CHAPTER IV.1813-1823.THE MISSA SOLEMNIS AND THE NINTH SYMPHONY.
1813-1823.
THE MISSA SOLEMNIS AND THE NINTH SYMPHONY.
Resignation—Pecuniary Distress—Napoleon’s Decline—The Battle-Symphony—Its Success—Beethoven’s Own Estimate of It—Wellington’s Victory—Strange Conduct—Intellectual Exaltation—His Picture by Letronne—The Fidelio Before the Assembled Monarchs—Beethoven the Object of Universal Attention—Presents from Kings—Works Written in 1814 and 1815—The Liederkreis—Madame von Ertmann—His Nephew—Romulus and the Oratorio—His “Own Style”—Symphony for London—Commission from London—Opinion of the English People—His Songs—His Missa Solemnis—His Own Opinion of It—Its Completion—Characteristics—The Ninth Symphony.
Resignation—Pecuniary Distress—Napoleon’s Decline—The Battle-Symphony—Its Success—Beethoven’s Own Estimate of It—Wellington’s Victory—Strange Conduct—Intellectual Exaltation—His Picture by Letronne—The Fidelio Before the Assembled Monarchs—Beethoven the Object of Universal Attention—Presents from Kings—Works Written in 1814 and 1815—The Liederkreis—Madame von Ertmann—His Nephew—Romulus and the Oratorio—His “Own Style”—Symphony for London—Commission from London—Opinion of the English People—His Songs—His Missa Solemnis—His Own Opinion of It—Its Completion—Characteristics—The Ninth Symphony.
Resignation—Pecuniary Distress—Napoleon’s Decline—The Battle-Symphony—Its Success—Beethoven’s Own Estimate of It—Wellington’s Victory—Strange Conduct—Intellectual Exaltation—His Picture by Letronne—The Fidelio Before the Assembled Monarchs—Beethoven the Object of Universal Attention—Presents from Kings—Works Written in 1814 and 1815—The Liederkreis—Madame von Ertmann—His Nephew—Romulus and the Oratorio—His “Own Style”—Symphony for London—Commission from London—Opinion of the English People—His Songs—His Missa Solemnis—His Own Opinion of It—Its Completion—Characteristics—The Ninth Symphony.
“Resignation, the most absolute and heartfelt resignation to thy fate! Thou shouldst not live for thyself, but only for others. Henceforth there is no happiness for thee, but in thy art. O God, grant me strength to conquer myself. Nothing should now tie me to life.” With this cry of the heart, takenverbatimfrom his diary of 1812, Beethoven consecrated himself to the noble task whichafter this he never lost sight of—of writing “for the honor of the Almighty, the Eternal, the Infinite.”
The national bankruptcy of Austria did not leave Beethoven unaffected. It compelled him, besides, to come to the assistance of his sick brother, Karl. The first thing, therefore, that he felt called upon to undertake, in order to provide himself with the mere means of subsistence, was the public representation of his new compositions. It was not long before an occasion of an extraordinary kind offered, an occasion which lifted Beethoven’s creations to the dignity of one of the motive powers of the national life of the period. The star of Napoleon’s destiny was declining; and the gigantic struggle begun to bring about the overthrow of the tyrant of Europe, enlisted the sympathy and active participation of our artist.
“To abandon a great undertaking and to remain as I am! O, what a difference between the un-industrious life I pictured to myself so often! O, horrible circumstances which do not suppress my desire to be thrifty, but which keep one from being so. O, God! O, God!look down on thy unhappy Beethoven. Let this last no longer as it is.” Thus did he write in May, 1813, in his diary. Madame Streicher, interested herself in him in his pecuniary embarrassment, which was so great that at one time, he did not have so much as a pair of boots to leave the house in. He writes: “I do not deserve to be in the condition I am—the most unfortunate of my life.” The payments due him from Kinsky did not come, because of his sad death, and Prince Lobkowitz’s love of music and the theater had greatly embarrassed him financially. Even the giving of a concert which he contemplated had to be abandoned in consequence of the bad times.
The idea of a journey to London now took possession of him all the more strongly because of the straits to which he was reduced. This journey was, doubtless, the “great undertaking” referred to above. It is deserving of special mention here, because to it we are indebted for the ninth symphony.
Maelzl, the inventor of the metronome, had built a panharmonicum, and was anxious to make the journey to London in company with Beethoven. He had had the burning ofMoscow set for his instrument; and he now wanted a musical representation of the next great event of the time—Wellington’s victory at Vittoria. He suggested the idea to Beethoven. Beethoven’s hatred of Napoleon and love of England induced him to adopt it, and this was the origin of theSchlachtsymphonie(battle-symphony) op. 91. For, in accordance with Maelzl’s proposition, he elaborated what was at first a trumpeter’s piece into an instrumental composition. It was performed before a large audience “for the benefit of the warriors made invalids in the battle of Hanau.” And—, irony of fate!—a work which Beethoven himself declared to be a “piece of stupidity,” took the Viennese by storm, and at a bound, made him very popular in Vienna.
