The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III (of 3), by Alexander Wheelock Thayer This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III (of 3) Author: Alexander Wheelock Thayer Translator: Henry Edward Krehbiel Release Date: August 29, 2013 [EBook #43593] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF BEETHOVEN, VOL III *** Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries and Google Print.)

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[i]

THE LIFE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

VOLUME III

[ii]

[iii]

The Life of

Ludwig van Beethoven

By Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Edited, revised and amended from the original English manuscript and the German editions of Hermann Deiters and Hugo Riemann, concluded, and all the documents newly translated

By

Henry Edward Krehbiel

Volume III

Published by

The Beethoven Association

New York

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SECOND PRINTING

Copyright, 1921,

By Henry Edward Krehbiel

From the press of G. Schirmer, Inc., New York

Printed in the U. S. A.

[v]

Contents of Volume III

PAGE Chapter I. The Year 1819—Guardianship of Beethoven’s Nephew Karl—Mother and Uncle in a Legal Struggle—The Lad’s Education—Conversation Books—A Wedding Song—In Travail with the Mass in D—The Commission for an Oratorio from the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde —Visits from Zelter and Friedrich Schneider—Creative Work of the Year 1 Chapter II. End of the Litigation over the Guardianship of the Nephew—A Costly Victory—E. T. A. Hoffmann—An Analytical Programme—Beethoven’s Financial Troubles—Adagios and English Hymn-Tunes—Stieler’s Portrait—Arrested as a Vagrant—Negotiations for the Mass in D begun with Simrock—The Last Pianoforte Sonatas—Compositions of the Years 1820 and 1821 24 Chapter III. The Year 1822—The Mass in D—Beethoven and His Publishers—Simrock—Schlesinger—C. F. Peters—Phantom Masses—Johann van Beethoven: His Appearance and Character—Becomes His Brother’s Agent—Meetings with Rochlitz and Rossini—Franz Schubert—“The Consecration of the House”—Revival of “Fidelio”—Madame Schroeder-Devrient—The Bagatelles—A Commission from America 51 [vi] Chapter IV. The Year 1823—The Roman Ritual and the Mass in D—Subscriptions Asked from Royal Courts—Incidents of the Appeal—Goethe and Cherubini Enlisted as Agents—A Medal from the King of France—Further Negotiations with Publishers and Societies—Operatic Projects—Consideration of Grillparzer’s “Melusine”—The Diabelli Variations—Summer Visitors—An Englishman’s Story—Weber and Julius Benedict—Ries and the Ninth Symphony—Franz Liszt and Beethoven’s Kiss 89 Chapter V. The Year 1824—The Symphony in D Minor—Its Technical History—The Choral Finale and Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”—First Performance of the Work and Portions of the Mass—An Address to Beethoven—Laborious and Protracted Preparations for the Concert—A Financial Failure—Beethoven’s False Accusations against Friends and Helpers Drive Them from the Dinner-Table 144 Chapter VI. Incidents and Labors of the Year 1824—A Truce with the Hated Sister-in-Law—The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde ’s Oratorio—Bernard’s Libretto—The Society Forgives Beethoven His Debt and Elects Him an Honorary Member—Book of “The Victory of the Cross”—Summer Sojourn at Penzing Interrupted by Curious Visitors—The London Philharmonic Society Receives the Symphony in D Minor—Further Negotiations for the Mass—New Publishers—Probst—Schott and Sons—A Visitor from London—Beethoven’s Opinion of His Predecessors—The Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127—Trip to England Determined Upon 170 Chapter VII. The Year 1825. The Invitation from the Philharmonic Society of London—The Ninth Symphony Performed at Aix-la-Chapelle—Mass and Symphony Delivered to Schott and Sons—Unpleasant Results of an Attempted Joke on Haslinger—Beethoven and a Copyist—The String Quartet in E-flat Taken Away from Schuppanzigh after a First Performance—Karl Holz—Beethoven Authorizes Him to Write the History of His Life—Early Biographers—Visits of Rellstab, Kuhlau, Smart and Others—Sir George Smart’s Recollections—Dedication of the Mass in D—Stephan von Breuning—Wegeler asks Beethoven to Defend the Honor of His Mother—The Quartets in A Minor and B-flat 186 [vii] Chapter VIII. A Year of Sickness and Sorrow—The Last String Quartets—Wolfmayer Commissions a “Requiem” and Pays in Advance—Many Works in petto—Controversy with Prince Galitzin and His Son—The Fugue in the B-flat Quartet—“ Muss es sein? ”—Dedication of the Ninth Symphony—The King of Prussia and His Gift of a Dubious Diamond—Abbé Stadler—Beethoven Defends Mozart’s “Requiem”—Friedrich Wieck—Beethoven Goes to His Brother’s Summer Home—Life at Gneixendorf—Relations with His Brother’s Family—Young Oxen Thrown into a Panic Fear—The Quartet in F and a New Finale for the Quartet in B-flat—The Year 1826—Beethoven’s Last Compositions 218 Chapter IX. Karl van Beethoven—A Wayward Ward and an Unwise Guardian—Beethoven and his Graceless Nephew—An Ill-advised Foster-father—A Profligate Youth—Effect of the Guardianship on Beethoven’s Character—An Unsuccessful Attempt at Self-destruction—Karl is Made a Soldier 247 Chapter X. The Last Days at Gneixendorf—A Brother’s Warning—Beethoven and His Kinspeople—The Fateful Journey to Vienna—The Fatal Illness—The Physicians and Their Treatment—The Nephew Exonerated from a Slanderous Accusation—Schindler’s Disingenuousness—Dr. Malfatti Forgets a Resentment Harbored for more than a Decade—Beethoven and Handel’s Scores—A Gift of 100 Pounds Sterling from the London Philharmonic Society—Eventual Disposition of the Money—Metronome Marks for the Ninth Symphony—Death and Burial of Beethoven—His Estate 267 General Index 315 Index to Compositions 344

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[1]

Chapter I

The Contest for the Guardianship of Nephew Karl—The Conversation Books—A Wedding Song—In Travail with the Mass—The Year 1819.

The key-note for much that must occupy us in a survey of the year 1819 is sounded by A New Year’s Greeting to Archduke Rudolph. Beethoven invokes all manner of blessings on the head of his pupil and patron and, begging a continuance of gracious benevolences for himself, sets forth a picture of his unhappy plight.

A terrible occurrence has recently taken place in my family affairs which for a time robbed me of all my reasoning powers; and to this must be charged the circumstance that I have not called upon Y. R. H. in person nor made mention of the masterly Variations of my highly honored and exalted pupil, the favorite of the Muses. I do not dare to express either by word of mouth or in writing my thanks for the surprise and favor with which I have been honored, inasmuch as I occupy much too humble a position, nor dare I, much as I would like and ardently as I long to do so, requite like with like.

A little boy of eleven years runs away from his uncle to his indulgent mother whom he, for months at a time, has not been allowed to see, although both live within the same city limits. What else could be expected than that this should now and then occur? What should be thought of the child’s heart if it did not? And when it did, who but Beethoven would have felt more than a passing disturbance of his equanimity at an offense so natural under the circumstances? But to him it was a “terrible occurrence” which for a space robbed him of his reason. No one of ordinary sensibilities can read the story without strong feelings of compassion for him—not that the boy’s freak was in any sense in itself a grievous misfortune, but because the uncle’s sufferings occasioned by it were so real and intense.

There is no reason to doubt the mother’s assertion that she sent the child back through the intervention of the police, for this was clearly her best policy, more especially because she and her[2] advisers found in the incident a wished-for occasion to renew her petition to have her son admitted into the R. I. Convict. It was this petition, enforced by Hotschevar’s long paper and its accompanying documents, which had led to the question of Beethoven’s right to have his case tried by the tribunal of the nobility, and the negative decision which transferred the whole matter to the City Magistracy. At this point a few official data are wanting, and the suspension of Beethoven from the guardianship of his nephew can only be stated as having been determined by the magistrates immediately after the beginning of the new year, and that, in consequence of this, the boy was for a few weeks with his mother. On January 10, Fanny Giannatasio writes in her diary: “What Müller tells me about Beethoven pains me deeply. The wicked woman has finally succeeded in triumphing over him. He has been removed from the guardianship[1] and the wicked son returns to the source of his wickedness. I can imagine Beethoven’s grief. It is said that since yesterday he has been entirely alone and eats apart from the others. He ought to know that Karl is glad to be with his mother; it would ease the pain of the separation.”

Beethoven’s Appeal to the Magistracy

On January 7 the magistrates summoned Beethoven (who still lived in the Gärtnergasse), the boy, the mother, Hotschevar and the curator, Dr. Schönauer, to appear before them on January 11. Of what action was taken that day there is no record, but Hotschevar’s attack brought out a vigorous defense in the shape of a letter sent by Beethoven to the Magistracy,[2] in which he maintained the superiority of the educational plan which he was pursuing over that which had been proposed by the mother, proclaimed the magnanimity and virtuousness of all his acts and discharged a broadside of accusation and insinuation against Madame van Beethoven and the priest who had come to her help. We can make room for only a few passages:

His exceptional capacity, and partly also his peculiarities, call for exceptional measures; and I never did a more beneficial or magnanimous act than when I took my nephew to myself and personally assumed charge of his education. Seeing that (according to Plutarch) a Philip did not think it beneath his dignity to direct the education of his son Alexander and give him the great Aristotle for a teacher because he did not consider the ordinary teachers suitable, and a Laudon looked after the education of his son himself, why should not such beautiful and[3] sublime examples be followed by others? Already during his lifetime his father entrusted my nephew to me and I confess that I feel myself better fitted than anybody else to incite my nephew to virtue and industry by my own example. Had the mother been able to subdue her wicked disposition and permitted my plans to take their quiet development a very favorable result would have followed; but when a mother of this sort seeks to involve her child in the secrets of her own vulgar and evil surroundings, and in his tender years (a plague for children!!!) leads aim astray to deception, to bribery of my servants, to untruthfulness, by laughing at him when he tells the truth, yes, even giving him money to awaken in him lusts and desires which are harmful, tells him that things are trifles which in me and others would be accounted grave faults, the already difficult task becomes more difficult and dangerous. Gifts of fortune may be acquired; morality must be implanted early, particularly when a child has had the misfortune to suck in such mother’s milk, was in her care for several years, was put to thoroughly bad uses, even had to help deceive his father. Furthermore he will inherit from me and even now I could leave him enough to keep him from want while continuing his studies until he should receive an appointment. We need only quiet and no more interference from the mother, and the beautiful goal which I have set will be attained. Ought I now to reply to the intrigues of a Mr. Courtscrivener Hotschowa [Hotschevar] against me, or to the priest of Mödling, who is despised by his congregation, who is suspected of being guilty of illicit intercourse, who lays his pupils military fashion on a form to be thrashed and could not forgive me because I kept watch on him and would not permit my nephew to be caned like a brute—ought I? No; the association of these men with Madame van Beethoven bears witness against them both, and only such could make common cause with Madame van Beethoven against me.

