Partly my distractions in Silesia, partly the events which have taken place in your country, were to blame that I did not answer your letter before now—should the present condition of affairs prevent your entering into an engagement with me, you are not bound to anything—only I beg you to answer at once by post, so that in case you do not care to make a contract with me—I need not let my works lie idle. With regard to a contract for three years I am disposed to enter into it with you at once if you will agree that I sell several works to England or Scotland. It is understood of coursethat the works which you have received from me or which I sold you belong only to you, namely are your sole property and have nothing to do with those of France, England or Scotland—but I must have the privilege to dispose of other works in those countries—But in Germany, you and no other publisher would be the owner of my works. I would willingly renounce the sale of my works in those countries, but I have receivedfrom Scotland such weighty offers and such an honorarium as I could not ask of you, besides a connection with foreign countries is always important for the fame of an artist and in the event of his travelling—As, for instance, in the case of Scotland, I have the right to sell the same works in Germany and France, I would gladly let you have them for Germany and France—so that only London and Edinburgh (in Scotland) would be lost to your sales.... For the present I offer you three quartets and a pianoforte concerto—I cannot give you the promised symphony yet—because a gentleman of quality has taken it from me, but I have the privilege of publishing it in half a year. I ask of you 600 florins for the three quartets and 300 fl. for the concerto,both amountsin Convention Florins according to the 20 florin scale.
Partly my distractions in Silesia, partly the events which have taken place in your country, were to blame that I did not answer your letter before now—should the present condition of affairs prevent your entering into an engagement with me, you are not bound to anything—only I beg you to answer at once by post, so that in case you do not care to make a contract with me—I need not let my works lie idle. With regard to a contract for three years I am disposed to enter into it with you at once if you will agree that I sell several works to England or Scotland. It is understood of coursethat the works which you have received from me or which I sold you belong only to you, namely are your sole property and have nothing to do with those of France, England or Scotland—but I must have the privilege to dispose of other works in those countries—But in Germany, you and no other publisher would be the owner of my works. I would willingly renounce the sale of my works in those countries, but I have receivedfrom Scotland such weighty offers and such an honorarium as I could not ask of you, besides a connection with foreign countries is always important for the fame of an artist and in the event of his travelling—As, for instance, in the case of Scotland, I have the right to sell the same works in Germany and France, I would gladly let you have them for Germany and France—so that only London and Edinburgh (in Scotland) would be lost to your sales.... For the present I offer you three quartets and a pianoforte concerto—I cannot give you the promised symphony yet—because a gentleman of quality has taken it from me, but I have the privilege of publishing it in half a year. I ask of you 600 florins for the three quartets and 300 fl. for the concerto,both amountsin Convention Florins according to the 20 florin scale.
The negotiations were without result and the compositions mentioned were published by the Industrie-Comptoir. The symphony referred to was doubtless the fourth, in B-flat, and the “gentleman of quality” in all likelihood Count von Oppersdorff, to whom it was dedicated.
In October Breuning wrote to Wegeler: “Beethoven is at present in Silesia with Prince Lichnowsky and will not return till near the end of this month. His circumstances are none of the best at present, since his opera, owing to the cabals of his opponents, was performed but seldom, and therefore yielded him nothing. His spirits are generally low and, to judge by his letters, the sojourn in the country has not cheered him.” This visit to the Prince came to an abrupt termination in a scene which has been a fruitful theme for the silly race of musical novelette writers. The simple truth is related by Seyfried in the appendix to his “Studien” (page 23) and is here copied literally except for a few additional words interspersed, derived by the present writer from a conversation with the daughter of Moritz Lichnowsky:
When he (Beethoven) did not feel in the mood it required repeated and varied urgings to get him to sit down to the pianoforte. Before he began playing he was in the habit of hitting the keys with the flat of his hand, or running a single finger up and down the keyboard, in short, doing all manner of things to kill time and laughing heartily, as was his wont, at the folly. Once while spending a summer with a Mæcenas at his countryseat, he was so pestered by the guests (French officers), who wished to hear him play, that he grew angry and refused to do what he denounced as menial labor. A threat of arrest, made surely in jest, was taken seriously by him and resulted in Beethoven’s walking by night to the nearest city, Troppau, whence he hurried as on the wings of the wind by extra post to Vienna.[36]
When he (Beethoven) did not feel in the mood it required repeated and varied urgings to get him to sit down to the pianoforte. Before he began playing he was in the habit of hitting the keys with the flat of his hand, or running a single finger up and down the keyboard, in short, doing all manner of things to kill time and laughing heartily, as was his wont, at the folly. Once while spending a summer with a Mæcenas at his countryseat, he was so pestered by the guests (French officers), who wished to hear him play, that he grew angry and refused to do what he denounced as menial labor. A threat of arrest, made surely in jest, was taken seriously by him and resulted in Beethoven’s walking by night to the nearest city, Troppau, whence he hurried as on the wings of the wind by extra post to Vienna.[36]
In the “Grenzboten,” Vol. XVI, No. 14, April 3, 1857, Fräulein Giannatasio del Rio relates that, in 1816, Beethoven told how once during the invasion when the Prince had a number of Frenchmen as his guests, he (the Prince) repeatedly tried to coerce him to play for them on the pianoforte and that he had stoutly refused; which led to a scene between him and the Prince, whereupon B. indiscreetly and suddenly left the house.—He once said that it is easy to get along with nobility, but it was necessary to have something to impress them with.
