Chapter III

in which we went so far astray that we did not get back to Döbling, where Beethoven lived, until nearly 8 o’clock, he had been all the time humming and sometimes howling, always up and down, without singing any definite notes. In answer to my question what it was he said: “A theme for the last movement of the sonata has occurred to me.” When we entered the room he ran to the pianoforte without taking off his hat. I took a seat in a corner and he soon forgot all about me. Now he stormed for at least an hour with the beautiful finale of the sonata. Finally he got up, was surprised still to see me and said: “I cannot give you a lesson to-day, I must do some more work.”

The F Minor Sonata, Op. 57

The Sonata in question was that in F minor, Op. 57. Ries had in the meantime fulfilled Beethoven’s wish for a new lodging on the ramparts, by engaging for him one on the Mölkerbastei three or four houses only from Prince Lichnowsky in the Pasqualati house—“from the fourth storey of which there was a beautiful view,” namely, over the broad Glacis, the northwestern suburb of the city and the mountains in the distance. “He moved out of this several times,” says Ries, “but always returned to it, so that, as I afterwards heard, Baron Pasqualati was good-natured enough to say: ‘The lodging will not be rented; Beethoven will come back.’” To what extent Ries was correctly informed in this we will not now conjecture. The lessons of Förster’s little boy had been interrupted so long as his teacher dwelt in the distant theatre buildings; they were now renewed, the first being particularly impressed upon his memory by a severe reproof from Beethoven for ascending the four lofty flights of stairs too rapidly, and entering out of breath: “Youngster, you will ruin your lungs if you are not more careful,” said he in substance.

The two new Sonatas were finished and were now made known to Beethoven’s intimates. In the one in C major, Op. 53, there was a long Andante. A friend of Beethoven’s said to him that the Sonata was too long, for which he was terribly taken to task by the composer. But after quiet reflection Beethoven was convinced of the correctness of the criticism. The Andante was therefore excluded and its place supplied by the interesting Introduction to the Rondo which it now has. A year after the publication of the Sonata it also appeared separately. In these particulars Ries is confirmed by Czerny, whoadds: “Because of its popularity (for Beethoven played it frequently in society) he gave it the title ‘Andante favori.’ I am the more sure of this since Beethoven sent me the proof together with the manuscript for revision.” The arrangement for string quartet may have been made much later, probably by Ries (?).

This Andante (Ries continues) has left a painful memory in me. When Beethoven played it for the first time to our friend Krumpholtz and me, it delighted us greatly and we teased him until he repeated it. Passing the door of Prince Lichnowsky’s house (by the Schottenthor) on my way home I went in to tell the Prince of the new and glorious composition of Beethoven’s, and was persuaded to play it as well as I could remember it. Recalling more and more of it the Prince urged me to repeat it. In this way it happened that the Prince also learned a portion of the piece. To give Beethoven a surprise the Prince went to him the next day and said that he too had composed something which was not at all bad. In spite of Beethoven’s remark that he did not want to hear it the Prince sat down and to the amazement of the composer played a goodly portion of the Andante. Beethoven was greatly angered, and this was the reason why Inever again heard Beethoven play.

Prince Louis Ferdinand, now on his way into Italy, made a short stay at Vienna, renewing his acquaintance with Beethoven; but of their intercourse few particulars are known. Ries relates (“Notizen,” p. 111), that an old countess gave a little musical entertainment “to which, naturally, Beethoven was invited. When the company sat down to supper, plates for the high nobility only were placed at the Prince’s table—none for Beethoven. He flew into a rage, made a few ugly remarks, took his hat and went away. A few days later Prince Louis gave a dinner to which some members of the first company, including the old countess, were invited. When they sat down to table the old countess was placed on one side of the Prince, Beethoven on the other, a mark of distinction which Beethoven always referred to with pleasure.”

Beethoven and Breuning Reconciled

The Pianoforte Concerto in C minor was then in the hands of the engraver; upon its publication in November, Prince Louis Ferdinand’s name appeared upon the title. Concerning the compositions of the Prince, Beethoven remarked: “Now and then there are pretty bits in them”—so said Czerny. Before this time Beethoven and Breuning “met each other by accident and a complete reconciliation took place and every inimical resolve of Beethoven’s, despite their vigorous expression in the two letters, was wholly forgotten.”—(Ries.) And not this alone; he “laid his peace offering on the altar of reconciliation.” It was the best picture of himself which exists from those years,a beautiful miniature painted upon ivory by Hornemann, still in the possession of Breuning’s heirs. With it he sent the following letter:

Let us bury behind this picture forever, my dear Steffen, all that for a time haspassed between us. I know that I broke your heart. The feelings within me which you must have noticed have sufficiently punished me for that. It was notwickednessthat I felt towards you; no, if that were so I should never again be worthy of your friendship; passion onyour partandon mine; but mistrust of you arose in me; men came between us who are not worthy ofyouandme. My portrait was long ago intended for you; you know that I always intended it for somebody. To whom could I give it with so warm a heart as to you, faithful, good, noble Steffen! Forgive me if I have pained you; I suffered no less. When I no longer saw you near me I felt for the first time how dear tomyheart you are and always will be.Surely you will come to my arms again as in past days.