Beethoven accompanied this address with a private letter presumably to Dr. Tschiska (or Tschischka), an official of the Magistracy, in which he said:

I am not a guardian from self-interest, but I want to rear a new monument to myself in my nephew. I do not need my nephew, but he needs me. Gossip, calumny, are beneath the dignity of a man who is raising himself up! What is to be done when they even touch the laundry!?!? I might be very sensitive, but the just man must be able to endure injustice without departing an iota from the right. In this sense I shall endure every trial, nothing shall shake my resolution. A great responsibility would be incurred were my nephew to be wholly withdrawn from me; moral and even political consequences would follow to him. I commend him to you and appeal to your heart for his welfare. My actions must commend me for his sake, not mine.

We do not know the particulars, but for the present Beethoven retained the right to look after the further education of the boy; the right, at least, was not judicially taken away from him or given[4] to another. He did not send him again to a public school, but engaged a private tutor under whose care he continued his studies in an institute conducted by Joseph Kudlich, of whom he spoke in great praise. Besides the ordinary subjects, he received instruction in French, drawing and music; his religious training was entrusted to a priest. This state of affairs lasted till the end of March, when he announced a desire to resign the guardianship—persuaded to take this step, it is fair to presume, by the magistrates who, in the end, would have been obliged to remove him. Karl was living with his mother at the time. According to the court records, Beethoven left the matter of education “entirely to Kudlich,” with whom (if a passage in one of the Conversation Books is read correctly) he seems also to have lived temporarily, and it was given to him to propose the name of a guardian, either in place of himself or as an associate. He consulted earnestly with his friends as to what was to be done with the boy and who should be his guardian, and those friends were sorely tried by his constitutional indecision. In these consultations, the project of sending the boy away from Vienna, and the name of Sailer, were mooted.[3] “What must be done,” Bernard says, “is to select as guardian a man who has your entire confidence both as respects morality and pedagogical skill, and with whom you may always remain on friendly terms concerning the affair. Since Kudlich has more influence on Karl than Giannatasio, it is my opinion that you seek no further for someone who would meet every requirement.—It would merely be very troublesome for you.” Beethoven seems to be in doubt; he had a preference for his friend the magisterial Councillor Tuscher, and the project of sending him to Sailer in Landshut appealed to him. Bernard says again: “If you want peace of mind I think it wise that you name a guardian as you were willing to do yesterday. But if it is possible to send the boy to Sailer at Landshut,[4] it would, of course, be better still, since then you could feel assured that he was in the best of hands. Even if you have Tuscher as co-guardian, your case will not be bettered, inasmuch as all cares will still rest on you. Perhaps Tuscher and Kudlich might jointly assume the guardianship—this might be very advantageous. All the same, everything will remain as heretofore, even if you send him away he will remain with Kudlich until a change has been made. So long as you are guardian and Karl remains here, you will not only have all the cares as heretofore, but also be compelled to fight[5] the mother and all her intrigues. Have Karl sent for the present again to Kudlich, meanwhile the matter may be straightened out.”[5]

A New Guardian for Karl Appointed

Beethoven seems to have expressed a doubt as to Tuscher’s willingness to serve as guardian. Bernard continues: “Perhaps he might be more easily persuaded if a co-guardian like Kudlich were appointed.—It is not necessary to settle everything by to-morrow. If we go to Omeyer to-morrow morning, then to Tuscher and Kudlich, we can come to an understanding as to what will be the best thing to do.” Tuscher, if we are correct in recognizing his handwriting, permitted himself to be persuaded, though a bit under protest; he foresaw difficulties. The Magistracy at the suggestion of Beethoven thereupon appointed the Magisterial Councillor Matthias von Tuscher guardian of the boy on March 26. He was commanded to place his ward, then “living with his mother, Johanna van Beethoven,” in another place for bringing up and education under proper care, and submit his opinion touching the proposition of the mother and Hotschevar that he be entered in a public institute of learning before the expiration of the second school semester, that Beethoven contribute to the cost and that the share of the mother’s pension and the interest on the money deposited for the boy be applied to this end. Tuscher was decidedly of the opinion that the boy must be sent away for a time and was agreed with the plan of placing him with Prof. Sailer in Landshut after it had been broached to him. For this the consent of the Magistracy and the police authorities and a passport were necessary. In the opinion of one of Beethoven’s advisers (Bach) Tuscher was to be informed of the plan only after the passport had been obtained, but before the mother, who had already found “a channel,” could take steps to communicate with Tuscher. Beethoven applied to the city authorities for a passport for two years for his ward. On April 23, the authorities asked of the Magistracy if there were any objections to the proposed step. The Magistracy objected to the boy’s being sent into a foreign country, but asked Tuscher if he were not willing to withdraw his application and name an institute in Austria. Tuscher declined and set forth the great hopes which he placed in the training to be had of a man like Sailer, who, “because of his reverence for the talents of the composer, Beethoven, was especially bound to him,” and hence would bestow upon his charge[6] the strictest oversight and care, which was of great importance in the case of a boy who was “extremely cunning and an adept in every sort of craftiness.” In replying to the municipal authorities the Magistracy (on May 7) conceded the necessity of withdrawing the boy from his mother’s influence, but thought it unnecessary to send him out of the country on this account, against which the mother had protested and the curator of the ward, Dr. Schönauer, had declared himself. The passport was therefore refused. Beethoven had taken a step which seems to have been made to prevent the widow from securing help for her plans from a source higher than any that had yet been invoked and to enlist that higher power in his own behalf. He appealed to Archduke Rudolph to use his influence with Archduke Ludwig, the youngest brother of Emperor Franz I, to aid him in his project of sending his nephew far away from the mother’s influence. In the letter written to the Archduke[6] he states that it had been his intention to petition Archduke Ludwig in the premises, but there had thitherto appeared to be no occasion for so doing for the reason that all the authorities who had jurisdiction in the matter were convinced of the advisability of the step, viz.: the Police, the Supervisory Guardianship Court and the guardian. He had heard, however, that the mother intended to seek an audience of Archduke Ludwig to prevent the execution of his plan. Convinced that she would stop at nothing in the way of calumination, he expressed the hope that his reputation for morality would suffice as a refutation of her slanders, and that Archduke Rudolph would bear testimony in his behalf.

The plan to send the nephew out of the country had been frustrated and had to be abandoned. His mind being filled with artistic projects of the greatest magnitude, Beethoven was desirous to pass the summer months again in Mödling, and after the experiences of the preceding year nothing could be hoped for his nephew in that quarter. He came to a realization of the advantages which Giannatasio’s institute had offered and in a letter to Giannatasio asked him again to take the lad till other arrangements had been made. The Giannatasio family were fearful lest such a proceeding might work harm to their institution, and on June 17 visited Beethoven at Mödling to tell him that his wishes could not be complied with. “Grievously as it pained us,” Fanny writes in her diary, “to refuse Beethoven anything, I am yet so convinced of the necessity of the step and that it could do[7] us no good, but on the contrary harm, that I prefer to have it so.” Thereupon the lad was sent to the institute of Joseph Blöchlinger. Claudius Artaria, who was one of the teachers there (1821-1824), recalled in later years that Karl was one of the older scholars, “naturally talented, but somewhat conceited because he was the nephew of Beethoven.” He also saw the mother there a few times, but remembered nothing in particular in connection with her visits. The lad appears to have prospered during the early part of his stay at this school. In December, 1819, an unknown hand writes in a Conversation Book:

A great deal has been gained in that the boy has again become orderly in his public studies. Plöchlinger [sic] moreover, though not exactly brilliant, seems to be good—the public school system acts as a restraint on him.—Your nephew looks well; handsome eyes—charm, a speaking physiognomy, and excellent bearing. I would continue his education for only two years more.—He is always present, and thus she can do him no harm. But he is agreed that she spoils the boy.—When you have acquired the sole guardianship, then do you decide and he will obey.—Your views are admirable but not always reconcilable with this wretched world.—Would that everybody might understand and appreciate your love for your nephew.

Tuscher Relieved of the Guardianship

Tuscher, a member of the Magistracy, was compelled to recognize that his colleagues were wholly under the influence of Madame van Beethoven and Hotschevar, and that he could do no service to his friend or his friend’s ward; on July 5, he applied to be relieved of the guardianship which, he said, had become “in every respect burdensome and vexatious,” on the ground that “the multiplicity of official duties as well as various other considerations would not permit him longer to administer the office.” Beethoven took this action in very bad part, and Tuscher shared the fate of many others of being for a space an object of the composer’s critical ill will. Beethoven now served notice on the Magistracy that he would resume the guardianship under the testamentary appointment and that he had placed his ward in Blöchlinger’s institution. On July 15 he writes to Archduke Rudolph, lamenting that confusion still reigns in his domestic affairs, no hope or comfort is in sight, all his structures are blown away, as if by the wind. “The present proprietor of the institute in which I have placed my nephew, a pupil of Pestalozzi, is of the opinion that it will be difficult to achieve a desirable outcome in the boy’s training—and also that there could be nothing more profitable to my nephew than absence from the country.” In a letter of September 14 to Blöchlinger he writes: “Only the following individuals[8] have free access to my nephew, Mr. v. Bernard, Mr. v. Oliva, Mr. v. Piuk, Recording Secretary.... My nephew is not to go out of the house without my written permission—from which it is plain what course is to be followed toward the mother—I insist that in this respect strict obedience be given to what the authorities and I have ordained.”