It was performed on the 12th of December, 1813. The applause was unbounded. All the best artists of the city were with him. Salieri, Hummel, Moscheles, Schuppanzigh, Mayseder, and even strangers like Meyerbeer, assisted him. The Seventh Symphony was the ideal foundation of the entire production, for that symphony was the expression of the awakening of the heroic spirit of the nation.Anton Schindler, of whom we have already spoken more than once, and of whom we shall have more to say in the sequel, as Beethoven’s companion, writes: “All hitherto dissenting voices, with the exception of a few professors of music, finally agreed that he was worthy of the laurel crown.” He rightly calls the production of this piece one of the most important events in Beethoven’s life; for now the portals of the temple of fame were opened wide to receive him; and if he had had nothing “nobler or better” than this to do in life, he certainly would never again feel the want of the good things of this world.
His next concern was to turn the occasion of the moment to advantage, to give some concerts withWellington’s Victory, and thus obtain leisure to work. Pieces from the “Ruins of Athens” also were played at these concerts. The success of one aria in particular from that composition suggested to one of the singers of the court-opera the idea of reviving theFidelio. It then received the form in which we have it to-day. And what a hold the character of Leonore still had on our artist’s soul, we learn from the account of thedramatic poet, Treitschke, who again tried to abridge the text. He had given expression to the last flash of life in the scene in Florestein’s dungeon, in the words:
“Und spür’ ich nicht linde, sanft säuselnde Luft?Und ist nicht mein Grab mir erhellet?Und seh’, wie ein Engel im rosigen DuftSich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet,Ein Engel, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich,Der führt mich zur Freiheit ins himmlische Reich.”
“Und spür’ ich nicht linde, sanft säuselnde Luft?Und ist nicht mein Grab mir erhellet?Und seh’, wie ein Engel im rosigen DuftSich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet,Ein Engel, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich,Der führt mich zur Freiheit ins himmlische Reich.”
“Und spür’ ich nicht linde, sanft säuselnde Luft?
Und ist nicht mein Grab mir erhellet?
Und seh’, wie ein Engel im rosigen Duft
Sich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet,
Ein Engel, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich,
Der führt mich zur Freiheit ins himmlische Reich.”
“What I now tell you,” he continues, “will never fade from my memory. Beethoven came to me in the evening. He read, ran up and down the room, murmured, growled, as he usually did instead of singing, and tore open the pianoforte. My wife had frequently begged him in vain to play. To-day he placed the text before him and began playing wonderful melodies, which unfortunately no charm could preserve. The hour passed. Beethoven, however, continued his improvisation. Supper was served but he would allow no one to disturb him. It grew quite late. He then put his arms about me and hurried home. A few days after the piece was finished.”
At this time he wrote to Brunswick: “Mykingdom is in the air. My soul trills as the winds warble;” to Treitschke: “In short I assure you, the opera will win the crown of martyrdom for me.” Thus Leonore’s sorrows and victory found expression a second time; for now the so-calledFideliooverture (E major) was composed. At its performance on the 23d of May, 1814, Beethoven was after the very first act, enthusiastically called for and enthusiastically greeted. The applause increased with every succeeding performance.
Beethoven was now one of the best known characters in Vienna. He had, even before this, given several concerts of his own, and at several others music composed by him had been performed. His picture by Letronne appeared at this time. “It is as natural as life,” said Dr. Weissenbach. He had, on the 26th of September, received with his music of theFidelio, the assemblage of monarchs who had come to attend the Congress of Vienna; and what was more natural than that he should now greet them with something new in the nature of festal music? He did this with the cantata,Der glorreiche Augenblick(“the glorious moment”) op. 136. The productionof it took place in the ever memorable Academy, on the 29th of November, 1814, when Beethoven, before a “parterre of kings,” and what was more, before the educated of Europe, by the mere assistance of his art, helped celebrate the solemn moment which did away with oppression and tyranny and marked the beginning of a new and happier period. His audience was numbered by thousands, and “the respectful absence of all loud signs of applause gave the whole the character of worship. Every one seemed to feel that never again would there be such a moment in his life.” This extract is from Schindler’s account, yet, at certain places “the ecstasy of all present found expression in the loudest applause, applause which drowned the powerful accompaniment of the composer.” TheSchlachtsymphonie(battle-symphony) as well as the seventh symphony, contributed to the achievement of this victory. After it was over, he wrote to the archduke: “I am still exhausted by fatigue, vexation, pleasure and joy.” But to get an idea of the overpowering impression made on him by those days, we must refer to his diary of the following spring,when all that he had then experienced took a definite form in his feelings and consciousness. He then writes:
“May all my life be sacrificed to the sublime. May it be a sanctuary of art.... Let me live, even if I have to have recourse to ‘assistance,’ and such means can be found. Let the ear apparatus be perfected if possible, and then travel! This you owe to man and the Almighty. Only thus can you develop what is locked up within you. The court of a prince, a little orchestra to write music for, and to produce it, for the honor of the Almighty, the Eternal, the Infinite. Thus may my last years pass away, and to future humanity....”