In the “Grenzboten,” Vol. XVI, No. 14, April 3, 1857, Fräulein Giannatasio del Rio relates that, in 1816, Beethoven told how once during the invasion when the Prince had a number of Frenchmen as his guests, he (the Prince) repeatedly tried to coerce him to play for them on the pianoforte and that he had stoutly refused; which led to a scene between him and the Prince, whereupon B. indiscreetly and suddenly left the house.—He once said that it is easy to get along with nobility, but it was necessary to have something to impress them with.
To propitiate him for the humiliation which he had suffered, the bust of his patron had to become a sacrifice; he dashed it into pieces from its place on a cabinet to the floor. Alois Fuchs recorded an anecdote which illustrates the feeling which made Beethoven so unwilling to play before the French officers. After the battle at Jena (October 14, 1806) Beethoven met his friend Krumpholz, to whom he was warmly attached, and, as usual, asked him, “What’s the news?” Krumpholz answered that the latest news was the report just received that the great hero Napoleon had won another decisive victory over the Prussians. Greatly angered, Beethoven replied to this: “It’s a pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music, I would conquer him!”
A very natural query arises here: how did Beethoven meet the expenses of these costly journeys? In answer it may be said that there is good reason to believe that he borrowed and used his brother Johann’s scanty savings.
Thomson and Scottish Songs
A letter by Beethoven, dated November 1, introduces a new topic. At the time of the Union of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, 1707, a “Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures in Scotland” was established. About 1785 George Thomson became its Secretary. He had some knowledge of musical science, and was an enthusiastic lover of Scottish airs and melodies. His official position brought him into correspondence with educated and influential people in all parts of the kingdom, and afforded him singular facilities for the execution of an early formed project—that of making the most extensive collection possible of the music of Scotland. Many compilations, various in extent and merit, had been published, but all of them, as Thomson justly remarks, “more or less defective and exceptionable.” In one of his prefaces he says:
To furnish a collection of all the fine airs, both of the plaintive and the lively kind, unmixed with trifling and inferior ones—to obtainthe most suitable and finished accompaniments, with the addition of characteristic symphonies to introduce and conclude each air—and to substitute congenial and interesting songs, every way worthy of the music, in the room of insipid or exceptionable verses, were the great objects of the present publication....For the composition of the symphonies and accompaniments, he entered into terms with Mr. Pleyel, who fulfilled part of his engagement satisfactorily; but having then stopped short, the editor found it necessary to turn his eyes elsewhere. He was so fortunate, however, as to engage Mr. Koželuch, and afterwards, Dr. Haydn, to proceed with the work, which they have finished in such a manner as to leave him nothing to regret on Mr. Pleyel’s breach of engagement, etc., etc.
To furnish a collection of all the fine airs, both of the plaintive and the lively kind, unmixed with trifling and inferior ones—to obtainthe most suitable and finished accompaniments, with the addition of characteristic symphonies to introduce and conclude each air—and to substitute congenial and interesting songs, every way worthy of the music, in the room of insipid or exceptionable verses, were the great objects of the present publication....
For the composition of the symphonies and accompaniments, he entered into terms with Mr. Pleyel, who fulfilled part of his engagement satisfactorily; but having then stopped short, the editor found it necessary to turn his eyes elsewhere. He was so fortunate, however, as to engage Mr. Koželuch, and afterwards, Dr. Haydn, to proceed with the work, which they have finished in such a manner as to leave him nothing to regret on Mr. Pleyel’s breach of engagement, etc., etc.