It is not known whether the Magistracy was immediately informed of the new steps which Beethoven had taken, or whether Madame van Beethoven made a presentment of some sort on the subject. Be that as it may, as chief guardian it determined if possible to put an end to the continual friction and undertook an investigation of all the educational experiments which had been made, arriving at the conclusion that the boy had been “subject to the whims of Beethoven and had been tossed back and forth like a ball from one educational institution to another.” For this reason it decreed, on September 17, that Tuscher’s request be granted, but that the guardianship should not again be entrusted to Beethoven but to the mother, the natural guardian under the law, with a capable and honest man as co-guardian. To this office Leopold Nussböck, municipal Sequestrator, was appointed. Beethoven protested against the action in a letter which the Magistracy received on October 31.[7] Having been absent from the city at the time, “on a matter of business,” he had made no objection to the appointment of Herr Nussböck as guardian of his nephew, but returning with the intention of remaining in Vienna he wished to resume the guardianship, as this was essential to the welfare of the boy, the mother having neither the will nor the strength to look after his training. He was the more insistent on a resumption of this duty since he had learned that owing to lack of money the boy was to be removed from the institution which he had selected for him, and he charged that the mother wished to take her son to her home so that she might be able to expend his income, including the half of her pension which she was obliged to devote to his education, upon herself. He asked that the intermediary guardianship be taken from Nussböck and be restored to him without delay. About the same time (October 23) he wrote at great length to Dr. Bach, who had now become his lawyer.[8] From this it appears that Madame van Beethoven had addressed another communication to the Magistrates’ Court, in which she apparently said or intimated that Beethoven would, in consequence of the elevation of the Archduke[9] to the Archbishopric, be obliged to spend the greater part of his time in Olmütz, and had renewed her attacks upon his moral character. “His Imperial Highness, Eminence and Cardinal” would unhesitatingly bear witness to his morality, and, as to the twaddle about Olmütz, the Archduke would probably spend not more than six weeks of the year there.

Beethoven Insists on Sole Guardianship

The chief points are that I be recognized at once as sole guardian, I will accept no co-guardian, that the mother be excluded from intercourse with her son in the Institute because in view of her immorality there cannot be enough watchmen there and she confuses the teacher by her false statements and lies. She also has led her son to tell shameful lies and make charges against me, and accuses me herself of having given him too much or too little; but that the claims of humanity may not be overlooked, she may see her son occasionally at my home in the presence of his teachers and other excellent men.... It is my opinion that you should insist stoutly and irrevocably that I be sole guardian and that this unnatural mother shall see her son only at my house; my well known humanity and culture are a guarantee that my treatment of her will be no less generous than that given to her son. Moreover, I think that all this should be done quickly and that if possible we ought to get the Appellate Court to assume the superior guardianship, as I want my nephew to be placed in a higher category; neither he nor I belong to the Magistracy under whose guardianship are only innkeepers, shoemakers and tailors. As regards his present maintenance, it shall be cared for as long as I live. For the future he has 7,000 florins W.W. of which his mother has the usufruct during life; also 2,000 fl. (or a little more since I have reinvested it), the interest on which belongs to him, and 4,000 florins in silver of mine are lying in the bank; as he is to inherit all my property this belongs to his capital. You will observe that while because of his great talent (to which the Honorable Magistracy is indifferent) he will not be able at once to support himself, there is already a superfluity in case of my death.

In a postscript he accuses the mother of wishing to gain possession of her son in order to enjoy all of her pension. In view of this he had taken counsel as to whether or not he should let her keep the money and make it good from his own pocket. He had been advised not to do so, however, because she would make bad use of the money. “I have decided, therefore, to set aside the sum in time. You see again how foolishly the Magistracy is acting in trying to tear my son wholly from me, since when she dies the boy will lose this share of the pension and would get along very poorly without my aid.” A few days later Beethoven wrote to Dr. Bach again, this time to suggest that legal steps be taken to attach the widow’s pension, he having a suspicion that she was trying to evade payment of her son’s share because she had permitted[10] nine months to pass without drawing the pension from the exchequer.

The Magistracy disposed of Beethoven’s protest and application on November 4, by curtly referring him to the disposition made of his petition of September 17. Beethoven asked for a reconsideration of the matter, but without avail, and the only recourse remaining to him was the appeal to the higher court which had already been suggested to Dr. Bach. The story of that appeal belongs to the year 1820. Meanwhile the association of Councillor Peters with him in the guardianship had been broached and was the subject of discussion with his friends. In December Bernard writes in a Conversation Book:

The Magistracy has till now only made a minute of the proceedings and will now hold a session to arrive at a decision. It is already decided that you shall have the chief guardianship, but a 2d is to be associated with you. As no objection can be made to Peters, there will be no difficulty. The matter will be ordered according to your wishes and I will take care of Mr. Blöchlinger. The mother will not be admitted to the institute unless you are present, 4 times a year is enough—nor the guardian either?—The Magistracy has compromised itself nicely.

Bach seems to have advised that the mother be accepted as co-guardian. He writes: “As co-guardian she will have no authority, only the honor of being associated in the guardianship. She will be a mere figurehead.” Whether the conversations noted at the time referred to the case on appeal or to the application still pending before the Magistracy, or some to the one, some to the other, it is impossible to determine. The record of the refusal of the Magistracy has not been procured, but the decree of the Appellate Court gives December 20 as its date.

Schindler and the Conversation Books

Frequent citations from the so-called “Conversation Books” made in the course of the narrative touching the later phases of the controversy over the guardianship call for some remarks upon this new source of information opened in this year. In the “Niederrheinische Musikzeitung,” No. 28 of 1854, Schindler wrote:

Beethoven’s hearing had already become too weak for oral conversation, even with the help of an ear-trumpet, in 1818, and recourse had now to be had to writing. Only in the case of intercourse with Archduke Rudolph, and here because of his gentle voice, the smallest of the ear-trumpets remained of service for several years more.

That he was able, partly by the ear and partly by the eye, to judge of the correctness of the performance of his music, Schindler states in the same article—a fact also known from many other sources; this was the case even to his last year. When, after the[11] death of Beethoven, such of his manuscripts and papers as were thought to be salable were set apart, there remained in the hands of von Breuning a lot of letters, documents and Conversation Books. The estimated value in the inventory of the manuscripts and the price obtained for them at the auction sale, indicate how utterly worthless from a pecuniary point of view that other collection was thought to be; as, however, they might be of use to some future biographer, it was well to have them preserved, and doubtless a small gratification to Schindler for his great sacrifices and very valuable services to Beethoven in these last months, the only one which he as guardian to the absent nephew could make; so Breuning gave them to him. The Conversation Books, counting in as such those which were really nothing but a sheet or two of paper loosely folded, were only about 400 in number, or less than fifty per annum for the last eight and a half years of Beethoven’s life—that being the period which they cover. Schindler, who spoke on this as on so many other topics frankly and without reserve, said that he long preserved the books and papers intact, but not finding any person but himself who placed any value upon them, their weight and bulk had led him in the course of his long unsettled life by degrees to destroy those which he deemed to be of little or no importance. The remainder were, in 1845, transferred to the Royal Library in Berlin, and, in 1855, when they were examined for this work, numbered 138. It was but natural that those preserved are such as place Schindler’s relation to the master in the strongest light and those deemed by him essential to the full understanding of the more important events of Beethoven’s last years. Most of them bear evidence of the deep interest with which Schindler, while they remained in his possession, lived over the past in them. In many cases he appended the names of the principal writers; so that one soon learns to distinguish their hands without difficulty; and occasionally he enriched them with valuable annotations.[9] The larger of them—ordinary blank note-books—are only of a size and thickness fitted to be carried in the coat-pocket. It is obvious, therefore, on a moment’s reflection, that at a single sitting with a few friends in an inn or coffee-house, the pages must have filled rapidly as the book passed from hand to hand and one or another wrote question or reply, remark or statement, a bit of news or a piece of advice. A few such conversations, one sees, would fill a book, all the sooner as there is no thought of[12] economizing space and each new sentence is usually also a new paragraph. It strikes one, therefore, that the whole 400 could have contained but a small portion of the conversations of the period they covered. This was so. At home a slate or any loose scraps of paper were commonly used, thus saving a heavy item of expense; moreover, many who conversed with Beethoven would only write upon the slate in order to obliterate it immediately, that nothing should remain exposed to the eyes of others. The books, therefore, were for the most part for use when the composer was away from home, although there were occasions when, it being desirable to preserve what was written, they were also used there. Hence, the collection in Berlin can be viewed as little more than scattered specimens of the conversations of the master’s friends and companions, most unequally distributed as to time. For months together there is nothing or hardly anything; and then again a few days will fill many scores of leaves. In a few instances Beethoven has himself written—that is, when in some public place he did not trust his voice; and memoranda of divers kinds, even of musical ideas from his pen, are not infrequent. One is surprised to find so few distinguished names in literature, science and art—Grillparzer’s forms an exception and he appears only in the later years; as for the rest, they are for the most part of local Vienna celebrities.

There is no source of information for the biography of Beethoven which at first sight appears so rich and productive and yet, to the conscientious writer, proves so provokingly defective and requires such extreme caution in its use as these Conversation Books. The oldest of them belongs to the time before us (1819) and was evidently preserved by Schindler on account of the protracted conversations on the topic of the nephew. We have already made several citations from it and shall have frequent occasion to have recourse to it in the progress of this narrative. The period in which it was used is approximately fixed by a reference to a concert given by the violinist Franz Clement, at which he played an introduction and variations on a theme by Beethoven. This concert took place on April 4, 1819.[10] The last conversations[13] in the book took place about the time of Beethoven’s removal to Mödling—shortly before and after.

