Chapter 28

[49]This is given from Jahn’s copy, to which is appended the following note: “Titles of the 6 works with changed dedications: 3 quartets, the name Rasoumowsky changed in Beethoven’s handwriting toà son Altesse le Prince Charles de Lichnowsky. The name of Frau von Breuning stricken out of the dedication of the arrangement of the Concerto. The Pianoforte Concerto originally dedicated with a German title to Archduke Rudolph, then with a French titleà son ami Gleichenstein.” None of these changes was made; the “six works” came out with the dedications originally intended.[50]This letter (to which allusion has been made in the chapter devoted to Beethoven’s love-affairs) was first printed from the original owned by Count Géza von Brunswick in the “Blätter für Theater und Musik” (No. 34). If the date, “May 11, 1806,” was written by Beethoven and is not an error by a copyist, it provides another instance of the composer’s irresponsibility in dating his letters; for the reference to the contract with Clementi is irrefutable evidence that it was written in 1807. Beethoven’s remark about getting great without the help of a monument reared by Therese von Brunswick is evidently an allusion to the fact that the Countess erected a monument to her father in the grounds of the family-seat in Hungary, and might properly enough be cited, together with the commissioned kiss, as proof of the intimacy between the Brunswicks and Beethoven. Had there been talk of another family monument at Martonvásár? Beethoven’s remark might easily be thus interpreted. The sister whom he had asked to write about the quartets was doubtless Josephine, Countess von Deym. The sportive remark about Schuppanzigh’s marriage with one like him is explained by the fact that the violinist was of Falstaffian proportions.[51]The Editor of the English edition feels it to be his duty to permit Thayer to reiterate his argument in favor of the year 1807, as that in which the love-letter was written, notwithstanding Dr. Riemann’s curt rejection of it in the German edition. The question is still an open one.[52]Nottebohm concludes from a study of the sketches that the Symphony in C minor was completed in March, 1808, and the “Pastoral” Symphony later, though the two were sketched during the same period, in part, and there is a remote possibility that the latter, which was written down with unusual speed, was finished as soon as the former. In support of this theory is the circumstance that at the concert on December 22, 1808, at which both were produced, the “Pastoral” was numbered 5 and the C minor 6. Both symphonies were offered to Breitkopf and Härtel in June, 1808, and bought by the firm in September. In the letter offering them Beethoven observed the present numbering. A stipulation in the letter that the symphonies should not be published until six months after June 1, suggests the probability that the right to perform them in private had been sold to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky, to whom in common the works are dedicated.[53]Query: The same whom in 1812 Count Ferd. Waldstein married?[54]On June 8, 1808, Beethoven offered the Mass in C to Breitkopf and Härtel, along with the fifth and sixth symphonies and the sonata for pianoforte and violoncello, Op. 69, for 900 florins. He wrote: “I do not like to say anything about my mass or myself, but I believe I have treated the text as it has seldom been treated.” The answer of Breitkopf and Härtel is not of record, but to the offer which it contained, Beethoven replied on July 16 with a letter in which he offered the mass, two symphonies, the sonata for ’cello and two other pianoforte sonatas (or in place of these, “probably” another symphony) for 700 florins. Then he says: “You see that I give more and take less—but that is the limit;you must take the mass, or I cannot give you the other works—for I am considering honor and not profit merely. ‘There is no demand for church music,’ you say, and you are right, if the music comes from mere thorough-bassists, but if you will only have the mass performed once you will see if there will not be music-lovers who will want it.... I will guarantee its success in any event.” In a third letter, without date, which throws light on the well-nigh insuperable difficulties experienced by a famous composer a century or so ago in securing the publication of a large ecclesiastical work, Beethoven says: “To the repeated proposal made by you through Wagener, I reply that I am readyto relieve you of everything concerning the mass—I make you a present of it, you need not pay even the cost of copying, firmly convinced that if you once have it performed in your winter concerts at Leipsic you will surely provide it with a German text and publish it.... The reason for my having wished to bind you to publish this mass isin the first place and chiefly because it is dear to my heartand in spite of the coldness of our age to such works.” A later letter (of date April 5, 1809) to Breitkopf and Härtel shows that the gift of the mass was not accepted. Beethoven changed its dedication several times. On October 5, 1810, he wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel that it was dedicated to Zmeskall; on October 9, 1811, he gives notice that a change in the dedication would have to be made because “the woman is now married and the name must be changed; let the matter rest, therefore, write to me when you will publish it and then the work’s saint will doubtless be found.” Eventually the “saint” proved to be Prince Kinsky.[55]This letter was doubtless followed by a billet to Gleichenstein reading as follows: “I think—you would better have them pay you 60 florins more than the 1500 or, if you think that it would be consistent with my honesty—the sum of 1600—I leave this wholly to you, however, only honesty and justice must be the polestar which is to guide you.” The transaction to which the letter and note refer must have been the sale of the compositions, the British rights for which had been sold to Clementi. The quartet was probably one of the Rasoumowsky set and the symphony that in B-flat, since the fifth and sixth were not published by the Viennese Bureau but by Breitkopf and Härtel.[56]Alois Fuchs related that when Beethoven heard from Krumpholz of Napoleon’s victory at Jena he exclaimed: “Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music; I would conquer him yet!”[57]Nevertheless a letter, of which a copy was placed in the hands of Thayer at a later date, indicates that an oratorio “Die Sündfluth” was written by Hammer-Purgstall, and also that the correspondence between Beethoven and the Orientalist took place in 1809. It is dated “Ash Wednesday,” the year not being mentioned, but refers to the departure of the Persian Ambassador and the fact that H. Schick had acquainted the writer with Beethoven’s desire to have an Indian chorus of a religious character for composition.[58]Röckel in his letter to Thayer says: “That Beethoven did not abandon the idea of composing another opera was shown by the impatience with which he could scarcely wait for his friend Collin to make an opera book for him of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth.’ At Beethoven’s request, I read the first act and found that it followed the great original closely; unfortunately Collin’s death prevented the completion of the work.”[59]Schindler here is mistaken. The “walk toward the Kahlenberg” took them northerly into the valley between Heiligenstadt and Nussdorf, where an excessively idealized bust of the composer now marks the “Scene by the Brook.” After thirty years of absence from Vienna, Schindler’s memory had lost the exact topography of these scenes; and a friend to whom he wrote for information upon it mistook the Grinzing brook and valley for the true ones. This explanation of his error was made by Schindler to the present writer very soon after the third edition of his (Schindler’s) book appeared.[60]“But the note of the yellowhammer, both in England and in Austria, is not anarpeggio—cannot in any way be twisted into one, or represented by one. It is a quick succession of the same note, ending with a longer one, sometimes rising above the preceding note, but more frequently falling. In fact, Schindler himself tells us that it was the origin of the mighty theme which opened the C minor Symphony!”—Grove, “Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies,” p. 211.[61]Carl Holz related a story to Jahn, which he may very well have heard from Beethoven himself. Jahn’s memorandum of it is in the following words: “Scherzo of the Pastorale. In Heiligenstadt a drunken bassoonist thrown out of the tavern, who then blows the bass notes.”[62]Some of the information for which Thayer hoped was supplied by his translator, Dr. Deiters, and has been printed as a foot-note in the preceding chapter. Something more appears from several documents which have come to light since Mr. Thayer wrote, but, it must be confessed, it seems more bewildering than illuminative. One of these is a letter which was published in the “Signale” of Leipsic in September, 1880. It is without date, but an allusion to the felon with which Beethoven was afflicted fixes the time of its writing about March, 1808. The significant part of the letter is as follows: “To-day I have little time to write more to you, I only want to inform you thatyour symphonyhas long been ready and I will send it to you by the next post—you may retain 50 florins, for the copying, which I will have done for you, will cost that sum at least—in case you do not want the symphony, however, let me know the fact before the next post—in case you accept it, rejoice me as soon as possible with the 300 florins still due me—The last piece in the symphony is with 3 trombones andflautino—not with 3 kettledrums, but will make more noise than 6 kettledrums and, indeed, better noise—I am still under treatment for my poor innocent finger and because of it have not been able to go out for a fortnight—farewell—let me hear something from you soon, dear Count—it goes ill with me.” The document which Dr. Riemann says “obviously” accompanied this letter (though we cannot see why) runs as follows: “Receipt for 500 florins from Count Oppersdorff for aSinfoniewhich I have written for him.” This is dated “1807 on the 3rd of February.” There is another receipt for 150 florins dated March 29, 1808, but nothing to show what the money was paid for except a memorandum accompanying it which seems to be partly in the handwriting of Beethoven, partly in that of Oppersdorff, and states that 200 florins had been paid in June, 1807, for the “5 Sinfoni” (the numeral is vague), but that the symphony had not been received. The reference to the trombones in the finale of the symphony proves that it was the fifth that was in question.On November 1, 1808, Beethoven writes the letter printed above in the body of the text. Why Dr. Riemann should have thought it necessary to consider the first letter of contemporaneous date with the first receipt is not plain, nor why he should surmise that Beethoven had enclosed the receipt