(Said to Louis Schlosser, a young musician, whom Beethoven honored withhis friendship in 1822-23.)
55. “On the whole, the carrying out of several voices in strict relationship mutually hinders their progress.”
(Fall of 1812, in the Diary of 1812-18.)
56. “Few as are the claims which I make upon such things I shall still accept the dedication of your beautiful work with pleasure. You ask, however, that I also play the part of a critic, without thinking that I must myself submit to criticism! With Voltaire I believe that ‘a few fly-bites can not stop a spirited horse.’ In this respect I beg of you to follow my example. In order not to approach you surreptitiously, but openly as always, I say that in future works of the character you might give more heed to the individualization of the voices.”
(Vienna, May 10, 1826. To whom the letter was sent is not known, thoughfrom the manner of address it is plain that he was of the nobility.)
57. “Your variations show talent, but I must fault you for having changed the theme. Why? What man loves must not be taken away from him;—moreover to do this is to make changes before variations.”
(Baden, July 6, 1804, to Wiedebein, a teacher of music in Brunswick.)
58. “I am not in the habit of rewriting my compositions. I never did it because I am profoundly convinced that every change of detail changes the character of the whole.”
(February 19, 1813, to George Thomson, who had requested some changes incompositions submitted to him for publication.)
59. “One must not hold one’s self so divine as to be unwilling occasionally to make improvements in one’s creations.”
(March 4, 1809, to Breitkopf and Hartel, when indicating a few changeswhich he wished to have made in the symphonies op. 67 and op. 68.)
60. “The unnatural rage for transcribing pianoforte pieces for string instruments (instruments that are in every respect so different from each other) ought to end. I stoutly maintain that only Mozart could have transcribed his own works, and Haydn; and without putting myself on a level with these great men I assert the same thing about my pianoforte sonatas. Not only must entire passages be elided and changed, but additions must be made; and right here lies the rock of offence to overcome which one must be the master of himself or be possessed of the same skill and inventiveness. I transcribed but a single sonata for string quartet, and I am sure that no one will easily do it after me.”
(July 13, 1809, in an announcement of several compositions, among themthe quintet op. 29.)
61. “Were it not that my income brings in nothing, I should compose nothing but grand symphonies, church music, or, at the outside, quartets in addition.”
(December 20, 1822, to Peters, publisher, in Leipzig. His income hadbeen reduced from 4,000 to 800 florins by the depreciation of Austriancurrency.)
[Here, in the original, is one of the puns which Beethoven was fond of making: “Ware mein Gehalt nicht ganzlich ohne Gehalt.” H. E. K.]
While reading Beethoven’s views on the subject of how music ought to be performed, it is but natural to inquire about his own manner of playing. On this point Ries, his best pupil, reports:
“In general Beethoven played his own compositions very capriciously, yet he adhered, on the whole, strictly to the beat and only at times, but seldom, accelerated the tempo a trifle. Occasionally he would retard the tempo in a crescendo, which produced a very beautiful and striking effect. While playing he would give a passage, now in the right hand, now in the left, a beautiful expression which was simply inimitable; but it was rarely indeed that he added a note or an ornament.”
Of his playing when still a young man one of his hearers said that it was in the slow movements particularly that it charmed everybody. Almost unanimously his contemporaries give him the palm for his improvisations. Ries says:
“His extemporizations were the most extraordinary things that one could hear. No artist that I ever heard came at all near the height which Beethoven attained. The wealth of ideas which forced themselves on him, the caprices to which he surrendered himself, the variety of treatment, the difficulties, were inexhaustible.”
His playing was not technically perfect. He let many a note “fall under the table,” but without marring the effect of his playing. Concerning this we have a remark of his own in No. 75. Somewhat critical is Czerny’s report:
“Extraordinary as his extempore playing was it was less successful in the performance of printed compositions; for, since he never took the time or had the patience to practice anything, his success depended mostly on chance and mood; and since, also, his manner of playing as well as composing was ahead of his time, the weak and imperfect pianofortes of his time could not withstand his gigantic style. It was because of this that Hummel’s purling and brilliant manner of play, well adapted to the period, was more intelligible and attractive to the great public. But Beethoven’s playing in adagios and legato, in the sustained style, made an almost magical impression on every hearer, and, so far as I know, it has never been surpassed.” Czerny’s remark about the pianofortes of Beethoven’s day explains Beethoven’s judgment on his own pianoforte sonatas. He composed for the sonorous pianoforte of the future,—the pianoforte building today.