“May all my life be sacrificed to the sublime. May it be a sanctuary of art.... Let me live, even if I have to have recourse to ‘assistance,’ and such means can be found. Let the ear apparatus be perfected if possible, and then travel! This you owe to man and the Almighty. Only thus can you develop what is locked up within you. The court of a prince, a little orchestra to write music for, and to produce it, for the honor of the Almighty, the Eternal, the Infinite. Thus may my last years pass away, and to future humanity....”
He breaks off here as if he did not need to express an opinion on what he aimed at achieving and left after him as an inheritance. But the reputation which he had acquired is correctly described as “one of the greatest ever won by a musician.” And now, more than ever before, he was the object of universal attention, especially at the brilliant entertainments given by the Russian ambassador, count Rasumowsky, to the monarchs present, on one of which occasions he was presented to them. The Empress of Russia wished to pay him a special “compliment.” She did so at thepalace of Archduke Rudolph, who thus helped celebrate the triumph of his honored teacher. At a court concert on the 25th of January, 1815, he accompanied theAdelaidefor Florestan Wild himself; and Schindler closes his account of it with the words: “The great master recalled those days with much feeling, and with a certain pride once said that he had made the great pay their court to him, and that with them he had always preserved his dignity.” He thus verified what, as we saw alone, he had said to Goethe: “You must let them clearly understand what they possess in you.”
The “assistance” he longed for came in the form of presents from monarchs, especially of the “magnanimous” one of the Empress of Russia, for whom he, at that time, wrote the polonaise, op. 89. These presents enabled him to make a permanent investment of twenty thousand marks, which his friends were very much surprised to find he owned, after his death. But, although by “decree” he drew yearly the sum of 2,700 marks, his principal source of income continued to be derived from his intellectual labor; for his dearly belovedbrother Karl died and left him, as an inheritance, so to speak, his eight-year-old son, named after his father—the mother not being a fit person to take care of the child, and, besides, not enjoying the best of reputations. Beethoven’s struggles for his “son,”the unfortunate nephew, with the mother, whom he was wont to call the “queen of the night,” filled the next succeeding years of his life with legal controversies and negotiations to such an extent that they seem to have hindered him in his work. Extreme trouble of mind, brought about by the social and political degeneration of Vienna immediately after the Congress, soon entirely obscured the lustre of the days we have just described; and it was only for short moments of time, as on the occasion of the celebrated concert of the year 1824, that we see his old pride and fame revive. The works performed at that concert were theMissa Solemnisand the Ninth Symphony. The former was a token of gratitude and devotion to the Archduke Rudolph, but at the same time a reflection of the soul of the artist himself as we have heard him describe it above. The symphony was written “for London;” whither inthese saddening times his eyes were directed, and which, although he never undertook the contemplated journey thither, became the incentive to the composition of many important works.
Among the works which date from 1814 and 1815, we may mention the sonata, op. 90, a “struggle between the head and the heart,” addressed in the summer of 1814 to Count Moritz Lichnowsky on the occasion of his marriage to a Vienna singer; the songMerkenstein(op. 100), composed in the winter of 1814; Tiedge’sHoffnung(op. 94), composed after the last court concert for the singer Wild; the chorusMeeresstille und Glueckliche Fahrt(op. 112), which was written in 1815, and in 1822, “most respectfully dedicated to the immortal Goethe;” lastly, the magnificent cello sonatas, op. 102, dedicated to Countess Erdoedy, who became reconciled with him once more during this winter, after there had been a variance between them for a time. He calls the first of these sonatas the “free sonata,” and, indeed, freedom now became the characteristic of his higher artistic pictures. Theadagioof the second discloses to us, in thechoral-like construction of its theme, the prevailing religious direction taken by his thoughts, which is also apparent in very many expressions and quotations to be found in his diary.
We have already mentioned theLiederkreis, op. 98. Beethoven worked at it and at the sonata op. 101 at the same time. The latter, an expression of the deepest poetry of the soul, was ready the following year, and was dedicated to Madame von Ertmann, his “dear Dorothea Caecilia,” who, because she thoroughly understood the meaning of Beethoven’s music, became a real propagandist of his compositions for the piano. In 1831, Mendelssohn could say that he had “learned much” from her deeply expressive execution. The noble lady had lost her only son during the absence of her husband in the wars of emancipation; and Beethoven had rescued her from a condition of mind bordering on melancholy, by coming to her and playing for her until she burst into tears. “The spell was broken.” “We finite creatures with an infinite mind are born only for suffering and for joy; and we might almost say that the best of human kindobtain joy only through their sorrow.” Thus spoke Beethoven to Countess Erdoedy, and this little incident confirms its truth. His own sufferings gave our artist the tones of his musical creations, and these creations were to him “the dearest gift of heaven,” and, as it were, a consolation from on high.
But to continue our biography.
When, after a violent contest with the mother, he was made sole guardian of his nephew, and could then call him his own, he seems, as a lady whose diary is embodied in the little bookEine stille Liebe zu Beethoven, informs us, to gain new life. He devoted himself heart and soul to the boy, and he wrote, or was unable to write, according as the care of his nephew brought him joy or sorrow. We can readily understand how it came to pass that he now penned the words found by the lady just mentioned, in a memorandum book of his: “My heart overflows at the aspect of the beauties of nature—and this without her.” His “distant loved one” was still to him the most valued possession of his life—more to him, even, than himself.