Doubtless Thomson would have applied sooner to Haydn, had he known that the great master would condescend to such a labor. The appearance of William Napier’s two volumes of “Original Scots Songs, in three parts, the Harmony by Haydn,” removed any doubt on this point. For Napier, Haydn simply added a violin part and a figured bass; for Thomson, a full pianoforte score, parts for violin and violoncello, and an instrumental introduction and coda. A very remarkable feature of the enterprise was, that the composers of the accompaniments had no knowledge of the texts, and the writers of the poetry no knowledge of the accompaniments. The poets, in many cases, had a stanza of the original song as a model for the metre and rhythm; in all others, they and the composers alike received the bare melody, with nothing else to guide them in their work but Italian musical terms: allegro, moderato, andante, etc., etc., affettuoso, espressivo, scherzando, and the like. This is also true of the Welsh and Irish melodies. Beethoven began his labors for Thomson with the last named. In the preface to the first volume, dated “Edinburgh, anno 1814,” after describing his work in collecting Irish airs, Thomson says:
They were sent to Haydn to be harmonized along with the Scottish and Welsh airs; but after that celebrated composer had finished the greater part of those two works, his declining health only enabled him to harmonize a few of the Irish Melodies; and upon his death, it became necessary to find another composer to whom the task of harmonizing them should be committed.[37]Of all composers that are now living, it is acknowledged by every intelligent and unprejudiced musician, that the only one, who occupies the same distinguished rank with the late Haydn isBeethoven. Possessing the most original genius and inventive fancy, united to profound science, refined taste and an enthusiastic love of his art—his compositions, like those of his illustrious predecessor, will bear endless repetition and afford ever new delight. To this composer, therefore, the Editor eagerly applied for symphonies and accompaniments to the Irish Melodies; and to his inexpressible satisfaction, Beethoven undertook the composition. After years of anxious suspense and teazing disappointment, by the miscarriage of letters and manuscripts, owing to the unprecedented difficulty of communication between England and Vienna, the long expected symphonies and accompaniments at last reached the Editor, three other copies having previously been lost upon the road.
They were sent to Haydn to be harmonized along with the Scottish and Welsh airs; but after that celebrated composer had finished the greater part of those two works, his declining health only enabled him to harmonize a few of the Irish Melodies; and upon his death, it became necessary to find another composer to whom the task of harmonizing them should be committed.[37]Of all composers that are now living, it is acknowledged by every intelligent and unprejudiced musician, that the only one, who occupies the same distinguished rank with the late Haydn isBeethoven. Possessing the most original genius and inventive fancy, united to profound science, refined taste and an enthusiastic love of his art—his compositions, like those of his illustrious predecessor, will bear endless repetition and afford ever new delight. To this composer, therefore, the Editor eagerly applied for symphonies and accompaniments to the Irish Melodies; and to his inexpressible satisfaction, Beethoven undertook the composition. After years of anxious suspense and teazing disappointment, by the miscarriage of letters and manuscripts, owing to the unprecedented difficulty of communication between England and Vienna, the long expected symphonies and accompaniments at last reached the Editor, three other copies having previously been lost upon the road.
Near the close of his preface, Thomson says: “After the volume was printed and some copies of it had been circulated, an opportunity occurred of sending it to Beethoven, who corrected the few inaccuracies that had escaped the notice of the Editor and his friends; and he trusts it will be found without a single error.”
Beethoven’s Suggested Arrangements
Following is a translation of the letter to Thomson referred to:
Vienna, November 1, 1806.Dear Sir:A little excursion to Silesia which I have made is the reason why I have postponed till now answering your letter of July 1. On my return to Vienna I hasten to communicate to you what I have to say and what I have decided as to the proposals you were so kind as to make me. I will speak with all candor and exactitude, which I like in business affairs, and which alone can forestall any complaint on either side. Here, then, my dear Sir, are my statements:1mo. I am not indisposed, on the whole, to accept your propositions.2do. I will take care to make the compositions easy and pleasing, as far as I can and as far as is consistent with that elevation and originality of style which, as you yourself say, favorably characterize my works and from which I shall never derogate.3tio. I cannot bring myself to write for the flute, as this instrument is too limited and imperfect.4to. In order to give the compositions which you will publish greater variety and to leave myself a freer field in them, though the task of making them easy would always be an embarrassment to me, I shall promise you only three trios for violin, viola and violoncello, and three quintets for two violins, two violas and one violoncello. Instead of the remaining three trios, I will send you three quartets and, finally, two sonatas for pianoforte with an accompanying instrument, and a quintet for two violins and flute. In a word, I would ask you with regard to the second series of the compositions you ask for, to rely upon my taste and good faith and I assure you that you shall be entirely satisfied.If you cannot agree to any of these changes, I shall not insist upon them obstinately.5to. I should be glad if the second series of compositions were published six months after the first.VIto. I desire a clearer explanation of the expression which I find in your letter that no copy printed under my name shall be introduced into Great Britain; for if you agree that these compositions are to be publishedalso in Germany and even in France, I do not understand how I shall be able to prevent copies from being taken to your country.7mo. Finally as to the honorarium, I shall expect you to send me 100 pounds sterling, or 200 Vienna ducats in gold, and not in Vienna bank-notes, which under the present circumstances are at too great a discount; for if paid in these notes the sum would be as little in proportion to the works which I should deliver to you as to the fees which I receive for all my other compositions. Even a fee of 200 ducats in gold is by no means excessive payment for all that is demanded to meet your wishes.The best way of making the payment will be for you, on the dates when I forward you the first and second series of compositions, to send me each time by post a bill of exchange for 100 ducats in gold drawn upon a house in Hamburg; or for you to commission somebody in Vienna to hand me such a bill of exchange each time, as he receives from me the first and second series.At the same time please let me know the date on which each series will be published by you in order that I may engage the publishers who issue these compositions in Germany and France, to abide by the same.I hope that you will find my explanations reasonable and of such a sort that we can reach some definite agreement. In this case it will be best to draw up a formal contract which please have the kindness to prepare in duplicate; and I will return you one copy signed by me.I await your answer, that I may begin on the work; and I remain with distinguished consideration, my dear Sir,Your obedient servant,Louis van Beethoven.P.S.I shall be glad to meet your wish that I provide little Scottish songs with harmonized accompaniments; and in this matter I await a more definite proposal; since it is well known to me that Herr Haydn was paid one pound sterling for each song.
Vienna, November 1, 1806.
Dear Sir:
A little excursion to Silesia which I have made is the reason why I have postponed till now answering your letter of July 1. On my return to Vienna I hasten to communicate to you what I have to say and what I have decided as to the proposals you were so kind as to make me. I will speak with all candor and exactitude, which I like in business affairs, and which alone can forestall any complaint on either side. Here, then, my dear Sir, are my statements:
1mo. I am not indisposed, on the whole, to accept your propositions.
2do. I will take care to make the compositions easy and pleasing, as far as I can and as far as is consistent with that elevation and originality of style which, as you yourself say, favorably characterize my works and from which I shall never derogate.
3tio. I cannot bring myself to write for the flute, as this instrument is too limited and imperfect.
4to. In order to give the compositions which you will publish greater variety and to leave myself a freer field in them, though the task of making them easy would always be an embarrassment to me, I shall promise you only three trios for violin, viola and violoncello, and three quintets for two violins, two violas and one violoncello. Instead of the remaining three trios, I will send you three quartets and, finally, two sonatas for pianoforte with an accompanying instrument, and a quintet for two violins and flute. In a word, I would ask you with regard to the second series of the compositions you ask for, to rely upon my taste and good faith and I assure you that you shall be entirely satisfied.
If you cannot agree to any of these changes, I shall not insist upon them obstinately.
5to. I should be glad if the second series of compositions were published six months after the first.
VIto. I desire a clearer explanation of the expression which I find in your letter that no copy printed under my name shall be introduced into Great Britain; for if you agree that these compositions are to be publishedalso in Germany and even in France, I do not understand how I shall be able to prevent copies from being taken to your country.
7mo. Finally as to the honorarium, I shall expect you to send me 100 pounds sterling, or 200 Vienna ducats in gold, and not in Vienna bank-notes, which under the present circumstances are at too great a discount; for if paid in these notes the sum would be as little in proportion to the works which I should deliver to you as to the fees which I receive for all my other compositions. Even a fee of 200 ducats in gold is by no means excessive payment for all that is demanded to meet your wishes.
The best way of making the payment will be for you, on the dates when I forward you the first and second series of compositions, to send me each time by post a bill of exchange for 100 ducats in gold drawn upon a house in Hamburg; or for you to commission somebody in Vienna to hand me such a bill of exchange each time, as he receives from me the first and second series.
At the same time please let me know the date on which each series will be published by you in order that I may engage the publishers who issue these compositions in Germany and France, to abide by the same.
I hope that you will find my explanations reasonable and of such a sort that we can reach some definite agreement. In this case it will be best to draw up a formal contract which please have the kindness to prepare in duplicate; and I will return you one copy signed by me.
I await your answer, that I may begin on the work; and I remain with distinguished consideration, my dear Sir,
Your obedient servant,Louis van Beethoven.
P.S.
I shall be glad to meet your wish that I provide little Scottish songs with harmonized accompaniments; and in this matter I await a more definite proposal; since it is well known to me that Herr Haydn was paid one pound sterling for each song.
The original of this letter—in possession of the heirs of Mr. Thomson—is in French, the signature only being in Beethoven’s hand. Of its various propositions, that in the postscript alone led to any results.
Compositions of 1806
And now to the compositions of the year. A song translated by Breuning from a French opera, “Le Secret,” was probably the first fruits of the newly awakened “desire and love for work,” which proved so nobly productive during his summer absence from Vienna; it is the one published at different times under the titles “Empfindungen bei Lydiens Untreue,” and “Als die Geliebte sich trennen wollte.” A slight token of gratitude for the recent zealous kindness of Breuning in the matter of the opera, such as this song, would not long be delayed even by Beethoven. But, whether or not this was the first composition after the withdrawal of “Fidelio,” it is certain that, just one week before the date of Breuning’s letter, Beethoven had set himself resolutely to work upon grander themes thanEmpfindungen bei Lydiensorany otherMädchens Untreue. These are now to be considered. He began the quartets, Op. 59, on May 26. Certain studies to “Fidelio,” not previously mentioned, are contained in a sketchbook of the Landsberger Collection of Autographs, the principal contents of which are sketches for the second, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth Symphonies, and for “Fidelio.” This, at first view, seems to confirm an assertion of Czerny’s—not accepted by Schindler, who in this case is the better authority—namely, that the Ninth Symphony, except its choral Finale, was projected many years before its composition; but the book itself affords a strong argument against it; it being, as the present writer is convinced, not a manuscript in its original form, but one made up of parts of several different books, stitched together subsequently for the better preservation of these various symphonic studies. In it, however, the sketches for the Fourth Symphony are in immediate connection with those for “Fidelio.” The list, then, of important works sketched during the progress of the opera, is this: Triple Concerto, Op. 56; Sonata in F minor, Op. 57; Pf. Concerto in G, Op. 58; Rasoumowsky Quartets, Op. 59; Fourth Symphony, B-flat, Op. 60; Fifth Symphony, C minor, Op. 67; Sixth Symphony, “Pastorale,” Op. 68. Omitting the first as belonging to 1805, and the last two as belonging to 1807-1808, the other four, we conceive, may be dated 1806. They afford a striking example of Beethoven’s habit of working on several compositions at the same time, and, moreover, as we believe, of his practice in such cases of giving the works opus numbers in the order of their completion. In this order we will take them up. “The first work which followed the exertions caused by the opera,” writes Schindler, “was the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57.... The master composed it straightway from beginning to end, during a short period of rest at the house of his friend Count Brunswick, to whom, as is known, the sonata is dedicated.”
Beethoven, journeying into Silesia after his visit to Brunswick, took the manuscript and had it also with him on his return to Vienna per extra post from Troppau after the explosion at Lichnowsky’s. “During his journey,” wrote M. Bigot half a century afterwards on a printed copy belonging to the pianist Mortier de Fontaine,
he encountered a storm and pouring rain which penetrated the trunk into which he had put the Sonata in F minor which he had just composed. After reaching Vienna he came to see us and laughingly showed the work, which was still wet, to my wife, who at once began to look carefully at it. Impelled by the striking beginning she sat down at thepianoforte and began playing it. Beethoven had not expected this and was surprised to note that Madame Bigot did not hesitate at all because of the many erasures and alterations which he had made. It was the original manuscript which he was carrying to his publisher for printing. When Mme. Bigot had finished playing she begged him to give it to her; he consented, and faithfully brought it to her after it had been printed.
he encountered a storm and pouring rain which penetrated the trunk into which he had put the Sonata in F minor which he had just composed. After reaching Vienna he came to see us and laughingly showed the work, which was still wet, to my wife, who at once began to look carefully at it. Impelled by the striking beginning she sat down at thepianoforte and began playing it. Beethoven had not expected this and was surprised to note that Madame Bigot did not hesitate at all because of the many erasures and alterations which he had made. It was the original manuscript which he was carrying to his publisher for printing. When Mme. Bigot had finished playing she begged him to give it to her; he consented, and faithfully brought it to her after it had been printed.
Czerny says, very justly, of the unauthorized change afterwards made in the title: “In a new edition of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57, which Beethoven himself considered his greatest, the title ‘Appassionata,’ for which it is too great, was added to it. This title would be more fitly applied to the E-flat Sonata, Op. 7, which he composed in a very impassioned mood.”
The Pf. Concerto in G, Op. 58, is dated by Schindler 1804, “according to information given by F. Ries”; the new edition of Breitkopf and Härtel’s thematic catalogue says (p. 197): “The Concerto was finished in the year 1805,” without mentioning its authority. If it had nothing better than Ries’s anecdote to offer in proof, the opinion may still be entertained confidently, that this work remained still unfinished until the approach of the concert season, towards the end of the year 1806.[38]
The Rasoumowsky Quartets
The Quartets, Op. 59, certainly belong to this year. “Quartetto 1mo.... Begun on May 26, 1806,” are Beethoven’s own words; and the opus number, the reports of their production during the next winter, and, especially, the date of their publication, making allowance for Rasoumowsky’s right to them for a year, all point to November or December as the latest possible date for their completion. The idea of employing popular airs as themes was by no means new to Beethoven. Without referring to the example set by Haydn, Pleyel, Koželuch, it had been proposed to him by Thomson; and as to Russian melodies, he must have read the “Allg. Musik-Zeitung” very carelessly not to have had his curiosity aroused by the articles on Russian music published in that journal in 1802—a curiosity which, in the constant intercourse between Vienna, Moscow and St. Petersburg, there would be no difficulty in gratifying. Czerny writes, however, “He had pledged himself to weave a Russian melody into every quartet.” But Lenz, himself a Russian and a musician, says: “The Russian themes are confined to the Finale of No. 1 and the third movement of the second Quartet.” This is a case in which Czerny’s authority can scarcely be gainsaid; otherwise, it might be supposed that the composer of his own motion introduced these twothemes in compliment to Rasoumowsky. “The Adagio, E major, in the second Rasoumowsky Quartet, occurred to him when contemplating the starry sky and thinking of the music of the spheres,” writes Czerny in Jahn’s notes.
Perhaps no work of Beethoven’s met a more discouraging reception from musicians, than these now famous Quartets. One friendly contemporary voice alone is heard—that of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” Czerny told Jahn, that “when Schuppanzigh first played the Rasoumowsky Quartet in F, they laughed and were convinced that Beethoven was playing a joke and that it was not the quartet which had been promised.” And when Gyrowetz bought these Quartets he said: “Pity to waste the money!” The Allegretto vivace of the first of these quartets was long a rock of offence. “When at the beginning of the year 1812,” says Lenz, “the movement was to be played for the first time in the musical circle of Field Marshal Count Soltikoff in Moscow, Bernhard Romberg trampled under foot as a contemptible mystification the bass part which he was to play. The Quartet was laid aside. When, a few years later, it was played at the house of Privy Councillor Lwoff, father of the famous violinist, in St. Petersburg, the company broke out in laughter when the bass played his solo ononenote.—The Quartet was again laid aside.”
Thomas Appleby, father of Samuel Appleby, collector of valuable papers referring to the violinist Bridgetower, was a leader in the musical world of Manchester, England, and a principal director of concerts there. When these quartets came out in London, Clementi sent a copy of them to him. They were opened and thrown upon the pianoforte. Next day Felix Radicati and his wife, Mme. Bertinotti, called and presented letters, they being upon a concert tour. During the conversation the Italian went to the pianoforte, took up the quartets and seeing what they were, exclaimed (in substance): “Have you got these here! Ha! Beethoven, as the world says, and as I believe, is music-mad;—for these are not music. He submitted them to me in manuscript and, at his request, I fingered them for him. I said to him, that he surely did not consider these works to be music?—to which he replied, ‘Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age!’”
Young Appleby believed in them, in spite of Radicati, and after he had studied his part thoroughly, his father invited players of the other instruments to his house and the first in F was tried. The first movement was declared by all except Appleby to be “crazy music.” At the end of the violoncello solo on one note, they all burst out laughing; the next four bars all agreed werebeautiful. Ludlow, an organist, who played the bass, found so much to admire and so much to condemn in the half of this second movement, which they succeeded in playing, as to call it “patchwork by a madman.” They gave up the attempt to play it, and not until 1813, in London, did the young man succeed in hearing the three Quartets entire, and finding them, as he had believed, worthy of their author.
The Year’s Publications
The Symphony in B-flat, Op. 60, was the great work of this summer season. Sketches prove that its successor, the fifth in C minor, had been commenced, and was laid aside to give place to this. Nothing more is known of the history of its composition except what is imparted by the author’s inscription on the manuscript: “Sinfonia 4ta1806. L. v. Bthvn.”
In singular contrast to these grand works and contemporary with their completion, as if written for amusement and recreation after the fatigue of severer studies, are the thirty-two Variations for Pianoforte in C minor. They belong to this Autumn, and are among the compositions which their author would gladly have seen pass into oblivion. Jahn’s notes contain an anecdote in point. “Beethoven once found Streicher’s daughter practising these Variations. After he had listened for a while he asked her: “By whom is that?” “By you.” “Such nonsense by me? O Beethoven, what an ass you were!””
Although the composer did not succeed in bringing his new Symphony and Concerto to public performance this year, an opportunity offered itself for him to give the general public as fine a taste of his quality as composer for the violin, as he had just given to the frequenters of Rasoumowsky’s quartet parties in the Op. 59, namely, Op. 61, the work superscribed by its author:Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement, primo Violino e Direttore al Theatro a Vienne, dal L. v. Bthvn., 1806;—or, as it stands on Franz Clement’s concert programme of December 23 in the Theater-an-der-Wien: “2. A new Violin Concerto by Hrn. Ludwig van Beethoven, played by Hrn. Clement.” It was preceded by an overture by Méhul, and followed by selections from Mozart, Cherubini and Handel, closing with a fantasia by the concert-giver. When Dr. Bertolini told Jahn that “Beethoven as a rule never finished commissioned works until the last minute,” he named this Concerto as an instance in point; and another contemporary notes that Clement played the soloa vista, without previous rehearsal. The list of publications this year is short:
LImeSonata pour le Pianoforte, F major, advertised April 9 in the “Wiener Zeitung” by theKunst- und Industrie-Comptoir.There is no tradition that Beethoven ever explained why he called this hisfifty-first, or the F minor hisfifty-fourthSonata. The best that Czerny could suggest is that “perhaps he sketched that number in manuscript and then destroyed them or used them in another form.” Others have made lists of all the works in sonata-form, including the symphonies; but none has been so probably right as to produce conviction.
Grand Trio pour deux Hautbois et un Cor Anglais, C major, advertised by Artaria and Co., April 12, without opus number. At a later date it was called Op. 87. The same work for two violins and viola, and as a sonata for pianoforte and violin, was advertised at the same time. “Andante” (Favori) in F major, for Pianoforte. This was originally the second movement of the Sonata, Op. 53—according to the anecdote before given from Ries’s “Notizen.”
“Sinfonia eroica,” Op. 55, dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, advertised by theKunst- und Industrie-Comptoiron October 29.
Besides these works, Johann Traeg advertised on June 18 “6 Grands Trios pour le Pianoforte, violon obligé et violoncello ad lib.,” Op. 60, Nos. 1 and 2. These are arrangements of the Quartets, Op. 18. Also “3 Grands Trios pour le Pianoforte, Violon et Violoncello,” Op. 61, No. 1; arrangements of the Trios, Op. 9. Before February, 1807, the other numbers of the two works had been completed and had left the press. The opus numbers were not recognized by Beethoven, for, as is seen above, 60 and 61 belong to original works of a very different order.
Beethoven’s Friends and Patrons in the First Lustrum of the Nineteenth Century—An Imperial Pupil, Archduke Rudolph—Count Rasoumowsky—Countess Erdödy—Baroness Ertmann—Marie Bigot—Therese Malfatti—Nanette Streicher—Zizius—Anecdotes.
Beethoven’s Friends and Patrons in the First Lustrum of the Nineteenth Century—An Imperial Pupil, Archduke Rudolph—Count Rasoumowsky—Countess Erdödy—Baroness Ertmann—Marie Bigot—Therese Malfatti—Nanette Streicher—Zizius—Anecdotes.
He who dwells with wife and children in a fixed abode, usually finds himself, as age draws on, one of a small circle of old friends; and hoary heads, surrounded by their descendants, the inheritors of parental friendships, sit at the same tables and make merry where they had gathered in the prime of life. The unmarried man, who can call no spot on earth’s surface his own, who spends his life in hired lodgings, here to-day and there to-morrow, has, as a rule, few friendships of long standing. By divergency in tastes, opinions, habits, increasing with the years, often by the mere interruption of social intercourse, or by a thousand equally insignificant causes, the old ties are sundered. In the memoranda and correspondence of such a man familiar names disappear, even when not removed by death, and strange ones take their places. The mere passing acquaintance of one period becomes the chosen friend of another; while the former friend sinks into the mere acquaintance, or is forgotten. Frequently no cause for the change can be assigned. One can only say—it happened so.
Thus it was with Beethoven, even to a remarkable degree; in part because of his increasing infirmity, in part owing to peculiarities of his character. It was his misfortune, also, that—having no pecuniary resource but the exercise of his talents for musical composition, and being at the same time too proud and too loyal to his ideas of art to write for popular applause—he was all his life long thrown more or less upon the generosity of patrons. But death, misfortune or other causes deprived him of old patrons, as of old friends, and compelled him to seek, or at least accept, the kindness of new ones. A part of this chapter must be devoted tocertain new names in both categories, which become prominent in his history in the years immediately before us.