This explanatory digression may serve as a modulation to more cheerful themes than that which has occupied us of late.

Musical Surprise at a Wedding

Though Karl was no longer a member of the Giannatasio household or pupil of the institute, and though there were, in consequence, fewer meetings between Beethoven and his self-sacrificing friends, their relations remained pleasant, and early in 1819 Beethoven found occasion to supplement his verbal protestations of gratitude with a deed. Nanni, the younger daughter of Giannatasio, was married on February 6, 1819, to Leopold Schmerling. When the young couple returned to the house after the ceremony they were greeted by a wedding hymn for tenor solo, men’s voices and pianoforte accompaniment. The performers were hidden in a corner of the room. When they had finished they stepped forth from their place of concealment. Beethoven was among them and he handed the manuscript of the music which he had written to words of Prof. Stein, who occupied a chair of philosophy at the University and was also tutor in the imperial household,[11] to the bride.

[14]

Beethoven made a single appearance as conductor in this year. It was on January 17 at a concert given for the benefit of the Widows and Orphans of the Juridical Faculty of the University. The orchestra was largely composed of amateurs and the programme began with the overture to “Prometheus” and ended with the Seventh Symphony. Among the listeners was P. D. A. Atterbom, the Swedish poet, who wrote a sympathetic account of it.

In the midst of the worries occasioned by the guardianship, Beethoven was elected Honorary Member of the Philharmonic Society of Laibach, an institution which had been founded in 1702 and revived, after repeated interruptions, in 1816. The project of giving him the distinction had been broached in the councils of the society in 1808, but Anton Schmith, a physician in Vienna, whose opinion had been asked, had advised against it, saying: “Beethoven is as freakish as he is unserviceable.” Eleven years later the men of Laibach had more knowledge or better counsel, and they sent him a diploma on March 15 through von Tuscher. Acknowledging the honor on May 4, Beethoven stated that as a mark of appreciation he was sending, also through the magistrate, an “unpublished” composition and would hold himself in readiness to serve the society should it ever need him. There is no direct evidence as to what composition he had in mind; but in the archives of the Laibach society there is a manuscript copy of the Sixth Symphony. It is not an autograph except as to its title, Beethoven having written “Sinfonia pastorale” on the cover in red crayon, and corrections in lead pencil in the music.[12]

The time for Beethoven’s annual summer flitting had come. Mödling was chosen again for the country sojourn and Beethoven arrived there on May 12, taking lodgings as before in the Hafner house in the Hauptstrasse. He had, evidently, brought a housekeeper with him and now engaged a housemaid. The former endured two months.[13] Karl was placed under the tuition of Blöchlinger on June 22. Beethoven, as letters to the Archduke[15] dated July 15 and August 31[14] show, was not in the best of health, but was hard at work on the mass, with an excursion now and then into the symphony (Ninth). Schindler presents us with a pathetic, impressive, almost terrifying picture of the state to which his labors lifted him (Ed. of 1860, I, 270):

In a Frenzy of Composition

Towards the end of August, accompanied by the musician Johann Horsalka still living in Vienna, I arrived at the master’s home in Mödling. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon. As soon as we entered we learned that in the morning both servants had gone away, and that there had been a quarrel after midnight which had disturbed all the neighbors, because as a consequence of a long vigil both had gone to sleep and the food which had been prepared had become unpalatable. In the living-room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue in the Credo—singing, howling, stamping. After we had been listening a long time to this almost awful scene, and were about to go away, the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole host of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies. His first utterances were confused, as if he had been disagreeably surprised at our having overheard him. Then he reached the day’s happenings and with obvious restraint he remarked: “Pretty doings, these! (Saubere Wirthschaft.) Everybody has run away and I haven’t had anything to eat since yesternoon!” I tried to calm him and helped him to make his toilet. My companion hurried on in advance to the restaurant of the bathing establishment to have something made ready for the famished master. Then he complained about the wretched state of his domestic affairs, but here, for reasons already stated, there was nothing to be done. Never, it may be said, did so great an artwork as is the Missa Solemnis see its creation under more adverse circumstances.[15]

The fact that Beethoven received an advance payment on a commission for an oratorio which he undertook to write for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde has been mentioned. The sum was 400 florins. It was on August 18. Four days later there was a meeting of the society at which Landgrave von Fürstenberg reported[16] that on the written application of Prince von Odescalchi, representing the President, Beethoven had replied that he had long been desirous to compose a work which would reflect honor on the society and that he would do his best to expedite it. That seems to have been the end of the matter for the time being.[16] There was also during the Mödling sojourn a continuation of the negotiations with Thomson. A Mr. Smith visited Beethoven bearing a letter from the Scotch publisher which called out a playful rejoinder in which Beethoven sought to turn an easy play upon German words into French. Thomson suggested that the introductions and accompaniments to the Scotch songs be made easier (“lighter,” in the German idiom); they would be so, Beethoven replied, if the compensation were made more difficult (“heavier” would have been his word had he been permitted to use the German equivalent). As it is, Beethoven’s humor becomes rather ponderous, as see the letter which was written in French by Beethoven apparently without assistance:

Mon cher Ami! Vous ecrivés toujours facile très—je m’accomode tout mon possible, mais—mais—mais—l’honorare pourroit pourtant être plus difficile, ou plus-tôt pesante!!!!! Votre ami Mosieur Smith m’a fait grand plaisir a cause de sa visite chez moi—en Hâte, je vous assure, que je serais toujours avec plaisir a votres services—comme j’ai a present votre Addresse par Mr. Smith, je serai bientôt en Etat de vous écrire plus ample—l’honorare pour un Théme avec variations j’ai fixé, dans ma derniere letter à vous par Messieurs le Friess, a moien dix ducats en or, C’est, je vous jure malgre cela seulement par complaisance pour vous, puisque je n’ais pas besoin, de me méler avec de telles petites choses, mais il faut toujours pourtant perdre du temps avec de telles bagatelles, et l’honneur ne permit pas, de dire a quelqu’un, ce qu’on en gagne,—je vous souhaite toujours le bon gout pour la vrai Musique et si vous cries facile—je crierai difficile pour facile!!!!

Thomson indorsed on this letter: “25 May, 1819. Beethoven. Some pleasantry on my repeated requests to make his Symphs and accompgnts. to our National Airs Easy, sent by Mr. John Smith of Glasg.” Another British commission was offered him about the same time. There are two entries in a Conversation Book, apparently in the handwriting of Schindler:

The Englishman brought me your letter yesterday and evening before last I received another one for you through Fries. Another commission was brought by the other Englishman, the friend of Smith. A Mr. Donaldson in Edinburgh wants to know if you will not write a Trio for 3 pianofortes and in the style of your Quintet in E-flat. He wants to announce it as his property—The remuneration which you demand is to be paid to you in any way you may select—All the parts of the Trio must be obbligato. If you do not, write to Donaldson in Edinburgh direct. These Englishmen speak of nothing else than their wish to have you come to England—they give assurance that if you come for a single winter to England, Scotland and Ireland, you will earn so much that you can live the rest of your life on the interest.

[17]

And again:

The gentleman is going to write to Donaldson—Edinburgh—to-day—the answer can be here in 4 weeks and the gentleman can be here that long. Tell him how much you want, when it might be finished and how you want the payment made. He is very desirous to have a composition from you and there is no possibility of its being left on your hands—Moreover it is a great work. If you get 40 ducats for the Sonata he can doubtless pay 100. By that time the answer may be here from Edinburgh.

Great Britain’s monetary reward, had Beethoven accepted all its invitations, would no doubt have been all that the friend of “Mr. Donaldson of Edinburgh” stated and in proportion would have been the appreciation which Beethoven would have found at the hands of the English professional musicians, amateurs and musical laity.

Pathetic and diverting are the incidents which Karl Friedrich Zelter relates in letters to Goethe of his attempts to form a closer acquaintance with Beethoven. Zelter came to Vienna in July. He says that he wanted to call upon Beethoven, but he was in the country—nobody knew where. This in his first letter which mentions the subject. On August 16 he writes:

It is said that he is intolerably maussade. Some say that he is a lunatic. It is easy to talk. God forgive us all our sins! The poor man is reported as being totally deaf. Now I know what it means to see all this digital manipulation around me while my fingers are becoming useless one after the other. Lately Beethoven went into an eating-house; he sat himself down to a table and lost himself in thought. After an hour he calls the waiter. “What do I owe?” “The gentleman has not eaten anything yet” “What shall I bring?” “Bring anything you please, but let me alone!”

Meeting between Beethoven and Zelter

Zelter stays in Vienna from July to September, but sees nothing of Beethoven. Then, on September 12, he sets out with Steiner to visit the master at Mödling. On the road they meet Beethoven, who is on his way to the city. Leaving their carriages they embrace each other, but conversation with a deaf man not being practicable on the highway they separate after agreeing to meet at Steiner’s at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Zelter was moved almost to tears. After a hurried meal he and Steiner hastened back to Vienna. Let him relate the rest:

After eating we drove back to Vienna at once. Full as a badger and tired as a dog I lie down and sleep away the time, sleep so soundly that not a thing enters my mind. Then I go to the theatre and when I see Beethoven there I feel as if I had been struck by lightning. The same thing happens to him at sight of me, and this is not the place for[18] explanations with a deaf man. Now comes the point: In spite of the things of which Beethoven is accused justly or unjustly, he enjoys a popular respect such as is bestowed only upon the most excellent. Steiner had given it out that Beethoven would appear in his little office, which will hold only six or eight persons, for the first time in person at 4 o’clock, and invited guests so generously that in a room crowded to the street, half a hundred brilliant people waited in vain. I did not get an explanation till next day, when I received a letter from Beethoven in which he begged my pardon, for he, like me, had passed the time set for the meeting in blissful sleep.