He had now in view several great projects—amongthem an opera,Romulus, by Treitschke, and an oratorio for the recently founded “Society of the Friends of Music,” in Vienna. The latter failed, through the niggardliness of the directors, and the former was not finished, although our artist never gave up the intention of completing it. In the autumn of 1816, an English general, Kyd, asked Beethoven to write a symphony, for two hundred ducats. But as the general wanted it written in the style of his earlier works, Beethoven himself refused to accept the commission. Yet this narrow English enthusiast had excited Beethoven’s imagination with glowing accounts of the harvest of profit he might reap in England, and as Beethoven had recently sold many of his works there, and as, besides, the new “Philharmonic Society” had handsomely remunerated him for these overtures, his intention of crossing the Channel began to assume a more definite form. HisSchlachtsymphonie(battle-symphony), especially, had already met with a very flattering reception in England. And a project was on foot in that country, even now, to give him a “benefit” by the production of his own works; and such a “benefit”was actually given for him there when he was on his death-bed. He wrote in 1816 that it would flatter him to be able to write some new works, such as symphonies and an oratorio, for the Society which embraced a greater number of able musicians than almost any other in Europe.
His diary covering this period to 1818, published in the workDie Beethovenfeier und die deutsche Kunst, because of the many items of interest it has in it, contains these characteristic lines: “Drop operas and everything else. Write only in your own style.” But even the sketches of the Seventh Symphony had the remark accompanying them: “2. Symphony in D minor,” and those of the eighth: “Symphony in D minor—3. Symphony.” Belonging to the years succeeding 1812, we find drafts of thescherzoof the Ninth Symphony. The headings above given undoubtedly had reference to this last, but the sketches of the first movement, decisive of the character of such a work, are not to be found until the year 1816, but then they are found with the physiognomy so masculine and so full of character which distinguishes this “symphony for London.” He once saidof Englishmen that they were, for the most part, “clever fellows;” and he—of whom Zelter wrote to Goethe, that “he must have had a man for his mother”—felt that, in England, he, as a man, had to do with men, and, as an artist, to enter the list with Handel, whose own powerful influence was due to his decided manfulness of character. And then, had not England produced a tragic poet like Shakespeare, whom Beethoven loved above all others? Deep, tragic earnestness, and a masculine struggle with fate, are here the fundamental tone and design of the whole. “And then a cowl when thou closest thy unhappy life”—such is the conclusion of the lines quoted above, in which he says that he must write “only in his own style.”
And now, in July, 1817, came from London the “direct commission” he had so long endeavored to obtain. The Society desired to send him a proof of their esteem and gratitude for the many happy moments his works had given them to enjoy, and invited him to come to London to write two great symphonies, promising him an honorarium of three hundred pounds sterling. Beethovenimmediately accepted the commission, and assured them that he would do his very best to execute it—honorable as it was to him, and coming as it did from so select a society of artists—in the worthiest manner possible. He promised to go to work immediately. “He believed that he could nowhere receive the distinction which his gigantic genius—in advance of his age by several centuries—deserved, as he could in Great Britain. The respect shown him by the English people, he valued more than that of all Europe besides. The feeling he had of his own powers may, indeed, have contributed to make him prefer the English nation to all others, especially as they showered so many marks of distinction on him.” Thus writes one of his most intimate friends in Vienna, Baron Von Zmeskall, already mentioned; and certain it is that he did his very best on this work. It, as well as the symphony in C minor, is of the true Beethoven type—more so, perhaps, than any other of his works—the full picture of his own personal existence and of the tragedy of human life in general. This work was followed by the Tenth Symphony, the“poetical idea,” at least, of which we know. The first movement was intended to represent a “feast of Bacchus,” theadagioacantique ecclesiastique, a church hymn, and thefinalethe reconciliation of the antique world, which he esteemed so highly with the spirit of Christianity, into the full depth of which he came to have a deeper insight every day that passed. We see that he had lofty plans, and that no poet ever soared to sublimer heights than he. We must bear these great plans and labors of Beethoven in mind if we would rightly understand his subsequent life—if we would comprehend how, in the desolate and distracted existence he was compelled henceforth to lead, he did not become a victim of torpidity, but that, on the contrary, the elasticity of his genius grew greater and greater, and that his creations gained both in depth and perfection.
Thus do we see with our own eyes at least one of his works born of his own life.