The following anecdote, told by Czerny, will be read with pleasure. Pleyel, a famous musician, came to Vienna from Paris in 1805, and had his latest quartets performed in the palace of Prince Lobkowitz. Beethoven was present and was asked to play something. “As usual, he submitted to the interminable entreaties and finally was dragged almost by force to the pianoforte by the ladies. Angrily he tears the second violin part of one of the Pleyel quartets from the music-stand where it still lay open, throws it upon the rack of the pianoforte, and begins to improvise. We had never heard him extemporize more brilliantly, with more originality or more grandly than on that evening.
“But throughout the entire improvisation there ran in the middle voices, like a thread, or cantus firmus, the insignificant notes, wholly insignificant in themselves, which he found on the page of the quartet, which by chance lay open on the music-stand; on them he built up the most daring melodies and harmonies, in the most brilliant concert style. Old Pleyel could only give expression to his amazement by kissing his hands. After such improvisations Beethoven was wont to break out into a loud and satisfied laugh.”
Czerny says further of his playing: “In rapidity of scale passages, trills, leaps, etc., no one equaled him,—not even Hummel. His attitude at the pianoforte was perfectly quiet and dignified, with no approach to grimace, except to bend down a little towards the keys as his deafness increased; his fingers were very powerful, not long, and broadened at the tips by much playing; for he told me often that in his youth he had practiced stupendously, mostly till past midnight. In teaching he laid great stress on a correct position of the fingers (according to the Emanuel Bach method, in which he instructed me); he himself could barely span a tenth. He made frequent use of the pedal, much more frequently than is indicated in his compositions. His reading of the scores of Handel and Gluck and the fugues of Bach was unique, inasmuch as he put a polyphony and spirit into the former which gave the works a new form.”
In his later years the deaf master could no longer hear his own playing which therefore came to have a pitifully painful effect. Concerning his manner of conducting, Seyfried says: “It would no wise do to make our master a model in conducting, and the orchestra had to take great care lest it be led astray by its mentor; for he had an eye only for his composition and strove unceasingly by means of manifold gesticulations to bring out the expression which he desired. Often when he reached a forte he gave a violent down beat even if the note were an unaccented one. He was in the habit of marking a diminuendo by crouching down lower and lower, and at a pianissimo he almost crept under the stand. With a crescendo he, too, grew, rising as if out of a stage trap, and with the entrance of a fortissimo he stood on his toes and seemed to take on gigantic proportions, while he waved his arms about as if trying to soar upwards to the clouds. Everything about him was in activity; not a part of his organization remained idle, and the whole man seemed like a perpetuum mobile. Concerning expression, the little nuances, the equable division of light and shade, as also an effective tempo rubato, he was extremely exact and gladly discussed them with the individual members of the orchestra without showing vexation or anger.”
62. “It has always been known that the greatest pianoforte players were also the greatest composers; but how did they play? Not like the pianists of today who prance up and down the key-board with passages in which they have exercised themselves,—putsch, putsch, putsch;—what does that mean? Nothing. When the true pianoforte virtuosi played it was always something homogeneous, an entity; it could be transcribed and then it appeared as a well thought-out work. That is pianoforte playing; the other is nothing!”
(In conversation with Tomaschek, October, 1814.)
63. “Candidly I am not a friend of Allegri di bravura and such, since they do nothing but promote mechanism.”
(Hetzendorf, July 16, 1823, to Ries in London.)
64. “The great pianists have nothing but technique and affectation.”
(Fall of 1817, to Marie Pachler-Koschak, a pianist whom Beethovenregarded very highly. “You will play the sonatas in F major and C minor,for me, will you not?”)
65. “As a rule, in the case of these gentlemen, all reason and feeling are generally lost in the nimbleness of their fingers.”
