On his arrival at Vienna he bought clothing and took dancing lessons, that
he might be an acceptable guest in houses to which he was recommended by
Count Waldstein. He never was able to dance, by the way, for he could not
keep step to the music. The 12th of December, he recorded the fact that
he had only about $35. The Elector, fearing hard times, did not fulfill
his first promises. Beethoven took a garret,--and afterwards moved to
a room on the ground-floor--in a printer's house in the Alservorstadt;
there he began a student-life of three years. He took lessons of Haydn,
and although they drank coffee and chocolate at Beethoven's expense,
the lessons were unsatisfactory. Haydn looked on the pupil as a musical
atheist, who had not the fear of Fux before his eyes, and the pupil
thought that Haydn was not diligent and that he did not correct carefully
his mistakes. "It is true he gave me lessons," he once said to Ries,
"but he taught me nothing." Then he took secretly lessons of Schenk,
and when Haydn went to London in 1794, he put himself under the rigid
disciplinarian Albrechtsberger. He studied with Salieri the art of
writing for the voice and the stage. He also took lessons on the viola,
violin, violoncello, clarinet and horn. There were a few exceptions, but
Beethoven was unpopular with his masters. They considered him obstinate
and arrogant. Haydn spoke of him as "the great Mogul"; Albrechtsberger
once said, "He has learned nothing, and will never do anything in decent
style." Nor was Beethoven's continual "_I_ say it is right" calculated to
win the affection of his masters.
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN AND MOZART.
Reproduced from a photograph of a painting in which the two composers are
not faithfully represented, as may be seen by referring to authenticated
portraits.]
Meanwhile Beethoven made influential friends. Vienna at that time numbered
about 250,000 inhabitants. The life was gay, even frivolous. Reichardt
considered the city a most agreeable dwelling place for musicians. "You
find there a rich, educated, and hospitable aristocracy, devoted to music;
the middle class is wealthy and intelligent; and the common people,
jolly and good-natured, have always a song in the mouth." Princes hired
orchestra and singers for their own theatres. Others had musicians in
their employment, and even those in moderate circumstances retained an
organist or pianist. These Viennese were the patrons of composers who
wrote especially for them. In common with other South Germans they were
pleased with music that appealed to the heart rather than to the brain,
and the neighborhood of Italy influenced their melodies and taste. This
influence was also marked in the sympathetic performance of the Vienna
players, for the abandon and the swing were opposed to the rigidity of
Northern orchestras. The amateurs were many and of the noblest families.
There was Van Swieten who bowed the knee to Handel; Count Kinsky, whose
son was in after years the devoted friend of Beethoven; Prince Lobkowitz,
who played the violin and spent his fortune in the pursuit of musical
pleasure; the Esterhazy family; Von Rees and Von Meyer; and princes and
counts without number, in whose houses symphonies, oratorios, and chamber
music were performed from manuscript. Public concerts were then rare. The
court opera house was devoted to Italian opera; at the Theatre Marinelli
German operettas were seen; at the theatre _an der Wien_, farces and
operettas were given. The chief composers in Vienna were Haydn, Salieri,
Weizl, Schenk, Süssmayr, Wranitzky, Kozeluch, Förster, Eberl and Vanhall.
Two of the warmest friends of Beethoven were the Prince Lichnowsky and his
wife, formerly the Countess of Thun. They mourned the death of Mozart, and
saw in Haydn's pupil a possible successor. In 1794 they took Beethoven
to their house and humored him and petted him. They were childless, and
their affection was spent on the rude, hot-tempered, trying young man.
The princess saw through the rugged exterior, and the stories of her
tact and forbearance are many. "She would have put me in a glass case
that no evil might come nigh me," said the composer in after years. In
their palace Beethoven was free in action and in dress. He studied or
gave lessons by day, and at night he was associated with the Schuppanzigh
quartet--afterward the Rasoumoffsky quartet--the members of which met
every Friday at Lichnowsky's house.
