste”
threatened to follow the “golden age of art.” It was hoped that home
art would receive new life from Beethoven, who, in his own sphere, had
no equal, and that, thanks to his influence, the true and the beautiful
would rule supreme again.
Schindler found him with the manuscript in his hand. “It is very
pretty! I am glad!” Beethoven said, in a very peculiar tone. And
another hope was bound up with this. He hoped to obtain compensation
for his long labor, and, in this way, leisure to produce something new
worthy of his genius. The preparation for the concert was attended
by very much that was disagreeable. His own want of resolution and
suspicious manner contributed their share to this. With the most
splenetic humor, he writes: “After six weeks’ vexation, I am boiled,
stewed, roasted.” And when several of his more intimate friends, like
Count Lichnowsky, Schuppanzigh and Schindler, resorted to a little
subterfuge to make him come to some resolve, he said: “I despise
deceit. Visit me no more. And let him visit me no more. I’m not
giving a party.” But, on the other hand, the first violinists of the
city--Schuppanzigh, Mayseder and Boehm, who is still living--together
with _capellmeister_ Umlauf, were at the head of the orchestra,
while a large number of amateurs were ready to lend their assistance
at a moment’s notice. Their motto was: “Anything and everything
for Beethoven!” And thus the preparations for the performance of
Beethoven’s great creations were begun.
“Just as if there were words beneath them?” asked Schindler, speaking
of the powerful recitatives of the basses in the Ninth Symphony.
Henriette Sontag and Caroline Unger, both subsequently so celebrated,
found it exceedingly difficult to execute the solos in the Mass and
the _finale_; but to all prayers that they might be changed, Beethoven
had only one answer: “No!” To which Henriette finally replied: “Well,
in God’s name, let us torment ourselves a little longer, take a little
more trouble, and attempt it.” The performance was to occur on the 7th
of May. That “rare, noble man,” Brunswick had, as he said, brought
“four ears” with him, that he might not lose a single note. Frau
von Ertmann was again in Vienna. The boxes were all soon taken, and
many seats were sold at a premium. Beethoven personally invited the
court. His trusted servant, who was specially helpful to him on this
occasion, said to him: “We shall take your green coat with us, too;
the theater is dark; no one can see us. O my great master, not a black
dress coat have you in your possession.” The house was crowded to
over-fullness. Only the court box was almost empty, on account of the
Emperor’s absence. Beethoven’s attendant again tells us: “His reception
was more than imperial; at the fourth round of applause, the people
became vociferous.” And Boehm tells us how the tears rushed into his
own and Mayseder’s eyes at the very beginning. And what a success the
performance was!
In one of the accounts of it that have come down to us, we read: “Never
in my life did I hear such tempestuous and at the same time such
hearty applause. At one place--where the kettle-drums so boldly take
up the rhythmic _motive_ alone--the second movement of the symphony
was totally interrupted by the applause; the tears stood in the eyes
of the performers; Beethoven, however, contrived to wield the baton
until Umlauf called his attention to the action of the audience by a
motion of his hand. He looked at them and bowed in a very composed
way.” At the close the applause was greater still. Yet, strange to
say, the man who was the cause of it all again turned his back to the
enthusiastic audience. At this juncture, the happy thought occurred to
Unger to wheel Beethoven about towards the audience, and to ask him to
notice their applause with their waving of hats and handkerchiefs. He
testified his gratitude simply by bowing, and this was the signal for
the breaking forth of a jubilation such as had scarcely ever before
been heard in a theater, and which it seemed would never end. The next
day, we read, in his conversation leaves, what some one said to him:
“Everybody is shattered and crushed by the magnitude of your works.”
And now, what of the pecuniary success of the performance? It was
measured by about one hundred and twenty marks. The expenses attending
it had been too great. Besides, regular subscribers, entitled to their
seats in boxes, did not pay a farthing for this concert. The court did
not send in a penny, which, however, they were wont not to fail to do
on the occasion of the commonest benefits. When Beethoven reached his
home, Schindler handed him the account of the receipts. “When he saw
it, he broke down entirely. We took him and laid him on the sofa. We
remained at his side until late in the night. He asked neither for food
nor for anything else. Not an audible word did he utter. At last, when
we observed that Morpheus had gently closed his eyes, we retired. His
servant found him next morning in his concert toilette (his green dress
coat) in the same place, asleep.” This account is by Schindler, who,
together with the young official, Joseph Huettenbrenner, one of Franz
Schubert’s intimate friends, had taken him home on this occasion.
This was the first performance of the _Missa Solemnis_ (op. 123) and of
the Ninth Symphony (op. 125). It took place on the 7th of May, 1824.
The fact that when the performance was repeated on the 24th of May,
spite of the additional attraction of the “adored” tenor, David, who
sang Rossini’s _Di tanti palpiti_, (after so much pain), the house
was half empty, shows that, after all, it was more curiosity to see
the celebrated deaf man than real taste for art which had filled it
the first time. Like Mozart, Beethoven did not live long enough to
pluck even the pecuniary fruits of his genius. Not till 1845 did the
magnanimous liberality of one who was really permeated by his spirit
bring it to pass that a monument was erected to him in his native city,
Bonn, as that same liberality has brought it to pass that one has been
erected to him, in our own day, in his second home, Vienna. We have
reference to the royal gift and to the equally rich playing of Franz
Liszt.