(Reported by Schindler as a remark of Beethoven’s concerning pianofortevirtuosi.)
66. “Habit may depreciate the most brilliant talents.”
(In 1812 to his pupil, Archduke Rudolph, whom he warns against toozealous a devotion to music.)
67. “You will have to play a long time yet before you realize that you can not play at all.”
(July, 1808. Reported by Rust as having been said to a young man whoplayed for Beethoven.)
68. “One must be something if one wishes to put on appearances.”
(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)
69. “These pianoforte players have their coteries whom they often join; there they are praised continually,—and there’s an end of art!”
(Conversation with Tomaschek, October, 1814.)
70. “We Germans have too few dramatically trained singers for the part of Leonore. They are too cold and unfeeling; the Italians sing and act with body and soul.”
(1824, in Baden, to Freudenberg, an organist from Breslau.)
71. “If he is a master of his instrument I rank an organist amongst the first of virtuosi. I too, played the organ a great deal when I was young, but my nerves would not stand the power of the gigantic instrument.”
(To Freudenberg, in Baden.)
72. “I never wrote noisy music. For my instrumental works I need an orchestra of about sixty good musicians. I am convinced that only such a number can bring out the quickly changing graduations in performance.”
(Reported by Schindler.)
73. “A Requiem ought to be quiet music,—it needs no trump of doom; memories of the dead require no hubbub.”
(Reported by Holz to Fanny von Ponsing, in Baden, summer of 1858.According to the same authority Beethoven valued Cherubini’s “Requiem”more highly than any other.)
74. “No metronome at all! He who has sound feeling needs none, and he who has not will get no help from the metronome;—he’ll run away with the orchestra anyway.”
(Reported by Schindler. It had been found that Beethoven himselfhad sent different metronomic indications to the publisher and thePhilharmonic Society of London.)
75. “In reading rapidly a multitude of misprints may pass unnoticed because you are familiar with the language.”
(To Wegeler, who had expressed wonder at Beethoven’s rapid primavistaplaying, when it was impossible to see each individual note.)
76. “The poet writes his monologue or dialogue in a certain, continuous rhythm, but the elocutionist in order to insure an understanding of the sense of the lines, must make pauses and interruptions at places where the poet was not permitted to indicate it by punctuation. The same manner of declamation can be applied to music, and admits of modification only according to the number of performers.”
(Reported by Schindler, Beethoven’s faithful factotum.)
77. “With respect to his playing with you, when he has acquired the proper mode of fingering and plays in time and plays the notes with tolerable correctness, only then direct his attention to the matter of interpretation; and when he has gotten this far do not stop him for little mistakes, but point them out at the end of the piece. Although I have myself given very little instruction I have always followed this method which quickly makes musicians, and that, after all, is one of the first objects of art.”
(To Czerny, who was teaching music to Beethoven’s nephew Karl.)
78. “Always place the hands at the key-board so that the fingers can not be raised higher than is necessary; only in this way is it possible to produce a singing tone.”
(Reported by Schindler as Beethoven’s view on pianoforte instruction.He hated a staccato style of playing and dubbed it “finger dancing” and“throwing the hands in the air.”)
[PG Editor’s Note: #79 was skipped in the 1905 edition—error?]
80. “I haven’t a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music,—it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them.”
(To Bettina von Arnim. [Bettina’s letter to Goethe, May 28, 1810.])
81. “The variations will prove a little difficult to play, particularly the trills in the coda; but let that not frighten you. It is so disposed that you need play only the trills, omitting the other notes because they are also in the violin part. I would never have written a thing of this kind had I not often noticed here and there in Vienna a man who after I had improvised of an evening would write down some of my peculiarities and make boast of them next day. Foreseeing that these things would soon appear in print I made up my mind to anticipate them. Another purpose which I had was to embarrass the local pianoforte masters. Many of them are my mortal enemies, and I wanted to have my revenge in this way, for I knew in advance that the variations would be put before them, and that they would make exhibitions of themselves.”
(Vienna, November 2, 1793, to Eleonore von Breuning, in dedicating toher the variations in F major, “Se vuol ballare.” [The pianist whomBeethoven accuses of stealing his thunder was Abbe Gelinek.])