Surely you will come to my arms again as in past days.

Nor was the reconciliation on Breuning’s part less perfect. On the 13th of November he writes to Wegeler and, to excuse his long silence, says:

He who has been my friend from youth is often largely to blame that I am compelled to neglect the absent ones. You cannot conceive, my dear Wegeler, what an indescribable, I might say, fearful effect the gradual loss of hearing has had upon him. Think of the feeling of being unhappy in one of such violent temperament; in addition reservedness, mistrust, often towards his best friends, in many things want of decision! For the greater part, with only an occasional exception when he gives free vent to his feelings on the spur of the moment, intercourse with him is a real exertion, at which one can scarcely trust to oneself. From May until the beginning of this month we lived in the same house, and at the outset I took him into my rooms. He had scarcely come before he became severely, almost dangerously ill, and this was followed by an intermittent fever. Worry and the care of him used me rather severely. Now he is completely well again. He lives on the Ramparts, I in one of the newly-built houses of Prince Esterhazy in front of the Alstercaserne, and as I am keeping house he eats with me every day.

Not a word about the quarrel! Not a word to intimate that Beethoven had not occupied his rooms with him until at the usual time for changing lodgings he had crossed the Glacis to Pasqualati’s house; not a word of complaint—nothing but deepest pity and heartiest sympathy.

In December the famous Munich oboist Ramm was in Vienna and took part with Beethoven in one of Prince Lobkowitz’s private concerts. Beethoven directed the performance of the “Sinfonia Eroica” and in the second part of the first Allegro, “where the music is pursued for so many measures in half-notesagainst the beat,” he, as Ries says, threw the orchestra into such confusion that a new beginning had to be made.

On the same evening he played his Quintet for Pianoforte and Wind-instruments with Ramm as oboist. In the last Allegro there are several holds before the theme is resumed. At one of these Beethoven suddenly began to improvise, took the Rondo for a theme and entertained himself and the others for a considerable time, but not the other players. They were displeased and Ramm even very angry. It was really very comical to see them, momentarily expecting the performance to be resumed, put their instruments to their mouths only to put them down again. At length Beethoven was satisfied and dropped into the Rondo. The whole company was transported with delight.

Turn we again to the Theater-an-der-Wien, for a new contract has been made with Beethoven, by which his operatic aspirations and hopes are again awakened, with a better prospect of their gratification. At the end of August Sonnleithner retired from the direction and Baron Braun took the extraordinary step of reinstating his former rival and enemy, Schikaneder—a remarkable proof of the Baron’s high opinion of his tact and skill in the difficult business of management.

When one calls to mind the extraordinary praises which have been bestowed upon Baron Braun for his supposed patronage of Beethoven, it is worth noting, as a coincidence if nothing more, that now when Schikaneder finds himself in a strait for novelty and new attractions for his stage, the project of appealing to Beethoven’s genius is revived.

Before proceeding, a word upon Sonnleithner and Treitschke may be permitted.

Sonnleithner and Treitschke

The eldest son, born 1765, of Christoph Sonnleithner, Doctor of Laws and Dean of the Juridical Faculty at Vienna, Joseph Ferdinand by name, was educated to his father’s profession, and early rose to the positions of Circuit Commissioner and Royal Imperial Court Scrivener (Kreis-Kommissär und K. K. Hof-Concipist). All the Sonnleithners, from Dr. Christoph down to the excellent and beloved representative of the family, Leopold, his grandson who died in 1878, have stood in the front ranks of musical dilettanti, as composers, singers, instrumental performers and writers on topics pertaining to the art. Joseph Ferdinand was no exception. He gave his attention particularly to musical and theatrical literature, edited the Court Theatre Calendars, 1794-5, so highly lauded by Gerber, and prepared himself by appropriate studies to carry out Forkel’s plan of a “History of Music in Examples,” which was to reach the great extent of 50 volumes, folio. To this end he spentnearly three years, 1798-1802, in an extensive tour through northern Europe making collections of rare, old music. Upon his return to Vienna, resigning this project again into the hands of Forkel, he became one of the earliest partners, if not one of the founders, of the publishing house known as the “Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir” (Bureau d’Arts et d’Industrie), of which Schreyvogel was the recognized head. The latter had been appointed Secretary of the Court Theatre in 1802, but resigned, and, on February 14, 1804, Sonnleithner “was appointed, and on this account was most honorably retired from his former post as Court Scrivener.” On what grounds he has been called an “actor” (Schauspieler) is unknown.