It now became more imperative for him to give his attention to those
compositions which promised him some immediate return, to the quartets,
to write which he had received a commission from persons as noted for
their generosity to him as for their love of art. These and the op. 127
occupy the first place in this brilliant constellation of art. “I am
not writing what I should prefer to write. I am writing for the money
I need. When that end is satisfied, I hope to write what is of most
importance to myself and to art--Faust.” He thus expressed himself
when engaged in the composition of the Ninth Symphony, and there was
some talk of his writing an “Oratorio for Boston.” And so, likewise,
the German Melusine and an opera for Naples, the Requiem, the tenth
symphony, and an overture on B-A-C-H remained projects and no more. But
they were also a great prospect for the future while he was engaged in
the labors of the day; and they exercised no inconsiderable influence
on the composition of the quartets themselves. The more he became
interested in these works--and what works were better calculated to
interest a composer of such poetic power--the more did these ideas
become interwoven into the works themselves. They generated the
peculiarly grand style and the monumental character which distinguish
these last quartets. The soul-pictures from Faust especially are here
eloquently re-echoed in the most sublime monologues. And, indeed, the
Prince, who had given him the commission to write them, seemed to be
the very man to induce Beethoven to achieve what was highest and best
in art, even in such a narrow sphere. For he had so arranged it that,
even before its production in Vienna, that “sublime masterpiece,” the
Mass, was publicly performed. He informs us that the effect on the
public was indescribable; that he had never before heard anything, not
even of Mozart’s music, which had so stirred his soul; that Beethoven’s
genius was centuries in advance of his age, and that probably there
was not among his hearers a single one enlightened enough to take in
the full beauty of his music. On the other hand, there reigned in
Vienna that weak revelry of the period of the restoration, with its
idol Rossini, a revelry which had driven all noble and serious music
into the background. Besides, the Prince had ordered that the costs for
musical composition should be curtailed “to any desired sum.”
Beethoven now went to work in earnest, and this composition was
destined to be his last.
He had already made a great many drafts of the works above mentioned,
one for op. 127 in the summer of 1822, one for the succeeding quartet
in A minor (op. 131), in the year 1823, when he was completing the
Ninth Symphony. Both op. 127 and the quartet in A minor remind us, in
more ways than one, of the style of the Ninth Symphony--the latter by
its passion so full of pain, the former, with its _adagio_, where the
longing glances to the stars have generated a wonderful, melancholy
peace of soul. The immediately following third quartet (op. 130) stands
out before us like a newly created world, but one which is “not of this
world.” And, indeed, the events in Beethoven’s life became calculated
more and more to liberate him, heart and soul, from this world, and
the whole composition of the quartets appears like a preparation for
the moment when the mind, released from existence here, feels united
with a higher being. But it is not a painfully happy longing for death
that here finds expression. It is the heartfelt, certain and joyful
feeling of something really eternal and holy that speaks to us in the
language of a new dispensation. And even the pictures of the world
here to be found, be they serious or gay, have this transfigured
light--this outlook into eternity. There is little in the world of art,
in which the nature of the religious appears so fully in its substance
and essence without showing itself at any time otherwise than purely
human, and therefore imperishable--never clothed in an accidental and
perishable garb. This explains how a people not noted for any musical
genius, but who are able to understand the spirit and meaning of music,
the English, whom Beethoven himself esteemed so highly, considered
his music “so religious.” And, indeed, his music is religious in its
ultimate meaning and spirit. This character of his music finds its
purest and most striking expression in the last quartets; and these
quartets enable us to understand the saying of Richard Wagner,
Beethoven’s truest pupil and successor, that our civilization might
receive a new soul from the spirit of this music, and a renovation of
religion which might permeate it through and through.
We now pass to an account of the details of the origin of these works.
The bitterness which Beethoven was destined henceforth to taste
proceeded for the most part from his own relatives. “God is my witness,
my only dream is to get away entirely from you, from my miserable
brother, and from this despicable family which has been tied to me,”
he writes, in 1825, to his growing nephew. We cannot refrain from
touching on these sad things, because now, especially, they exercised
the greatest influence on his mind and on his pecuniary circumstances,
and because they finally led to a catastrophe which played a part in
bringing about his premature death.
His weak and “somewhat money-loving” brother, Johann, had, indeed, in
consequence of Beethoven’s own violent moral interference, married a
silly wife. He found it impossible to control her course, or even
to get a divorce from her, because he had made over to her a part of
his property, and was “inflexible” on this very point. And so the
brother was not able, spite of many invitations, to induce Beethoven
to visit him even once on his estate of Wasserhof, near Gneixendorf,
on the Danube. Ludwig wrote him, in the summer of 1823: “O accursed
shame! Have you not a spark of manhood in you? Shall I debase myself by
entering such company?” Yet, his sister-in-law was “tamed” by degrees.