82. “The time in which I wrote my sonatas (the first ones of the second period) was more poetical than the present (1823); such hints were therefore unnecessary. Every one at that time felt in the Largo of the third sonata in D (op. 10) the pictured soulstate of a melancholy being, with all the nuances of light and shade which occur in a delineation of melancholy and its phases, without requiring a key in the shape of a superscription; and everybody then saw in the two sonatas (op. 14) the picture of a contest between two principles, or a dialogue between two persons, because it was so obvious.”
(In answer to Schindler’s question why he had not indicated the poeticalconceits underlying his sonatas by superscriptions or titles.)
83. “This sonata has a clean face (literally: ‘has washed itself’), my dear brother!”
(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, publisher in Leipzig to whom he offersthe sonata, op. 22, for 20 ducats.)
84. “They are incessantly talking about the C-sharp minor sonata (op. 27, No. 2); on my word I have written better ones. The F-sharp major sonata (op. 78) is a different thing!”
(A remark to Czerny.)
[The C-sharp minor sonata is that popularly known as the “Moonlight Sonata,” a title which is wholly without warrant. Its origin is due to Rellstab, who, in describing the first movement, drew a picture of a small boat in the moonlight on Lake Lucerne. In Vienna a tradition that Beethoven had composed it in an arbor gave rise to the title “Arbor sonata.” Titles of this character work much mischief in the amateur mind by giving rise to fantastic conceptions of the contents of the music. H. E. K.]
85. “The thing which my brother can have from me is 1, a Septett per il Violino, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabasso, Clarinetto, Cornto, Fagotto, tutti obligati; for I can not write anything that is not obligato, having come into the world with obligato accompaniment.”
(December 15, 1800, to Hofmeister, publisher, in Leipzig.)
86. “I am but little satisfied with my works thus far; from today I shall adopt a new course.”
(Reported by Carl Czerny in his autobiography in 1842. Concerning thetime at which the remark was made, Czerny says: “It was said about 1803,when B. had composed op. 28 (the pianoforte sonata in D) to his friendKrumpholz (a violinist). Shortly afterward there appeared the sonatas(now op. 31) in which a partial fulfillment of his resolution may beobserved.”)
87. “Read Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest.’”
(An answer to Schindler’s question as to what poetical conceit underlaythe sonatas in F minor. Beethoven used playfully to call the little sonof Breuning, the friend of his youth, A&Z, because he employed him oftenas a messenger.)
[“Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what the F minor and D minor (op. 31, No. 2) meant, he received for an answer only the enigmatical remark: ‘Read Shakespeare’s “Tempest.”’ Many a student and commentator has since read the ‘Tempest’ in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests, perhaps, too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, that had Beethoven said: ‘Hear my C minor symphony,’ he would have given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven himself said, indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the third, is interrupted by a period of calm, reassuring, soul-fortifying aspiration, which, in the symphony as well as in the sonata, takes the form of a theme with variations.”—“How to Listen to Music,” page 29. H. E. K.]
88. “Sinfonia Pastorella. He who has ever had a notion of country life can imagine for himself without many superscriptions what the composer is after. Even without a description the whole, which is more sentiment than tone painting, will be recognized.”
(A note among the sketches for the “Pastoral” symphony preserved in theRoyal Library at Berlin.)
[There are other notes of similar import among the sketches referred to which can profitably be introduced here:
“The hearer should be allowed to discover the situations;”
“Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country life;”
“Pastoral Symphony: No picture, but something in which the emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the pleasure of the country (or) in which some feelings of country life are set forth.”
When, finally, the work was given to the publisher, Beethoven included in the title an admonitory explanation which should have everlasting validity: “Pastoral Symphony: more expression of feeling than painting.” H. E. K.]
89. “My ‘Fidelio’ was not understood by the public, but I know that it will yet be appreciated; for though I am well aware of the value of my ‘Fidelio’ I know just as well that the symphony is my real element. When sounds ring in me I always hear the full orchestra; I can ask anything of instrumentalists, but when writing for the voice I must continually ask myself: ‘Can that be sung?’