Zelter’s letter calls for a slight rectification. It was not the next day but four days later that Beethoven wrote him the letter of explanation, and Zelter’s statement that Beethoven had overslept himself as he had done was pure assumption—unless he learned it from another source. Beethoven wrote:

Highly respected Sir: It is my fault that you were lately besmeared (angeschmiert, that is, deceived, cheated) as we say here, by me. Unforeseen circumstances robbed me of the pleasure of passing a few lovely and enjoyable hours, which would have been profitable to art, with you. I hear that you are already leaving Vienna day after to-morrow. My country life, to which I am forced by my poor health, is, however, not as beneficial as usual to me this year. It may be that I shall come in again day after to-morrow and if you are not already gone in the afternoon I hope to tell you by word of mouth with true cordiality how much I esteem you and desire your friendship (to be near to you).

The autograph of this letter contains what appears to be either a transcript or a draft of a letter which Zelter either sent or planned to send to Beethoven. In view of the fact that it shows a different feeling towards the great composer than that formerly entertained by the teacher of Mendelssohn, it is given here:

To see once more, face to face, in this life the man who brings joy and edification to so many good people, among whom I of course am glad to count myself—this was the purpose, worthy friend, for which I wished to visit you at Mödlingen. You met me, and my aim was at least not wholly frustrated, for I saw your face. I know of the infirmity which burdens you and you have my sympathy, for I am similarly afflicted. On the day after to-morrow I go from here to resume my labors, but I shall never cease to hold you in high respect and to love you.

A Composition by Archduke Rudolph

Friedrich Schneider, of Dessau, visited Vienna in the fall of the year and caused a sensation by his organ-playing. He reported that Beethoven had received him graciously and that he, in turn, had heard the master play the pianoforte, his improvisation being the most marvellous thing he had ever listened to.[19] In August, Johann van Beethoven bought an estate near Gneixendorf. This brought the brothers together in Vienna during the winter. Johann was the “landowner” of a familiar story, and Beethoven, the “brain owner,” seemed at this time disposed to emulate him. At least he read advertisements of houses for sale in Mödling before the day set for the sale and advised him in the premises. In the same letter[17] he advises Steiner to publish a set of variations composed by the Archduke. “I have mentioned your name in the matter, inasmuch as I do not believe that you will lose anything by the transaction, and it is always honorable to print something by such a Principe Professore.” The variations were on a theme composed by Beethoven and given to his imperial pupil as a lesson, and had called out the obsequious remarks which may be read in the New Year’s letter to the Archduke. His remark to Steiner is explained by the fact that on August 31 he had written to the Archduke as follows:

As regards the masterly variations of Y. I. H. I think they might be published under the following title, namely: Theme, or Task

set by L. v. Beeth.

forty times varied

and dedicated to his teacher

by the Most Serene Author. There are so many requests for them, and eventually this honorable work will reach the public in garbled copies. Y. I. H. will yourself not be able to avoid presenting copies here and there; therefore, in the name of God, among the many consecrations which Y. I. H. is receiving and of which the world is being informed, let the consecration of Apollo (or the Christian Cäcilia) also be made known. True, Y. I. H. may accuse me of vanity; but I can assure you that although this dedication is precious to me and I am really proud of it, this is not at all my aim. 3 publishers have appealed for it, Artaria, Steiner and a third whose name does not occur to me. To which of the first two shall the Variations be given? On this point I await the commands of Y. I. H. Both of them have offered to print the variations at their own cost. The question now is whether Y. I. H. is satisfied with the title? To the question whether or not the variations ought to be published, Y. I. H. ought to close your eyes; if it is done, Y. I. H. may call it a misfortune; but the world will think the contrary.

Steiner printed the archducal work in the seventh number of his “Musical Museum” under a slightly changed title, viz.: “Theme (Aufgabe) composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, varied forty times and dedicated to the author by his pupil R[udolph], A[rch-][20]D[uke].”[18] Other evidences of Beethoven’s interest in Archduke Rudolph’s studies in composition are to be noted about this time. On July 29 he wrote to his pupil from Mödling, sending him three poems and asking him to select one for composition, encouraging him in these words: “The Austrians now know already that the spirit of Apollo has newly awakened in the Imperial family. From all quarters I receive requests for something. The proprietor of the Modezeitung will appeal to Y. I. H. in writing. I hope I shall not be accused of bribery—at Court and not a courtier, what possibilities??!!!” In this letter, however, there are words of vaster import, as showing Beethoven’s attitude towards musical evolution. We quote:

... but freedom, progress, is the aim in the world of art as in the whole great universe, and even if we moderns are not so far advanced in sound technique (Festigkeit) as our forefathers, refinement in manners has opened many things to us. My exalted pupil in music, already a fellow-contestant for the laurel of fame, must not subject himself to the accusation of onesidedness,—et iterum venturus judicare vivos et mortuos.[19]

[21]

A Painter’s Presence Forgotten

A number of incidents in Beethoven’s life may now be passed in hurried chronological review: On October 1, he was made an honorary member of the Mercantile Association (Kaufmännischer Verein) in Vienna. In the fall Ferdinand Schimon (1797-1852), who was musician and opera-singer as well as painter, painted the portrait which afterward came into the possession of Schindler, and was engraved by Eduard Eichers for Schindler’s biography.[20] Schimon had obtained permission through Schindler to set up his easel in the chamber adjoining Beethoven’s workroom, the composer having resolutely refused a sitting because he was busy on the Credo of the mass. From this point of vantage he made his studies and had finished them all but the eyes—the most striking feature in the portrait. Out of this dilemma Beethoven unconsciously helped him. He had evidently been impressed with the discretion, or independence, of the young artist who came without a “good morning” and went without a “good evening,” and invited him to coffee. Thus Schimon had ample opportunity to supply the one deficiency in his sketches.

At the end of October, Beethoven returned to Vienna from Mödling, taking lodging this time at No. 16 Josephstädter Glacis, opposite the Auersberg Palace and near the Blöchlinger Institute where Karl was studying. The guardianship matter soon occupied his attention; spells of indisposition tormented him; and financial distress so threatened him that he attempted to negotiate a loan from the banker Hennickstein, and borrowed 750 florins from Steiner.[21] Countess Erdödy was in Vienna at the end of the year and he sent her a note on December 19, promising to visit her soon and scratching down a musical phrase which he afterwards erased to make of it the New Year canon: “Glück, Glück zum neuen Jahr.”

It is remarkable that Beethoven, under the circumstances which have been set forth in this chapter, could continue his labors on the Mass which were his principal occupation during the year; it was but another proof of the absorbing possession which the composition of a great work took of him when once fairly begun. So diligently did he apply himself that he had hopes not only of finishing it in time for the installation of the Archduke as Archbishop of Olmütz, but wrote to Ries on November 10 that he had already nearly completed it and would like to know what could be done with it in London. To Schindler, however, in expressing a[22] doubt that he would have it done in time for the ceremonial, he said that every movement had taken on larger dimensions than had originally been contemplated. Schindler says also that when the day came, not one of the movements was finished in the eyes of the composer; yet he alleges that Beethoven brought the completed Credo with him when he came back to Vienna from Mödling. There is this to be added to these statements: A pocket sketchbook used in 1820 (it is now in the Beethoven House at Bonn) shows some sketches for the Credo; and there are memoranda for the same movement in a Conversation Book used near the close of the year. That the Gloria had received its final shape is a fair deduction from a Conversation Book of the same period. Bernard (presumably) writes:

It was decided yesterday that you give a concert either on Christmas or some other day. Count Stadion will give the use of the room, and Schick, Czerny and Janitschek will care for the rest. The programme is to include a symphony, the Gloria from your mass, the new Sonata played by you and a grand final chorus. All your works. 4,000 florins are guaranteed. Only one movement of the mass is to be performed.

The project is mentioned again by another friend, and Beethoven remarks: “It is too late for Christmas, but it might be possible in Lent.” That he worked occasionally on the Ninth Symphony, especially in the early part of the year, has already been said. Thomson’s commissions occupied some of his time, as well as a project to extend his labors on folksongs into a wider field. The second set of Variations on folksong themes which was published as Op. 107 in 1820, must be assigned, at least in part, to this year. He also, as Schindler tells us, composed a set of waltzes for a band of seven men who played at an inn in the valley of the Brühl near Mödling, and wrote out the parts for the different instruments. These waltzes have disappeared; Schindler tried in vain to find them a few years later. The canon “Glück zum neuen Jahr” was composed for Countess Erdödy on the last day of December, if A. Fuchs, who says that he copied it from the original manuscript, is correct. He also wrote a canon for Steiner in the summer, as appears from a conversation recorded in a book of March 20, 1820. An unidentified hand writes:

Last summer you sent a canon infinitus a due to Steiner from Mödling Nobody has solved it, but I have solved it. The second voice enters on the second: [23] it is infinite.



Go to the devil [22] God protect you

was the text.

On September 21 he wrote a canon to the words “Glaube und hoffe” for the younger Schlesinger, afterwards publisher in Paris, who was a visitor in Vienna from Berlin at the time, as Beethoven’s inscription on the autograph shows.[23]

Publications of the Year 1819

The publications of the year 1819 were (1) Two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102, dedicated to Countess Erdödy, by Artaria in Vienna (they had already been published by Simrock); (2) The Quintet in C minor, Op. 104, arranged from the Trio, Op. 1, No. 3; (3) Themes and Variations on Motives from Folksongs, for Pianoforte and Flute or Violin, Op. 105, by Artaria; Pianoforte Sonata in B-flat, Op. 106, dedicated to Archduke Rudolph, by Artaria.

[24]

Chapter II

The Years 1820 and 1821—End of the Guardianship Litigation—A Costly Victory—E. T. A. Hoffmann—Financial Troubles—Adagios and English Hymn-tunes—Arrested as a Vagrant—Negotiations for the Mass in D—The Last Pianoforte Sonatas.