The songsRuf von BergeandSo oder so, were composed in the winter of 1816-17; and in the following spring, after the sudden death of one of his friends, the chorusRasch trittder Tod, from Schiller’s Tell. “O God, help me! Thou seest me forsaken by all mankind. O hard fate, O cruel destiny! No, no, no, my unhappy condition will never end. Thou hast no means of salvation but to leave here. Only by so doing canst thou rise to the height of thy art. Here thou art immersed in vulgarity. Only one symphony, and then away, away, away!” Thus does he write in his diary. He next, in 1817, finished the quintet fugue, op. 137, and, in 1818, the great sonata for the Hammer-clavier, op. 106. Theadagioof the latter is the musical expression of earnest prayer to God. Its first movement shows how he had soared once more to the heights of his art. “The sonata was written under vexatious circumstances,” he says to his friend Ries; and to a younger fellow-artist, the composer Schnyder von Wartensee: “Go on. There is no calmer, more unalloyed or purer joy than that which arises from ascending higher and higher into the heaven of art.” Such, too, was his mood in those days when he promised his friend Zmeskall the trio for the piano in C minor, his op. 1, worked over into the quintet op. 104; for hewrote: “I rehearse getting nearer the grave, without music, every day.” In keeping with this is the song,Lisch aus, mein Licht, “Put out my light,” which also belongs to this period. The supplication: “O hear me always, Thou unspeakable One, hear me, thy unhappy creature, the most unfortunate of all mortals,” found in his diary, belongs to this same time. It is now easy to see that he was in a very suitable frame of mind when he resolved, in 1818, to write a solemn mass for the occasion of the inauguration of his distinguished pupil as Archbishop of Olmutz. It was the “little court,” the “little orchestra” for which he wished to write the music “for the honor of the Almighty, the Eternal, the Infinite;” for the Archduke thought of making him hiscapellmeisterthere. After four years’ labor, theMissa Solemnis, op. 123, was finished. Beethoven called it “l’œuvre le plus accompli, my most finished work.” And, like theFidelio, it is deserving of this characterization, but more on account of the pains taken with it and the labor expended on it than of its matter.
“Sacrifice again all the trivialties of sociallife to thy art. O, God above all! For Providence eternal omnisciently orders the happiness or unhappiness of mortal men.” With these words from the Odyssey, he resolved to consecrate himself to this great work. And it was a resolve in very deed. For, as in opera, he knew that he was here bound by traditionary forms—forms which, indeed, in some details afforded rich food to his own thoughts, but which, on the whole, hindered the natural flow of his fancy. We now approach a period in Beethoven’s life in which he was strangely secluded from the world. The painter, Kloeber, the author of the best known portrait of Beethoven, and which is to be found inBeethoven’s Brevier—it was painted during the summer of 1818—once saw him throw himself under a fir tree and look for a longtime “up into the heavens.” In some of the pages of his written conversations—for it was now necessary for him to have recourse to putting his conversations on paper more frequently on account of his increasing deafness—he wrote in the winter of 1819-20: “Socrates and Jesus were patterns to me;” and after that: “The moral law withinus and the starry heavens above us.—Kant!!!” Just as on the 4th of March, 1820, he wrote:
“Ernte bald an Gottes ThronMeiner Leiden schoenen Lohn.”
“Ernte bald an Gottes ThronMeiner Leiden schoenen Lohn.”
“Ernte bald an Gottes Thron
Meiner Leiden schoenen Lohn.”
This was the time of the struggles with the mother of his “son” and of the heartfelt sorrow he had to endure on account of the moral ruin of the poor boy himself, who, always going from the one to the other, did not really know to whom he belonged, and who, therefore, deceived both. “From the heart—may it in turn appeal to hearts!” He wrote these words on the score of the mass; and Schindler, who was now his companion, says that “the moment he began this work his whole nature seemed to change.” He would sit in the eating-house sunk in deep thought, forget to order his meals, and then want to pay for them. “Some say he is a fool,” wrote Zelter to Goethe in 1819. And Schindler tells us “he actually seemed possessed in those days, especially when he wrote the fugue and theBenedictus.” That fugue,Et vitam senturi(life everlasting!) is the climax of the work, since the depiction of the imperishableness and inexhaustibleness of Being was what Beethoven’spowerful mind was most used to. The wonderfulBenedictus, (Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord) whose tones seem to float down from heaven to earth, the bestowal of help from on high, was subsequently the model used by Wagner for his descent of the Holy Grail, the symbol of divine grace, in the prelude to theLohengrin. “When I recall his state of mental excitement, I must confess that I never before, and never after this period of his complete forgetfulness of earth, observed anything like it in him.” So says Schindler. They had gone to visit him in Baden, near by, whither he repaired in the interest of his health, and where he loved so well to “wander through the quiet forest of firs” and think out his works. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The door was closed, and they could hear him “singing, howling, stamping” at the fugue. After they had listened to this “almost horrible” scene, the door opened, and Beethoven stood before them, with trouble depicted on his countenance. He looked as if he had just gone through a struggle of life and death. “Pretty doings here; everybody is gone, and I havenot eaten a morsel since yesterday noon,” he said. He had worked the previous evening until after midnight; and so the food had grown cold and the servants left in disgust.
His work assumed greater and greater dimensions as he himself gradually rose to the full height of the subject. He no longer thought of completing it for the installation ceremonies. It became a grand fresco painting—a symphony in choruses on the words of the mass. He now began to work more calmly, and to compose at intervals other works, in order to quiet his over-excited mind and to earn a living for his “dear” nephew. And thus, while he was composing his mass, he produced not only theVariirten Themen, op. 105 and 107, which Thompson, of Edinburg—who had sent Beethoven the Scotch songs like op. 108 to be arranged—had ordered, but also the threeLast Sonatas, op. 109, dedicated to Bettina’s niece, Maximiliane Brentano, to whose excellent father he was indebted for ready assistance during these years of his pecuniary embarrassment; also op. 110, which was finished at Christmas, 1821, as op. 111 was on the 13th of January, 1822. It is saidthat he entertained a higher opinion himself of these sonatas than of his previous ones. They are greatly superior, however, only in some of their movements; and they are written in the grand, free style of that period, especially theariettain the last opus, the variations of which are real pictures of his own soul. In the intervals between them, however, we find some trifles such as theBagatellen, op. 119, which his pecuniary condition made it imperative he should compose, since, “as a brave knight by his sword, he had to live by his pen.” And even the “33 Veraenderungen” (variations), op. 120, on the works of Diabelli, of the year 1822-23, are more the intellectual play of the inexhaustible fancy of an artist than the work of the genuine gigantic creative power which Beethoven undoubtedly possessed. He had overtaxed his strength working on the mass, and thus exhausted it for a moment. The two chorus-songs, op. 121band op. 122, theOpferliedandBundeslied, which date from the year 1822-23, bear the stamp of occasional compositions, which they, in fact, are.
But in the meantime the lion had rousedhimself again. He now only needed to give the finishing touch to the Mass, and in the spring of 1823 the entire work was completed. The summer of 1822 found him fully engaged on the composition of that monument to his genius, the Ninth Symphony. Freedom from the torment of exhausting labor, and the entire surrender of himself to “his own style,” gave his fancy back its old elasticity and all its productive power. Scarcely any year of his life was more prolific of works than this year 1822.
“Our Beethoven seems again to take a greater interest in music, which, since the trouble with his hearing began to increase, he avoided almost as a woman-hater avoids the sex. To the great pleasure of all, he improvised a few tunes in a most masterly manner.” Thus do we read in the LeipzigMusikzeitung, in the spring of 1822, and the Englishman, John Russell, gives us a charming description of such an evening in the CottaBeethovenbuch. Weisse’s droll poem,Der Kuss(the kiss) op. 128, is found among the serious sketches of this year. And now he received a whole series of commissions. An English captain,named Reigersfeld, wanted a quartet, and Breitkopf and Haertel an operatic poem worthy of his art, before he “hung up his harp forever.” Others asked for other kinds of music. “In short,” he writes to his brother Johann, “people are fighting to get works from me, happy, unhappy man that I am. If my health is good, I shall yet be able to feather my nest.” Friederich Rochlitz brought him, too, a commission from Breitkopf and Haertel to write “music for Faust.” Rochlitz gives us a very interesting account of Beethoven’s appearance and whole mode of life at this time. Not Beethoven’s neglected, almost savage exterior, he says, not his bushy black hair, which hung bristling about his head, would have stirred him; what stirred him was the whole appearance of the deaf man who, notwithstanding his infirmity, brought joy to the hearts of millions—pure, intellectual joy. But when he received the commission, he raised his hand high up and exclaimed: “That might be worth while. But I have been intending for some time to write three other great works—two great symphonies, very different from each other, and an oratorio. Ishudder at the thought of beginning works of such magnitude. But once engaged on them, I shall find no difficulty.” He spoke of the Ninth Symphony, to which he had now begun to give the finishing touches, in all earnestness.
This was interrupted for a short time by the overture,Zur Weihe des Hauses(op. 124), for the opening of the renovated Josephstadt theater with the “Ruins of Athens,” of 1812. It is the portal to the temple in which art is praised as something consecrated to the service of mankind—as a thing which may lift us for blissful moments into the region of the purifying and elevating influences of higher powers. Even in this work, which dates from September, 1822, we may hear the solemn sound and rhythm of the Ninth Symphony. And, indeed, after a memorandum on the “Hungarian Story,” we find in the sketches of it the words, “Finale,Freude schoener Goetterfunken,” together with the wonderfully simple melody itself, which sounds to humanity’s better self like the music of its own redemption. Beethoven’s own nature was deeply moved at this time. Weber’sFreischuetz,with Wilhelmine Schroeder, afterwards so celebrated, had excited the greatest enthusiasm. Rossini’s reception in Vienna was “like an opeotheosis;” and Beethoven was determined to let the light of his genius shine forth, which he could do only by writing a work “in his own style.” The world was “his for another evening,” and he was anxious to turn that evening to account. And, indeed, had he not a world of sorrows to paint—sorrows which actual life had brought to him? He had also a world of joys—joys vouchsafed to him by his surrendering of himself to a higher life.
An incident which occurred during this fall of 1822 tells us something of this gloomy night of his personal existence. Young Schroeder-Devrient, encouraged by her success withPaminaandAgathe, had chosen theFideliofor her benefit, and Beethoven himself was to wield the baton. Schindler tells us how, even during the first scene of the opera, everything was in confusion, but that no one cared to utter the saddening words: “It’s impossible for you, unfortunate man.” Schindler finally, in response to Beethoven’s own questioning,wrote something to that effect down. In a trice, Beethoven leaped into the parterre, saying only: “Quick, out of here!” He ran without stopping to his dwelling, threw himself on the sofa, covered his face with his two hands, and remained in that position until called to table. But, even at table, he did not utter a word. He sat at it, the picture of the deepest melancholy. Schindler’s account of the incident closes thus: “In all my experience with Beethoven, this November day is without a parallel. It mattered not what disappointments or crosses misfortune brought him, he was ill-humored only for moments, sometimes depressed. He would, however, soon be himself again, lift his head proudly, walk about with a firm step, and rule in the workshop of his genius. But he never fully recovered from the effect of this blow.”
The performance itself brought out, for the first time, in all its completeness, musico-dramatic art, in the representation of the scene, “Kill first his wife.” Richard Wagner, who has so highly developed this musico-dramatic art, admits that he acquired the real idea of plastic shaping for the stage fromSchroeder-Devrient. To it, also, Beethoven, owed it that he was invited, during the same winter (1822-23), to compose a new opera. It was Grillparzer’sMelusine, but the intention to compose it was never carried into effect.
We have now reached the zenith of the life of Beethoven as an artist. Besides the Ninth Symphony, he finished only the five last quartets which beam in their numerous movements like “the choir of stars about the sun.” The welcome incentive to the composition of these last came to him just at this time from the Russian, Prince Gallitizin, who gave him a commission to write them, telling him at the same time to ask what remuneration he wished for his work. But the Symphony filled up the next following year, 1823. Nothing else, except the “fragmentary ideas” of theBagatellen, op. 126, engaged him during that time.
“To give artistic form only to what we wish and feel, that most essential want of the nobler of mankind,” it is, as he wrote himself to the Archduke at this time, that distinguishes this mighty symphony, and constitutes, so to speak, the sum and substance ofhis own life and intuition. This symphony was soon connected in popular imagination with Goethe’s Faust, as representing the tragic course of human existence.
And when we hear in mind how closely related just here the musician was to the poet, this interpretation of the work, given first by Richard Wagner on the occasion of its presentation in 1846 in Dresden, seems entirely warranted. What was there of which life had not deprived him? The words it had always addressed to him were these words from Faust:Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren(renounce thou must, thou must renounce). He now wished to paint a full picture of this vain struggle with relentless fate in tones, and what he had just gone through in his own experience enabled him to do it in living colors. All the recollections of his youth crowded upon him. There were the “pretty lively blonde” whom he had met in Bonn; Countess Giulietta, who had a short time before returned to Bonn with her husband; and his “distant loved one” in Berlin! A promenade through the lovely Heiligenstadt valley, in the spring of 1823, brought to his mind anew picturesof the reconciling power of nature, as well as of thePastoraleand the C minor symphony. He was now able to form an idea of their common meaning, and to put an interpretation on them very different from his first idea and first interpretation of them. He began to have a much deeper insight into the ultimate questions and enigmas of existence.
But, all of a sudden, his humor left him. He refused to receive any visitors. “Samothracians, come not here; bring no one to me,” he wrote to Schindler, from the scene of his quiet life in the country. What had never happened before, even when he was in the highest stages of intellectual exaltation, now came to pass: he repeatedly returned from his wanderings through the woods and fields without his hat. “There is nothing higher than to approach nearer to the Deity than other men, and from such proximity to spread the rays of the Deity among the human race.” In these words, directed to the Archduke Rudolph, he summed up his views of his art and what he wished to accomplish in it. It was everything to him—a language, consolation, admonition, light and prophecy.
This we learn most clearly from the Ninth Symphony, which he finished at this time, in Baden.
From the dark abyss of nothing arises the Will, infinite Will: and with it the struggles and the sorrow of life. But it is no longer personal sorrow—for what is personal sorrow compared with the sorrow of the world as known to a great mind, experienced by a great heart?—it is the struggle for a higher existence which we “mortals have to engage in against the infinite spirit.” “Many a time did I curse my Creator because he has made his creatures the victims of the merest accidents.” Cries of anguish and anger like this—the cries of great souls whose broad vision is narrowed by the world, and whose powerful will is hampered—find utterance here. “I shall take fate by the jaws,” he says again, and how immense is the struggle as well as the consciousness of a higher, inalienable possession, which lives as a promise in the breasts of all! Such blows, murmurs, prayers, longings, such despair; and then, again, such strength and courage after trial, had never before been expressed in music. In theNinth Symphony, we hear the voices of the powers which through all ages have been the makers of history; of the powers which preserve and renovate the life of humanity; and so the Will, the Intellect, man, after a terrible effort and concentration of self, stands firmly before us, bold and clear-eyed—for Will is the world itself.
But when we see the man Beethoven, we find him divided against himself. We have often heard him say that he found the world detestable; and we shall again hear him express his opinion on that subject plainly enough, in this his work.
In the second movement, which he himself calls onlyallegro vivace, and which, indeed, is noscherzo, not even a Beethoven-like one, but rather a painting, we have a dramatic picture of the earthly world in the whirl of its pleasures, from the most ingenuous joy of mere existence—such as he himself frequently experienced in such fullness that he leaped over chairs and tables—to the raging, uncontrollable Bacchanalian intoxication of enjoyment. But we have in it also a fresco painting of the “dear calmness of life,” of joy inthe existing, of exultation and jubilation as well as of the demoniacal in sensuous life and pleasure. But what nutriment and satisfaction this splendid symphony affords to a noble mind! It carries such a man from the arms of pleasure to “the stars,” from art to nature, from appearance to reality.
This ideal kingdom of the quiet, sublime order of the world, which calms our minds and senses, and expresses our infinite longings, is heard in theadagioof the work. And when, in an incomparably poetical union to the quiet course of the stars and to the eternally ordered course of things, the longing, perturbed human heart is contrasted by a second melody, with a wealth of inner beauty never before imagined, we at last see the soul, so to speak, disappear entirely before itself, dissolved in the sublimity of the All. The steps of time, expressed by the rhythm of the final chords, sound like the death knell of the human heart. Its wants and wishes are silenced in the presence of such sublimity, and sink to naught.
But the world is man, is the heart, and wants to live, to live! And so here the finalecho is still the longing, sounding tones of human feeling.
Beethoven himself tells us the rest of the development of this powerful tragedy, and thus confirms the explanation of it we have given, as well as the persistence of ultimate truth in his own heart; for in it we find—after the almost raging cry of all earthly existence in the orchestral storm of the beginning of thefinale, which was even then called a “feast of scorn at all that is styled human joy”—in the sketches, as text to the powerful recitatives of the contra-bassos: “No, this confusion reminds us of our despairing condition. This is a magnificent day. Let us celebrate it with song.” And then follows the theme of the first movement: “O no, it is not this; it is something else that I am craving.” “The will and consciousness of man are at variance the one with the other, and the cause of man’s despairing situation.” Next comes themotivefor thescherzo: “Nor is it this thing either; it is but merriness and small talk”—the trifles of sensuous pleasure. Next comes the theme of theadagio: “Nor is it this thing either,” and thereupon the words: “I myself shall sing—musicmust console us, music must cheer us;” and then the melody,Freude schoener Goetterfunken, is heard, expressive of the newly-won peace of the soul, descriptive of human character in the full beauty of its simplicity and innocence restored. Beethoven knew from what depths of human nature music was born, and what its ultimate meaning to mankind is.
We are made to experience this more fully still by the continuation of thefinalewhich represents the solution of the conflict of this tragedy of life. For the “joy” that is here sung plainly springs from its only pure and lasting source, from the feeling of all-embracing love—that feeling which, as religion, fills the heart. TheIhr stuerzt nieder, Millionenis the foundation, the germ (to express it in the language of music of double counterpoint) of theSeid umschlungen, Millionen, and then the whole sings of joy as the transfiguration of the earthly world by eternal love. The will can accomplish nothing greater than to sacrifice itself for the good of the whole. To our great artist, the greatest and most wonderful phenomenon in the world was not the conqueror but the overcomer of the world;and he knew that this spirit of love cannot die.
This is celebrated by thefinaleas the last consequence of the “struggle with fate,” of man’s life-struggle. Is it claiming too much to say that out of the spirit of this music a “new civilization” and an existence more worthy of human beings might be developed, since it leads us back to the foundation and source of civilization and human existence—to religion? Beethoven was one of those great minds who have added to the intellectual possessions of our race in regions which extend far beyond the merely beautiful in art. When we bear this in mind, we can understand why he wanted to write a tenth symphony as the counterpart and final representation of these highest conceptions of the nature and goal of our race. This tenth symphony he intended should transfigure the merely humanly beautiful of the antique world in the light of the refined humanity of modern ideas—the earthly in the light of the heavenly. And we may understand, too, what we are told of himself, that as soon as cheerfulness beamed in his countenance, it shed about him all the charms of childlike innocence. “When hesmiled,” we are told, “people believed not only in him, but in humanity.” Occasionally there would blossom on his lips a smile which those who saw could find no other word to describe but “heavenly.” So full was his heart of hearts of the highest treasure of humanity.
We shall see how the last quartets, which follow now, represent this, his sublime transfigured condition of soul, in the most varied pictures, and disclose it to the very bottom.
Of works composed during this period, we may mention: March to “Tarpeja” and theBardengeistcomposed in 1813;Gute Nachricht,Elegischer Gesang,Kriegers Abschied, composed in 1814; Duos for the clarionette and bassoon, which appeared in 1815;Es ist vollbracht,Sehnsucht, Scotch songs, composed in 1815;Der Mann von Wort, op. 99.Militaermarsch, composed in 1816; quintet op. 104 (after op. 1, III), composed in 1817;Clavierstueckin B, composed in 1818;Gratulations-menuet, composed in 1822. It will be noticed that the number of his works grows steadily smaller according as their volume or their depth of meaning grows greater. This last will be evident especially from his subsequent quartets which, so to speak, stand entirely alone.