in the letter before he received the money which was not paid at the time. To this Editor it seems as if the confused tangle might be explained in part, at least, as follows, though the explanation leaves Beethoven under a suspicion which cannot be dispelled until more is learned of the dealings between him and Count Oppersdorff: On the occasion of Beethoven’s visit to Count Oppersdorff in company with Lichnowsky in the summer or fall of 1806, the Count commissioned the composer to write a symphony for him; Beethoven had begun work on the Fifth Symphony, but laid it aside and during the remainder of his stay at Grätz and in the winter of 1807 wrote the Symphony in B-flat which is dedicated to Count Oppersdorff; for this he received 500 florins on February 3, 1807; he did not send the Count the score, as was the custom, for exclusive use during a fixed period, but turned it over to Lobkowitz for performance, being in urgent need of money; a year later he substituted the Fifth for the Fourth and accepted from Count Oppersdorff 150 florins in March and 200 in June for it without delivering it, this sum being, it may be presumed, a bonus for the larger work, the Count apparently having asked for something employing an unusual apparatus (hence the “3 kettledrums”); this symphony was also withheld in the end, for reasons which are not known, and Oppersdorff had to content himself with the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat originally designed for him.Dr. Riemann’s comment on the transactions is this: “The letter of November 1, 1808, proves conclusively that Count Oppersdorff could not have received either the C minor or the B-flat Symphony for his use for the customary half year; for the B-flat Symphony was performed by Lobkowitz in March, 1807; it was sold to Clementi and also to theIndustriecomptoirin the summer, delivered for publication at the latest in the fall of 1807 when Beethoven had to return the 1500 florins to his brother Johann. The C minor Symphony was performed at the concert in the Theater-an-der-Wien on December 22, 1808, offered to Breitkopf and Härtel as early as June, 1808, sold on September 14, 1808, and published in April, 1809. To all appearances, Count Oppersdorff was compelled to look upon the 350 florins as remuneration for the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat which was published by theIndustriecomptoirin March, 1808 (score not until 1821 by Simrock). The name of Count Oppersdorff does not appear again in the life-history of Beethoven.”[63]Czerny did not know that Beethoven had formed the idea of this work full eight years before. See notice on the Petter sketchbookante, Chapter II.[64]The agreement between this memorial and the letters written on the subject (apparently to Gleichenstein—though Thayer was not willing to commit himself on this point) make it most probable that he was the author of the document. Even the sentimental suggestion that the contributors might look upon themselves as co-authors of the great works to come, went out from Beethoven in one of the notes probably sent to Gleichenstein.[65]On this letter Dr. Riemann comments as follows: “This letter proves conclusively that in the spring of 1809, Beethoven was not yet thinking of a union with Therese Malfatti and that all letters to Gleichenstein containing hints of that nature are of later date. But it may safely be assumed that the settlement of a fixed income upon him together with the receipts from his compositions set Beethoven seriously to thinking of marriage. Although Dr. Malfatti, uncle of the sisters Therese and Anna, had been Beethoven’s house physician since the death of Dr. Schmidt (February 13, 1808), it was not until some time in the course of the year 1809, that Beethoven’s inclination towards Therese gradually developed until it led to a formal proposal of marriage in the spring of 1810.”[66]“One of these sisters,” writes Thayer, “was sent to him (in 1807-8?), she then being but some twelve years of age. He gave her a good education, and brought her out as a singer, when Hummel fell in love with her, married her and withdrew her from the stage. I asked Röckel if she could by any possibility have been the person with whom Beethoven in 1809-10 had a marriage project? He proved to me that she was not. So that story is put at rest.”[67]The letter is incorrectly dated “1811” in the Kalischer Collection.[68]If the estrangement between Beethoven and his brother was of earlier date than this, it would appear as if the siege of Vienna had brought them together again.[69]In view of the many indications, especially in the letters to Breitkopf and Härtel, that Beethoven did not work with any continuity from the beginning of May to the end of July, this memorandum assumes a different aspect and might serve to prove that the resumption of work on the first movement of the E-flat Concerto was not made till June or July, and that the entire Meinert sketchbook belongs to the period from July to October.[70]Nor is this longer to be maintained, since Beethoven reports these errors to Breitkopf and Härtel on July 26, 1809, “having had attention drawn to them by a good friend.”[71]Nottebohm, “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 188et seq., contends that the pages in the so-called “Pettersches Skizzenbuch” containing the sketches for “Macbeth” and the D major Trio were not originally part of the book and that it dates from 1812. Neverthless, Thayer, who was familiar with the views divergent from his, is entitled to have his argument set forth as he wrote it.[72]Czerny’s statements must be corrected in a few respects in view of Beethoven’s own statements in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, dated August 21, 1810, as will appear later.[73]“The statement in the first edition, that Beethoven perhaps spent some time with the Brunswicks in Hungary in the summer of 1809, lacks all evidence” (says Dr. Riemann).[74]In their efforts in later years to sustain this theatre in brilliant style, “the Counts Raday and Brunswick were ruined.”[75]See the entire correspondence between Beethoven and Thomson in the appendix to the original edition of this biography.[76]See Reichardt’s “Vertraute Briefe, geschrieben auf einer Reise nach Wien und den Österreichischen Staaten zu Ende das Jahres 1808 und zu Anfang 1809,” under date November 30, December 5, December 10, December 16, December 25, December 31, 1808, and January 15, March 6, March 27 and No. 37 (without date), 1809.[77]The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker, connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not unearthed until five years after his death.[78]This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents, remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth, when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the letter renders it nearly worthless.[79]From the “Athenæum.” There are a few variations in the letter as printed in the Nuremburg journal and in “Ilius Pamphilius”—“Bettine” is changed to “friend,” “frog” to “fish,” “and on the bastion” is omitted, “fascinated” (gebannt) is altered to “seized” (gepackt). A few other differences are grammatical errors.It seems proper at this place for the English Editor to remark that Mr. Thayer’s argument in favor of the authenticity of the Bettina letters was printed in the Appendix to Vol. III of the original edition with a concluding foot-note by Dr. Deiters in which he said that he had not been convinced by his author’s painstaking exposition that the letters are genuine. Dr. Riemann in the second German edition prints the letters and the argument in the text, distributing the latter in two chapters and appending a foot-note in which he gives it as his opinion that only the second (that dated February 10, 1811, the autograph of which is in existence) is authenticas a letter, while the other two, though probably based on observations made by Beethoven to Bettina, were put into epistolary shape by her. One of Bettina’s letters to Pückler-Muskau, which tells of Beethoven’s rudeness to Goethe as illustrated in the anecdote which plays so important a rôle in the third letter, would seem to bear out this theory. But it is also likely that Beethoven’s original letters were tricked out by her for literary effect, which would help to explain the disappearance of the autographs of the letters of 1810 and 1812. The second letter, which was printed infacsimilein the Marx-Behncke critical biography of Beethoven (4th ed., 1884), was in possession of Pastor Nathusius in Quedlinburg in 1902.[80]Clemens Brentano, brother of Bettina and Franz, who had written the text of a cantata on the death of Queen Louise.[81]Goethe’s answer to this letter is printed in the Weimar Collection of the poet’s correspondence. Vol. XXII, No. 615. It is worth producing here:Carlsbad, June 25, 1811.Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents. Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the happiest of her life.I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont when I return home and am thankful in advance—for I have heard it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us.[82]This second letter does not seem to have been preserved.[83]At this point in the biography, Thayer, believing that the broken marriage engagement which had had so powerful an effect on Beethoven’s spirits and intellectual energies in 1810 had been one entered into with Countess Therese Brunswick, introduces the letters to Gleichenstein and makes the following comments, which the English Editor prefers to introduce in a foot-note rather than to put them in the body of the text, as is done in the second German edition, and give them a false interpretation: “The allusion to Gleichenstein’s marriage with the younger of the sisters Malfatti, which took place near the end of May, sufficiently indicates the date of these notes; and the statement made in a former chapter—that Beethoven once offered his hand in marriage to the elder, Therese—accounts satisfactorily for the strong excitement under which they were written; for, that this offer was not madebeforethis time (1811) has been—norafter, soon will be—made clear.“There is nothing inconsistent with ordinary experience and observation—certainly not with Beethoven’s character as a lover—in placing this occurrence here, a year after the failure of the marriage project. His weakness was not in seeking a wife, for this was wise and prudent, but in the selection of the person; in imagining that the young girl’s admiration for the artist—her respect and regard for the friend of her parents and of Gleichenstein—had with increasing years (she was now nineteen) grown into a warmer feeling; and in misconceiving the attentions, civilities and courtesies extended to him by all the members of the family, as encouragement to a suit, the possibility of which had, probably, never entered the mind of any one of them. As Gleichenstein could not have been ignorant of his friend’s recent love-troubles, one may well conceive the surprise, dismay and perplexity, which this sudden whim must have caused him. It placed him in a dilemma of singular difficulty.Howhe escaped from it, there are no means of knowing; the affair was, however, so managed, that the rejection of Beethoven’s proposal caused no interruption—or at most a temporary one—in the friendly relations of all the parties immediately concerned. At this distance of time and in the feeble light afforded us, the whole matter has all the appearance of a mere whimsical episode in the composer’s life causing him some fleeting disquiet and mortification; but there is no reason to infer that his disappointment was either very severe or very lasting. If, however, this be a mistaken view, it was all the more fortunate that a previous engagement now forced him to turn his thoughts again to composition and gave him no leisure to play the love-lorn Corydon.”