Departure of Old Friends

Almost involuntarily, in passing in review the incidents of the year whose story has just been told and projecting a glance into the near future, the question arises: Where, in these moments of doubt, ill-health, trial, vexation of spirit and torment of body were the old friends of Beethoven who in the earlier years had stood by him faithfully and lovingly? Where was Stephan von Breuning? Alas! he seems to have been an early sacrifice to Beethoven’s obstinate course in respect of his nephew. Schindler says that he had advised against the adoption of the boy and thus wounded Beethoven in his most sensitive part. The temporary estrangement began in 1817. Some others of the old friends may have been rebuffed in like manner; some, like the faithful seneschal, Zmeskall, were ill; some were absent from Vienna—Count Brunswick, Schuppanzigh; some were dead; in some the flames of friendship may have died down because there was so little in Beethoven’s public life to challenge their sympathy and support. Count Lichnowsky has dropped out of the narrative and does not appear for some years. What had happened to the ardent friend of the youthful days, Count Waldstein? There is no answer. Once a Conversation Book awakens curiosity and a hope. Somebody warns Beethoven in a public place not to speak so loud, as everybody is listening. “Count Waldstein is sitting near; where does he live?” Beethoven’s answer is unrecorded and thus passes the only opportunity which the known material offers from which might have been learned what caused the death of that beautiful friendship. Bernard, Schindler, Oliva, Peters and Bach were near to him, and the last was of incalculable[25] value to him in his great trial. But could they replace those who were gone?

Beethoven was become a lonely man—an enforced seeker of solitude. No doubt many who would have been glad to give him their friendship were deterred by the wide-spread reports of his suspicious, unapproachable, almost repellant nature. But a miracle happens. Driven in upon himself by the forces which seem to have been arrayed against him, introspection opens wider and wider to him the doors of that imagination which in its creative function, as Ruskin tells us, is “an eminent beholder of things when and where they are not; a seer that is, in the prophetic sense, calling the things that are not as though they were; and for ever delighting to dwell on that which is not tangibly present.” Now he proclaims a new evangel, illustrates a higher union of beauty and truthfulness of expression, exalts art till it enters the realm of religion.

In the Tagebuch there stands a bold inscription written in February of the year 1820: “The moral law in us, and the starry sky above us—Kant.”[24] This and two other citations, the first of which Beethoven surely culled from some book, also deserve to be set down here as mottoes applicable to the creative work which occupied his mind during the year and thereafter:

’Tis said that art is long and life is fleeting:—

Nay; life is long and brief the span of art!

If e’er her breath vouchsafes with gods a meeting,

A moment’s favor ’tis of which we’ve had a part.

The world is a king and desires flattery in return for favor; but true art is perverse and will not submit to the mould of flattery. Famous artists always labor under an embarrassment;—therefore, first works are the best, though they may have sprung from dark ground.

We can only record the fact that Beethoven began the year 1820, as he had begun its immediate predecessor, by sending a New Year’s greeting to the august pupil who was now almost continually in his mind—Archduke Rudolph, soon to be Archbishop and Cardinal[25]—before taking up the story of the incubus which oppressed the composer’s mind, the clog which impeded his creative activities during much of the year—the legal proceedings[26] concerning the guardianship of nephew Karl. Fortunately for the tinge of these pages the end is not distant.

Two applications made by Beethoven to the Court of Magistrates had been denied and he now asked for a review of these decisions by the Court of Appeals. The action of the Magistracy had grievously pained him, so he informed the superior tribunal, and not only had his rights been set aside, but no regard had been shown for the welfare of his nephew. Against this he now sought relief, and he set forth his grievances: (1) He was testamentary appointee and the Landrecht had confirmed him and excluded the mother; circumstances compelling his absence from Vienna, he had arranged that Herr Nussböck should be appointed guardian ad interim; back permanently in the city, his nephew’s welfare required that he resume the guardianship; (2) The higher education which his nephew’s talents demanded neither the mother nor Nussböck could direct—the former because she was a woman and had conducted herself in a manner which had led the Landrecht to exclude her, Nussböck because he was too much occupied with his duties as Municipal Sequestrator and, having been no more than a paper-maker, he did not possess the insight and judgment essential to the scientific education of the ward. (3) Having no child of his own, his hopes were set on the boy, who was unusually talented, yet he had been told that he had been held back a year in his studies and that owing to a lack of funds he was to be taken from the institution in which he had been placed and given in the care of his mother; by her mismanagement the boy would be sacrificed, it being the aim of the mother to expend his share of the pension money on herself. He had declared to the Magistracy his willingness to defray the costs at the institute and also to engage other masters for the boy. Being “somewhat hard of hearing” communication with him was difficult and therefore he had asked that a co-guardian be appointed in the person of Herr Peters, Prince Lobkowitzsian Councillor, whose knowledge and moral character would assure such a training and education as were justified by the boy’s capacity. “I know of no more sacred duty than the care and education of a child,” he observes. He would offer no objection to the mother’s having a “sort of joint-guardianship,” but its duties and privileges should be limited to her visiting him and learning what plans were making for his education; to permit more would be to compass the ruin of the boy.[26]

[27]

An Appeal to a Higher Court

This petition was filed on January 7, 1820; three days later the Appellate Court commanded the Magistracy to file a report of the proceedings had before it, together with all minutes and documents. The Magistracy complied on February 5, citing its decision of September 17, 1819, and defending its action on the grounds that (a) Beethoven, owing to his deafness and his hatred of the mother of the ward, was incapable of acting as guardian; (b) the guardianship belonged to the mother by right of law; (c) the commission of an act of infidelity against her husband in 1811, for which she had suffered punishment, was no longer a bar; (d) none of the alleged “injurious disturbances and interferences” had been definitely set forth or proven:

If under injurious disturbances we are to understand that the mother is desirous to see her child once every 14 days or 4 weeks, or to convince herself about the wear and cleanliness of his clothing, or to learn of his conduct toward his teachers, these can appear injurious only in the eyes of the appellant; the rest of the world, however, would find it amiss in a mother if she made inquiry concerning her child only once a fortnight or month.

Answering the second charge, the magistrates urged that the appellant seemed to ask of the mother and other guardian that they themselves educate the boy in the sciences. For this not even the appellant was fitted, at least he had not demonstrated such a fitness; he had left the preparation for the higher studies to others and this the mother and guardian could also do, having, indeed, a better plan, which was to send the boy to the R. I. Convict, where he would surely make better progress at smaller expense. Ad tertium, the failure of the boy to advance in his classes could not be laid to the mother or guardian, but must be charged against the appellant, who had taken the boy away from his studies for the university after two months, kept him at home three months, and sent him to another institution of learning at the end of June; naturally enough he lost a school year.

The Court of Appeals demanded a more explicit report, which the Magistracy filed on February 28, taking advantage of the opportunity to review the proceedings had before the Landrecht from the beginning, and to make severe strictures on the conduct of Beethoven in filing an exhibit (F) with his petition in support of which no evidence was offered, though because of it the Landrecht was asked to exclude the mother from the guardianship which belonged to her under the law. Again we quote:

This exclusion can have nothing for its foundation except the misdemeanor of which the mother was guilty in 1811, for all the rest[28] contained in appellant’s exhibit F is unproven chatter to which the Landrecht could give no consideration, but which gives speaking proof of how passionately and inimically the appellant has always acted, and still acts, towards the mother, how little he recks of tearing open wounds that were healed, since after having endured punishment she stood rehabilitated; and yet he reproaches her with a transgression for which she had atoned years before, which had been pardoned by the injured husband himself who petitioned for leniency in her sentence and who had declared her capable and fit for the guardianship of his son in his last will and testament, directing that the son be not taken away from his mother. Regardless of this the appellant last year, certainly not in the interest of the boy’s welfare, inasmuch as we have excellent educational institutions here, but only to pain the mother, to tear the heart out of her bosom, attempted to send him out of the country to Landshut. Fortunately the government authorities, acting on information derived from this court, frustrated the plan by refusing a passport.

Depravity of Karl’s Mother

Let us try now to take a dispassionate view of the case as thus far presented in the pleadings and documents. Not only the law of nature but the laws of the land justified the mother in asserting her right to look after the physical well-being of her child and seeking to enforce it. Dr. Bach seems to have impressed that fact upon Beethoven, wherefore he declares his willingness in the bill of appeal to associate her with himself in the guardianship to that extent. That the Magistrates displayed unusual, not to say unjudicial zeal in her behalf while defending their own course is indubitable; but we are in no position to judge of the propriety of their course, which seems to have been in harmony with the judicial procedure of the place and period, least of all to condemn them, so long as it was permitted them so to do, for having made a stout resistance when their acts were impugned in the appeal to the higher court. The “Exhibit F,” filed in the proceedings before the Landrecht, has not been found and its contents can only be guessed at from the allusions to it in the documents. Obviously it contained aspersions on the moral character of Madame van Beethoven, and it may have been, nay, probably was, true that they were unsupported by evidence and therefore undeserving of consideration in a court either of law or equity. Perhaps they were not susceptible of legal proof. It has been thought that Beethoven felt some hesitancy in flaunting evidence of his sister-in-law’s infamy in the face of the world,[27] but he certainly showed no disposition to spare her in his letters, nor did he hesitate to accuse[29] her of unmentionable things by innuendo. In a Conversation Book of this year (1820) he writes of her that she was “born for intrigue, accomplished in deceit, mistress of all the arts of dissimulation.” On the other hand, it is singular that the Magistrates in their final effort to justify their course have nothing to say about the present moral standing of the woman whose legal and natural rights they claimed to be upholding. Were they in ignorance of what we now know, namely, that her conduct had not only been reprehensible in 1811 (though condoned by her husband) but continued so after her husband’s death? Schindler says that she gave birth to a child while the case was pending, and that is confirmed by a statement of Nephew Karl’s widow,[28] that in her old age Madame van Beethoven lived in Baden with this illegitimate daughter, who was also a dissolute woman.