(A remark made in 1823 or 1824 to Griesinger.)
90. “Thus Fate knocks at the portals!”
(Reported by Schindler as Beethoven’s explanation of the opening of thesymphony in C minor.)
[“Hofrath Kueffner told him (Krenn) that he once lived with Beethoven in Heiligenstadt, and that they were in the habit evenings of going down to Nussdorf to eat a fish supper in the Gasthaus ‘Zur Rose.’ One evening when B. was in a good humor, Kueffner began: `Tell me frankly which is your favorite among your symphonies?’ B. (in good humor) ‘Eh! Eh! The Eroica.’ K. ‘I should have guessed the C minor.’ B. ‘No; the Eroica.’” From Thayer’s notebook. See “Music and Manners in the Classical Period.” H.E.K.]
91. “The solo sonatas (op. 109-ll?) are perhaps the best, but also the last, music that I composed for the pianoforte. It is and always will be an unsatisfactory instrument. I shall hereafter follow the example of my grandmaster Handel, and every year write only an oratorio and a concerto for some string or wind instrument, provided I shall have finished my tenth symphony (C minor) and Requiem.”
(Reported by Holz. As to the tenth symphony see note to No. 95.)
92. “God knows why it is that my pianoforte music always makes the worst impression on me, especially when it is played badly.”
(June 2, 1804. A note among the sketches for the “Leonore” overture.)
93. “Never did my own music produce such an effect upon me; even now when I recall this work it still costs me a tear.”
(Reported by Holz. The reference is to the Cavatina from the quartetin B-flat, op. 130, which Beethoven thought the crown of all quartetmovements and his favorite composition. When alone and undisturbedhe was fond of playing his favorite pianoforte Andante—that from thesonata op. 28.)
94. “I do not write what I most desire to, but that which I need to because of money. But this is not saying that I write only for money. When the present period is past, I hope at last to write that which is the highest thing for me as well as art,—‘Faust.’”
(From a conversation-book used in 1823. To Buhler, tutor in the houseof a merchant, who was seeking information about an oratorio whichBeethoven had been commissioned to write by the Handel and Haydn Societyof Boston.)
95. “Ha! ‘Faust;’ that would be a piece of work! Something might come out of that! But for some time I have been big with three other large works. Much is already sketched out, that is, in my head. I must be rid of them first:—two large symphonies differing from each other, and each differing from all the others, and an oratorio. And this will take a long time, you see, for a considerable time I have had trouble to get myself to write. I sit and think, and think I’ve long had the thing, but it will not on the paper. I dread the beginning of these large works. Once into the work, and it goes.”
(In the summer of 1822, to Rochlitz, at Baden. The symphonies referredto are the ninth and tenth. They existed only in Beethoven’s mind and afew sketches. In it he intended to combine antique and modern views oflife.)
[“In the text Greek mythology, cantique ecclesiastique; in the Allegro, a Bacchic festival.” (Sketchbook of 1818)]
[The oratorio was to have been called “The Victory of the Cross.” It was not written. Schindler wrote to Moscheles in London about Beethoven in the last weeks of his life: “He said much about the plan of the tenth symphony. As the work had shaped itself in his imagination it might have become a musical monstrosity, compared with which his other symphonies would have been mere opuscula.”]
96. “How eagerly mankind withdraws from the poor artist what it has once given him;—and Zeus, from whom one might ask an invitation to sup on ambrosia, lives no longer.”
(In the summer of 1814, to Kauka, an advocate who represented him in thelawsuit against the heirs of Kinsky.)
97. “I love straightforwardness and uprightness, and believe that the artist ought not to be belittled; for, alas! brilliant as fame is externally, it is not always the privilege of the artist to be Jupiter’s guest on Olympus all the time. Unfortunately vulgar humanity drags him down only too often and too rudely from the pure upper ether.”
(June 5, 1852, to C. F. Peters, music publisher, in Leipzig whentreating with him touching a complete edition of his works.)
98. “The true artist has no pride; unhappily he realizes that art has no limitations, he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and while, perhaps he is admired by others, he grieves that he has not yet reached the point where the better genius shall shine before him like a distant sun.”