[84]It is not a violent presumption that the portrait referred to here was that of Count Brunswick’s sister Therese; at least there is strong support for it in a letter published by Marie Lipsius (La Mara) in Breitkopf and Härtel’s “Mittheilungen” for March, 1910 (p. 4102). It is from Beethoven to Therese Brunswick, the original of which has not been found, but which exists in the form of a transcript in a letter written by Therese to her sister Josephine, dated February 2, 1811, now in the possession of Therese’s grandniece, Irene de Gerando-Teleki. The letter reads as follows:“Through Franz I have also received a souvenir of our noble Beethoven which gave me much joy; I do not mean his sonatas, which are very beautiful, but a little writing which I will immediately copy literally:“‘Even without prompting, people of the better kind think of each other, this is the case with you and me, dear and honored Therese; I still owe you grateful thanks for your beautiful picture and while accusing myself as your debtor I must at the same time appear before you in the character of a beggar in asking you if perchance you feel the genius of painting stirring within you to duplicate the little hand-drawing which I was unlucky enough to lose. It was an eagle looking into the sun, I cannot forget it; but do not think that I think of myself in such a connection, although it has been ascribed to me, many look upon a heroic play without being in the least like it. Farewell, dear Therese, and think occasionally of your truly revering friendBeethoven.’”Therese complied with Beethoven’s request. On February 23 she admonished her sister: “My request to you, dear Josephine, is to reproduce that picture which you alone are able to do; it would not be possible for me to create anything of the kind.” And later she repeats in French: “You have told me nothing about Beethoven’s eagle. May I answer that he shall receive it?” If the picture referred to by Beethoven in his letter to the Countess was in his possession before February 11, 1811, as appears from the Countess’ letter to her sister, how came it to be in the hands of Count Brunswick in July? Here is another unsolved riddle.[85]This letter, in French with Beethoven’s autograph signature, is preserved in the British Museum. The cantata referred to was to have been a setting of Campbell’s “Battle of the Baltic.” Returning to England from the Continent in 1801, the poet saw the preparations for the Battle of Copenhagen. Campbell was highly esteemed in Germany, especially by Goethe and Freiligrath, the latter of whom imitated his “The Last Man.”[86]It was four months before the performance took place.[87]Fare well.[88]Nottebohm contends that the book extends from the end of 1811 to the beginning of 1813. See “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 289, 290.[89]Kinsky, 725, 80; Archduke Rudolph, 604, 84; Lobkowitz, 282, 26.[90]After the large payment for a year and a quarter which Beethoven received from Kinsky on July 31, 1810, the Prince continued to pay 450 florins regularly every quarter but on July 26 (from March to May), 1811, with the memorandum: “450 bank-notes, or 90 florins notes of redemption,” and again the same on August 30 (for June-August), 1811;—i. e., one-fifth of the stipulated sum. It was not until the issuance of the Court Decree of September 13, 1811, that the more favorable rate of the above table was established. It is to be assumed that the payments thereafter were made in accordance with the scale, 185 florins in notes of redemption for 450 florins; the receipts have not been preserved. (See “Beethoven und Prinz Kinsky,” Frimmel’s “II. Beethoven-Jahrbuch,” 1909, by V. Kratochvil.) Lobkowitz’s payments were suspended in September, 1811, for nearly four years, his assumption of the management of the theatres having thrown his financial affairs into disorder and caused the sequestration of his estates.[91]An untranslatable pun.[92]Under date of London, 14th February, 1875, Mr. E. Speyer writes: “My father ... on a visit to Vienna in 1832, made the acquaintance of the Abbé Stadler, who communicated to him the following curious fact in relation to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, viz: That the theme of the TrioTreble clef with theme in D Majorwas nothing more nor less than a Lower-Austrian Pilgrimage Hymn (Wallfahrtgesang), which the Abbé himself had frequently heard sung.” This correspondent’s father was the W. Speyer, or Speier, whose name so often appears in old volumes of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.”[93]Here Beethoven was mistaken. Haydn composed accompaniments for a volume of Scottish songs for Napier, a London publisher, without ritornellos or violoncello; he wrote as Beethoven wrote for Thomson—with violoncello part as well as ritornellos. In a later letter (of February 19) the same error is repeated.[94]Laub and Jahn read “R”; Köchel, “M.” The former might be the publisher Rizzi, the latter Mollo.[95]“Andreas Baron von Forray, husband of Countess Julie Brunswick, a cousin of Count Franz Brunswick, was a good pianoforte player and great music lover,” says Köchel.[96]Related by Court Councillor Wittescheck and confirmed by Schindler, who had “this fact” from Maximiliane—then Frau von Plittersdorf.[97]Dr. Riemann, who believes that Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved” was Countess Therese Brunswick but places the love-letter, or letters, in the year 1812, accounts for this date on the hypothesis that Beethoven reached Teplitz (whence he assumes, of course, that the letters were sent) on the fifth of the month but was registered on the seventh, on which day he was reported from his lodgings.[98]The following information about Beethoven’s association with Varnhagen in the summer of 1812, and much that is new about Beethoven’s meetings with Goethe, is Dr. Riemann’s contribution to Thayer’s biography. It is based on the correspondence between Varnhagen and Rahel Levin, a study: “Beethoven, Goethe und Varnhagen von Ense mit ungedruckten Briefen an Beethoven, Oliva, Varnhagen, etc.,” by Dr. Emil Jacobs, published in the second December installment of “Die Musik,” 1904, and the Weimar Collection of Goethe’s letters.[99]Giovanni Battista Polledro (1781-1853), violinist, concertmaster in Dresden in 1814, Court Chapelmaster in Turin in 1824.[100]By Turkish music is meant military music with drums, cymbals, etc.[101]Dr. Riemann adds: “perhaps because he had heard that the Sebalds were in Teplitz”; but, as the letter to the Archduke shows, he was already expecting to be ordered back to Teplitz on August 12.[102]Meaning Rudolph.[103]The credit of suggesting this crushing argument against the authenticity of the letter belongs to Dr. Deiters.—A.W.T.[104]An album once owned by Amalie Sebald contains this inscription:Ludwig van BeethovenDen Sie, wenn Sie auch wollten,Doch nicht vergessen sollten.Teplitz, August 8, 1812.The couplet might be rudely translated:Whom, even if you wouldForget, you never should.“At that date,” says Thayer, Beethoven “was not in Teplitz; the 1812 should doubtless be 1811, and was probably added long afterwards by some one who knew nothing of their meeting the previous year.”[105]A bass trombone in F, a fourth lower than the tenor trombone.[106]A slip of memory; the composition, which was used at Beethoven’s funeral, is for 4 trombones.[107]Beethoven had begun to work industriously on the Eighth Symphony before he went to Teplitz; indeed, he seems to have reported to Breitkopf and Härtel in a letter which has not been preserved, but which was sent from Franzensbrunn, that he had finished two symphonies; for the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of September 2, 1812, says: “L. van Beethoven, who took the cures first at Töplitz, then in Karlsbad and is now in Eger, has ... again composed two new symphonies.” But the autograph bears the inscription: “Linz in October, 1812.”[108]Correct. Mälzel was then for a few months again in Vienna.[109]Thayer is writing from the point of view touching Beethoven’s love-affairs which was justified by all the evidence that had been discovered up to the time of his writing and, in fact, up to the time of his death. He thought that the object of the love-letters, which he insisted in placing in 1806, was “in greatest probability” Countess Brunswick; he knew that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti, but plainly thought the passion for her neither profound nor lasting; he was inclined to believe that the broken marriage engagement of 1810, was with the Countess Brunswick and that she dropped out of his life with the failure of his marriage project. The discovery of the letter of February, 1811, from Therese to her sister in which his letter to her about the portrait is quoted, shows Thayer to have been in error in this. In his revision of the chapter before us, Dr. Riemann proceeded from an entirely different point of view. In his belief the love-letters were written in 1812, and to Therese Brunswick. In place of the opening passages which the English Editor has thought proper to retain, he substituted the following:“The convincing reasons advanced in the preceding chapter for placing the love-letter of July 6-7 in the year 1812, give an entirely different light to the so-called ‘Journal’ in the Fischoff manuscript. If that day, in the beginning of July, 1812, which led to a mutual confession of love forms a climax in Beethoven’s heart-history, which can scarcely be doubted, the entry in the journal makes it sure that the obstacles to a conjugal union which are intimated have not disappeared, but, on the contrary, have proved to be insuperable. The first entry is dated merely 1812, and in likelihood was written at the end of the year. Whether or not the initial which shows a flourish is really an A is a fair question. Those who see more than superficial playfulness in the relations between Beethoven and Amalie Sebald will of course see her name in the letter.” It should be observed here that in the chapter devoted to the year 1812, Dr. Riemann interpolated an extended argument, following the lines of Dr. San-Galli’s brochure, to show that the letters were written in 1812 from Teplitz—Dr. San-Galli says to Amalie Sebald, Dr. Riemann to Countess Brunswick.