But there are many anomalous things to the studious mind in the proceedings which we are reporting, which differ greatly from anything which could happen in a court of chancery or probate in Great Britain or America to-day. It is certainly repugnant to our present legal ethics that having filed a petition to reverse the action of one court Beethoven should not only have written private letters to a judge of the court of review, pleading his case on personal grounds, but that his counsel should have advised him to visit members of the higher court to present arguments in his behalf. But, no doubt, this was consistent with the customs of Austria a century ago; and it is what happened. Beethoven writes to Karl Winter, an Appellationsrat, and his lawyer tells him to engage him and one of his colleagues, Schmerling, in conversation on the subject. Perhaps Winter himself questioned the propriety of the proceeding, for in a Conversation Book somebody, who had evidently acted as messenger in the delivery of the letter, writes: “I gave it to Herr v. Winter; he kept me waiting and then said that he could give no answer, nor involve himself in a correspondence.” The letter in question was written on March 6. In it Beethoven says that he had prepared a memorial which he would place in his hands in a few days. From the outline given it is plain that the memorial contained a review of the case since the death of Beethoven’s brother. It had been prepared, said Beethoven, “believing that I owed it to myself to expose the falsity of the many slanders which have been uttered against me and to lay bare the intrigues of Madame van Beethoven against me to the injury of her own child, as also to place in its proper light the conduct of the Magistrates’ Court.” He charges that the Magistrates[30] had summoned the widow and her son to a hearing without his knowledge and, as his nephew had told him, he had been urged and led on by his mother to make false accusations against him. He had also forwarded a document which proved the wavering and partisan conduct of the Magistrates. He repeats the charge about his nephew’s failure to advance in his studies and adds that the boy had had a hemorrhage which, had he not been on hand, might almost have cost him his life. These things were not attributable to Herr Tuscher for the reason that the Magistrates had given him too little support and he could not proceed with sufficient energy—this the writer could do in his capacity of uncle, guardian and defrayer of expenses. He asks that if it becomes necessary he and his nephew be examined, cites his expenditures to keep the boy two years in an educational institution, saying that he had received nothing from the widow in nearly fourteen months but would continue to pay the cost unselfishly in the future, and had set apart 4,000 florins which was on deposit in bank and was to go to his nephew on his death. Moreover, he had expectations from his relations with the Archbishop of Olmütz, etc.

The case was prepared shrewdly, carefully and most discreetly by Dr. Bach, who seems to have exerted an admirable influence on Beethoven at this crisis. The nature of his advice may be learned from the communication of Bernard in one of the recorded conversations. Bernard is writing, and evidently giving the result of a consultation with Dr. Bach. The Court of Appeals would ask another report from the Magistrates and on its receipt would adjudge the case. Nussböck, who Dr. Bach said was willing, should voluntarily retire from the guardianship. Beethoven was asked as to the appointment of Tuscher; had he resigned permanently or only temporarily in favor of Tuscher, the better to accomplish the nephew’s removal from his mother? In what manner had Tuscher abdicated, and had the Magistracy informed Beethoven of the fact? It was necessary, said the adviser, to proceed with moderation in all things so as to avoid the appearance of malice, and the mother should not be assailed if it was at all avoidable, stress being laid only on the fact that as a woman she ought not to have the direction of the education of a boy of Karl’s age, not having the requisite fitness. It would also be necessary for him, in case he were asked, to state his readiness to defray the cost of the boy’s education in the future and this, if the worst came to the worst, might be followed by a threat to withdraw wholly from his care. Reproaches might be made against him concerning the period when he had the boy with him, the priests having taken to meddling in the matter,[31] and it would be well in the future not to take the boy to public eating-houses where he would be observed and scandal fomented.

Appointment of a Joint Guardianship

Bach seems to have advised Beethoven to visit two of the judges, Winter and Schmerling, and himself had an interview with the boy, who told his uncle what the advocate had questioned him about. For the nonce Karl was on his good behavior. Blöchlinger reported favorably on his studies to Bernard, and in a Conversation Book the boy apologized to his uncle for some statements derogatory to him which he had made to the Magistrates. “She promised me so many things,” he said, “that I could not resist her; I am sorry that I was so weak at the time and beg your forgiveness; I will not again permit myself to be led astray. I did not know what results might follow when I told the Magistrates what I did; but if there is another examination I will retract all the falsehoods I uttered.” The magisterial commission which followed on March 29, had plainly been held at the instance of the Appellate Court. Beethoven was solemnly admonished, and in answer to questions declared: (1) that he still demanded the guardianship of his nephew under the will and would not relinquish his claim; (2) that he requested the appointment of Councillor Peters as associate guardian; (3) that he demanded that Madame van Beethoven be excluded from the guardianship as she had been by the Landrecht, and (4) he reiterated his readiness to provide financially for the care of his ward; he would accept an associate guardian, but not a sole guardian, as he was convinced that no guardian would care for his nephew as well as he. In insisting on a renewed declaration on these points it is likely that the Court of Appeals had some hope that Beethoven might voluntarily renounce or modify his claims or the Magistrates recede from their attitude. Neither contingency occurred, however, and on April 8 the reviewing court issued its decree in Beethoven’s favor, he and Peters being appointed joint guardians (gemeinschaftliche Vormünde), the mother and Nussböck being deposed. The widow now played her last card:—she appealed to the Emperor, who upheld the Court of Appeals. There was nothing for the Magistracy to do except to notify the result of the appeals to Beethoven, Madame van Beethoven, Peters and Nussböck. This was done on July 24.

Beethoven had won at last. But at what a cost to himself, his art, the world! What time, what labor, what energy had he not taken away from his artistic creations! What had he not expended in the way of peace of mind, of friendship, of physical comfort, of wear of brain and nerve-force, for the privilege of keeping the boy to himself, of watching unmolested over his physical[32] welfare and directing his intellectual and moral training unhindered! Surely such sacrifices, inspired, as we know they were, by a transcendent sense of duty and profoundest love, merited the rich reward of which he had dreamed—the devotion of one who ought to have been all that a son could be, the happiness of seeing the object of his love grow into a brilliant man and a useful citizen. Was it vouchsafed him? Let us not in the midst of his present happiness look too far into the future. Now his joy is unbounded. He breaks into a jubilation when, in conveying the news to Pinterics—that Pinterics who had sung the bass in “Ta, ta, ta,” in honor of Mälzel: “Dr. Bach was my representative in this affair and this Brook (Bach) was joined by the sea, lightning, thunder, a tempest, and the magisterial brigantine suffered complete shipwreck!” Schindler says that “his happiness over the triumph which he had won over wickedness and trickery, but also because of the supposed salvation from physical danger of his talented nephew, was so great that he worked but little or not at all all summer—though this was perhaps more apparent than real, the sketchbooks disclosing from now on only empty pages.” A wise qualification, for though the sketchbooks may have been empty, there is evidence enough elsewhere of hard work. Yet the Mass was not finished, and for this unfortunate circumstance the guardianship trial was no doubt largely to blame. To this subject we shall return presently.

Of Peters, who was appointed joint guardian with Beethoven of the nephew, little is known beyond what we learn from Beethoven and Peters’s contributions to the Conversation Books. He was a tutor in the house of Prince Lobkowitz and had been on terms of friendship with Beethoven since 1816; his appointment by the court is a confirmation of Beethoven’s tribute to him as a man of intellectual parts and of good moral character. His wife had a good voice and was a great admirer of Beethoven, who presented her with a copy of the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte.” A letter, once in the possession of John Ella in London, which may be of earlier date than 1821, to which year it is, however, most naturally assigned in view of the allusion to the “state burden” (the nephew), runs as follows:

How are you? Are you well or ill? How is your wife? Permit me to sing something for you: [33] How are your young princes? Will you be at home this afternoon at 5 o’clock? Perhaps I’ll visit you together with my state burden.

Bad Conduct of Nephew Karl

Nephew Karl remained at Blöchlinger’s institute and continued to cause worry and anxiety to his uncle. Reports concerning his conduct and studies were variable from different persons and at different times. Blöchlinger complained that he needed constant supervision: “Had we not always been strict with him, he would not be where he is now.” A cleric declares that he was at heart not a bad child but had been harmed by bad examples. “Karl has little feeling and in spite of the knowledge for which he is praised he has no reasoning powers,” writes an unidentified person in the Conversation Book, surely not to the satisfaction of the uncle who was always setting forth his nephew’s exceptional talent. In June somebody else (this time it may have been Oliva) feels constrained to write: “The boy lies every time he opens his mouth.” The “terrible occurrence” which had almost crushed Beethoven in December, 1818, repeats itself, fortunately without such dire results to the too sympathetic uncle: In June, instead of coming to an oral examination, Karl ran away to his mother. Madame Blöchlinger had to take a coach and servant and bring him back to the school; and to get him away from Madame van Beethoven, who was disposed to keep him in concealment, had to promise to see to it that he should not be punished for his naughtiness. Now Blöchlinger, who says that the presence of Madame van Beethoven “poisons the air,” wants the woman excluded from his house and asks for a power of attorney to call in the help of the police every time that Karl shall go to his mother, whom he calls a “notorious strumpet,” of whose presence in his house he must needs be ashamed. All this was told to Beethoven by Bernard, who had learned it from Blöchlinger. Beethoven went for advice to Bach, who told his client that it was impracticable to get a judicial writ against the mother enjoining her from meeting her son, and impossible to prevent secret meetings and secret correspondence. The practical solution of the problem was to have Blöchlinger refuse to admit the woman to his institute and compel her to see Karl at his uncle’s home. This would serve the purpose to some extent, as the mother did not like to meet her brother-in-law.

The enthronization of Beethoven’s imperial pupil as Archbishop of Olmütz took place on March 20. The Mass which was[34] to have been the composer’s tribute was still unfinished. The reader knows why, or at least has been provided with an opportunity to form an opinion as to the reason. It may have been for the purpose of offering an explanation to the new dignitary of the church, that Beethoven sought an audience as he states in a letter of April 3. The Archducal Archbishop had gone to Olmütz and Beethoven wants to know his plans for the immediate future. He had heard that H. I. H. was to return to Vienna in May, but also that he intended to be absent for a year and a half. If so, Beethoven deplores that he has made plans for himself which are unwise. He begs H. I. H. not to give credence to the false reports concerning himself (Beethoven) which might reach his ears: “If Y. I. H. calls me one of your most treasured objects, I can honestly say that Y. I. H. is to me one of the most treasured objects in the universe. Although I am no courtier, I believe that Y. I. H. has learned to know me well enough to know that no cold interest, but a sincere affection, has always attached me to yourself and inspired me; and I might well say that Blondel was found long ago, and if no Richard is to be found in the world for me, God will be my Richard.” He has evidently concerned himself about the music at the court in Olmütz: “It appears to me that my idea to maintain a quartet will certainly be the best thing to do. If there are already productions on a large scale in Olmütz, something admirable might arise in Moravia through a quartet.” He advises his pupil, in case it is his purpose to return in May, to keep his compositions till then so as to play them first to him; but if his stay is to be longer, he will receive the compositions with the greatest pleasure and seek to guide H. I. H. “to the highest peaks of Parnassus.”