(Teplitz, July 17, to an admirer ten years old.)
99. “You yourself know what a change is wrought by a few years in the case of an artist who is continually pushing forward. The greater the progress which one makes in art, the less is one satisfied with one’s old works.”
(Vienna, August 4, 1800, to Mathisson, in the dedication of his settingof “Adelaide.” “My most ardent wish will be fulfilled if you are notdispleased with the musical composition of your heavenly ‘Adelaide.’”)
100. “Those composers are exemplars who unite nature and art in their works.”
(Baden, in 1824, to Freudenberg, organist from Breslau.)
101. “What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lauded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and, more’s the pity, the fashions of time, only that which is good and true, will endure like a rock, and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might toward the goal which can never be attained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which a gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn; for ‘Life is short, art eternal!’”
(From the notes in the instruction book of Archduke Rudolph.)
102. “Famous artists always labor under an embarrassment;—therefore first works are the best, though they may have sprung out of dark ground.”
(Conversation-book of 1840.)
103. “A musician is also a poet; he also can feel himself transported by a pair of eyes into another and more beautiful world where greater souls make sport of him and set him right difficult tasks.”
(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)
104. “I told Goethe my opinion as to how applause affects men like us, and that we want our equals to hear us understandingly! Emotion suits women only; music ought to strike fire from the soul of a man.”
(August 15, 1810, to Bettina von Arnim.)
105. “Most people are touched by anything good; but they do not partake of the artist’s nature; artists are ardent, they do not weep.”
(Reported to Goethe by Bettina von Arnim, May 28, 1810.)
106. “L’art unit tout le monde,—how much more the true artist!”
(March 15, 1823, to Cherubini, in Paris.)
107. “Only the artist, or the free scholar, carries his happiness within him.”
(Reported by Karl von Bursy as part of a conversation in 1816.)
108. “There ought to be only one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is one must be half a tradesman.”
(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)
The opinion of artist on artists is a dubious quantity. Recall the startling criticisms of Bocklin on his associates in art made public by the memoirs of his friends after his death. Such judgments are often one-sided, not without prejudice, and mostly the expression of impulse. It is a different matter when the artist speaks about the disciples of another art than his own, even if the opinions which Bocklin and Wagner held of each other are not a favorable example. Where Beethoven speaks of other composers we must read with clear and open eyes; but even here there will be much with which we can be in accord, especially his judgment on Rossini, whom he hated so intensely, and whose airy, sense-bewitching art seduced the Viennese from Beethoven. Interesting and also characteristic of the man is the attitude which he adopted towards the poets of his time. In general he estimated his contemporaries as highly as they deserved.
109. “Do not tear the laurel wreaths from the heads of Handel, Haydn and Mozart; they belong to them,—not yet to me.”
(Teplitz, July 17, 1852, to his ten-year-old admirer, Emilie M., who hadgiven him a portfolio made by herself.)
110. “Pure church music ought to be performed by voices only, except a ‘Gloria,’ or some similar text. For this reason I prefer Palestrina; but it is folly to imitate him without having his genius and religious views; it would be difficult, if not impossible, too, for the singers of today to sing his long notes in a sustained and pure manner.”
(To Freudenberg, in 1824.)
111. “Handel is the unattained master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means.”
(Reported by Seyfried. On his death-bed, about the middle of February,1827, he said to young Gerhard von Breuning, on receiving Handel’sworks: “Handel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him Ican still learn. Bring me the books!”)
112. “Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel on his grave.”
(Fall of 1823, to J. A. Stumpff, harp maker of London, who acted verynobly toward Beethoven in his last days. It was he who rejoiced thedying composer by sending him the forty volumes of Handel’s works (see111).)
[“Cipriani Potter, to A. W. T., February 27, 1861. Beethoven used to walk across the fields to Vienna very often. B. would stop, look about and express his love for nature. One day Potter asked: ‘Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?’ Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed: ‘Cherubini!’ Potter went on: ‘And of dead authors?’ B.—He had always considered Mozart as such, but since he had been made acquainted with Handel he put him at the head.” From A. W. Thayer’s notebook, reprinted in “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” page 208. H.E.K.]