But the mother of the boy continued, now that he was beginning to
mature, to draw him into her own baneful circle, and, as Beethoven
wrote in the summer of 1824, into the poisonous breath of the dragon;
and levity, falsehood and unbecoming behavior towards his uncle, who
was at the same time a father to him, followed. Carried away by the
impulses of his moral feelings, the latter was severe even to harshness
with the boy, and yet could not dispense with the young man’s company
because of his increasing age and isolation. The natural craving for
love, moral severity and the consciousness of paternal duty, wove the
texture of which our artist’s shroud was made.
The correspondence of this year, 1824, turns principally upon the
pecuniary realization from his new, great works; for he wanted to be in
London in the fall without fail. We have also a letter of his about his
will, to his lawyer, Dr. Bach, dated in the summer. He writes: “Only in
divine art is the power which gives me the strength to sacrifice to the
heavenly muses the best part of my life.” We hear also the celestial
sounds of the _adagio_, op. 127, ringing in our ears. He was himself
filled with this true “manna;” for he exclaims in these same summer
days, “Apollo and the muses will not yet allow me to be delivered over
to the hands of death, for I yet owe them what the Spirit inspires me
with and commands me to finish. I feel as if I had written scarcely a
note.” And we even now find the sketches of those pieces expressive
of a happiness more than earthly, or else, in gay irony, of contempt
for the existing world, or of the mighty building up of a new world;
the _alla danza tedesca_ and the _poco scherzando_ of op. 130, as well
as the great fugue, op. 133, which was intended to be the original
_finale_ of op. 130, and which, by its superscription, “overture”
and the gigantic strides in its theme, reminds us of the plan of the
_Bachouverture_. Even the unspeakably deep melancholy and, at the same
time, blissful, hopeful _cavatina_ of the same third quartet op. 130,
blossoms forth now from the feeling of his heart, which has taken into
itself the full meaning of the eternal, and is filled with a higher
joy. We here find, as in the last tones of Mozart’s soul, the germs of
a new and deep-felt language of the heart, a real personal language,
acquired to humanity for the expression of its deepest secrets, and
which, in our own day, has led to the most touching soul-pictures in
art--to the transfiguration of Isolde, and to Bruennhild’s dying song
of redeeming love.
A mighty seriousness overpowers him. The desolate horrors that
surround him endow him with the power to understand more clearly the
higher tasks of the mind in which his art had a living part. We see
plainly that his nature tends more and more towards the one thing
necessary--“All love is sympathy,” sympathy with the sorrows of the
world, says the philosopher. And so while his vision takes an immense
sweep over the field of existence, we see that an inexhaustible source
of patient goodness and of the kindest and most heartfelt love, springs
up within him. “From childhood up it was my greatest happiness to be
able to work for others,” he once said; and again when the overture,
op. 24, was reproduced: “I was very much praised on this account, etc.
But what is that all to the great Master of Tones above--above--above!
rightly the Most High, when here below it is used only for purposes
of ridicule. Most high dwarfs!!!” We here listen to the sublime irony
of his tones in op. 130, but also to the lustrous mildness of the
_adagio_ of op. 127, in which in the little movement in E major, the
human soul itself, filled with the spirit of the Eternal, so to speak,
opens its eyes and looks upward. “I am what is, I am all that is, that
was and that will be. No mortal man has lifted my veil. He comes from
Himself alone, and to this Only One all things owe their existence.”
Beethoven wrote out this Egyptian saying in this summer of 1824, framed
it and placed it on his writing table before him. He well knew what
the really creative and preserving deity in human life is. That deity
lived in his own most heartfelt thought and feeling. It was to him a
continual source of bliss. It inspired his pen. To it he was indebted
for the poetic creations which sprung unbidden from his brain.
The quartet in A minor, op. 132, belongs to the spring and summer of
1825. His journey to London had been postponed. Schindler gives as the
reason of this, the “bad behavior of his dearly beloved nephew, which
had become somewhat notorious.” How could his “son” be abandoned,
thus unguarded, to “the poisonous breath of the dragon?” But as the
invitation was renewed, the Tenth Symphony was again taken in hand, and
from the sketches of it now made, we know all that is certain about
it. It was intended to do no less than to add the “beautiful to the
good,” to wed the spirit of Christianity to the beauty of the antique,
or rather to transfigure the mere worldly beauty of the antique in the
light of the superterrestrial. We find, indeed, a picture of this kind,
a direct, intentional, higher picture of the world in the _adagio,
in modo lidico_, in the second quartet. It is called the “Song of
Thanksgiving of a Convalescent to the Deity,” and is a choral between
the repetitions of which, ever richer and more heartfelt, the joyful
pulsations of new life are expressed. Beethoven had been seriously
sick during this spring. His affection for his nephew had assumed, in
consequence of one continual irritation of his feelings, the nature
of a passion which tormented the boy to death, but which, like every
passion, brought no happiness to Beethoven himself. The first movement
of this quartet in A minor is a psychological picture--a poem of the
passions--the consuming character of which can be explained only by
this very condition of the artist’s own soul. And how Beethoven’s
creations always came from his own great soul, that soul so fully
capable of every shade of feeling and excitement! The account left us
by the young poet, Rellstab, written in the spring of 1825, gives us
a perfect description of the state Beethoven was in at this time. He
describes him “a man with a kindly look, but a look also of suffering.”