[50]This letter (to which allusion has been made in the chapter devoted to Beethoven’s love-affairs) was first printed from the original owned by Count Géza von Brunswick in the “Blätter für Theater und Musik” (No. 34). If the date, “May 11, 1806,” was written by Beethoven and is not an error by a copyist, it provides another instance of the composer’s irresponsibility in dating his letters; for the reference to the contract with Clementi is irrefutable evidence that it was written in 1807. Beethoven’s remark about getting great without the help of a monument reared by Therese von Brunswick is evidently an allusion to the fact that the Countess erected a monument to her father in the grounds of the family-seat in Hungary, and might properly enough be cited, together with the commissioned kiss, as proof of the intimacy between the Brunswicks and Beethoven. Had there been talk of another family monument at Martonvásár? Beethoven’s remark might easily be thus interpreted. The sister whom he had asked to write about the quartets was doubtless Josephine, Countess von Deym. The sportive remark about Schuppanzigh’s marriage with one like him is explained by the fact that the violinist was of Falstaffian proportions.

[51]The Editor of the English edition feels it to be his duty to permit Thayer to reiterate his argument in favor of the year 1807, as that in which the love-letter was written, notwithstanding Dr. Riemann’s curt rejection of it in the German edition. The question is still an open one.

[52]Nottebohm concludes from a study of the sketches that the Symphony in C minor was completed in March, 1808, and the “Pastoral” Symphony later, though the two were sketched during the same period, in part, and there is a remote possibility that the latter, which was written down with unusual speed, was finished as soon as the former. In support of this theory is the circumstance that at the concert on December 22, 1808, at which both were produced, the “Pastoral” was numbered 5 and the C minor 6. Both symphonies were offered to Breitkopf and Härtel in June, 1808, and bought by the firm in September. In the letter offering them Beethoven observed the present numbering. A stipulation in the letter that the symphonies should not be published until six months after June 1, suggests the probability that the right to perform them in private had been sold to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky, to whom in common the works are dedicated.

[53]Query: The same whom in 1812 Count Ferd. Waldstein married?

[54]On June 8, 1808, Beethoven offered the Mass in C to Breitkopf and Härtel, along with the fifth and sixth symphonies and the sonata for pianoforte and violoncello, Op. 69, for 900 florins. He wrote: “I do not like to say anything about my mass or myself, but I believe I have treated the text as it has seldom been treated.” The answer of Breitkopf and Härtel is not of record, but to the offer which it contained, Beethoven replied on July 16 with a letter in which he offered the mass, two symphonies, the sonata for ’cello and two other pianoforte sonatas (or in place of these, “probably” another symphony) for 700 florins. Then he says: “You see that I give more and take less—but that is the limit;you must take the mass, or I cannot give you the other works—for I am considering honor and not profit merely. ‘There is no demand for church music,’ you say, and you are right, if the music comes from mere thorough-bassists, but if you will only have the mass performed once you will see if there will not be music-lovers who will want it.... I will guarantee its success in any event.” In a third letter, without date, which throws light on the well-nigh insuperable difficulties experienced by a famous composer a century or so ago in securing the publication of a large ecclesiastical work, Beethoven says: “To the repeated proposal made by you through Wagener, I reply that I am readyto relieve you of everything concerning the mass—I make you a present of it, you need not pay even the cost of copying, firmly convinced that if you once have it performed in your winter concerts at Leipsic you will surely provide it with a German text and publish it.... The reason for my having wished to bind you to publish this mass isin the first place and chiefly because it is dear to my heartand in spite of the coldness of our age to such works.” A later letter (of date April 5, 1809) to Breitkopf and Härtel shows that the gift of the mass was not accepted. Beethoven changed its dedication several times. On October 5, 1810, he wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel that it was dedicated to Zmeskall; on October 9, 1811, he gives notice that a change in the dedication would have to be made because “the woman is now married and the name must be changed; let the matter rest, therefore, write to me when you will publish it and then the work’s saint will doubtless be found.” Eventually the “saint” proved to be Prince Kinsky.

[55]This letter was doubtless followed by a billet to Gleichenstein reading as follows: “I think—you would better have them pay you 60 florins more than the 1500 or, if you think that it would be consistent with my honesty—the sum of 1600—I leave this wholly to you, however, only honesty and justice must be the polestar which is to guide you.” The transaction to which the letter and note refer must have been the sale of the compositions, the British rights for which had been sold to Clementi. The quartet was probably one of the Rasoumowsky set and the symphony that in B-flat, since the fifth and sixth were not published by the Viennese Bureau but by Breitkopf and Härtel.

[56]Alois Fuchs related that when Beethoven heard from Krumpholz of Napoleon’s victory at Jena he exclaimed: “Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music; I would conquer him yet!”