At this time he was chiefly known as a virtuoso, and his first appearance
in public was March 29, 1795, in a concert at the Burgtheatre for the
benefit of the widows of the Society of Musicians. An oratorio by
Cartellieri was given, and Beethoven played his pianoforte concerto in C
major, which was published six years after as Op. 15. At rehearsal there
was a difference of half a tone between the pitch of the pianoforte and
that of the orchestral instruments, and the composer played the concerto
in C sharp major. In the same year he made a contract with Artaria for
the publication of his first three pianoforte trios. Two hundred and
forty-two copies were subscribed for, and the composer netted about $400,
a respectable sum at that time, especially for the early works of a young
man.
In 1796 Beethoven went to Nuremberg, where he met his Bonn friends, the
Breuning brothers, and for some reason not clearly known, they were
arrested at Linz by the police, but were quickly released. On his return
to Vienna he busied himself in overseeing the publication of sonatas
(Op. 2), minuets and variations. His brothers were in the city. Johann,
"tall, black, handsome, a complete dandy," found a place in an apothecary
shop. Caspar, "small, red-haired, ugly," gave music lessons. In February
Beethoven was in Prague and in Berlin, the only occasion on which he
visited "the Athens of the Spree." Frederick William II. was gracious to
him, heard him play, and gave him a snuff-box filled with gold pieces;
"not an ordinary box," as Beethoven proudly said when he showed it, "but
such a one as they give to ambassadors." Beethoven also met Prince Louis
Ferdinand and complimented him by saying, "you play like an artist, not
like a prince." He jeered at Himmel's improvisation, and Himmel in turn
persuaded him that a lantern had been invented for the benefit of the
blind. He saw Fasch and Zelter. When he returned to Vienna the talk was of
Napoleon conquering in Italy.
In 1797 Beethoven, through imprudent exposure when he was heated,
contracted a dangerous illness, and Zmeskall relates that it "eventually
settled in the organs of hearing." He worked at his trade. He entered
into a contest with Wölfl, a virtuoso of remarkable technique, and they
vied with each other in friendly spirit; whereas in a similar and later
trial of skill between Beethoven and Steibelt, the latter sulked at the
power of his rival. In 1798 he met Prince Rasumowsky, Count Browne,
Rudolphe Kreutzer (who introduced him to Bernadotte, the suggestor of
the "Heroic" symphony and the French ambassador), and in the following
year he saw Dragonetti, the great player of the double-bass, who without
doubt influenced him in his treatment of that instrument, and Cramer the
pianist. The few recorded events of the next years are chiefly connected
with music. The septet and first symphony were produced in 1800, and
April 2 of the same year Beethoven gave the first concert in Vienna for
his own benefit. He had left the palace of Prince Lichnowsky and lodged
at No. 241 "im tiefen Graben." In the fall he went into the country, the
first instance of what was afterward his settled custom. We know of no
publication of music by Beethoven in 1800. He finished the first symphony,
the septet (which he disliked), the string quartets Op. 18, the C-minor
concerto Op. 37, the sonata Op. 22, and other works of less importance,
including the horn sonata for Punto. Czerny, ten years old, met him some
time in this year, and he has left a curious description of him, although
it was written years after the meeting. He mentions the "desert of a
room--bare walls--paper and clothes scattered about--scarcely a chair
except the rickety one before the pianoforte. Beethoven was dressed in a
dark gray jacket and trousers of some long-haired material which reminded
me of the description of Robinson Crusoe. The jet-black hair stood upright
on his head. A beard, unshaven for several days, made still darker his
naturally swarthy face. He had in both ears cotton wool which seemed to
have been dipped in some yellow fluid. His hands were covered with hair,
and the fingers were very broad, especially at the tips."
In 1801 he was feeling well and he worked hard. His ballet "Prometheus"
was given March 28 with success. He changed his lodgings and dwelt in the
Sailer-Staette, where he could look over the town-ramparts. When the days
lengthened, he went to Hetzendorf, near the shaded gardens of Schönbrunn,
modelled after Versailles. "I live only in my music," he wrote Wegeler,
"and no sooner is one thing done than the next is begun; I often work at
three and four things at once." "The Mount of Olives"; the violin sonatas
in A minor and F; the string quintet in C; the pianoforte sonatas, Op. 26,
27, 28, were completed in this year, and other works were sketched. The
so-called "Moonlight Sonata" brings before us Giuletta Guicciardi, to whom
it was dedicated, and the romance connected with her.