Beethoven’s own letters confirm the correctness of this description.
“In what part of me am I not wounded and torn?” he cries out to his
nephew, whose frivolity had already begun to bear evil fruit. On
another occasion he said: “O, trouble me no more. The man with the
scythe will not respite me much longer.”
Notwithstanding this, however, or perhaps because of this extreme
excitement of his whole nature, the summer of 1825 was very rich
in productions. “Almost in spite of himself,” he had to write the
quartet in C sharp minor (op. 131); after that in B flat major (op.
130). The last quartet also, that in F major, had its origin in that
“inexhaustible fancy”--a fancy which always tended to the production
of such works. Hence it is that the number of movements increases. The
second has five; the third (B flat major), six; and the fourth (C sharp
minor), seven--as if the old form of the suite, or the _divertimento_
of the septet was to be repeated. But a moment’s comparison immediately
shows the presence of the old organic articulation of the form of
the sonata. These movements are in fact only transitions to, and
connecting links between, two colossal movements. They increase the
usual number of movements, although frequently nothing more than short
sentences, and at times only a few measures. But the introductory
movement and the _finale_ in the quartet in A minor loom up like the
pillars of Hercules, and determine the impassioned character and the
dramatic style of the whole. Beethoven himself called it a piece of
art worthy of him. The same may be said of op. 130, when the great
fugue, op. 133, is considered a part of it, which in our day it should
always be conceded to be. And how immensely great is this spirit when,
in the quartet in C sharp minor, it awakes from the most profound
contemplation of self to the contemplation of the world and its
pain.--“Through sorrow, joy!”
We must refer the reader to the third volume of _Beethoven’s Leben_,
published in Leipzig in 1877, for a detailed account of the desolation
of our artist, produced by the narrow circle with which the restoration
of Metternich and Gentz surrounded him, at a time when his own mind and
feeling were expanding to greater dimensions than ever before. To the
same source we must send him for a description of the full earnestness
and greatness of this last period in the life of our artist. In that
work was for the first time presented to the public, from original
sources, and especially from the records of Beethoven’s written
conversations, extant in the Berlin library, the comfortless--but
at the same time, and spite of continual torment, intellectually
exalted--picture of his character. “Words are interdicted. It is a
fortunate thing that tones are yet free,” wrote Ch. Kuffner, the
poet of the oratorio, _Saul and David_, to him at this time--a work
in which he wished to give expression both to his own relation as a
human being to his “David,” and to the wonder-working nature of his
art. The execution of this plan was prevented only by death. The
general demoralization which had invaded Vienna with the Congress
made its effects felt directly in his own circle, through the agency
of his nephew, and thus paved the way for disaster to himself. “Our
age has need of vigorous minds to scourge these paltry, malicious,
miserable wretches,” he cries out at this very time to his nephew,
who had permitted himself to make merry, in a manner well calculated
to irritate, at the expense of a genuine _faijak_--as Beethoven was
wont now to call the good Viennese--the music-dealer Haslinger; and
the matter had become public. But he adds to the above: “Much as my
heart resists causing pain to a single human being.” And, indeed, his
heart knew nothing of such anger or vengeance. It was always a real
sympathizer with the sorrows born of human weakness--a sorrow which
with him swelled to the dimensions of the world-sorrow itself. To
this feeling his op. 130 in B flat major is indebted for its series
of pictures, in which we see the world created, as it were, anew
with a bold hand, with the ironic, smiling, melancholy, humorous,
cheerful coloring of the several pieces--pieces which, indeed, are
no mere sonata movements, but full pictures of life and of the soul.
The _cavatina_ overtops it as a piece of his own heart, which, as he
admitted himself to K. Holz, always drew from him “fresh tears.”
“Imitate my virtues, not my faults,” he implores his “son.” Speaking of
the rabble of domestics, he says: “I have had to suffer the whole week
like a saint;” and, on another occasion, still more painfully: “May
God be with, thee and me. It will be all over soon with thy faithful
father.” His days, so strangely divided between the loftiest visions of
the spirit and the meanest troubles of life, henceforth render him more
and more indifferent to the latter. We find persons invade his circle
whom otherwise he would never have permanently endured about him, and
who frequently led him into minor sorts of dissipation even in public
places. This reacted on the nephew, whose respect for the character of
his “great uncle” could not long stand a course of action apparently
like his own. But even now we see a picture in tones of which one of
the _faijaks_, the government officer and dilettante, Holz, who copied
it, writes to Beethoven himself: “When one can survey it thus calmly,
new worlds come into being.” We have reference to the quartet in C
sharp minor, op. 131. “With a look beaming with light, dripping with
sorrow and joy,” young Dr. Rollett saw him at this time in beautiful
Baden, and, indeed, this work, which he himself called the “greatest”
of his quartets, discloses to us, in a manner different from the
Ninth Symphony, the meaning of his own life, which he here himself, as
Richard Wagner has said, displayed to us, a wild melody of pleasure
and pain. But we now recognize more clearly that something “like a
vulture is devouring his heart.” We, indeed, are drawing near to the
catastrophe which led to his premature end.
As early as in the fall of 1825 he had witnessed “stormy scenes.”
An uncontrollable love of gaming and a habit of loitering about
the streets had led the young man into worse and worse courses,
to falsehood and embezzlement. And when these were discovered, he
secretly ran away from home. It was not long, however, before the
loving weakness of his uncle called him back. The only effect of this
was henceforth to condemn Beethoven himself to a slavish, too slavish
life, one which would have been a torment even to an ordinary mortal,
but which must have been doubly so to a passionate, great man who was
deaf. The nephew found fault with his uncle, with his “reproaches”
and “rows.” He accused him even of having led him into had company.
He dreaded other reproaches still and was afraid of even personal
violence. At last, one day in the summer of 1826, the uncle received
the frightful news that his son had left his dwelling with a pair of
pistols, and intended to take his own life. A long and terrible morning
was spent searching for the unfortunate youth, who was finally led
home, with a wound in his head, from Baden. “It’s done now. Torment me
no longer with reproofs and complaints,” he writes; and his disposition
and feeling may be inferred from the words found in his conversation
leaves: “I have grown worse, because my uncle wanted to make me
better;” and from these others: “He said it was not hatred, but a very
different feeling, that moved him against you.”
The uncle, alas! understood these expressions better than those
about him. These had only words of reproach for the reprobate deed.
“Evidences of the deepest pain were plainly to be seen in his bent
attitude. The man, firm and upright in all the movements of his body,
was gone. A person of about seventy was before us--yielding, without a
will, the sport of every breath of air.” So wrote Schindler. Beethoven
called for the Bible “in the real language into which Luther had
translated it.” A few days later, we find in his conversations the
following memorandum: “On the death of Beethoven.” Did he mean his own
death, or the death of the beloved boy with whom he had, so to speak,
lost his own life? Be this as it may, he now sang the deepest song of
his soul, and it was destined to be his dying song. We refer to the
_adagio_ in the last quartet, op. 135. His harp soon after this grew
silent, and forever. Henceforth we have only projects or fragments of
works. But he touched it once more, like King Gunther in the Edda,
“seated among serpents,” the most venomous of which--the pangs of his
own conscience--menaced him with death. Among the pictures in which he
paints the meaning of a theme similar to that of this _adagio_ (pieces
thus independent of one another cannot rightly be called variations),
there is one whose minor key and rhythm show it to be a funeral
ceremony of touching sublimity. But whatever guilt he may have incurred
he atoned for in his heart of hearts by love. Such is this picture.
His soul is free. This the theme itself tells us, eloquently and
distinctly. Here the soul, in melancholy stillness, revolves about its
own primeval source, and towards the close plumes its wing for a happy,
lofty flight, to regions it has longed to enter. The other pictures
show us this full, certain and joyful possession of one’s self, and the
last even seems to resolve the soul into its faculties when it floats
about the Eternal Being in the most blissful happiness--a vision and
condition which, of all the means of expression of the intellect, only
music is able to describe, and which proves to us that, in the case of
our artist, both fear and death had long been overcome.
And thus it comes that a movement with which there is none to be
compared, one which to our feelings is the richest and most perfect
of all movements, and, at the same time, of the most brilliant
transparency, made its way into a work which otherwise shows no trace
of the magnitude of this his last effort. For the _finale_ is only a
sham-play of those magic powers which our master so well knew how to
conjure up, both in sublime horror and in saving joy.
But his physical condition was soon destined to be in keeping with
the condition of his soul above described. When, indeed, Karl was
convalescing as well as could be desired, and he had decided to follow
the military calling, Beethoven’s friends noticed that, externally at
least, he again looked fresh and cheerful. “He knew,” says Schindler,
“how to rise superior to his fate, and his whole character bore an
‘antique dignity.’” But even now he told the old friend of his youth,
Wegeler, that he intended “to produce only a few more great works,
and then, like an old child, to close his earthly career somewhere
among good men.” And, indeed, his whole inner nature seemed shattered.
“What dost thou want? Why dost thou hang thy head? Is not the truest
resignation sufficient for thee, even if thou art in want?” This one
conversation with Karl tells us everything.
Besides, serious symptoms of disease appeared. A single blow, and his
powerful, manly form was shattered like that of the meanest of mortals.
And, indeed, that blow was struck with almost unexpected violence.
After his recovery, Karl was released by the police on the express
condition that he would remain in Vienna only one day more. His scar,
however, prevented his entering the service. Where, then, could he go,
now that the fall was just beginning? His brother, Johann, invited him
to his Wasserhof estate near Gneixendorf. He could no longer answer
as he had once: _non possibile per me_--impossible for me. But his
sojourn in a country house not constructed so as to guard against
the cold and dampness, a want of attention to his growing infirmity,
misunderstandings with his brother’s wife, a violent quarrel with
the brother himself, who, after it, refused him the use of his close
carriage, and, lastly, his departure in the cold of winter in the
“devil’s own worst conveyance.” All these causes conspired to send
our patient back to Vienna, the subject of a violent fit of sickness.
In addition to all this, his nephew delayed to call a physician, and
none visited his sick bed until the third day after his return. The
doctor who came was not Beethoven’s customary physician, and totally
misunderstood the nature of the disease. Other shocks succeeded, and
the consequence was a violent attack of dropsy, the symptoms of which
had first shown themselves in Gneixendorf.
His long, painfully long end was now beginning. His constitution,
powerful as that of a giant, “blocked the gates against death” for
nearly three months. As labor of any kind was out of the question, the
arrival of Handel’s works from London, which came to him as a present,
supplied him with the distraction he wished for, in his own sphere. It
was not long before attacks of suffocation at night distressed him and
it became necessary to perform the operation paracentesis. When he saw
the stream of water gush forth, he remarked, with that sublimity of
humor so peculiarly his own, that the surgeon reminded him of Moses,
who struck the rock with his rod; but, in the same humorous vein, he
added: “Better water from the stomach than from the pen.” With this he
consoled himself. But he grew worse, and a medical consultation seemed
necessary to his friends. His own heart forebode him no good, and he
again made his will on the 3rd of January, 1827. He made his beloved
nephew “sole heir to all he possessed.” The nephew had gone to join
his regiment the day before, and this had a good and quieting effect
on Beethoven. He knew that the young man would be best provided for
there, and testified his gratitude to General von Stutterheim, who had
received him, by dedicating to that officer his quartet in C sharp
minor--his “greatest” quartet. He urged that Dr. Malfatti should be
called. But he had had a falling out years before with him, and the
celebrated physician did not now want to excite the displeasure of his
colleagues. Schindler tells us: “Beethoven wept bitterly when I told
him the doctor’s decision.”
But Malfatti came at last, and, after they had exchanged a few words,
the old friends lay weeping in each other’s arms. The doctor prescribed
iced punch to “quicken the organs of digestion, enervated by too much
medicine.” The first physician who was called to attend him tells
us: “The effect of the prescription was soon perceptible. He grew
cheerful, was full of witty sallies at times, and even dreamt that
he might be able to finish his oratorio _Saul and David_.” From his
written conversations, we see that a great many of his friends had
gathered about his bed. He thought of finishing the Bach overture for
one of Schindler’s concerts, and even began to busy himself with the
Tenth Symphony once more. He had again to experience the feeling of
pecuniary embarrassment while in this condition--an embarrassment now
more painful than ever--brought about more especially by the necessity
of procuring a military outfit for Karl. Gallitizin had, indeed,
expressly promised a short time before to send him money, but he proved
a “princely boaster;” and there was no prospect of an income from any
other source. All his completed works had been sold, and the little
fortune he had laid aside at the time of the Congress of Vienna was
irrevocably pledged to Karl by his will.
His thoughts now turned to the “magnanimous” English, who had already
promised him a “benefit.” His disease lasted a long time. The third
operation had been performed. His long-continued solitude had alienated
men from him in Vienna; and, especially after his experiences with the
_Akademie_ in 1824, he had no confidence in the devotion and enthusiasm
for art of his second home. This induced Schindler to write to England:
“But what afflicts him very much is, that no one here concerns himself
in the least about him; and, indeed, this total absence of interest in
him is very surprising.” After this, we find only his most intimate
friends at his bedside. Among these was Gleichenstein, who happened to
be in Vienna on a short visit. He writes: “Thou must bless my boy as
Voltaire blessed Franklin’s son.” Hummel, who was traveling and giving
concerts, also saw him, and at the sight of his suffering--he had just
undergone the fourth operation--burst into tears. Beethoven had, at the
moment of Hummel’s visit, received a little picture as a present, and
he showed it to him, saying: “See, my dear Hummel, the house in which
Haydn was born--the miserable peasant hut, in which so great a man was
born!”
He asks his Rhenish publisher, Schott, who had purchased his Mass and
his Ninth Symphony, and who was destined one day to become the owner
of the _Niebelungen_, for some old wine to strengthen him. Malfatti
recommended an aromatic bath; and such a bath, it seemed to him, would
surely save him. But it had the very opposite effect, and he was soon
taken with violent pains. He wrote to London: “I only ask God that
I may be preserved from want as long as I must here endure a living
death.” The response was one thousand guldens from the Philharmonic
Society of that city “on account of the concert in preparation.” “It
was heart-rending to see how he folded his hands and almost dissolved
in tears of joy and gratitude” when he received them. This was his
last joy, and the excitement it caused accelerated his end. His wound
broke open again and did not close any more. He felt this at first a
wonderful relief, and while he felt so he dictated some letters for
London, which are among the most beautiful he has written. He promised
to finish the Tenth Symphony for the Society, and had other “gigantic”
plans, especially as regards his Faust music. “That will be something
worth hearing,” he frequently exclaimed. The overflow of his fancy was
“indescribable, and his imagination showed an elasticity which his
friends had noticed but seldom when he was in health.” At the same
time, the most beautiful pictures of dramatic poetry floated before
his mind, and in conversation he always represented his own works
as filled with such “poetic ideas.” But his sufferings soon became
“indescribably great. His dissolution was approaching” with giant
steps, and even his friends could only wish for his end. Schindler
wrote to London on the 24th March: “He feels that his end is near, for
yesterday he said to Breuning and me: ‘Clap your hands, friends; the
play is over.’” And further: “He advances towards death with really
Socratic wisdom and unexampled equanimity.” He could well be calm of
heart and soul. He had done his duty as an artist and as a man. This
same day he wrote a codicil to his will in favor of his nephew; and now
his friends had only one deep concern--to reconcile him with heaven.
The physician approved, and Beethoven calmly but resolutely answered:
“I will.”
The clergyman came and Beethoven devoutly performed his last religious
duties. Madame Johann van Beethoven heard him say, after he had
received the sacrament: “Reverend sir, I thank you. You have brought me
consolation.”
He then reminded Schindler of the letter to London, “May God bless
them,” he said. The wine he had asked for came. “Too bad! too bad! it’s
too late!” These were his very last words. He fell immediately after
into such an agony that he was not able to utter a single syllable
more. On the 24th and 25th of March, the people came in crowds to see
him again. Even the _faijaks_, Hoslinger and Holz, as well as the poet
Castelli, were among them. “All three of us knelt before his bed,” said
Holz, subsequently, to Frau Linzbaur, who, in relating the incident,
added that when Holz told it “his voice forsook him, and he covered his
face and wept. ‘He blessed us,’ he said, with an effort; ‘we kissed his
hand, but never saw him again.’” This was the last act of his life.
“On the 26th, the little pyramidal clock, which he had received as a
present from Princess Christiane Lichnowsky, stopped, as it still does
when a storm is approaching. Schindler and Breuning had gone to the
churchyard, to select a grave for him. A storm of loud thunder and
hail came raging on about five o’clock. No one but Frau van Beethoven
and the young composer, Anselm Huettenbrenner, who had hurried hither
from Graz to look upon his revered master once more, were present in
the room of the dying man. A stroke of lightning illuminated it with a
lurid flash. The moribund opened his eyes, raised his right hand, and
looked up with a fixed gaze for several seconds: the soul of the hero
would not out. But when his uplifted hand fell back on the bed, his
eyes half closed. Not another breath! Not another heart-beat! It was I
that closed the half-open eyes of the sleeper.” So says Huettenbrenner,
an eye-witness of our artist’s last moment. This was the 28th of March,
1827.
“No mourning wife, no son, no daughter, wept at his grave, but a
world wept at it.” These are the words of the orator of the day on
the occasion of the unveiling of the first monument to Beethoven in
1845, in Bonn. But his funeral on that beautiful day in spring was
a very brilliant one. A sea of twenty thousand human beings surged
over the street where now the votive church stands; for in the
_Schwarzspanierhaus_ behind it, Beethoven had lived during the last
years of his life. The leading _capellmeisters_ of the city carried
the pall, and writers and musicians the torches.
“The news of his death had violently shaken the people out of their
indifference,” says Dr. G. von Breuning. And, indeed, it was, as a
poor old huxtress exclaimed when she saw the funeral procession, “the
general of musicians” whom men were carrying to the grave! The poet,
Grillparzer, delivered the funeral oration. He took for his text the
words: “He was an artist, and he was what he was only through his art.”
Our very being and our sublimest feelings are touched when we hear the
name of
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] To part from thee, my dear, this day,
And know that I can’t with thee stay,
Is more than my sad heart can bear.
TALES FROM FOREIGN TONGUES,
COMPRISING
=MEMORIES;= A STORY OF GERMAN LOVE.
BY MAX MÜLLER.
=GRAZIELLA;= A STORY OF ITALIAN LOVE.
BY A. DE LAMARTINE.
=MARIE;= A STORY OF RUSSIAN LOVE.
BY ALEX. PUSHKIN.
=MADELEINE;= A STORY OF FRENCH LOVE.
BY JULES SANDEAU.
_In neat box, per set_, _Price, $3.00._
_Sold separately, per volume_, _Price, $1.25._
Of “Memories” the London _Academy_ says: “It is a prose poem. * * * It
is seldom that a powerful intellect produces any work, however small,
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Of “Graziella” the Chicago _Tribune_ says: “It glows with love of
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‘Graziella’ is a book to be loved.”
Of “Marie” the Cincinnati _Gazette_ says: “This is a Russian love tale,
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Of “Madeleine” the New York _Evening Telegram_ says: “More than thirty
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“_It ought to be in the hands of every scholar and of every
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Tales of Ancient Greece.
BY THE REV. SIR G. W. COX, BART., M.A.,
Trinity College, Oxford.
_12mo., extra cloth, black and gilt_, _Price, $1.50._
“Written apparently for young readers, it yet possesses a charm of
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“It is only when we take up such a book as this, that we realize how
rich in interest is the mythology of Greece.”--_Inquirer, Philadelphia._
“Admirable in style, and level with a child’s comprehension. These
versions might well find a place in every family.”--_The Nation, New
York._
“The author invests these stories with a charm of narrative entirely
peculiar. The book is a rich one in every way.”--_Standard, Chicago._
“In Mr. Cox will be found yet another name to be enrolled among those
English writers who have vindicated for this country an honorable rank
in the investigation of Greek history.”--_Edinburgh Review._
“It is doubtful if these tales, antedating history in their origin,
and yet fresh with all the charms of youth to all who read them for
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“The grace with which these old tales of the mythology are re-told
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SHORT HISTORY OF FRANCE,
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.