[57]Nevertheless a letter, of which a copy was placed in the hands of Thayer at a later date, indicates that an oratorio “Die Sündfluth” was written by Hammer-Purgstall, and also that the correspondence between Beethoven and the Orientalist took place in 1809. It is dated “Ash Wednesday,” the year not being mentioned, but refers to the departure of the Persian Ambassador and the fact that H. Schick had acquainted the writer with Beethoven’s desire to have an Indian chorus of a religious character for composition.

[58]Röckel in his letter to Thayer says: “That Beethoven did not abandon the idea of composing another opera was shown by the impatience with which he could scarcely wait for his friend Collin to make an opera book for him of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth.’ At Beethoven’s request, I read the first act and found that it followed the great original closely; unfortunately Collin’s death prevented the completion of the work.”

[59]Schindler here is mistaken. The “walk toward the Kahlenberg” took them northerly into the valley between Heiligenstadt and Nussdorf, where an excessively idealized bust of the composer now marks the “Scene by the Brook.” After thirty years of absence from Vienna, Schindler’s memory had lost the exact topography of these scenes; and a friend to whom he wrote for information upon it mistook the Grinzing brook and valley for the true ones. This explanation of his error was made by Schindler to the present writer very soon after the third edition of his (Schindler’s) book appeared.

[60]“But the note of the yellowhammer, both in England and in Austria, is not anarpeggio—cannot in any way be twisted into one, or represented by one. It is a quick succession of the same note, ending with a longer one, sometimes rising above the preceding note, but more frequently falling. In fact, Schindler himself tells us that it was the origin of the mighty theme which opened the C minor Symphony!”—Grove, “Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies,” p. 211.

[61]Carl Holz related a story to Jahn, which he may very well have heard from Beethoven himself. Jahn’s memorandum of it is in the following words: “Scherzo of the Pastorale. In Heiligenstadt a drunken bassoonist thrown out of the tavern, who then blows the bass notes.”

[62]Some of the information for which Thayer hoped was supplied by his translator, Dr. Deiters, and has been printed as a foot-note in the preceding chapter. Something more appears from several documents which have come to light since Mr. Thayer wrote, but, it must be confessed, it seems more bewildering than illuminative. One of these is a letter which was published in the “Signale” of Leipsic in September, 1880. It is without date, but an allusion to the felon with which Beethoven was afflicted fixes the time of its writing about March, 1808. The significant part of the letter is as follows: “To-day I have little time to write more to you, I only want to inform you thatyour symphonyhas long been ready and I will send it to you by the next post—you may retain 50 florins, for the copying, which I will have done for you, will cost that sum at least—in case you do not want the symphony, however, let me know the fact before the next post—in case you accept it, rejoice me as soon as possible with the 300 florins still due me—The last piece in the symphony is with 3 trombones andflautino—not with 3 kettledrums, but will make more noise than 6 kettledrums and, indeed, better noise—I am still under treatment for my poor innocent finger and because of it have not been able to go out for a fortnight—farewell—let me hear something from you soon, dear Count—it goes ill with me.” The document which Dr. Riemann says “obviously” accompanied this letter (though we cannot see why) runs as follows: “Receipt for 500 florins from Count Oppersdorff for aSinfoniewhich I have written for him.” This is dated “1807 on the 3rd of February.” There is another receipt for 150 florins dated March 29, 1808, but nothing to show what the money was paid for except a memorandum accompanying it which seems to be partly in the handwriting of Beethoven, partly in that of Oppersdorff, and states that 200 florins had been paid in June, 1807, for the “5 Sinfoni” (the numeral is vague), but that the symphony had not been received. The reference to the trombones in the finale of the symphony proves that it was the fifth that was in question.On November 1, 1808, Beethoven writes the letter printed above in the body of the text. Why Dr. Riemann should have thought it necessary to consider the first letter of contemporaneous date with the first receipt is not plain, nor why he should surmise that Beethoven had enclosed the receipt in the letter before he received the money which was not paid at the time. To this Editor it seems as if the confused tangle might be explained in part, at least, as follows, though the explanation leaves Beethoven under a suspicion which cannot be dispelled until more is learned of the dealings between him and Count Oppersdorff: On the occasion of Beethoven’s visit to Count Oppersdorff in company with Lichnowsky in the summer or fall of 1806, the Count commissioned the composer to write a symphony for him; Beethoven had begun work on the Fifth Symphony, but laid it aside and during the remainder of his stay at Grätz and in the winter of 1807 wrote the Symphony in B-flat which is dedicated to Count Oppersdorff; for this he received 500 florins on February 3, 1807; he did not send the Count the score, as was the custom, for exclusive use during a fixed period, but turned it over to Lobkowitz for performance, being in urgent need of money; a year later he substituted the Fifth for the Fourth and accepted from Count Oppersdorff 150 florins in March and 200 in June for it without delivering it, this sum being, it may be presumed, a bonus for the larger work, the Count apparently having asked for something employing an unusual apparatus (hence the “3 kettledrums”); this symphony was also withheld in the end, for reasons which are not known, and Oppersdorff had to content himself with the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat originally designed for him.Dr. Riemann’s comment on the transactions is this: “The letter of November 1, 1808, proves conclusively that Count Oppersdorff could not have received either the C minor or the B-flat Symphony for his use for the customary half year; for the B-flat Symphony was performed by Lobkowitz in March, 1807; it was sold to Clementi and also to theIndustriecomptoirin the summer, delivered for publication at the latest in the fall of 1807 when Beethoven had to return the 1500 florins to his brother Johann. The C minor Symphony was performed at the concert in the Theater-an-der-Wien on December 22, 1808, offered to Breitkopf and Härtel as early as June, 1808, sold on September 14, 1808, and published in April, 1809. To all appearances, Count Oppersdorff was compelled to look upon the 350 florins as remuneration for the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat which was published by theIndustriecomptoirin March, 1808 (score not until 1821 by Simrock). The name of Count Oppersdorff does not appear again in the life-history of Beethoven.”

On November 1, 1808, Beethoven writes the letter printed above in the body of the text. Why Dr. Riemann should have thought it necessary to consider the first letter of contemporaneous date with the first receipt is not plain, nor why he should surmise that Beethoven had enclosed the receipt in the letter before he received the money which was not paid at the time. To this Editor it seems as if the confused tangle might be explained in part, at least, as follows, though the explanation leaves Beethoven under a suspicion which cannot be dispelled until more is learned of the dealings between him and Count Oppersdorff: On the occasion of Beethoven’s visit to Count Oppersdorff in company with Lichnowsky in the summer or fall of 1806, the Count commissioned the composer to write a symphony for him; Beethoven had begun work on the Fifth Symphony, but laid it aside and during the remainder of his stay at Grätz and in the winter of 1807 wrote the Symphony in B-flat which is dedicated to Count Oppersdorff; for this he received 500 florins on February 3, 1807; he did not send the Count the score, as was the custom, for exclusive use during a fixed period, but turned it over to Lobkowitz for performance, being in urgent need of money; a year later he substituted the Fifth for the Fourth and accepted from Count Oppersdorff 150 florins in March and 200 in June for it without delivering it, this sum being, it may be presumed, a bonus for the larger work, the Count apparently having asked for something employing an unusual apparatus (hence the “3 kettledrums”); this symphony was also withheld in the end, for reasons which are not known, and Oppersdorff had to content himself with the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat originally designed for him.

Dr. Riemann’s comment on the transactions is this: “The letter of November 1, 1808, proves conclusively that Count Oppersdorff could not have received either the C minor or the B-flat Symphony for his use for the customary half year; for the B-flat Symphony was performed by Lobkowitz in March, 1807; it was sold to Clementi and also to theIndustriecomptoirin the summer, delivered for publication at the latest in the fall of 1807 when Beethoven had to return the 1500 florins to his brother Johann. The C minor Symphony was performed at the concert in the Theater-an-der-Wien on December 22, 1808, offered to Breitkopf and Härtel as early as June, 1808, sold on September 14, 1808, and published in April, 1809. To all appearances, Count Oppersdorff was compelled to look upon the 350 florins as remuneration for the mere dedication of the Symphony in B-flat which was published by theIndustriecomptoirin March, 1808 (score not until 1821 by Simrock). The name of Count Oppersdorff does not appear again in the life-history of Beethoven.”