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN LEADING THE PERFORMANCE OF ONE OF HIS QUARTETS.
Reproduced from a photograph of a painting in which the scene is
idealized.]
The noble women of Vienna were fond of Beethoven; to say they adored him
would not be extravagant. They went to his lodgings or they received
him at their palaces. Even his rudeness fascinated them; they forgave
him if he roared angrily at a lesson, or tore the music in pieces; they
were not offended if he used the snuffers as a tooth-pick. He, too, was
constantly in love, but there is no reason to doubt that his attachments
were honorable. "Oh God! let me at last find her who is destined to be
mine, and who shall strengthen me in virtue," was his prayer. Yet Wegeler
says, that he fancied himself a Lovelace and irresistible. He paraded his
attachments in dedications. There was the beautiful Hungarian Countess,
Babette de Keglevics; the Countess Therese of Brunswick; Baroness Ertmann,
the Countess Erdödy; and there were many others. In lesser station was
Christine Gherardi, and there was Madeleine Willman, the singer, who, it
is said, refused Beethoven's hand because he was "ugly and half-mad."
But his passion for the woman Giuletta Guicciardi was deep-rooted, and
it deserves more than passing notice. Her family came originally from
the Duchy of Modena, and in 1800 her father went to Vienna, an Imperial
Counsellor. She was in her seventeenth year, with dark blue eyes, waving
brown hair, classic features, and a stately carriage. She was then as
good as betrothed to Count Gallenberg, an impressario and a composer of
ballets, whom she married in 1803. After Beethoven's death letters of an
incoherent and a fiery nature were found in a secret drawer, and it was
supposed that they were addressed to the Guicciardi until the ruthless
examination of them by Thayer. She herself made light of the dedication
by telling Jahn in later years that Beethoven gave her the Rondo in G,
but wishing to dedicate something to Princess Lichnowsky, he gave her the
sonata instead. Beethoven, when he was very deaf, wrote in bad French to
his friend Schindler (for his conversation was necessarily at the time in
writing) that he was loved by her; that he raised money for her husband;
and that when she returned to Vienna from Italy, she looked Beethoven
up and wept; but he despised her. The reader who wishes to investigate
the subject and read of her strange adventures with Prince Hermann
Pückler-Muskau, even though illusions be thereby dispelled, is referred to
the chapter "Julia Guicciardi" in "Neue Musikalische Charakterbilder" by
Otto Gumprecht (Leipsic, 1876).
And in this year, 1801, the deafness, which began with violent noise in
his ears, grew on him. In a letter to Wegeler, in which he speaks of a
pension of about $240, from Lichnowsky, he tells of his infirmities. He
connected the deafness with abdominal troubles, with "frightful colic."
He went from doctor to doctor. He tried oil of almonds and cold and warm
baths. Pills and herbs and blisters were of little avail. He inquired into
galvanic remedies. Zmeskall persuaded him to visit Father Weiss, monk and
quack. Discouraged, he still had the bravery to write, "I will as far as
possible defy my fate, though there must be moments when I shall be the
most miserable of God's creatures... I will grapple with fate; it shall
never drag me down." At the same time in telling his sorrow to Carl Amenda
he swore him solemnly to secrecy.
Dr. Schmidt sent him in 1802 to Heiligenstadt, a lonely village, and there
he wrote the famous letter known as "Beethoven's Will," addressed to his
brothers, to be opened after his death (see page 331). It is possible
that this letter full of gloom and distress was only the expression of
momentary depression. The music of this same year is cheerful, if not
absolutely joyous--the Symphony in D, for example--and on his return to
Vienna he wrote letters of mad humor. He changed his lodgings to the
Peters-Platz, in the heart of the city, where he was between the bells
of two churches. He corrected publishers' proofs, and was "hoarse with
stamping and swearing" on account of the errors, "swarming like fish in
the sea." He quarreled with his brother Caspar, who interfered in his
dealings with publishers and brought to light compositions of boyhood.