One of his colleagues in the various offices of the Court Theatres was Georg Friedrich Treitschke, born in 1776, a native of Leipsic, who came to the Court Theatre in 1800 as an actor, but whose talents and fine character raised him in the course of the next two years to the position of poet and stage-manager of the German Court Opera, a post which he still and for many years continued to hold. He was therefore now (1804) in close business relations with Baron Braun and Sonnleithner; and, until some proof be adduced of lapse of memory—for his known probity forbids all suspicion of intentional or careless misrepresentation—his statements in regard to them may be accepted with perfect confidence.

Treitschke wrote thus in the “Orpheus” of 1841 (p. 258):

At the end of 1804 Baron von Braun, the new owner of the Royal Imperial priv. Theater-an-der-Wien, commissioned Ludwig van Beethoven, then in the full strength of youth, to write an opera for that playhouse. Because of his oratorio, “Christus am Ölberg,” it was believed that the master might do as much for dramatic music as he had done for instrumental. Besides his honorarium[23]he was offered free lodgings in the theatre buildings. Joseph Sonnleithner undertook to provide the text, and chose the French book, “L’Amour conjugal,” although it had already been set by Gaveaux and to Italian words as “Leonora” by Paër, but had been translated from both dramatizations into German. Beethoven had no fear of his predecessors and went to work with eager delight, so that the opera was nearly finished by the middle of 1805.[24]

Such is Treitschke’s simple and compendious statement of the facts; a statement which has been affirmed to contain “manifold errors,” yet, in truth, not a single point in it can be controverted.

In Paris, at the close of the 18th century, Shakespeare’s “being taken by the insolent foe and redemption thence” was by far the most popular subject for the stage. Doubtless so many facts stranger than fiction in recent narratives of escape from dungeon and guillotine, rendered doubly fascinating by beautiful exhibitions of disinterested affection, exalted generosity and heroic self-sacrifice, were not without their effect upon public taste. Certain it is that no other class of subjects is so numerously represented in the French drama of that precise period as this. “Les deux Journées” by J. N. Bouilly stands confessedly at its head. In Beethoven’s opinion in 1823, this and “La Vestale” were the two best texts then ever written. Two years before the “Deux Journées”—that is, on February 19th, 1798—the same poet had produced another of that class of texts, which, if less abounding in pleasing and exciting scenes, still contained one supreme moment that cannot readily find its like. This was “Léonore, ou l’Amour conjugal”; the seventeenth and last in Fétis’ list of Pierre Gaveaux’s thirty-five operas and operettas.

The French Original of “Fidelio”

Gaveaux was a singer at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris—a man of no great musical science, but gifted with a natural talent for melody and for pleasing though not always correct instrumentation, which secured the suffrages of the Feydeau audience for nearly all the long list of his productions. These were mostly short pieces in one act, in which he wrote the principal tenor part for himself. His “Le petit Matelot” (1794), as “Der kleine Matrose,” became immediately popular throughout Germany; Rellstab at Berlin published a pianoforte arrangement of it in 1798; and it so endured the fluctuations in publictaste as still to be performed at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1846. This was followed by his “L’Amour filial,” and others, so that, in short, whatever faults the critics found in his music, he was one of those French composers, to whose productions the managers of German opera houses ever had an eye. As the “Léonore” was published in score soon after its production, the names of its authors, Bouilly and Gaveaux, as well as its success at the Théâtre Feydeau, ensured its becoming known in Germany, and, but for the use of its subject by Paër, it might perhaps have been simply translated and performed with the original music. Rewritten in Italian, it was one of the first texts put into Paër’s hands after his removal to Dresden, and was produced on the 3d of October, as the opening piece of the winter season 1804-5.

The first performance was another triumph for Paër, who, satisfied with it, departed for Vienna next day on his way to Italy. It requires no great sagacity to perceive, on the one hand, that the Directors of the Imperial Italian Opera—on whose stage at the least eleven of Paër’s works had been given, several of them originally written for it—would not fail to secure a copy of the new composition; and, on the other, that the composer would seek the fame and profit of its reproduction there.[25]Jahn in his preface to Beethoven’s “Leonore” has discussed the great inferiority of the Dresden Italian text to the original; its defects would be equally apparent to Sonnleithner; and this consideration, with perhaps later news from Dresden, would convince him that the performance of Paër’s composition at Vienna would be at best a doubtful venture.[26]

Popularity of Beethoven’s Music

At this point, when the first of the solo sonatas written for the enlarged pianoforte (Op. 53) is ready for the press; when the Pianoforte Concerto in C minor has just been published; the “Sinfonia Eroica,” with its daring novelties of ideas and construction is awaiting public performance, and the composer has entered the lists to compete with Cherubini in another form of the art—here seems to be the fitting place for a few notes upon the degree of popularity, and the extent of circulation, to which his previous compositions had already attained.

We have not written very lucidly, if it be not sufficiently clear that, at Vienna, the works of no other of the younger generation of composers had so ready and extensive a sale as Beethoven’s, notwithstanding their most attractive qualities to many, were repellent to others. That was a question of taste. But in these last weeks of 1804, a proof of their general popularity was in preparation by Schreyvogel and Rizzi, which, so far as the present writer has examined the German periodical press from 1790 to 1830, is without a parallel. It was a complete classified catalogue of the “Works of Herrn Ludwig van Beethoven,” published as an advertisement, January 30, 1805, in the “Wiener Zeitung,” announcing them as “to be had at theKunst- und Industrie-Comptoirat Vienna in the Kohlmarkt, No. 269.”

At the end of 1796—a few sets of Variations excepted—only the first three of Beethoven’soperahad appeared. Four years afterwards the first publishing houses of Leipsic contend with those of Vienna for his manuscripts, notwithstanding the worse than contemptuous treatment of his works by the newly founded musical journal.

In January, 1801, at Breslau “the pianoforte players gladly venture upon Beethoven and spare neither time nor pains to conquer his difficulties.” In June, Beethoven has “more commissions, almost, than it was possible to fill” from the publishers—he “demands and they pay.” In 1802, Nägeli of Zürich, passing all the older composers by, applies to him for sonatas with which to introduce to the public his costly enterprise of the “Répertoire des Clavecinistes.” In 1803, although Simrock, of Bonn, had a branch house at Paris, and printed editions of his townsman’s more important works for circulation in France, Zulehner of Mayence finds the demand for them sufficient to warrant the announcement of a complete and uniform edition of the “Works for Pianoforte and String Instruments.” In May of the same year the “Correspondence des Amateurs-Musiciens” informs us that at Paris a part of the pianoforte virtuosos play only Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and spite of the difficulties offered by their works there are “quelquefois des Amateurs qui croient les jouer”; and, soon after this, an application comes to Beethoven from distant Scotland for half a dozen sonatas, on Scotch themes.[27]

The first two Concertos for Pianoforte and Orchestra, published in 1801, are reported to have been played in public within two years at Berlin and Frankfort-on-the-Main; the third, advertised in November, 1804, was produced the next month at Berlin. The first Symphony had hardly left Hoffmeister’s press, when it was added to the repertory of the Gewandhaus Concert, at Leipsic, and during the three following years was repeatedly performed at Berlin, Breslau, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Dresden, Brunswick and Munich; the second, advertised in March, 1804, was the opening symphony of Schick and Bohrer’s (Berlin) concerts in the Autumn. The “Prometheus” overture was played in the same concerts, December 2, 1803—ten days earlier than the oldest discovered advertisement of its publication. The instant popularity of the Septet in all its forms is well known.

A public performance of the Horn Sonata, March 20, 1803, at the concert of Dulon, the blind flute player, is worth noting, because the pianist was “young Bär”—Meyerbeer.

In our day and generation, to offer so meagre a list of public productions as a proof of popularity in the case of a new author of orchestral works, would be ridiculous. In the multiplication of musical journals and the greatly extended interest taken in musical news wherever an orchestra exists equal to the performance of a symphony, there is also someone to report its doings. This is as it should be. Then, except in the larger capitals, this was rarely so. Hence the few notes above, compiled from the correspondence of the single musical journal of the time, are more than suggestive—they are proof—of many an unrecorded production of the works they name. But more noteworthy than the statistics given by the various correspondents, is this: that, whatever praises they bestow upon the concertos and symphonies of others, they rank Beethoven alone with Haydn and Mozart; and this they do, even before the publication of the third Concerto and the Second Symphony.

Beethoven, then, though almost unknown personally beyond the limits of a few Austrian cities—unaided by apostles to preach his gospel, owing nothing to journalist or pamphleteer, disdaining, in fact, all the arts by which dazzling but mediocre talent pushes itself into notoriety—had, in the short space of eight years, by simple force of his genius as manifested in his published works, placed himself at the head of all writers for the pianoforte, and in public estimation risen to the level of the two greatest of orchestral composers. The unknown student that entered Vienna in 1792, is now in 1804 a recognized memberof the great triumvirate, to whose names in 1870, in spite of all the polemics of preachers of a new gospel, the world still persists in giving the place of highest honor in the roll of instrumental composers. Then, as now—now, as then—they are Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

The lists of the ascertained compositions and publications for the year 1804 are surprisingly short; but as no really sufficient reason for the fact can be given, none shall be attempted.[28]The former are only the two Sonatas, Op. 53 and Op. 54, and the “Andante favori”; but the final revision of the “Sinfonia Eroica” probably was made at the beginning of the year.

The publications were these:

1—Second Symphony, D major, Op. 36, dedicated to Prince Carl Lichnowsky, advertised by theKunst- und Industrie-Comptoir, Vienna, March 10.The arrangement of this Symphony for pianoforte, violin and violoncello, which was published by the same firm in 1806, is indirectly claimed by Ries as his work, notwithstanding the title bears the words “par l’auteur même.” Czerny confirms Ries in these terms: “The arrangement of the second Symphony as a Pianoforte Trio was made by Ries; Beethoven gave it to me for correction of certain things with which he was dissatisfied.”2—Song with pianoforte accompaniment: “i. e.,” advertised with the preceding.3—VII Variations on “God save the King,” for Pf., advertised with the preceding.4—III Marches for Pf., four hands. Op. 45, dedicated to Princess Esterhazy, advertised with the preceding.5—V Variations for Pf., on “Rule Britannia,” advertised by the same, June 20th.6—Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 31, No. 3, published by Nägeli in his “Répertoire des Clavecinistes,” Cat. II.

1—Second Symphony, D major, Op. 36, dedicated to Prince Carl Lichnowsky, advertised by theKunst- und Industrie-Comptoir, Vienna, March 10.

The arrangement of this Symphony for pianoforte, violin and violoncello, which was published by the same firm in 1806, is indirectly claimed by Ries as his work, notwithstanding the title bears the words “par l’auteur même.” Czerny confirms Ries in these terms: “The arrangement of the second Symphony as a Pianoforte Trio was made by Ries; Beethoven gave it to me for correction of certain things with which he was dissatisfied.”

2—Song with pianoforte accompaniment: “i. e.,” advertised with the preceding.

3—VII Variations on “God save the King,” for Pf., advertised with the preceding.

4—III Marches for Pf., four hands. Op. 45, dedicated to Princess Esterhazy, advertised with the preceding.

5—V Variations for Pf., on “Rule Britannia,” advertised by the same, June 20th.

6—Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 31, No. 3, published by Nägeli in his “Répertoire des Clavecinistes,” Cat. II.

The Year 1805—First Public Performance of the “Heroic Symphony”—The Opera “Leonore,” or “Fidelio”—A Study of the Sketchbook—The Singers and the Production.

The life of an author or composer, when absorbed in the study of a great work, falls into a routine of daily labor that presents few salient points to the biographer. Thus it was with Beethoven during the first two-thirds of the year 1805. What has been preserved of his correspondence is very little in quantity and of slight value. Ries was away with Lichnowsky in Silesia during all the warm season, and, very soon after his return, was forced to depart again from Vienna for Bonn; hence the “Notizen” fail us in perhaps the most interesting period of the young man’s four years of pupilage under Beethoven—that of the composition of “Leonore,” or “Fidelio.” The history of the year is, in the main, the history of that work; and unfortunately a very unsatisfactory one. Not to break the thread of the story hereafter, the few events of the first half of the year unconnected with it, shall first be disposed of.

Schuppanzigh had discovered and taught a boy of great genius for the violin, Joseph Mayseder by name (born October 16, 1789), who was already, in his sixteenth year, the subject of eulogistic notices in the public press. With this youth as second, Schreiber, “in the service of Prince Lobkowitz,” for the viola, and the elder Kraft, violoncellist, Schuppanzigh during the winter 1804-5 gave quartets “in a private house in the Heiligenkreuzerhof, the listeners paying five florins in advance for four performances.” Up to the end of April the quartets given were by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Eberl, Romberg, with “occasionally larger pieces. Of the latter great pleasure was given by the beautiful Beethoven Sextet in E-flat, a composition which shines resplendent by reason of its lively melodies, unconstrained harmonies, and a wealth of new and surprising ideas.” So itis reported in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.,” VII, 535, of the Sextet for wind-instruments, which afterwards received the opus number 71, but was composed “in 1796 at the latest,” says Nottebohm, and, not improbably in its original form, in Bonn.

It was to the discredit of Vienna, where instrumental performers of rare ability so abounded, that for several years regular public orchestral concerts, save those at the Augarten in summer, had been abandoned. Sensible of this, the bankers Würth and Fellner during the winter of 1803-4 “had gathered together on all Sunday mornings a select company (nearly all dilettanti) for concerts restricted for the greater part to pieces for full orchestra, such as symphonies (among them Beethoven’s First and Second), overtures, concertos, which they played in really admirable style.” There were also “some overtures by a certain Count Gallenberg” who “imitated, or rather copied, Mozart and Cherubini so slavishly, following them even in the details of keys and modulations so faithfully, that it was easy to tell the titles of the overtures over whose lasts his had been made with the greatest certainty.” Thus the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” (VI, 467). In these concerts Clement of the Theater-an-der-Wien was director.

They were renewed the present winter, and new performances of Beethoven’s first two Symphonies, and the Concerto in C minor (Op. 37)—pianoforte part by Ries[29]—prepare the way for the production of “an entirely new symphony”—“a long composition extremely difficult of performance, in reality, a tremendously expanded, daring and wild fantasia”; wanting “nothing in the way of startling and beautiful passages, in which the energetic and talented composer must be recognized; but often it loses itself in lawlessness”; the writer “belongs to Herr van Beethoven’s sincerest admirers, but in this composition he must confess that he finds too much that is glaring and bizarre, which makes a survey too difficult; and the principle of unity is almost wholly lost sight of.” It was the “Sinfonia Eroica”—its first semi-public production. Its first really public performance was in the Theater-an-der-Wien, on Sunday evening, April 7th, where it began the second part of a concert given for his own benefit by Clement. The programme announces it thus: “A new grand symphony in D-sharp by Herrn Ludwig van Beethoven, dedicated to his Serene Highness Prince Lobkowitz. The composer has kindly consented to conduct the work.”

Public Performance of the “Eroica”

Czerny remembered, and told Jahn, that on this occasion “somebody in the gallery cried out: ‘I’ll give another kreutzer if the thing will but stop!’” This is the key-note to the strain in which the Symphony was criticized in communications to the press, that are now among the curiosities of musical literature. The correspondent of the “Freymüthige” divided the audience into three parties.

Some, says he, Beethoven’s particular friends, assert that it is just this symphony which is his masterpiece, that this is the true style for high-class music, and that if it does not please now, it is because the public is not cultured enough, artistically, to grasp all these lofty beauties; after a few thousand years have passed it will not fail of its effect. Another faction denies that the work has any artistic value and professes to see in it an untamed striving for singularity which had failed, however, to achieve in any of its parts beauty or true sublimity and power. By means of strange modulations and violent transitions, by combining the most heterogeneous elements, as for instance when a pastoral in the largest style is ripped up by the basses, by three horns, etc., a certain undesirable originality may be achieved without much trouble; but genius proclaims itself not in the unusual and the fantastic, but in the beautiful and the sublime. Beethoven himself proved the correctness of this axiom in his earlier works. The third party, a very small one, stands midway between the others—it admits that the symphony contains many beauties, but concedes that the connection is often disrupted entirely, and that the inordinate length of this longest, and perhaps most difficult of all symphonies, wearies even the cognoscenti, and is unendurable to the mere music-lover; it wishes that H. v. B. would employ his acknowledgedly great talents in giving us works like his symphonies in C and D, his ingratiating Septet in E-flat, the intellectual Quintet in D (C major?) and others of his early compositions which have placed B. forever in the ranks of the foremost instrumental composers. It fears, however, that if Beethoven continues on his present path both he and the public will be the sufferers.... The public and Herr van Beethoven, who conducted, were not satisfied with each other on this evening; the public thought the symphony too heavy, too long, and Beethoven himself too discourteous, because he did not nod his head in recognition of the applause which came from a portion of the audience.

This clear, compendious and valuable statement of the conflicting opinions of the first auditors of the “Eroica” renders farther citations superfluous; but a story—characteristic enough to be true—may be added: that Beethoven, in reply to the complaints of too great length, said, in substance: “IfIwrite a symphony an hour long it will be found short enough!” He refused positively to make any change in the work, but deferred to public opinion so far, as, upon its publication, to affix to the title of the Symphony a note to the effect, that on account of its greatlength it should be played near the beginning of a concert, before the audience was become weary.

Beethoven, though choleric and violent in his anger, was placable. The theft of the Quintet in C dedicated to Count Fries, as related by Ries, and Beethoven’s warning against the pirated edition, will be remembered. Nottebohm has sufficiently established the fact that the engraved plates were not destroyed, as supposed by Ries, but afterwards again used with the composer’s consent and even his corrections. A short letter to the offending publisher (June 1) shows that his wrath was already appeased, and seems to indicate a purpose to grant him the copyright of a new quintet—a purpose which, under the pressure of his opera, and the subsequent invasion of the French, remained unexecuted.

Ignatz Pleyel, born in 1757, the twenty-fourth child of a schoolmaster at Ruppersthal, a village a few miles from Vienna, a favorite pupil of Haydn and just now the most widely known and popular living instrumental composer except his master, came from Paris this season to revisit, after many years’ absence, the scenes of his youth. He brought with him his last new quartets, “which,” writes Czerny,

were performed before a large and aristocratic society at the house of Prince Lobkowitz. At the close, Beethoven, who was also present, was requested to play something. As usual he let himself be begged for an infinitely long time and at last almost dragged by two ladies to the pianoforte. In an ill humor he grabs a second violin part of the Pleyel quartet from a music desk, throws it on the rack of the pianoforte and begins to improvise. He had never been heard to improvise more brilliantly, with more originality and splendor than on this evening! but through the entire improvisation there ran through the middle voices like a thread orcantus firmusthe notes, in themselves utterly insignificant, which he found on the accidentally opened page of the quartet, upon which he built up the most daring melodies and harmonies in the most brilliant concerto style. Old Pleyel could show his amazement only by kissing his hands. After such improvisations Beethoven was wont to break out into a ringing peal of amused laughter.

Beethoven’s abandonment (if there really was one) of the rooms in the theatre in the spring of 1804, and his subsequent relinquishment of the apartments in “das Rothe Haus” to share those of Breuning, compelled his brother Kaspar to seek a lodging of his own, which he found for the present on the Hohen Markt. But the new contract, with Baron Braun, gave the composer again a right to the apartments in the theatre building, which he improved, at the same time retaining the dwelling in the Pasqualati house. The city directory for 1805 gives hisaddress at the theatre, and there he received visitors; at the Pasqualati house he was accustomed to seclude himself for work, forbidding his servant to admit any person whatever. In the summer he retired to Hetzendorf, and wrought out his opera, sitting in the same crotched oak in the Schönbrunn Garden where, four years before, he had composed the “Christus am Ölberg.” Thus again he had three lodgings at the same time, as in the preceding summer; with this difference, that now one was no expense to him. The thousand times repeated story of Ries, that in 1804 he hadfourdwellings at once, is a mistake.

The Sketches for “Fidelio”

Before his migration to Hetzendorf—say about the middle of June—Beethoven had completely sketched the music of his opera. This is made sufficiently certain by one of those whimsical remarks that he was in the habit of making on the blank spaces of whatever manuscript he happened to have before him. In this case he writes: “June 2d Finale always simpler. All pianoforte music also. God knows why my pianoforte music always makes the worst impression, especially when it is badly played.” This is in the midst of sketches to the final chorus of the opera, and is written upon the upper outer corner of page 291 of the “Leonore” sketchbook which became the property of Mr. Paul Mendelssohn, of Berlin. The principal value of this manuscript lies of course in the insight which it gives the musician into the master’s methods of composition;[30]but for the biographer the volume is by no means without its value. Its striking confirmation of the previously formed opinion, that two current notions in relation to the composition of the opera are erroneous, well repays the toil of studying it through. First: A misinterpreted sentence in Jahn’s article on “Leonore, oder Fidelio,” has originated and given currency to the idea that Beethoven’s “daring enthusiasm for the welfare of men and their rights” led him to begin his sketches for the opera with the “second finale, with its hymn-like character.” But the sketchbook, if it proves anything, proves this: that Beethoven began at the beginning and took up all the principal numbers in order, as they stood in Sonnleithner’s text; that the final choruses were the last to be sketched; and that this sketchbook happens to begin in the midst of the chorus of prisoners (originally the second finale) because the previous studies are wanting.

This volume contains the first sketches of Nos. 11, 18, 15a, 17a and 18a (appendix) of Jahn’s edition; Nos. 1 and 5 occur, but not in the original studies; Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are either entirely wanting or only come up in mere fragmentary afterthoughts, as No. 9, on page 51, where Beethoven has written at the top of the page: “in the duet between P. and R.” and just below: “dann schleich ich,” with a hint (4 bars of music unisono) for the accompaniment. Afterthoughts for the duet “Um in die Ehe”—FidelioandMarcelline—occur also on pages 23, 344, and possibly one or two others, but not more. The studies forFidelio’srecitative “Ach brich noch nicht” and aria “Komm Hoffnung” (No. 11), which are found near the end of the volume, seem to form a marked exception to the rule; but if these are really the first sketches, their appearance after the final scenes is explained by two remarks in Beethoven’s hand on page 344: “Duetto with Müller (Marcelline) andFidelioaside,” and “Aria forFidelio, another text which agrees with her.” These notes clearly indicate a change of plan in connection with the duet, and that the beautiful air, “Komm Hoffnung,” did not stand in Sonnleithner’s original text.

Patient Labor on the Opera

The other current error thoroughly exploded by the sketchbook is this, namely, that the noblest passages in the opera are a sort of spontaneous outpouring in music of feelings and sentiments awakened, or rendered intense and vivid, by the unfortunate love-affairs of the composer. Now, there is nothing from the first page to the last of this manuscript that conveys the impression of any such spontaneity. Every number, as it now stands complete in the score, was the tardy result of persevering labor—of the most painstaking study.

Where Jahn says: “I have not had an opportunity to study many of Beethoven’s sketchbooks, but I have found no instance in which one was not compelled to recognize that the material chosen was not the best, or to deplore that the material which he rejected had not been used,” he might have added, with truth, that some of the first ideas noted to passages, now among the gems of the opera, are commonplace and trivial to such a degree, that one can hardly attribute them to Beethoven. Yet, there they are in his own hand. Jahn’s compendious general description of the contents of this manuscript cannot be improved, except in a single passage, in which, probably trusting his memory a little too much, he conveys the mistaken (as we think) impression, that the aria ofMarcellineis here first sketched.

The sketches [says he] are, naturally enough, of very different kinds; in part they are widely varying efforts to give musical expression to the same text, and many numbers, like the airs ofMarcellineandPizarro, the grave duet, a few striking passages, appear for the first time with motivi wholly different from those now to be found in the opera.... At other times, whole pieces are written down in a breath essentially as they have remained.

This is rather too strongly expressed, unless Jahn had in mind the arias ofRoccoandMarcelline.

By the side of such passages are examples of indefatigable detail work, which cannot find a conclusion, of turning not only single motivi and melodies but the tiniest elements of them this way and that, and out of all conceivable variations to draw out the form that is best. One is amazed at this everlasting experimentation and cannot conceive how it will be possible to create an organic whole out of such musical scraps. But if one compares the completed art-work with the chaos of sketches one is overwhelmed with wonder at the creative mind which surveyed its task so clearly, grasped the foundation and the outlines of the execution so firmly and surely that with all the sketches and attempts in details the whole grows naturally from its roots and develops. And though the sketches frequently create the impression of uncertainty and groping, admiration comes again for the marvelously keen self-criticism, which, after everything has been tested with sovereign certainty, retains the best.[31]

In the notices of the “Leonore” sketchbook, made for use in this work, are copiedeighteendifferent beginnings toFlorestan’sair, “In des Lebens Frühlingstagen,” and ten to the chorus, “Wer ein holdes Weib”; others being omitted, because illegible or little more than repetitions. The studies for that wondrous outburst of joy, “O namenlose Freude,” are numerous; but the first bars of the duet are the same in all of them, having been taken by Beethoven from an “old opera.”

It certainly seems a little like cold-blooded cruelty thus ruthlessly to demolish the structure of romance which has been rising for thirty years on the sandy foundation laid by Schindler in his story of the Countess Guicciardi, and of which, through some fancied connection, the opera “Leonore” has become an imposing part. But facts are stubborn things, and here they are irreconcilable with the romance.

Inborn genius for musical composition, untiring industry, and the ambition to rival Cherubini in his own field, sufficiently explain the extraordinary merits of this work of Beethoven; want of practice and experience in operatic writing, its defects.

Beethoven’s seclusion at Hetzendorf from June to September (probably) and his labor of reducing the chaos of the sketchbook into the order and beauty of the score of “Leonore”—on which, as he told Schindler, he wrought in the bright summer days, sitting in the shades of Schönbrunn—are unbroken for us except by his first meeting with Cherubini. Some time in July—for that master arrived in Vienna after the 5th of that month, and Vogler was in Salzburg before the 28th—“Cherubini, Beethoven and Vogler were gathered together at Sonnleithner’s; everybody played, Vogler first, and without ceasing, so that the company meanwhile sat down to table. Beethoven was full of attention and respect toward Cherubini.” Such is Jahn’s note of a communication to him by Grillparzer; and Czerny told him: “B. did not give Cherubini a friendly reception in 1805, as the latter complained to Czerny later.”

At the end of the summer season Beethoven returned to town with his opera ready to be put in rehearsal. Here Ries found him. “He was really fond of me,” says he, “and gave me a comical proof of the fact in one of his fits of absentmindedness”; and Ries goes on to relate in the “Notizen”:

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