[63]Czerny did not know that Beethoven had formed the idea of this work full eight years before. See notice on the Petter sketchbookante, Chapter II.

[64]The agreement between this memorial and the letters written on the subject (apparently to Gleichenstein—though Thayer was not willing to commit himself on this point) make it most probable that he was the author of the document. Even the sentimental suggestion that the contributors might look upon themselves as co-authors of the great works to come, went out from Beethoven in one of the notes probably sent to Gleichenstein.

[65]On this letter Dr. Riemann comments as follows: “This letter proves conclusively that in the spring of 1809, Beethoven was not yet thinking of a union with Therese Malfatti and that all letters to Gleichenstein containing hints of that nature are of later date. But it may safely be assumed that the settlement of a fixed income upon him together with the receipts from his compositions set Beethoven seriously to thinking of marriage. Although Dr. Malfatti, uncle of the sisters Therese and Anna, had been Beethoven’s house physician since the death of Dr. Schmidt (February 13, 1808), it was not until some time in the course of the year 1809, that Beethoven’s inclination towards Therese gradually developed until it led to a formal proposal of marriage in the spring of 1810.”

[66]“One of these sisters,” writes Thayer, “was sent to him (in 1807-8?), she then being but some twelve years of age. He gave her a good education, and brought her out as a singer, when Hummel fell in love with her, married her and withdrew her from the stage. I asked Röckel if she could by any possibility have been the person with whom Beethoven in 1809-10 had a marriage project? He proved to me that she was not. So that story is put at rest.”

[67]The letter is incorrectly dated “1811” in the Kalischer Collection.

[68]If the estrangement between Beethoven and his brother was of earlier date than this, it would appear as if the siege of Vienna had brought them together again.

[69]In view of the many indications, especially in the letters to Breitkopf and Härtel, that Beethoven did not work with any continuity from the beginning of May to the end of July, this memorandum assumes a different aspect and might serve to prove that the resumption of work on the first movement of the E-flat Concerto was not made till June or July, and that the entire Meinert sketchbook belongs to the period from July to October.

[70]Nor is this longer to be maintained, since Beethoven reports these errors to Breitkopf and Härtel on July 26, 1809, “having had attention drawn to them by a good friend.”

[71]Nottebohm, “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 188et seq., contends that the pages in the so-called “Pettersches Skizzenbuch” containing the sketches for “Macbeth” and the D major Trio were not originally part of the book and that it dates from 1812. Neverthless, Thayer, who was familiar with the views divergent from his, is entitled to have his argument set forth as he wrote it.

[72]Czerny’s statements must be corrected in a few respects in view of Beethoven’s own statements in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel, dated August 21, 1810, as will appear later.

[73]“The statement in the first edition, that Beethoven perhaps spent some time with the Brunswicks in Hungary in the summer of 1809, lacks all evidence” (says Dr. Riemann).

[74]In their efforts in later years to sustain this theatre in brilliant style, “the Counts Raday and Brunswick were ruined.”

[75]See the entire correspondence between Beethoven and Thomson in the appendix to the original edition of this biography.

[76]See Reichardt’s “Vertraute Briefe, geschrieben auf einer Reise nach Wien und den Österreichischen Staaten zu Ende das Jahres 1808 und zu Anfang 1809,” under date November 30, December 5, December 10, December 16, December 25, December 31, 1808, and January 15, March 6, March 27 and No. 37 (without date), 1809.

[77]The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker, connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not unearthed until five years after his death.

[78]This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents, remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth, when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the letter renders it nearly worthless.

[79]From the “Athenæum.” There are a few variations in the letter as printed in the Nuremburg journal and in “Ilius Pamphilius”—“Bettine” is changed to “friend,” “frog” to “fish,” “and on the bastion” is omitted, “fascinated” (gebannt) is altered to “seized” (gepackt). A few other differences are grammatical errors.It seems proper at this place for the English Editor to remark that Mr. Thayer’s argument in favor of the authenticity of the Bettina letters was printed in the Appendix to Vol. III of the original edition with a concluding foot-note by Dr. Deiters in which he said that he had not been convinced by his author’s painstaking exposition that the letters are genuine. Dr. Riemann in the second German edition prints the letters and the argument in the text, distributing the latter in two chapters and appending a foot-note in which he gives it as his opinion that only the second (that dated February 10, 1811, the autograph of which is in existence) is authenticas a letter, while the other two, though probably based on observations made by Beethoven to Bettina, were put into epistolary shape by her. One of Bettina’s letters to Pückler-Muskau, which tells of Beethoven’s rudeness to Goethe as illustrated in the anecdote which plays so important a rôle in the third letter, would seem to bear out this theory. But it is also likely that Beethoven’s original letters were tricked out by her for literary effect, which would help to explain the disappearance of the autographs of the letters of 1810 and 1812. The second letter, which was printed infacsimilein the Marx-Behncke critical biography of Beethoven (4th ed., 1884), was in possession of Pastor Nathusius in Quedlinburg in 1902.

It seems proper at this place for the English Editor to remark that Mr. Thayer’s argument in favor of the authenticity of the Bettina letters was printed in the Appendix to Vol. III of the original edition with a concluding foot-note by Dr. Deiters in which he said that he had not been convinced by his author’s painstaking exposition that the letters are genuine. Dr. Riemann in the second German edition prints the letters and the argument in the text, distributing the latter in two chapters and appending a foot-note in which he gives it as his opinion that only the second (that dated February 10, 1811, the autograph of which is in existence) is authenticas a letter, while the other two, though probably based on observations made by Beethoven to Bettina, were put into epistolary shape by her. One of Bettina’s letters to Pückler-Muskau, which tells of Beethoven’s rudeness to Goethe as illustrated in the anecdote which plays so important a rôle in the third letter, would seem to bear out this theory. But it is also likely that Beethoven’s original letters were tricked out by her for literary effect, which would help to explain the disappearance of the autographs of the letters of 1810 and 1812. The second letter, which was printed infacsimilein the Marx-Behncke critical biography of Beethoven (4th ed., 1884), was in possession of Pastor Nathusius in Quedlinburg in 1902.

[80]Clemens Brentano, brother of Bettina and Franz, who had written the text of a cantata on the death of Queen Louise.

[81]Goethe’s answer to this letter is printed in the Weimar Collection of the poet’s correspondence. Vol. XXII, No. 615. It is worth producing here:Carlsbad, June 25, 1811.Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents. Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the happiest of her life.I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont when I return home and am thankful in advance—for I have heard it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us.

[81]Goethe’s answer to this letter is printed in the Weimar Collection of the poet’s correspondence. Vol. XXII, No. 615. It is worth producing here:

Carlsbad, June 25, 1811.Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents. Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the happiest of her life.I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont when I return home and am thankful in advance—for I have heard it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us.

Carlsbad, June 25, 1811.

Your friendly letter, very highly esteemed Sir, was received through Herr von Oliva much to my pleasure. For the kindly feelings which it expresses towards me I am heartily grateful and I can assure you that I honestly reciprocate them, for I have never heard any of your works performed by expert artists or amateurs without wishing that I might sometime have an opportunity to admire you at the pianoforte and find delight in your extraordinary talents. Good Bettina Brentano surely deserves the friendly sympathy which you have extended to her. She speaks rapturously and most affectionately of you and counts the hours spent with you among the happiest of her life.

I shall probably find the music which you have designed for Egmont when I return home and am thankful in advance—for I have heard it spoken of with praise by several, and purpose to produce it in connection with the play mentioned on our stage this winter, when I hope thereby to give myself as well as your numerous admirers in our neighborhood a great treat. But I hope most of all correctly to have understood Herr von Oliva, who has made us hope that in a journey which you are contemplating you will visit Weimar. I hope it will be at a time when the court as well as the entire musical public will be gathered together. I am sure that you would find worthy acceptance of your services and aims. But in this nobody can be more interested than I, who, with the wish that all may go well with you, commend myself to your kind thought and thank you most sincerely for all the goodness which you have created in us.

[82]This second letter does not seem to have been preserved.

[83]At this point in the biography, Thayer, believing that the broken marriage engagement which had had so powerful an effect on Beethoven’s spirits and intellectual energies in 1810 had been one entered into with Countess Therese Brunswick, introduces the letters to Gleichenstein and makes the following comments, which the English Editor prefers to introduce in a foot-note rather than to put them in the body of the text, as is done in the second German edition, and give them a false interpretation: “The allusion to Gleichenstein’s marriage with the younger of the sisters Malfatti, which took place near the end of May, sufficiently indicates the date of these notes; and the statement made in a former chapter—that Beethoven once offered his hand in marriage to the elder, Therese—accounts satisfactorily for the strong excitement under which they were written; for, that this offer was not madebeforethis time (1811) has been—norafter, soon will be—made clear.“There is nothing inconsistent with ordinary experience and observation—certainly not with Beethoven’s character as a lover—in placing this occurrence here, a year after the failure of the marriage project. His weakness was not in seeking a wife, for this was wise and prudent, but in the selection of the person; in imagining that the young girl’s admiration for the artist—her respect and regard for the friend of her parents and of Gleichenstein—had with increasing years (she was now nineteen) grown into a warmer feeling; and in misconceiving the attentions, civilities and courtesies extended to him by all the members of the family, as encouragement to a suit, the possibility of which had, probably, never entered the mind of any one of them. As Gleichenstein could not have been ignorant of his friend’s recent love-troubles, one may well conceive the surprise, dismay and perplexity, which this sudden whim must have caused him. It placed him in a dilemma of singular difficulty.Howhe escaped from it, there are no means of knowing; the affair was, however, so managed, that the rejection of Beethoven’s proposal caused no interruption—or at most a temporary one—in the friendly relations of all the parties immediately concerned. At this distance of time and in the feeble light afforded us, the whole matter has all the appearance of a mere whimsical episode in the composer’s life causing him some fleeting disquiet and mortification; but there is no reason to infer that his disappointment was either very severe or very lasting. If, however, this be a mistaken view, it was all the more fortunate that a previous engagement now forced him to turn his thoughts again to composition and gave him no leisure to play the love-lorn Corydon.”

“There is nothing inconsistent with ordinary experience and observation—certainly not with Beethoven’s character as a lover—in placing this occurrence here, a year after the failure of the marriage project. His weakness was not in seeking a wife, for this was wise and prudent, but in the selection of the person; in imagining that the young girl’s admiration for the artist—her respect and regard for the friend of her parents and of Gleichenstein—had with increasing years (she was now nineteen) grown into a warmer feeling; and in misconceiving the attentions, civilities and courtesies extended to him by all the members of the family, as encouragement to a suit, the possibility of which had, probably, never entered the mind of any one of them. As Gleichenstein could not have been ignorant of his friend’s recent love-troubles, one may well conceive the surprise, dismay and perplexity, which this sudden whim must have caused him. It placed him in a dilemma of singular difficulty.Howhe escaped from it, there are no means of knowing; the affair was, however, so managed, that the rejection of Beethoven’s proposal caused no interruption—or at most a temporary one—in the friendly relations of all the parties immediately concerned. At this distance of time and in the feeble light afforded us, the whole matter has all the appearance of a mere whimsical episode in the composer’s life causing him some fleeting disquiet and mortification; but there is no reason to infer that his disappointment was either very severe or very lasting. If, however, this be a mistaken view, it was all the more fortunate that a previous engagement now forced him to turn his thoughts again to composition and gave him no leisure to play the love-lorn Corydon.”

[84]It is not a violent presumption that the portrait referred to here was that of Count Brunswick’s sister Therese; at least there is strong support for it in a letter published by Marie Lipsius (La Mara) in Breitkopf and Härtel’s “Mittheilungen” for March, 1910 (p. 4102). It is from Beethoven to Therese Brunswick, the original of which has not been found, but which exists in the form of a transcript in a letter written by Therese to her sister Josephine, dated February 2, 1811, now in the possession of Therese’s grandniece, Irene de Gerando-Teleki. The letter reads as follows:“Through Franz I have also received a souvenir of our noble Beethoven which gave me much joy; I do not mean his sonatas, which are very beautiful, but a little writing which I will immediately copy literally:“‘Even without prompting, people of the better kind think of each other, this is the case with you and me, dear and honored Therese; I still owe you grateful thanks for your beautiful picture and while accusing myself as your debtor I must at the same time appear before you in the character of a beggar in asking you if perchance you feel the genius of painting stirring within you to duplicate the little hand-drawing which I was unlucky enough to lose. It was an eagle looking into the sun, I cannot forget it; but do not think that I think of myself in such a connection, although it has been ascribed to me, many look upon a heroic play without being in the least like it. Farewell, dear Therese, and think occasionally of your truly revering friendBeethoven.’”Therese complied with Beethoven’s request. On February 23 she admonished her sister: “My request to you, dear Josephine, is to reproduce that picture which you alone are able to do; it would not be possible for me to create anything of the kind.” And later she repeats in French: “You have told me nothing about Beethoven’s eagle. May I answer that he shall receive it?” If the picture referred to by Beethoven in his letter to the Countess was in his possession before February 11, 1811, as appears from the Countess’ letter to her sister, how came it to be in the hands of Count Brunswick in July? Here is another unsolved riddle.

“Through Franz I have also received a souvenir of our noble Beethoven which gave me much joy; I do not mean his sonatas, which are very beautiful, but a little writing which I will immediately copy literally:“‘Even without prompting, people of the better kind think of each other, this is the case with you and me, dear and honored Therese; I still owe you grateful thanks for your beautiful picture and while accusing myself as your debtor I must at the same time appear before you in the character of a beggar in asking you if perchance you feel the genius of painting stirring within you to duplicate the little hand-drawing which I was unlucky enough to lose. It was an eagle looking into the sun, I cannot forget it; but do not think that I think of myself in such a connection, although it has been ascribed to me, many look upon a heroic play without being in the least like it. Farewell, dear Therese, and think occasionally of your truly revering friendBeethoven.’”

“‘Even without prompting, people of the better kind think of each other, this is the case with you and me, dear and honored Therese; I still owe you grateful thanks for your beautiful picture and while accusing myself as your debtor I must at the same time appear before you in the character of a beggar in asking you if perchance you feel the genius of painting stirring within you to duplicate the little hand-drawing which I was unlucky enough to lose. It was an eagle looking into the sun, I cannot forget it; but do not think that I think of myself in such a connection, although it has been ascribed to me, many look upon a heroic play without being in the least like it. Farewell, dear Therese, and think occasionally of your truly revering friend

Beethoven.’”

Therese complied with Beethoven’s request. On February 23 she admonished her sister: “My request to you, dear Josephine, is to reproduce that picture which you alone are able to do; it would not be possible for me to create anything of the kind.” And later she repeats in French: “You have told me nothing about Beethoven’s eagle. May I answer that he shall receive it?” If the picture referred to by Beethoven in his letter to the Countess was in his possession before February 11, 1811, as appears from the Countess’ letter to her sister, how came it to be in the hands of Count Brunswick in July? Here is another unsolved riddle.

[85]This letter, in French with Beethoven’s autograph signature, is preserved in the British Museum. The cantata referred to was to have been a setting of Campbell’s “Battle of the Baltic.” Returning to England from the Continent in 1801, the poet saw the preparations for the Battle of Copenhagen. Campbell was highly esteemed in Germany, especially by Goethe and Freiligrath, the latter of whom imitated his “The Last Man.”

[86]It was four months before the performance took place.

[87]Fare well.

[88]Nottebohm contends that the book extends from the end of 1811 to the beginning of 1813. See “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 289, 290.

[89]Kinsky, 725, 80; Archduke Rudolph, 604, 84; Lobkowitz, 282, 26.

[90]After the large payment for a year and a quarter which Beethoven received from Kinsky on July 31, 1810, the Prince continued to pay 450 florins regularly every quarter but on July 26 (from March to May), 1811, with the memorandum: “450 bank-notes, or 90 florins notes of redemption,” and again the same on August 30 (for June-August), 1811;—i. e., one-fifth of the stipulated sum. It was not until the issuance of the Court Decree of September 13, 1811, that the more favorable rate of the above table was established. It is to be assumed that the payments thereafter were made in accordance with the scale, 185 florins in notes of redemption for 450 florins; the receipts have not been preserved. (See “Beethoven und Prinz Kinsky,” Frimmel’s “II. Beethoven-Jahrbuch,” 1909, by V. Kratochvil.) Lobkowitz’s payments were suspended in September, 1811, for nearly four years, his assumption of the management of the theatres having thrown his financial affairs into disorder and caused the sequestration of his estates.

[91]An untranslatable pun.

[92]Under date of London, 14th February, 1875, Mr. E. Speyer writes: “My father ... on a visit to Vienna in 1832, made the acquaintance of the Abbé Stadler, who communicated to him the following curious fact in relation to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, viz: That the theme of the TrioTreble clef with theme in D Majorwas nothing more nor less than a Lower-Austrian Pilgrimage Hymn (Wallfahrtgesang), which the Abbé himself had frequently heard sung.” This correspondent’s father was the W. Speyer, or Speier, whose name so often appears in old volumes of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.”

Treble clef with theme in D Major

was nothing more nor less than a Lower-Austrian Pilgrimage Hymn (Wallfahrtgesang), which the Abbé himself had frequently heard sung.” This correspondent’s father was the W. Speyer, or Speier, whose name so often appears in old volumes of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.”

[93]Here Beethoven was mistaken. Haydn composed accompaniments for a volume of Scottish songs for Napier, a London publisher, without ritornellos or violoncello; he wrote as Beethoven wrote for Thomson—with violoncello part as well as ritornellos. In a later letter (of February 19) the same error is repeated.

[94]Laub and Jahn read “R”; Köchel, “M.” The former might be the publisher Rizzi, the latter Mollo.

[95]“Andreas Baron von Forray, husband of Countess Julie Brunswick, a cousin of Count Franz Brunswick, was a good pianoforte player and great music lover,” says Köchel.

[96]Related by Court Councillor Wittescheck and confirmed by Schindler, who had “this fact” from Maximiliane—then Frau von Plittersdorf.

[97]Dr. Riemann, who believes that Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved” was Countess Therese Brunswick but places the love-letter, or letters, in the year 1812, accounts for this date on the hypothesis that Beethoven reached Teplitz (whence he assumes, of course, that the letters were sent) on the fifth of the month but was registered on the seventh, on which day he was reported from his lodgings.

[98]The following information about Beethoven’s association with Varnhagen in the summer of 1812, and much that is new about Beethoven’s meetings with Goethe, is Dr. Riemann’s contribution to Thayer’s biography. It is based on the correspondence between Varnhagen and Rahel Levin, a study: “Beethoven, Goethe und Varnhagen von Ense mit ungedruckten Briefen an Beethoven, Oliva, Varnhagen, etc.,” by Dr. Emil Jacobs, published in the second December installment of “Die Musik,” 1904, and the Weimar Collection of Goethe’s letters.

[99]Giovanni Battista Polledro (1781-1853), violinist, concertmaster in Dresden in 1814, Court Chapelmaster in Turin in 1824.

[100]By Turkish music is meant military music with drums, cymbals, etc.

[101]Dr. Riemann adds: “perhaps because he had heard that the Sebalds were in Teplitz”; but, as the letter to the Archduke shows, he was already expecting to be ordered back to Teplitz on August 12.

[102]Meaning Rudolph.

[103]The credit of suggesting this crushing argument against the authenticity of the letter belongs to Dr. Deiters.—A.W.T.

[104]An album once owned by Amalie Sebald contains this inscription:Ludwig van BeethovenDen Sie, wenn Sie auch wollten,Doch nicht vergessen sollten.Teplitz, August 8, 1812.The couplet might be rudely translated:Whom, even if you wouldForget, you never should.“At that date,” says Thayer, Beethoven “was not in Teplitz; the 1812 should doubtless be 1811, and was probably added long afterwards by some one who knew nothing of their meeting the previous year.”

[104]An album once owned by Amalie Sebald contains this inscription:

Ludwig van BeethovenDen Sie, wenn Sie auch wollten,Doch nicht vergessen sollten.Teplitz, August 8, 1812.

Ludwig van BeethovenDen Sie, wenn Sie auch wollten,Doch nicht vergessen sollten.

Teplitz, August 8, 1812.

The couplet might be rudely translated:

Whom, even if you wouldForget, you never should.

“At that date,” says Thayer, Beethoven “was not in Teplitz; the 1812 should doubtless be 1811, and was probably added long afterwards by some one who knew nothing of their meeting the previous year.”

[105]A bass trombone in F, a fourth lower than the tenor trombone.

[106]A slip of memory; the composition, which was used at Beethoven’s funeral, is for 4 trombones.

[107]Beethoven had begun to work industriously on the Eighth Symphony before he went to Teplitz; indeed, he seems to have reported to Breitkopf and Härtel in a letter which has not been preserved, but which was sent from Franzensbrunn, that he had finished two symphonies; for the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of September 2, 1812, says: “L. van Beethoven, who took the cures first at Töplitz, then in Karlsbad and is now in Eger, has ... again composed two new symphonies.” But the autograph bears the inscription: “Linz in October, 1812.”

[108]Correct. Mälzel was then for a few months again in Vienna.

[109]Thayer is writing from the point of view touching Beethoven’s love-affairs which was justified by all the evidence that had been discovered up to the time of his writing and, in fact, up to the time of his death. He thought that the object of the love-letters, which he insisted in placing in 1806, was “in greatest probability” Countess Brunswick; he knew that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti, but plainly thought the passion for her neither profound nor lasting; he was inclined to believe that the broken marriage engagement of 1810, was with the Countess Brunswick and that she dropped out of his life with the failure of his marriage project. The discovery of the letter of February, 1811, from Therese to her sister in which his letter to her about the portrait is quoted, shows Thayer to have been in error in this. In his revision of the chapter before us, Dr. Riemann proceeded from an entirely different point of view. In his belief the love-letters were written in 1812, and to Therese Brunswick. In place of the opening passages which the English Editor has thought proper to retain, he substituted the following:“The convincing reasons advanced in the preceding chapter for placing the love-letter of July 6-7 in the year 1812, give an entirely different light to the so-called ‘Journal’ in the Fischoff manuscript. If that day, in the beginning of July, 1812, which led to a mutual confession of love forms a climax in Beethoven’s heart-history, which can scarcely be doubted, the entry in the journal makes it sure that the obstacles to a conjugal union which are intimated have not disappeared, but, on the contrary, have proved to be insuperable. The first entry is dated merely 1812, and in likelihood was written at the end of the year. Whether or not the initial which shows a flourish is really an A is a fair question. Those who see more than superficial playfulness in the relations between Beethoven and Amalie Sebald will of course see her name in the letter.” It should be observed here that in the chapter devoted to the year 1812, Dr. Riemann interpolated an extended argument, following the lines of Dr. San-Galli’s brochure, to show that the letters were written in 1812 from Teplitz—Dr. San-Galli says to Amalie Sebald, Dr. Riemann to Countess Brunswick.

“The convincing reasons advanced in the preceding chapter for placing the love-letter of July 6-7 in the year 1812, give an entirely different light to the so-called ‘Journal’ in the Fischoff manuscript. If that day, in the beginning of July, 1812, which led to a mutual confession of love forms a climax in Beethoven’s heart-history, which can scarcely be doubted, the entry in the journal makes it sure that the obstacles to a conjugal union which are intimated have not disappeared, but, on the contrary, have proved to be insuperable. The first entry is dated merely 1812, and in likelihood was written at the end of the year. Whether or not the initial which shows a flourish is really an A is a fair question. Those who see more than superficial playfulness in the relations between Beethoven and Amalie Sebald will of course see her name in the letter.” It should be observed here that in the chapter devoted to the year 1812, Dr. Riemann interpolated an extended argument, following the lines of Dr. San-Galli’s brochure, to show that the letters were written in 1812 from Teplitz—Dr. San-Galli says to Amalie Sebald, Dr. Riemann to Countess Brunswick.

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