113. “Heaven forbid that I should take a journal in which sport is made of the manes of such a revered one.”
(Conversation-book of 1825, in reference to a criticism of Handel.)
114. “That you are going to publish Sebastian Bach’s works is something which does good to my heart, which beats in love of the great and lofty art of this ancestral father of harmony; I want to see them soon.”
(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)
115. “Of Emanuel Bach’s clavier works I have only a few, yet they must be not only a real delight to every true artist, but also serve him for study purposes; and it is for me a great pleasure to play works that I have never seen, or seldom see, for real art lovers.”
(July 26, 1809, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig in ordering all thescores of Haydn, Mozart and the two Bachs.)
116. “See, my dear Hummel, the birthplace of Haydn. I received it as a gift today, and it gives me great pleasure. A mean peasant hut, in which so great a man was born!”
(Remarked on his death-bed to his friend Hummel.)
117. “I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death.”
(February 6, 1886, to Abbe Maximilian Stadler, who had sent him hisessay on Mozart’s “Requiem.”)
118. “Cramer, Cramer! We shall never be able to compose anything like that!”
(To Cramer, after the two had heard Mozart’s concerto in C-minor at aconcert in the Augarten.)
119. “‘Die Zauberflote’ will always remain Mozart’s greatest work, for in it he for the first time showed himself to be a German musician. ‘Don Juan’ still has the complete Italian cut; besides our sacred art ought never permit itself to be degraded to the level of a foil for so scandalous a subject.”
(A remark reported by Seyfried.)
[“Hozalka says that in 1820-21, as near as he can recollect, the wife of a Major Baumgarten took boy boarders in the house then standing where the Musikverein’s Saal now is, and that Beethoven’s nephew was placed with her. Her sister, Baronin Born, lived with her. One evening Hozalka, then a young man, called there and found only Baronin Born at home. Soon another caller came and stayed to tea. It was Beethoven. Among other topics Mozart came on the tapis, and the Born asked Beethoven (in writing, of course) which of Mozart’s operas he thought most of. ‘Die Zauberflote’ said Beethoven, and, suddenly clasping his hands and throwing up his eyes, exclaimed: ‘Oh, Mozart!’” From A. W. Thayer’s notebooks, reprinted in “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” page 198. H. E. K.]
120. “Say all conceivable pretty things to Cherubini,—that there is nothing I so ardently desire as that we should soon get another opera from him, and that of all our contemporaries I have the highest regard for him.”
(May 6, 1823, to Louis Schlasser, afterward chapel master in Darmstadt,who was about to undertake a journey to Paris. See note to No. 112.)
121. “Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the ‘Requiem,’ and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things.”
(Remark reported by Seyfried. See No. 112.)
122. “Whoever studies Clementi thoroughly has simultaneously also learned Mozart and other authors; inversely, however, this is not the case.”
(Reported by Schindler.)
123. “There is much good in Spontini; he understands theatrical effect and martial noises admirably.
“Spohr is so rich in dissonances; pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody.
“His name ought not to be Bach (brook), but Ocean, because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of tonal combinations and harmonies. Bach is the ideal of an organist.”
(In Baden, 1824, to Freudenberg.)
124. “The little man, otherwise so gentle,—I never would have credited him with such a thing. Now Weber must write operas in earnest, one after the other, without caring too much for refinement! Kaspar, the monster, looms up like a house; wherever the devil sticks in his claw we feel it.”
(To Rochlitz, at Baden, in the summer of 1823.)
125. “There you are, you rascal; you’re a devil of a fellow, God bless you!... Weber, you always were a fine fellow.”
(Beethoven’s hearty greeting to Karl Maria von Weber, in October, 1823.)
126. “K. M. Weber began too learn too late; art did not have a chance to develop naturally in him, and his single and obvious striving is to appear brilliant.”
(A remark reported by Seyfried.)
127. “‘Euryanthe’ is an accumulation of diminished seventh chords—all little backdoors!”
(Remarked to Schindler about Weber’s opera.)
128. “Truly, a divine spark dwells in Schubert!”