A Punning Canon on Hofmann

A reference to himself as one who was at court yet not a courtier had been made by Beethoven in an earlier letter. This play on words seems to have been much in his head about this time and it is small wonder that when an opportunity offered for the employment of the pun in a canon it should have been embraced; in fact, it looks as if possibly he had strained for the occasion, unless it should appear from evidence yet to be found that “One who was named Hoffmann,” in Beethoven’s words, was, as was long believed, the redoubtable E. T. A. Hoffmann, who had surely deserved the tribute contained in a canon which Beethoven wrote at this time. In the Conversation Book used in March, 1820, a strange hand writes: “In the Phantasie-Stücke by Hoffmann, you are often spoken of. Hoffmann was musical director in Bamberg; he is now Government Councillor. Operas of his composition are[35] performed in Berlin.” Beethoven remarks, in writing: “Hofmann du bist kein Hofmann.” Later in a conversation held at table, these words occur twice: “Hŏfmānn ÷ sei ja kein Hōfmănn—nein ÷ ÷ ÷ ich heisse Hŏfmānn und bin kein Hōfmănn.” These words are preceded by a measure of music, the beginning of the canon in question. Did Beethoven thus honor the fantastic poet, musician, novelist, essayist, singer, scene-painter and theatrical manager who had shown such keen critical appreciation of his symphonies? It was long a pleasure to believe so and natural, too, until Nottebohm came with his iconoclastic evidence to the contrary. On March 23 Beethoven had written a letter to Hoffmann, expressing his gratification at having won the good opinion of a man gifted with such excellent attributes as Hoffmann possessed. Had he written the canon at this time he would surely have enclosed it in this letter and then, since it was preserved among Hoffmann’s papers, it would have been found and given to the world with the letter. But Beethoven kept the canon in his mind or had a copy of it, and printed it in 1825, when B. Schott’s Sons in Mayence asked him for a contribution to their musical journal “Cäcilia,” which had been founded a year before. Now comes Nottebohm with his evidence in the case. A man named Gross was once the owner of the autograph and his son told Nottebohm that it had been written in the Matschaker Hof, a tavern at which Beethoven was dining at the time, and referred to a church musician named Vincenz Hoffmann, as the informant remembered the name. Nottebohm looked through the official lists of musicians in Vienna in the first decades of the century; he did not find a Vincenz, but did find a Joachim Hoffmann who might have been an acquaintance of Beethoven’s; and so he set him down as the recipient of the composer’s tribute.[29]

In the summer of 1820, Beethoven went to Mödling again, but he did not take the lodgings in the Harfner house for the very sufficient reason that the proprietor had served notice on him in 1819, that he could not have it longer on account of the noisy disturbances which had taken place there. He took a house instead in the Babenbergerstrasse and paid twelve florins extra for the use of a balcony which commanded a view which was essential to his happiness. He takes the baths and receives a[36] visit from his nephew, who probably stays with him during his school vacation; at any rate, the boy does not return to Vienna until October 5, on which day the Giannatasios, making an excursion to Mödling, meet him with Karl driving to town. There is at this time considerable talk in the Conversation Book of publishing a complete edition of Beethoven’s works. Bernard, probably, tells him that Steiner is already counting on it and Schindler, who is enthusiastic over the project, gives it as his opinion that arrangements must be made with a Vienna publisher so as to avoid voluminous correspondence. Somebody remarks: “Eckstein will so arrange it that you will always get all the profits and will also publish your future works as your property. He thinks that every fourth or fifth piece should be a new one.” The plan appealed strongly to Beethoven, but nothing came of it at the time, though we shall hear of it later. It was the discussion of it, probably, by his friends which brought out a letter from Beethoven to Haslinger, “best of Adjutants,” asking him to decide a bet. Beethoven had wagered 10 florins that it was not true that the Steiners had been obliged to pay Artaria 2000 florins damages for having published Mozart’s works, which were reprinted universally.

Towards the end of October, Beethoven returned to Vienna and took lodgings at No. 244 Hauptstrasse in the Landstrasse, “the large house of the Augustinians” beside the church. There he was visited by Dr. W. Chr. Müller of Bremen, a philologist and musical amateur who had long admired Beethoven and, with the help of his “Family Concerts,” established in 1782, had created such a cult for Beethoven’s music as existed in no city in Germany in the second decade of the nineteenth century—according to Schindler. Müller’s daughter Elise played the sonatas exceptionally well and was largely instrumental with her father in creating this cult. Müller was making an Italian tour, visited Vienna in October and November and published an account of his meetings with Beethoven in the “Allg. Musik. Zeit.” in 1827. In this he tells of Beethoven’s freedom of speech at public eating-houses, where he would criticize the Austrian government, the morals of the aristocracy, the police, etc., without stint. The police paid no attention to his utterances, either because they looked upon him as a harmless fantastic or had an overwhelming respect for his artistic genius. “Hence,” says Dr. Müller, “his opinion that nowhere was speech freer than in Vienna; but his ideal of a political constitution was the English one.” It was through Dr. Müller that we know somewhat of Beethoven’s views on the[37] subject of analytical programmes. Among the zealous promoters of the Beethoven cult in Bremen, was a young poet named Dr. Karl Iken, editor of the “Bremer Zeitung,” who, inspired by the Familien-Concerte, conceived the idea of helping the public to an understanding of Beethoven’s music by writing programmatic expositions of the symphonies for perusal before the concerts. Some of his lucubrations were sent to Beethoven by Dr. Müller, and aroused the composer’s ire. Schindler found four of these “programmes” among Beethoven’s papers, and he gave the world a specimen. In the Seventh Symphony, Dr. Iken professed to see a political revolution.

“Programme” for the Seventh Symphony

The sign of revolt is given; there is a rushing and running about of the multitude; an innocent man, or party, is surrounded, overpowered after a struggle and haled before a legal tribunal. Innocency weeps; the judge pronounces a harsh sentence; sympathetic voices mingle in laments and denunciations—they are those of widows and orphans; in the second part of the first movement the parties have become equal in numbers and the magistrates are now scarcely able to quiet the wild tumult. The uprising is suppressed, but the people are not quieted; hope smiles cheeringly and suddenly the voice of the people pronounces the decision in harmonious agreement.... But now, in the last movement, the classes and the masses mix in a variegated picture of unrestrained revelry. The quality still speak aloofly in the wind-instruments,—strange bacchantic madness in related chords—pauses, now here, now there—now on a sunny hill, anon on flowery meadow where in merry May all the jubilating children of nature vie with each other with joyful voices—float past the fancy.

It is scarcely to be wondered at that such balderdash disgusted and even enraged Beethoven. In the fall of 1819, he dictated a letter to Müller—it has, unfortunately been lost—in which he protested energetically against such interpretations of his music. He pointed out, says Schindler, who wrote the letter for him, the errors to which such writings would inevitably give rise. If expositions were necessary, they should be confined to characterization of the composition in general terms, which could easily and correctly be done by any educated musician.

Beethoven’s complaints concerning his financial condition were chronic and did not cease even in periods where extraordinary receipts make them difficult to understand. That the lamentations in his letters during the two years which we have in review were well-founded, however, is no doubt true. With so engrossing a work as the “Missa solemnis” on hand there could not have been much time for such potboilers as he mentions and the other sources of revenue were not many. From the records which are at hand, we know something about a few of his monetary[38] transactions. On October 26, 1820, he collected 300 florins on account, apparently, from Artaria and Co., through his old friend Oliva. Shortly after his return to Vienna from the country, he asks the same firm, from which he had borrowed 750 florins,[30] for a further loan of 150 to save himself the necessity of selling one of his bank shares. These shares, it will be remembered in partial extenuation or at least explanation of some of his actions which are scarcely compatible with his protestations of his unswerving honesty in business transactions, had been set apart by him as his nephew’s legacy and he clung to them as to a sacred pledge. He promises to repay Artaria in three months and meanwhile to send him a composition in one, two or more movements, without honorarium. An incident which shows him in an unamiable light is connected with his financial relations with the publisher Steiner. On December 29, 1820, Steiner wrote him a letter which did not see the public eye until published in the “Neue Freie Presse” newspaper of Vienna on August 17, 1900. Steiner had sent Beethoven a dun, or at least a statement of account, and Beethoven had, evidently, been both rude and unreasonable in his reply. We quote from Steiner:

Indebtedness to Steiner

I cannot rest content with your remarks concerning the account sent you; for the cash money loaned you I have charged you only 6% interest, while for the money which you deposited with me I paid you 8% promptly in advance and also repaid the capital promptly. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (Was also dem Einen recht ist, muss dem Andern billig sein). I am not in a position to lend money without interest. As a friend I came to your help in need, I trusted your word of honor and believe that I have not been importunate, nor have I plagued you in any way; wherefore I must solemnly protest against your upbraidings. If you recall that my loan to you was made in part 5 years ago, you will yourself confess that I am not an urgent creditor. I would spare you even now and wait patiently if I were not on my honor in need of cash for my business. If I were less convinced that you are really in a position to give me relief and able to keep your word of honor I would, difficult as it would be for me, right gladly remain patient a while longer; but when I remember that I myself returned to you 4,000 florins, conventional coin, or 10,000 florins, Vienna Standard, as capital 17 months ago and at your request did not deduct the amount due me, it is doubly painful to me now to be embarrassed because of my good will and my trust in your word of honor. Every man knows best where the shoe pinches and I am in this case; wherefore I conjure you again not to leave me in the lurch and to find means