In April, 1803, a concert was given, the program of which included "The
Mount of Olives," the Symphony in D, and the pianoforte concerto in C
minor, with the composer as pianist. The so-called "Kreutzer Sonata" for
violin and pianoforte, written for the half-breed Bridgetower, was heard
this year; there was a quarrel, and the now famous work was dedicated to
R. Kreutzer, who was in the train of Bernadotte. In the summer, Beethoven
went to Baden near Vienna, and to Oberdöbling, but before he left the
city he talked with Schikaneder about an opera for the theatre "_An der
Wien_." He had also changed his lodgings again and moved to the said
theatre with Caspar. The rest of the year, however, was chiefly given to
the composition of the "Heroic" symphony, which was suggested to him in
1798 by Bernadotte. It is true that he went much in society, associating
with painters and officials, and with the Abbé Vogler; he also began
correspondence with Thomson, the music publisher of Edinburg, concerning
sonatas on Scotch themes. At the beginning of 1804, he was obliged to seek
new quarters, and he roomed with his old friend Stephen Breuning in the
Rothe Haus. At first they had separate sets of rooms; they then thought
it would be cheaper to live together. Beethoven neglected to notify the
landlord, and he was liable for the two suites. Hence hot words and a
rupture. The breach was afterwards healed, but Breuning, who apparently
behaved admirably, wrote in a letter to Wegeler of Beethoven's "excitable
temperament, his habit of distrusting his best friends, and his frequent
indecision. Rarely indeed, does his old true nature now allow itself to
be seen." At Döbling he worked at the Waldstein Sonata and the Op. 54.
The "Bonaparte" Symphony was finished, and, according to Lichnowsky, the
title-page bore simply the inscription "Buonaparte," and the name "Luigi
van Beethoven." Beethoven had unbounded admiration for Napoleon as long as
he was First Consul, and he compared him often with illustrious Romans,
but when the Corsican made himself Emperor of the French, the composer
burst into violent reproaches and tore in pieces the title page of the
Symphony. When the work was published in 1806, the title announced the
fact that it was written "to celebrate the memory of a great man"; and
when Napoleon was at St. Helena, Beethoven once cried out, "Did I not
foresee the catastrophe when I wrote the funeral march in the Symphony?"
When he went back to Vienna for the winter, he lodged in a house of Baron
Pasqualati on the Mölker-Bastion; these rooms were kept for him, even when
he occasionally moved for a season.
In 1805 Baron von Braun took Schikaneder as manager of the "_An der
Wien_," and they made Beethoven an offer for an opera. The story of
Leonora suited the composer, although Bouilly's text had been already set
by Gaveaux and Paer; he worked diligently at his rooms in the theatre, and
later in the fields of Hetzendorf. In the summer he went to Vienna to see
Cherubini. In the fall the operatic rehearsal began. The singers and the
orchestra rebelled at difficulties. The composer was vexed and angry. For
the first time he welcomed deafness. He did not wish to hear his music
"bungled." "The whole business of the opera is the most distressing thing
in the world." The first performance was November 20th, 1805. Anna Milder,
to whom Haydn said, "You have a voice like a house," was the heroine.
Louise Müller was _Marcelline_; Demmer, _Florestan_; Meyer, _Pizarro_;
Weinkopf, _Don Fernando_; Caché, _Jaquino_; Rothe, _Rocco_. The opera
was then in three acts, and the overture seems to have been "Leonora No.
II." The time was unfavorable. The French entered Vienna the 13th of
November; Napoleon was at Schönbrunn; nearly all of the wealthy and noble
patrons of Beethoven had fled the town. The opera was played three nights
and then withdrawn--a failure. It was revised, shortened, and with the
overture "Leonora No. III.," it was again performed March 29, 1806, and
the reception was warmer. It was played April 10th. Beethoven and Braun
quarreled, and Vienna did not hear "Fidelio" for seven or eight years.
Parts of the pianoforte concerto in G and of the C-minor symphony, as well
as the two last of the Rasoumoffsky string quartets Op. 59 were composed
at this time.
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN.