Chapter 13

You are living on a calm and peaceful sea or, possibly, are already in a safe harbor—you do not feel the distress of the friend who is still in the storm—or you dare not feel it—what will they think of me in the star Venus Urania, how will they judge me without seeing me—my pride is so humbled, I would go there with you uninvited—let me see you at my lodging to-morrow morning, I shall expect you at about 9 o’clock at breakfast—Dorner can come with you at another time—if you were but franker with me, you are certainly concealing something from me, you want to spare me and this uncertainty is more painful than the most fatal certainty—Farewell if you cannot come let me know in advance—think and act for me—I cannot entrust to paper more of what is going on within me.Dear friend, so cursedly late—press them all warmly to your heart—why can I not be with you? Farewell, I will be with you on Wednesday morning—the letter is written so that the whole world may read it—if you find that the paper covering is not clean enough, put another one on, I cannot tell at night whether it is clean—farewell, dear friend, think and act also for your faithful friend.

You are living on a calm and peaceful sea or, possibly, are already in a safe harbor—you do not feel the distress of the friend who is still in the storm—or you dare not feel it—what will they think of me in the star Venus Urania, how will they judge me without seeing me—my pride is so humbled, I would go there with you uninvited—let me see you at my lodging to-morrow morning, I shall expect you at about 9 o’clock at breakfast—Dorner can come with you at another time—if you were but franker with me, you are certainly concealing something from me, you want to spare me and this uncertainty is more painful than the most fatal certainty—Farewell if you cannot come let me know in advance—think and act for me—I cannot entrust to paper more of what is going on within me.

Dear friend, so cursedly late—press them all warmly to your heart—why can I not be with you? Farewell, I will be with you on Wednesday morning—the letter is written so that the whole world may read it—if you find that the paper covering is not clean enough, put another one on, I cannot tell at night whether it is clean—farewell, dear friend, think and act also for your faithful friend.

Beethoven’s relations with another fair friend now demand attention. In the Vienna suburban road Erdbeergasse stands the lofty house then numbered 98, its rear windows overlooking Rasoumowsky’s gardens, the Donau canal and the Prater, whence on May 15, 1810, Elizabeth Brentano (Bettina) wrote to Goethe:

Here I live in the house of the deceased Birkenstock, surrounded by two thousand copperplate engravings, as many hand-drawings, as many hundred old ash urns and Etruscan lamps, marble vases, antique fragments of hands and feet, paintings, Chinese garments, coins, geological collections, sea insects, telescopes and numberless maps, plans of ancient empires and cities sunk in ruin, artistically carved walking-sticks, precious documents, and finally the sword of Emperor Carolus.

Here I live in the house of the deceased Birkenstock, surrounded by two thousand copperplate engravings, as many hand-drawings, as many hundred old ash urns and Etruscan lamps, marble vases, antique fragments of hands and feet, paintings, Chinese garments, coins, geological collections, sea insects, telescopes and numberless maps, plans of ancient empires and cities sunk in ruin, artistically carved walking-sticks, precious documents, and finally the sword of Emperor Carolus.

Joseph Melchior von Birkenstock (born in 1738), the honored, trusted and valued servant of Maria Theresia and Kaiser Joseph, the friend and brother-in-law of the celebrated Sonnenfels—the esteemed correspondent of so many of the noblest men of his time, including the American philosopher Franklin and the Scotch historian Robertson, the reformer of the Austrian school system, the promoter of all liberal ideas so long as in those days progresswas allowed—was pensioned in 1803, and thenceforth lived for science, art and literature until his death, October 30, 1809. His house, filled almost to repletion with the artistic, archæological, scientific collections of which Bettina speaks, was one of those truly noble seats of learning, high culture and refinement, where Beethoven, to his manifest intellectual gain, was a welcome guest.

Intimate Relations with the Brentanos

Sophie Brentano, older than Bettina, very beautiful notwithstanding the loss of an eye, and, like all the members of that remarkable family, very highly talented and accomplished, had made a long visit to Vienna as Count Heberstein’s bride—their marriage being prevented by her untimely death. “She brought about the marriage of her brother Franz with Antonie von Birkenstock,” says Jahn. “The young wife, who did not feel at home in Frankfort”—and also because of the precarious health of her father, we may add—“persuaded Brentano to remove to Vienna, where for several years she occupied a home in the Birkenstock house which Bettina describes so beautifully. In this house, where music was cultivated, Beethoven came and went in friendly fashion. His ‘little friend,’ for whose encouragement in pianoforte playing he wrote the little trio in a single movement in 1812, was her daughter Maximiliane Brentano, later Madame Plittersdorf, to whom ten years later he dedicated the Sonata in E major (Op. 109). After Birkenstock’s death he tried to give a practical turn to his friendship by seeking to persuade Archduke Rudolph to buy a part of his collection. More effective, evidently was the help which Brentano extended to him, who, when he came into financial straits and needed a loan, always found an open purse. Madame Antonie Brentano was frequently ill for weeks at a time during her sojourn in Vienna, so that she had to remain in her room inaccessible to all visitors. At such times Beethoven used to come regularly, seat himself at a pianoforte in her anteroom without a word and improvise; after he had finished ‘telling her everything and bringing comfort,’ in his language, he would go as he had come without taking notice of another person.”

The credibility of Madame von Arnim’s contribution to Beethoven literature has been questioned in all degrees of severity, from simple doubts as to particular passages to broad denunciation of the whole as gross distortions of fact, or even as figments of the imagination. Dogmatism is rarely in proportion to knowledge, unless, perhaps, in inverse ratio. The bitterest attacks upon the veracity of Mme. von Arnim have been made by those whose ignorance of the subject is most conspicuous; but among the doubters are people of candor, good judgment and wide knowledgeof Beethoven’s history; and a decent respect for the opinions of such renders it just and proper to explain why so much of these contributions has been admitted into the text as being substantially true.

At the very outset we are met by a statement in Schindler’s book (Ed. 1840) which if correct destroys at once the credibility of Mme. von Arnim’s account of her first interview with Beethoven. It is this: “Beethoven became acquainted with the Brentano family in Frankfort through her [Bettina].” A later writer, Ludwig Nohl, supports the assertion on the authority of “Frau Brentano, now 87 years old”—Birkenstock’s daughter. But Schindler, after his long residence in and near Frankfort, writes (1860): “There still lives one of the oldest friends of our master during life, with whom he became acquainted already on his arrival in Vienna (1792) in the house of her father.” This was the above-mentioned lady “now 87 years old.” The other writer also withdraws his statement in a later publication where he speaks of this aged lady’s daughter, “Maxe, who as a child in 1808 [?] in Vienna, often sat at Birkenstock’s on his (Beethoven’s) knees.”

Any possible doubt on the subject is dispelled by a communication made to this author in 1872, by the then head of the Brentano family living in Frankfort, who wrote:

The friendly relations between Beethoven and the family Brentano in Frankfort already existed when Frau von Brentano (Antonie) visited her father in Vienna, whither she went with her older children for an extended period because her father, Court Councillor Birkenstock, had been ailing for a considerable time. This friendly intercourse was continued after the death of Councillor Birkenstock on October 30, 1809, and during the three years’ sojourn of the Brentano family in Vienna. Beethoven often came to the house of Birkenstock, later of Brentano, attended the quartet concerts which were given there by the best musicians of Vienna, and often rejoiced his friends with his glorious pianoforte playing. The Brentano children occasionally carried fruit and flowers to him in his lodging; he in return gave them bonbons and always exhibited great friendship for them.

The friendly relations between Beethoven and the family Brentano in Frankfort already existed when Frau von Brentano (Antonie) visited her father in Vienna, whither she went with her older children for an extended period because her father, Court Councillor Birkenstock, had been ailing for a considerable time. This friendly intercourse was continued after the death of Councillor Birkenstock on October 30, 1809, and during the three years’ sojourn of the Brentano family in Vienna. Beethoven often came to the house of Birkenstock, later of Brentano, attended the quartet concerts which were given there by the best musicians of Vienna, and often rejoiced his friends with his glorious pianoforte playing. The Brentano children occasionally carried fruit and flowers to him in his lodging; he in return gave them bonbons and always exhibited great friendship for them.

Mme. von Arnim’s Letter to Goethe

Beethoven, through his familiar intercourse with the Brentanos, must, of course, have known of the expected visit of Bettina and of her relations to Goethe. Her account of their first meeting, therefore, is in all respects credible; nor has it been, so far as is known, questioned. It is twice given by her own pen in the “Briefwechsel” with Goethe under date 1810, and in the Pückler-Muskau correspondence as belonging to 1832. At this last-named date she had not yet received from Chancellor von Müller herletter to Goethe, and wrote from memory, confining her narrative to the minor incidents of the meeting. The two accounts differ, but they do not contradict, they only supplement each other.

Authenticity of the Bettina Letters

The present writer had the honor of an interview or two with Mme. von Arnim in 1849-50, and heard the story from her lips; in 1854-5, it was his good fortune to meet her often in two charming family circles—her own and that of the brothers Grimm. Thus at an interval of five years he had the opportunity of comparing her statements, of questioning her freely and of convincing himself, up to this point, of her simple honesty and truth.

But the rock of offense does not lie here; it is in the long discourse of Beethoven which will presently be given in these pages. Schindler objects to this, both in its matter and form, on the ground that he had never heard “the master” talk in this manner. But the Beethoven whom Schindler knew in his last years was not the Beethoven of 1810, and Anton Schindler certainly was not an Elizabeth Brentano. There happens to be proof that just in the former period the composer could talk freely and eloquently. Jahn says: “Beethoven’s personality and nature, moreover, were calculated to make a significant but winning impression upon women,” and cites Mme. Hummel (Elizabeth Röckel) in proof. “As a matron advanced in years,” says he, “and still winning because of her charming graciousness, she spoke with ingratiating warmth of the good fortune of having been observed by Beethoven and to have been on friendly relations with him. ‘Whoever saw him in good humor, intellectually animated, when he gave utterance to his thoughts in such a mood,’ said she with glowing eyes, ‘can never forget the impression which he made.’”

There are two hypotheses as to the genesis of this letter to Goethe. The one: that Mme. von Arnim in preparing the “Briefwechsel” for publication wrote out her own crude and nebulous thoughts and gave them to the public in the form of a fictitious report of a conversation of Beethoven. The other: that she found Beethoven fresh from the composition of the “Egmont” music, full of enthusiasm for Goethe and vehemently desirous that his, the great composer’s, views upon music should be known and comprehended by the great poet; that he, happening to get upon this topic at their first interview, imparted those views to her with that express purpose; and that she, so far as she was able to follow and understand the speaker, and so far as her memory could recall his words a few hours after, correctly records and reports them.

The first hypothesis rests now on precisely the same foundation as when Schindler wrote, namely, on the presumption that Beethoven could not have spoken thus; but a discourse uttered under such circumstances and with such a purpose, poured into the willing ear of a beautiful, highly cultivated and remarkably fascinating young woman, one who possessed the higher artistic and intellectual qualities of character in an extraordinary degree—such a discourse might well abound in thoughts and expressions which the prosaic Schindler in the most prosaic period of his master’s life never drew from him.

Two significant minor points may be noted: there was a Latin word in use by the Breuning family in the old Bonn days with a meaning not given in the dictionaries. This we learn from Wegeler’s “Notizen,” andonlythere. Yet Mme. v. Arnim puts this word,raptus, in precisely this local sense into Beethoven’s mouth several years before the publication of the “Notizen”! Again: when the discoveries of Galvani and Volta were still a novel topic of general interest, when, through them, physiologists, as Dubois-Raymond expressed it, “believed that at length they should realize their visions of a vital power”; and when the semi-scientific world was full of the theories of Mesmer and his disciples—at that time, the first years of the nineteenth century, custom gave the wordelektrisch(electrical) a significance long since lost, which well conveyed the thought Beethoven is made to express. But in 1834-5, to introduce this word in that sense, retrospectively, into a fictitious conversation purporting to be of the year 1810, shows, no less than theraptus, an exquisite tact so rare, that it might well be termed a most felicitous stroke of genius, one of which any writer of romance might be vain.

Julius Merz, in his “Athenæum für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben” (Nuremberg, January, 1839), printed for the opening article “Drei Briefe von Beethoven an Bettina.” The third of these letters was copied the next July into Schilling’s ephemeral musical periodical the “Jahrbücher” (Carlsruhe), with remarks by the editor expressing doubts of its authenticity. But Schindler, whose book was just then going to press, copied a large portion of it as genuine; and in his second edition (1845) reprinted all three entire, without adding a word of doubt or misgiving. They had appeared in English in 1841, from a copy given to Mr. Henry F. Chorley by Mme. von Arnim; and since then have been reprinted in various languages probably more frequently, and become more universally known, than any other chapter in Beethoven literature. Here and there a reader shared in Schilling’s doubts;but twenty years elapsed before these doubts were put into such form, and by an author of such position, that a reasonable self-respect could allow Mme. von Arnim to take notice of them; and then it was too late—she lay upon her death-bed. Her silence under the attacks made upon her veracity is therefore no evidence against her.

A. B. Marx, the author here referred to, produces but one argument which demands notice here, and this is the occurrence of certain “repetitions”: “liebe, liebste,” “liebe, gute,” “bald, bald” which he declared to be “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian.” Now, on the contrary, in the text of this volume there is abundant proof that just these expressions are very Beethovenian and characteristic of his letters to favorite women at the precise period in question.

It is true, as he says, that when Marx wrote, nothing of the kind had ever been published;a fortiori, nothing twenty years before; but this fact, on which he laid such stress, instead of supporting really demolishes his argument. It was in the autumn of 1838 that Mr. Merz received the letters. At that time specimens of Beethoven’s correspondence had been published by Seyfried in the pseudo-“Studien,” by Schumann in the “Neue Zeitschrift,” by Gottfried Weber in the “Cäcilia,” by Wegeler in the “Notizen”; and a few others were scattered in books and periodicals. Imitators, counterfeiters, fabricators of false documents, must have samples, patterns, models; but all the Beethoven letters then in print were so far from being the patterns or models of the Bettina letters that the contrast between them was the main argument against the authenticity of the latter. If, then, Mme. von Arnim introduced so many expressions which we know (but she could not) arenot“very womanish and very un-Beethovenian” into a fictitious correspondence, she did so not only without a pattern or model, but againstallpatterns and models.Credat Judæeus Apella, non ego.

There are points of doubt and difficulty in the third letter which the warmest advocates of its authenticity have not been able fully to overcome; but as Marx had not sufficient knowledge of his subject to perceive them, and the question of the acceptance or rejection of this letter will rest upon grounds to be given in the text, these points need not be noticed here. Another one must be, namely: suppose that letter should be proved counterfeit, does it follow that the others are so? Not at all; but that they are the authentic letters whose manner and style are imitated.

In 1848, Mme. von Arnim published two volumes of characteristic correspondence with Herr Nathusius under the title: “Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia.” In one of his lettersPamphiliusrequests autographs of Goethe’s mother and Beethoven, for a collection which he is making. This gives her occasion in various letters to express her admiration and reverence for the composer in terms which come warm from the heart. At length (Vol. II, p. 205) she writes: “Herewith I am sending you the letters of Goethe and Beethoven for your autograph collection.” She prints all three in the pages following; but a comparison of the several passages relating to them leads to the inference, that only one autograph was sent. Is all this a mystification? Was there noPamphilius? No autograph collection? No contribution of a letter in Beethoven’s hand to it? Herr Nathusius knows.

Mme. von Arnim, then, gave the letters to the public three times; in the “Athenæum,” January, 1839; in English translation, through Chorley, 1841; in the “Pamphilius und Ambrosia,” in 1848. It is patent to the feeblest common sense, that, if not genuine, either the same copy, or copies carefully collated so as to avoid all suspicious variations, would have been sent to the printer; and that the two German publications would differ only by such small errors as compositors make and proof-readers overlook—such as are found in Schindler’s reprint from the “Athenæum,” and in Marx’s from Schindler. But the variations of the “Pamphilius” copy from that in the “Athenæum” are such as cannot be printer’s errors, but precisely such as two persons, inexperienced in the task, would make in deciphering Beethoven’s very illegible writing; one (Mr. Merz) correcting the punctuation and faults in the use of capital letters (as Wegeler has evidently done), and the other (Mme. von Arnim) retaining these striking characteristics of the composer’s letters. The change of the familiar “Bettine,” which Beethoven learned in her brother’s family, to the more formal “Freundin,” can hardly be made a point of objection. Marx’s argument had been so completely upset, that, in renewing (1863) his attack upon the then deceased Mme. von Arnim, he was compelled to base it upon other considerations. It was then that the present writer compared the letters printed in the “Athenæum” with the copies in the “Pamphilius,” which convinced him, on the grounds above noted, of their authenticity, at least in part, and led to a correspondence, of which an abstract here follows: On July 9, 1863, the present author requested Mr. Wheeler, American Consul at Nuremberg, to see Mr. Merz, learn from him the circumstances under which he obtained theletters, and whether he printed from Beethoven’s autograph. Mr. Wheeler replied on August 9th: “He [Mr. Merz] states, that he enjoyed the personal acquaintance of that lady (Mme. von Arnim), and was at the time in Berlin on a visit; and being at her residence on a certain occasion, she gave him these letters, remarking: ‘There is something for the Athenæum.’ After publishing the letters, Mr. Merz feels confident, he returned the letters to Mme. v. Arnim.” The author now, on August 25th, requested Mr. Wheeler if possible to obtain from Mr. Merz his written statement that he had printed the letters from the original autographs. Mr. Wheeler, on September 24th, replied.... “Yesterday he [Merz] was good enough to write me the note you requested; I trust it may be found of the tenor wished.” The note which was enclosed in this letter is this: “I can certify that at the time in question I had in my possession the letters referred to in the January number of the ‘Athenæum,’ but gave them back again. Nuremberg, September 23, 1863. Julius Merz, book publisher.” It may be said that this note does not explicitly cover the whole ground. True, it is the testimony of a conscientious man who, after the lapse of twenty-five years, remembers deciphering certain letters of Beethoven which he printed, but does not venture to declare thatallthat he printed lay before him in the handwriting of the master. There is another witness who is reported to have been less distrustful of his memory. Herr Ludwig Nohl, in a note to these letters (“Briefe Beethoven’s,” p. 71), says: “Their authenticity (barring, perhaps, a few words in the middle of the third letter) was never doubtful in my mind and will not be now after Beethoven’s letters have been made public. Though superfluous, it may yet be said for the benefit of such as are not wholly willing to accept internal evidence, that Prof. Moriz Carriere, in a conversation on the subject of Beethoven’s letters in December, 1864, expressly stated that the three letters to Bettina were genuine; he saw them himself in her house in Berlin in 1839, read them through with the greatest interest and care, and because of their significant contents had urged their immediate publication. When they were printed a short time afterward, no changes in the reprint struck his attention; on the contrary, he could still remember that the much controverted terms, particularly the anecdote about Goethe in the third letter, were precisely so in the original.”

First Meeting with Bettina

And now to the matter, the discussion of which has detained us so long. One day in May, Beethoven, sitting at the pianoforte with a song just composed before him, was surprised by a pair ofhands being placed upon his shoulders. He looked up “gloomily” but his face brightened as he saw a beautiful young woman who, putting her mouth to his ear said: “My name is Brentano.” She needed no further introduction. He smiled, gave her his hand without rising and said: “I have just made a beautiful song for you; do you want to hear it?” Thereupon he sang—raspingly, incisively, not gently or sweetly (the voice was hard), but transcending training and agreeableness by reason of the cry of passion which reacted on the hearer—“Kennst du das Land?” He asked: “Well, how do you like it?” She nodded. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically, “marvellously beautiful; I’ll sing it again.” He sang it again, looked at her with a triumphant expression, and seeing her cheeks and eyes glow, rejoiced over her happy approval. “Aha!” said he, “most people are touched by a good thing; but they are not artist-natures. Artists are fiery; they do not weep.” He then sang another song of Goethe’s, “Trocknet nicht Thränen der ewigen Liebe.”

There was a large dinner party that day at Franz Brentano’s in the Birkenstock house and Bettina—for it was she—told Beethoven he must change his old coat for a better, and accompany her thither. “Oh,” said he jokingly, “I have several good coats,” and took her to the wardrobe to see them. Changing his coat he went down with her to the street, but stopped there and said he must return for a moment. He came down again laughing with the old coat on. She remonstrated; he went up again, dressed himself properly and went with her.[78]But, notwithstanding his rather clumsy drollery, she soon discovered a greatness in the man for which she was wholly unprepared. His genius burst upon her with a splendor of which she had formed no previous conception, and the sudden revelation astonished, dazzled, enraptured her. It is just this, which gives the tone to her letter upon Beethoven addressed to Goethe. In fact, the Beethoven ofourconceptions was not then known; the first attempt to describe or convey in words, what the finer appreciative spirits had begun to feel in his music, was E. T. A. Hoffmann’s article on the C minor Symphony, in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of July 21st—five weeks later.

Bettina’s Letter to Goethe

The essential parts of Bettina’s long communication are these:

(To Goethe)Vienna, May 28.When I saw him of whom I shall now speak to you, I forgot the whole world—as the world still vanishes when memory recalls the scene—yes, it vanishes.... It is Beethoven of whom I now wish to tell you, and who made me forget the world and you; I am still in my nonage, it is true, but I am not mistaken when I say—what no one, perhaps, now understands and believes—he stalks far ahead of the culture of mankind. Shall we ever overtake him?—I doubt it, but grant that he may live until the mighty and exalted enigma lying in his soul is fully developed, may reach its loftiest goal, then surely he will place the key to his heavenly knowledge in our hands so that we may be advanced another step towards true happiness.To you, I am sure, I may confess I believe in a divine magic which is the essence of intellectual life. This magic Beethoven practises in his art. Everything that he can tell you about is pure magic, every posture is the organization of a higher existence, and therefore Beethoven feels himself to be the founder of a new sensuous basis in the intellectual life; you will understand what I am trying to say and how much of it is true. Who could replace this mind for us? From whom could we expect so much? All human activities toss around him like mechanism, he alone begets independently in himself the unsuspected, uncreated. What to him is intercourse with the world—to him who is at his sacred daily task before sunrise and who after sunset scarcely looks about him, who forgets sustenance for his body and who is carried in a trice, by the stream of his enthusiasm, past the shores of work-a-day things?He himself said: “When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am the Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. When they are again become sober they have drawn from the sea all that they brought with them, all that they can bring with them to dry land. I have not a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to other artists; I associate with him without fear; I have always recognized and understood him and have no fear for my music—it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must be freed by it from all the miseries which the others drag about with themselves.”All this Beethoven said to me the first time I saw him; a feeling of reverential awe came over me when he expressed himself to me with such friendly frankness, seeing that I must have appeared so utterly insignificant to him. I was surprised, too, for I had been told that he was unsociable and would converse with nobody. They were afraid to take me to him; I had to hunt him up alone. He has three lodgings in which he conceals himself alternately—one in the country, one in the city and the third on the bastion. It was in the last that I found him in the third storey, walked in unannounced. He was seated at the pianoforte.He accompanied me home and on the way he said the many beautiful things about art, speaking so loud and stopping in the street that it took courage to listen to him. He spoke with great earnestness and muchtoo surprisingly not to make me forget the street. They were greatly surprised to see him enter a large dinner party at home with me. After dinner, without being asked, he sat down to the instrument and played long and marvellously; there was a simultaneous fermentation of his pride and his genius. When he is in such a state of exaltation his spirit begets the incomprehensible and his fingers accomplish the impossible.

(To Goethe)

Vienna, May 28.

When I saw him of whom I shall now speak to you, I forgot the whole world—as the world still vanishes when memory recalls the scene—yes, it vanishes.... It is Beethoven of whom I now wish to tell you, and who made me forget the world and you; I am still in my nonage, it is true, but I am not mistaken when I say—what no one, perhaps, now understands and believes—he stalks far ahead of the culture of mankind. Shall we ever overtake him?—I doubt it, but grant that he may live until the mighty and exalted enigma lying in his soul is fully developed, may reach its loftiest goal, then surely he will place the key to his heavenly knowledge in our hands so that we may be advanced another step towards true happiness.

To you, I am sure, I may confess I believe in a divine magic which is the essence of intellectual life. This magic Beethoven practises in his art. Everything that he can tell you about is pure magic, every posture is the organization of a higher existence, and therefore Beethoven feels himself to be the founder of a new sensuous basis in the intellectual life; you will understand what I am trying to say and how much of it is true. Who could replace this mind for us? From whom could we expect so much? All human activities toss around him like mechanism, he alone begets independently in himself the unsuspected, uncreated. What to him is intercourse with the world—to him who is at his sacred daily task before sunrise and who after sunset scarcely looks about him, who forgets sustenance for his body and who is carried in a trice, by the stream of his enthusiasm, past the shores of work-a-day things?

He himself said: “When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am the Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. When they are again become sober they have drawn from the sea all that they brought with them, all that they can bring with them to dry land. I have not a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to other artists; I associate with him without fear; I have always recognized and understood him and have no fear for my music—it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must be freed by it from all the miseries which the others drag about with themselves.”

All this Beethoven said to me the first time I saw him; a feeling of reverential awe came over me when he expressed himself to me with such friendly frankness, seeing that I must have appeared so utterly insignificant to him. I was surprised, too, for I had been told that he was unsociable and would converse with nobody. They were afraid to take me to him; I had to hunt him up alone. He has three lodgings in which he conceals himself alternately—one in the country, one in the city and the third on the bastion. It was in the last that I found him in the third storey, walked in unannounced. He was seated at the pianoforte.

He accompanied me home and on the way he said the many beautiful things about art, speaking so loud and stopping in the street that it took courage to listen to him. He spoke with great earnestness and muchtoo surprisingly not to make me forget the street. They were greatly surprised to see him enter a large dinner party at home with me. After dinner, without being asked, he sat down to the instrument and played long and marvellously; there was a simultaneous fermentation of his pride and his genius. When he is in such a state of exaltation his spirit begets the incomprehensible and his fingers accomplish the impossible.

In the letter to Pückler-Muskau in which Mme. von Arnim dwells more upon the incidents of this meeting, she writes thus:

There was surprise when I entered a gathering of more than 40 people who sat at table, hand in hand with Beethoven. Without ado he seated himself, said little (doubtless because he was deaf). Twice he took his writing-tablet out of his pocket and made a few marks in it. After dinner the entire company went up to the tower of the house to look at the view; when they were gone down again and he and I alone, he drew forth his tablet, looked at it, wrote and elided, then said: “My song is finished.” He leaned against the window-frame and sang it out upon the air. Then he said: “That sounds, doesn’t it? It belongs to you if you like it, I made it for you, you inspired it, I read it in your eyes just as it was written.”

There was surprise when I entered a gathering of more than 40 people who sat at table, hand in hand with Beethoven. Without ado he seated himself, said little (doubtless because he was deaf). Twice he took his writing-tablet out of his pocket and made a few marks in it. After dinner the entire company went up to the tower of the house to look at the view; when they were gone down again and he and I alone, he drew forth his tablet, looked at it, wrote and elided, then said: “My song is finished.” He leaned against the window-frame and sang it out upon the air. Then he said: “That sounds, doesn’t it? It belongs to you if you like it, I made it for you, you inspired it, I read it in your eyes just as it was written.”

In the Goethe letter she continues:

Since then he comes to me every day, or I go to him. For this I neglect social meetings, galleries, the theatre, and even the tower of St. Stephen’s. Beethoven says “Ah! What do you want to see there? I will call for you towards evening; we will walk through the alleys of Schönbrunn.” Yesterday I went with him to a glorious garden in full bloom, all the hot-beds open—the perfume was bewildering; Beethoven stopped in the oppressive sunshine and said: “Not only because of their contents, but also because of their rhythm, Goethe’s poems have great power over me, I am tuned up and stimulated to composition by this language which builds itself into higher orders as if through the work of spirits and already bears in itself the mystery of the harmonies.“Then from the focus of enthusiasm I must discharge melody in all directions; I pursue it, capture it again passionately; I see it flying away and disappearing in the mass of varied agitations; now I seize upon it again with renewed passion; I cannot tear myself from it; I am impelled with hurried modulations to multiply it, and, at length I conquer it:—behold, a symphony! Music, verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensuous life. I should like to talk with Goethe about this—would he understand me?”.... “Speak to Goethe about me,” he said; “tell him to hear my symphonies and he will say that I am right in saying that music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.... We do not know what knowledge brings us. The encased seed needs the moist, electrically warm soil to sprout, to think, to express itself. Music is the electrical soil in which the mind thinks, lives, feels. Philosophy is a precipitate of the mind’s electrical essence; its needs which seek a basis in a primeval principle are elevated by it, and although the mind is not supreme over what it generates through it, it is yet happy in the process. Thus every real creation of art is independent,more powerful than the artist himself and returns to the divine through its manifestation. It is one with man only in this, that it bears testimony of the mediation of the divine in him.... Everything electrical stimulates the mind to musical, fluent, out-streaming generation.“I am electrical in my nature. I must interrupt the flow of my undemonstrable wisdom or I might neglect my rehearsal. Write to Goethe if you understand what I have said, but I cannot be answerable for anything and will gladly be instructed by him.” I promised to write you everything to the best of my understanding.... Last night I wrote down all that he had said; this morning I read it over to him. He remarked: “Did I say that? Well, then I had a raptus!” He read it again attentively and struck out the above and wrote between the lines, for he is greatly desirous that you shall understand him. Rejoice me now with a speedy answer, which shall show Beethoven that you appreciate him. It has always been our purpose to discuss music; it was also my desire, but through Beethoven I feel for the first time that I am not fit for the task.

Since then he comes to me every day, or I go to him. For this I neglect social meetings, galleries, the theatre, and even the tower of St. Stephen’s. Beethoven says “Ah! What do you want to see there? I will call for you towards evening; we will walk through the alleys of Schönbrunn.” Yesterday I went with him to a glorious garden in full bloom, all the hot-beds open—the perfume was bewildering; Beethoven stopped in the oppressive sunshine and said: “Not only because of their contents, but also because of their rhythm, Goethe’s poems have great power over me, I am tuned up and stimulated to composition by this language which builds itself into higher orders as if through the work of spirits and already bears in itself the mystery of the harmonies.

“Then from the focus of enthusiasm I must discharge melody in all directions; I pursue it, capture it again passionately; I see it flying away and disappearing in the mass of varied agitations; now I seize upon it again with renewed passion; I cannot tear myself from it; I am impelled with hurried modulations to multiply it, and, at length I conquer it:—behold, a symphony! Music, verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensuous life. I should like to talk with Goethe about this—would he understand me?”.... “Speak to Goethe about me,” he said; “tell him to hear my symphonies and he will say that I am right in saying that music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.... We do not know what knowledge brings us. The encased seed needs the moist, electrically warm soil to sprout, to think, to express itself. Music is the electrical soil in which the mind thinks, lives, feels. Philosophy is a precipitate of the mind’s electrical essence; its needs which seek a basis in a primeval principle are elevated by it, and although the mind is not supreme over what it generates through it, it is yet happy in the process. Thus every real creation of art is independent,more powerful than the artist himself and returns to the divine through its manifestation. It is one with man only in this, that it bears testimony of the mediation of the divine in him.... Everything electrical stimulates the mind to musical, fluent, out-streaming generation.

“I am electrical in my nature. I must interrupt the flow of my undemonstrable wisdom or I might neglect my rehearsal. Write to Goethe if you understand what I have said, but I cannot be answerable for anything and will gladly be instructed by him.” I promised to write you everything to the best of my understanding.... Last night I wrote down all that he had said; this morning I read it over to him. He remarked: “Did I say that? Well, then I had a raptus!” He read it again attentively and struck out the above and wrote between the lines, for he is greatly desirous that you shall understand him. Rejoice me now with a speedy answer, which shall show Beethoven that you appreciate him. It has always been our purpose to discuss music; it was also my desire, but through Beethoven I feel for the first time that I am not fit for the task.

Goethe’s Reply to Bettina

To this letter Goethe answered:

Your letter, heartily beloved child, reached me at a happy time. You have been at great pains to picture for me a great and beautiful nature in its achievements and its strivings, its needs and the superabundance of its gifts. It has given me great pleasure to accept this picture of a truly great spirit. Without desiring at all to classify it, it yet requires a psychological feat to extract the sum of agreement; but I feel no desire to contradict what I can grasp of your hurried explosion; on the contrary, I should prefer for the present to admit an agreement between my nature and that which is recognizable in these manifold utterances. The ordinary human mind might, perhaps, find contradictions in it; but before that which is uttered by one possessed of such a dæmon, an ordinary layman must stand in reverence, and it is immaterial whether he speaks from feeling or knowledge, for here the gods are at work strewing seeds for future discernment and we can only wish that they may proceed undisturbedly to development. But before they can become general, the clouds which veil the human mind must be dispersed. Give Beethoven my heartiest greetings and tell him that I would willingly make sacrifices to have his acquaintance, when an exchange of thoughts and feelings would surely be beautifully profitable; mayhap you may be able to persuade him to make a journey to Karlsbad whither I go nearly every year and would have the greatest leisure to listen to him and learn from him. To think of teaching him would be an insolence even in one with greater insight than mine, since he has the guiding light of his genius which frequently illumines his mind like a stroke of lightning while we sit in darkness and scarcely suspect the direction from which daylight will break upon us.It would give me great joy if Beethoven were to make me a present of the two songs of mine which he has composed, but neatly and plainly written. I am very eager to hear them. It is one of my greatest enjoyments, for which I am very grateful, to have the old moods of such a poem (as Beethoven very correctly says) newly aroused in me....June 6, 1810.

Your letter, heartily beloved child, reached me at a happy time. You have been at great pains to picture for me a great and beautiful nature in its achievements and its strivings, its needs and the superabundance of its gifts. It has given me great pleasure to accept this picture of a truly great spirit. Without desiring at all to classify it, it yet requires a psychological feat to extract the sum of agreement; but I feel no desire to contradict what I can grasp of your hurried explosion; on the contrary, I should prefer for the present to admit an agreement between my nature and that which is recognizable in these manifold utterances. The ordinary human mind might, perhaps, find contradictions in it; but before that which is uttered by one possessed of such a dæmon, an ordinary layman must stand in reverence, and it is immaterial whether he speaks from feeling or knowledge, for here the gods are at work strewing seeds for future discernment and we can only wish that they may proceed undisturbedly to development. But before they can become general, the clouds which veil the human mind must be dispersed. Give Beethoven my heartiest greetings and tell him that I would willingly make sacrifices to have his acquaintance, when an exchange of thoughts and feelings would surely be beautifully profitable; mayhap you may be able to persuade him to make a journey to Karlsbad whither I go nearly every year and would have the greatest leisure to listen to him and learn from him. To think of teaching him would be an insolence even in one with greater insight than mine, since he has the guiding light of his genius which frequently illumines his mind like a stroke of lightning while we sit in darkness and scarcely suspect the direction from which daylight will break upon us.

It would give me great joy if Beethoven were to make me a present of the two songs of mine which he has composed, but neatly and plainly written. I am very eager to hear them. It is one of my greatest enjoyments, for which I am very grateful, to have the old moods of such a poem (as Beethoven very correctly says) newly aroused in me....

June 6, 1810.

(Bettina to Goethe)Dearest friend! I communicated your beautiful letter to Beethoven so far as it concerned him. He was full of joy and cried: “If there is any one who can make him understand music, I am the man!” The idea of hunting you up at Karlsbad filled him with enthusiasm. He struck his forehead a blow and said: “Might I not have done that earlier?—but, in truth, I did think of it but omitted to do it because of timidity which often torments me as if I were not a real man: but I am no longer afraid of Goethe.” You may count, therefore, on seeing him next year....I am enclosing both songs by Beethoven; the other two are by me. Beethoven has seen them and said many pretty things about them, such as that if I had devoted myself to this lovely art I might cherish great hopes; but I merely graze it in flight, for my art is only to laugh and sigh in a little pocket—more than that there is none for me.Bettina.

(Bettina to Goethe)

Dearest friend! I communicated your beautiful letter to Beethoven so far as it concerned him. He was full of joy and cried: “If there is any one who can make him understand music, I am the man!” The idea of hunting you up at Karlsbad filled him with enthusiasm. He struck his forehead a blow and said: “Might I not have done that earlier?—but, in truth, I did think of it but omitted to do it because of timidity which often torments me as if I were not a real man: but I am no longer afraid of Goethe.” You may count, therefore, on seeing him next year....

I am enclosing both songs by Beethoven; the other two are by me. Beethoven has seen them and said many pretty things about them, such as that if I had devoted myself to this lovely art I might cherish great hopes; but I merely graze it in flight, for my art is only to laugh and sigh in a little pocket—more than that there is none for me.

Bettina.

By the middle of June she was in Bohemia.

There are a few letters from this period to which attention may be paid. On July 9, 1810, Beethoven wrote to Zmeskall telling him of his distracted state of mind: he ought to go away from Vienna for the sake of his health, but Archduke Rudolph wanted him to remain near him; so he was one day in Schönbrunn, the next in Vienna. “Every day there come new inquiries from strangers, new acquaintances, new conditions even as regards art—sometimes I feel as if I should go mad because of my undeserved fame; fortune is seeking me and on that account I almost apprehend a new misfortune.” On July 17th, he sent to Thomson the Scotch songs which he had arranged, accompanied by a letter (in French) in which he discusses business matters, gives some instructions touching the repetitions in the songs, repeats his offer to compose three quintets and three sonatas and to send him such arrangements for quartet and quintet as have been made of his symphonies. Soon thereafter he wrote to Bettina Brentano:[79]

Beethoven’s Letter to Bettina

Vienna, August 11, 1810.Dearest Bettine:No lovelier spring than this, that say I and feel it, too, because I have made your acquaintance. You must have seen for yourself that in society I am like a frog on the sand which flounders about and cannot get away until some benevolent Galatea puts him into the mighty sea again. I was right high and dry, dearest Bettine, I was surprised by you at a moment when ill-humor had complete control of me; but of a truth it vanished at sight of you, I knew at once that you belonged to another world than this absurd one to which with the best of wills one cannot open his ears. I am a miserable man and am complaining about the others!!—Surely you will pardon this with your good heart which looks out of your eyes and your sense which lies in your ears—at least your ears know how to flatter when they give heed. My ears, unfortunately, are a barrier through which I cannot easily have friendly intercourse with mankind—otherwise!—Perhaps!—I should have had more confidence in you. As it is I could only understand the big, wise look of your eyes, which did for me what I shall never forget. Dear Bettine, dearest girl! Art!—who understands it, with whom can one converse about this great goddess!—How dear to me are the few days in which we chatted, or rather corresponded with each other, I have preserved all the little bits of paper on which your bright, dear, dearest answers are written. And so I owe it to my bad ears that the best portion of these fleeting conversations is written down. Since you have been gone I have had vexatious hours, hours of shadow, in which nothing can be done; I walked about in the Schönbrunn Alley for fully three hours after you were gone, and on the bastion; but no angel who might fascinate me as you do, Angel. Pardon, dearest Bettine, this departure from the key. I must have such intervals in which to unburden my heart. You have written to Goethe, haven’t you?—would that I might put my head in a bag so that I could see and hear nothing of what is going on in the world. Since you, dearest angel, cannot meet me. But I shall get a letter from you, shall I not?—Hope sustains me, it sustains half of the world, and I have had her as neighbor all my life, if I had not what would have become of me?—I am sending you herewith, written with my own hand, “Kennst du das Land,” as a souvenir of the hour in which I learned to know you, I am sending also the other which I have composed since I parted with you dear, dearest heart!Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,Was bedränget dich so sehr?Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.Yes, dearest Bettine, answer this, write me what it is shall happen to me since my heart has become such a rebel. Write to your most faithful friend—Beethoven.

Vienna, August 11, 1810.

Dearest Bettine:

No lovelier spring than this, that say I and feel it, too, because I have made your acquaintance. You must have seen for yourself that in society I am like a frog on the sand which flounders about and cannot get away until some benevolent Galatea puts him into the mighty sea again. I was right high and dry, dearest Bettine, I was surprised by you at a moment when ill-humor had complete control of me; but of a truth it vanished at sight of you, I knew at once that you belonged to another world than this absurd one to which with the best of wills one cannot open his ears. I am a miserable man and am complaining about the others!!—Surely you will pardon this with your good heart which looks out of your eyes and your sense which lies in your ears—at least your ears know how to flatter when they give heed. My ears, unfortunately, are a barrier through which I cannot easily have friendly intercourse with mankind—otherwise!—Perhaps!—I should have had more confidence in you. As it is I could only understand the big, wise look of your eyes, which did for me what I shall never forget. Dear Bettine, dearest girl! Art!—who understands it, with whom can one converse about this great goddess!—How dear to me are the few days in which we chatted, or rather corresponded with each other, I have preserved all the little bits of paper on which your bright, dear, dearest answers are written. And so I owe it to my bad ears that the best portion of these fleeting conversations is written down. Since you have been gone I have had vexatious hours, hours of shadow, in which nothing can be done; I walked about in the Schönbrunn Alley for fully three hours after you were gone, and on the bastion; but no angel who might fascinate me as you do, Angel. Pardon, dearest Bettine, this departure from the key. I must have such intervals in which to unburden my heart. You have written to Goethe, haven’t you?—would that I might put my head in a bag so that I could see and hear nothing of what is going on in the world. Since you, dearest angel, cannot meet me. But I shall get a letter from you, shall I not?—Hope sustains me, it sustains half of the world, and I have had her as neighbor all my life, if I had not what would have become of me?—I am sending you herewith, written with my own hand, “Kennst du das Land,” as a souvenir of the hour in which I learned to know you, I am sending also the other which I have composed since I parted with you dear, dearest heart!

Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,Was bedränget dich so sehr?Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.

Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,Was bedränget dich so sehr?Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.

Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,Was bedränget dich so sehr?Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.

Yes, dearest Bettine, answer this, write me what it is shall happen to me since my heart has become such a rebel. Write to your most faithful friend—

Beethoven.

The cessation in Beethoven’s productiveness in this period is partly explained by the vast amount of labor entailed by the preparation of manuscripts for publication, the correction of proofs, etc. Of this there is evidence in a number of letters to Breitkopf and Härtel. On July 2 he wrote demanding an honorarium of 250 florins for works that he had specified, and sending the first installment, two sonatas for pianoforte, five variations for pianoforte and six ariettas (probably Op. 75). The second installment, he said, should be a Concerto in E-flat, the Choral Fantasia and three Ariettas. The third, the Characteristic Sonata “Farewell, Absence and Return,” five Italian ariettas and the score of “Egmont.” On August 21, 1810, he wrote to the firm at great length. He sends a draft of a plan for a complete edition of his works, in which Breitkopf and Härtel were to figure as the principal publishers. He asks what they are willing to pay for “a concerto, quartet, etc., and then you will be able to see that 250 ducats is a small honorarium.”... “I do not aim at being a musical usurer, as you think, who composes only in order to get rich, by no means, but I love a life of independence and cannot achieve this without a little fortune, and then the honorarium must, like everything else that he undertakes, bring some honor to the artist.” He gives directions as to the dedications. Of the “Egmont” he says: “As soon as you have received the score you will best know what use to make of it and how to direct the attention of the public to it—I wrote it purely out of love for the poet, and to show this I accepted nothing from the theatre directors who accepted it, and as a reward, as ever and always, have treated my work with great indifference. There is nothing smaller than our great folk, but I make an exception in favor of the archdukes—give me your opinion as to a complete edition of my works, one of the chief obstacles seems to be in the case of new works which I shall continue to bring into the world I shall have to suffer in the matter of publication.”...

Without date, but endorsed by the firm as of August 21st, is the following little note containing an important correction in the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony:

... I have found another error in the Symphony in C minor, namely, in the third movement in ¾ time where, after the ♮ ♮ ♮ the minor returns again, it reads (I just take the bass part) thus:Bass passage with two measures crossed outThe two measures marked by a X are redundant and must be stricken out, of course also in all the parts that are pausing.

... I have found another error in the Symphony in C minor, namely, in the third movement in ¾ time where, after the ♮ ♮ ♮ the minor returns again, it reads (I just take the bass part) thus:

Bass passage with two measures crossed out

The two measures marked by a X are redundant and must be stricken out, of course also in all the parts that are pausing.

Sorrows Borne in Silence

If the correspondence in this chapter seems in tone and character at variance with the assumption that, for some reason or other, this was a disastrous year to Beethoven, it must not be forgotten that there are troubles and sorrows which must be borne in silence—when to complain and lament is apter to excite ridicule than compassion. Though the burden be almost insupportable, the sufferer must perform his duties and pursue the business of life with a serene countenance, and permit no outward sign to reveal the secret pain. “The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun,” says Longfellow. “The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us and the world seems but a dim reflection—itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself.” When “surprised” by Bettina, Beethoven’s great hope had set and “ill humor had complete control” of him. His “marriage project had fallen through.” Whoever the lady was, the blow had now fallen and must be borne in silence. Its disastrous effect upon Beethoven’s professional energies is therefore for us the only measure of its severity. True, he writes to Zmeskall and talks of his art as if great things were in prospect; but he had no heart for such labor, and not until October did he take up and finish theQuartetto Seriosofor his friend. The long bright summer days, that in other years had awakened his powers to new and joyous activity and added annually one at least to the list of his grandest works, came and departed, leaving no memorial but a few songs and minor instrumental works—the latter apparently composed to order. He took no country lodging this summer—alternating between Baden and Vienna, and indulging in lonely rambles among the hills and forests. We think it must have been in this period of song composition and oriental studies that, on such an excursion, he had with him the undated paper containing a selection from the songs in Herder’s “Morgenländische Blumenlese” and wrote upon it in pencil:

My decree [meaning the annuity contract] says only “to remain in the country”—perhaps this would be complied with by any spot. My unhappy ears do not torment me here. It seems as if in the country every tree said to me “Holy! Holy!” Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods? If everything else fails the country remains even in winter—such as Gaden, Unterer Brühl, etc.—easy to hire a lodging from a peasant, certainly cheap at this time.

My decree [meaning the annuity contract] says only “to remain in the country”—perhaps this would be complied with by any spot. My unhappy ears do not torment me here. It seems as if in the country every tree said to me “Holy! Holy!” Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods? If everything else fails the country remains even in winter—such as Gaden, Unterer Brühl, etc.—easy to hire a lodging from a peasant, certainly cheap at this time.

Another half-sheet in the Library of the Musikfreunde in Vienna, mostly covered with rude musical sketches, is a suitablependant to the above, as it contains these words: “Without the society of some loved person it would not be possible to live even in the country.”

It is well known that Beethoven’s duties to Archduke Rudolph soon became irksome and at last almost insupportable. It was, however, for his good that he was compelled to perform them and be master of himself to that extent; it was also fortunate that Elizabeth Brentano came just at the crisis with beauty, grace and genius to turn his thoughts into other channels. Nor was it without benefit to him that Thomson’s melodies, which required no severe study, gave some desultory but profitable employment to his mind. Just at the close of the year it was rumored that he contemplated a journey into Italy “next spring, in order to seek restoration of his health, which had suffered greatly for several years, under southern skies.” There was some foundation for this, for some years later Beethoven himself states in one of his letters: “I declined a call to Naples.”


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