BY MISS E. S. KIRKLAND.
AUTHOR OF “SIX LITTLE COOKS,” “DORA’S HOUSEKEEPING,” ETC.
_12 mo., extra cloth, black and gilt_, _Price $1.50._
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appeared.”--_Bulletin, Philadelphia._
“A book both instructive and entertaining. It is not a dry compendium
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Union, New York._
“After a careful examination of its contents, we are able to
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“A spirited and entertaining sketch of the French people and
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“We find its descriptions universally good, that it is admirably simple
and direct in style, without waste of words or timidity of opinion.
The book represents a great deal of patient labor and conscientious
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“Miss Kirkland has composed her ‘Short History of France’ in the way
in which a history for young people ought to be written; that is, she
has aimed to present a consecutive and agreeable story, from which the
reader can not only learn the names of kings and the succession of
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characters, modes of life, and the spirit of different periods.”--_The
Nation, N. Y._
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“_Unequalled by anything of the kind with which we are acquainted._”
--_Christian Advocate, N. Y._
CUMNOCK’S CHOICE READINGS.
FOR PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENT. ARRANGED FOR THE EXERCISES OF
THE SCHOOL AND COLLEGE AND PUBLIC READER, WITH ELOCUTIONARY ADVICE.
EDITED BY ROBERT MC’LAIN CUMNOCK, A. M., PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND
ELOCUTION, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY.
_Large 12mo., cloth_, _Price, $1.75._
“It ought to become a special favorite among school and college
students and public readers.”--_Evening Post, New York._
“Taking into account the admirable type, the excellent taste, the
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Register, Boston._
“Among the multitude of books issued for the same purpose during the
past ten years, we know of none so complete in all respects and so
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us.”--_Transcript, Boston._
“No choicer casket of prose and poetry has been given to us by any
other author. These are the culled flowers from the bouquet of
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“Nearly 200 selections from the best prose and poetical literature of
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elocution. * * * The collection is valuable as a treasury of literary
gems, apart from its worth as a manual of declamation.”--_Tribune,
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“The volume consists in great measure of fresh specimens that have
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of the day.”--_Tribune, New York._
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“_Dr. Gibson is a champion of more than ordinary skill._”--Gazette,
Cincinnati.
THE FOUNDATIONS
OF
CHRISTIANITY.
BY REV. J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D.,
Author of “AGES BEFORE MOSES.”
_Square 16 mo._, _Price, $1.00._
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“The book, both in manner and matter, will be found to be just the
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“The book will be read with genuine interest by any one who
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“Dr. Gibson’s book, though so condensed, is admirable in method,
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Evangelist._
“The treatment is masterly. The author grapples the points essential
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the enemy’s position.”--_Rev. Dr. J. A. Smith, in the Standard._
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“_An exceedingly interesting narrative of an extraordinary life._”--The
Standard.
LIFE OF BENEDICT ARNOLD:
HIS PATRIOTISM AND HIS TREASON.
BY HON. I. N. ARNOLD,
AUTHOR OF “LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.”
_Crown, 8vo., with Portrait_, _Price, $2.50._
This Life of Arnold is full of new facts, now first given to the
public. Manuscripts from the family of Arnold, in England and in
Canada, and the Shippen manuscripts, have enabled the author to make
new contributions to Revolutionary history of great interest. The
unpublished manuscripts of General Schuyler, to which the author has
had access, has thrown new light upon the expedition to Canada and the
campaign against Burgoyne. The author does not, to any extent, excuse
Arnold’s treason, but aims to do full justice to him as a soldier and
patriot. For Arnold, the traitor, he has no plea but “guilty;” for
Arnold, the soldier and patriot, he asks a hearing and justice.
“The biographer discriminates fairly between Arnold’s patriotism and
baseness; and while exhibiting the former and the splendid services by
which it was illustrated, with generous earnestness, does not in any
degree extenuate the turpitude of the other.”--_Harper’s Monthly._
“The public is the gainer (by this book), as additional light is
thrown on the prominent actors and events of history. * * * Bancroft
erroneously asserts that Arnold was not present at the first battle
of Saratoga. Upon this point the author has justice and right on his
side, and to Arnold, rather than to Gates, the success of this decisive
campaign seems greatly attributable.”--_New England Historical and
Genealogical Register._
“After a careful perusal of the work, it seems to us that Mr. Arnold
has accomplished his task wonderfully well. * * * It is rarely that one
meets in the pages of biographical literature a nobler woman than was
the devoted wife of Benedict Arnold; she mourned his fallen greatness,
but even in his ignominity was faithful to the vows by which she had
sworn to love and care for him until death.”--_Traveller, Boston._
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Superscripted text is preceded by a carat character: 81^a.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.