A Talented Archduke
Archduke Rudolph Johann Joseph Rainer, youngest son of Emperor Leopold II, and half-brother of Emperor Franz, was born January 8, 1788, and therefore was, at the end of 1805, just closing his seventeenth year. Like his unfortunate uncle, Elector Maximilian, he was destined to the church, and like him, too, he had much musical taste and capacity. His private tutors were all men of fine culture, and one of them, Joseph Edler von Baumeister, Doctor of Laws, remained in later years in his service and will be met with hereafter. In music he, with the children of the imperial family, was instructed by the R. I. Court Composer, Anton Tayber, and made such good progress that, if tradition may be trusted, he, while still but a boy, played to general satisfaction in the salons of Lobkowitz and others. But an archduke has not much to fear from hostile criticism; a better proof that he really possessed musical talent and taste is afforded by the fact that, so soon as he could emancipate himself from Tayber, and have a voice in the selection of a teacher, he became a pupil of Beethoven. It is largely possible that the old relation of the composer to Maximilian may have had some influence upon the determination of his nephew; and it is very probable that Rudolph’s decision was based upon the great reputation of Beethoven and the respect in which, as he saw, the artist was held by the Schwarzenbergs, Liechtensteins, Kinskys, and their compeers. But whatever weight be allowed to these and like considerations, it must have been something more than a capricious desire to call the great pianist “master,” which made him his pupil, friend and patron until death parted them. One necessarily thinks better of his musical talents for this, just as Maximilian’s musical taste and insight stand higher in our estimation because of his early appreciation of Mozart’s genius.
The precise date of Beethoven’s engagement has eluded the research of even the accurate and indefatigable Köchel. There is so little doubt, however, that he was the immediate successor of Tayber, as to render reasonably certain that it occurred at the end of the young Archduke’s fifteenth year—that is, in the winter of 1803-4. It is perhaps worth remarking, that the “Staats-Schematismus” for 1803 first gives, in the R. I. Household, a separate chamber to the boys, Rainer and Rudolph; three years later “Archduke Rudolph, coadjutor of the Archbishopric of Olmütz,” is given one alone; but before 1806 he certainly was the pupil of Beethoven.
In Fräulein Giannatasio’s notices from the years 1816-18,[39]she relates:
At that time Beethoven gave lessons to Archduke Rudolph, a brother of Emperor Franz. I once asked him if the Archduke played well. “When he is feeling just right,” was the answer, accompanied by a smile. He also laughingly referred to the fact that he would sometimes hit him on the fingers, and that when the august gentleman once tried to refer him to his place, he pointed for justification to a passage from a poet, Goethe, I think.
At that time Beethoven gave lessons to Archduke Rudolph, a brother of Emperor Franz. I once asked him if the Archduke played well. “When he is feeling just right,” was the answer, accompanied by a smile. He also laughingly referred to the fact that he would sometimes hit him on the fingers, and that when the august gentleman once tried to refer him to his place, he pointed for justification to a passage from a poet, Goethe, I think.
It must have been a mistake of the young lady’s to make Beethoven speak here in the present tense; for it is incredible that he should have taken such a liberty in 1816-17, when Rudolph was a man of some thirty years; or indeed at any time after the first lessons in his boyhood. The anecdote therefore in some degree supports the conjecture above offered. So also does Schindler’s statement—a point on which he was likely to be well informed by the master himself—that the pianoforte part of the Triple Concerto, Op. 56, was written for the Archduke; for this work was sketched, at the latest, in the spring of 1805, and surely would not have been undertaken until the composer thoroughly knew his pupil’s powers, and that his performance would do the master no discredit. And finally, what Ries relates is in the tone of one who had personal knowledge of the circumstances detailed; and thus determines the date as not later than 1804:
Etiquette and all that is connected with it was never known to Beethoven [?] nor was he ever willing to learn it. For this reason he often caused great embarrassment in the household of Archduke Rudolph when he first went to him. An attempt was made by force to teach him to have regard for certain things. But this was intolerable to him; he would promise, indeed, to mend his ways but—that was the end of it. Finally one day when, as he expressed it, he was being tutored [als man ihn, wie er es nannte, hofmeisterte] he angrily forced his way to the Archduke and flatly declared that while he had the greatest reverence for his person, he could not trouble himself to observe all the regulations which were daily forced upon him. The Archduke laughed good-naturedly and commanded that Beethoven be permitted to go his own gait undisturbed—it was his nature and could not be altered.
Etiquette and all that is connected with it was never known to Beethoven [?] nor was he ever willing to learn it. For this reason he often caused great embarrassment in the household of Archduke Rudolph when he first went to him. An attempt was made by force to teach him to have regard for certain things. But this was intolerable to him; he would promise, indeed, to mend his ways but—that was the end of it. Finally one day when, as he expressed it, he was being tutored [als man ihn, wie er es nannte, hofmeisterte] he angrily forced his way to the Archduke and flatly declared that while he had the greatest reverence for his person, he could not trouble himself to observe all the regulations which were daily forced upon him. The Archduke laughed good-naturedly and commanded that Beethoven be permitted to go his own gait undisturbed—it was his nature and could not be altered.
At all events it may be accepted as certain that Beethoven had now, 1805-6, formed those relations with the Archduke, which were strengthened and more advantageous to him with each successive year, until death put an end to them.
Two brothers, differing in age by nineteen years, owed their rise from the condition of singers at the Russian Court into positions of great wealth and political importance to their gratification of the lascivious lusts of two imperial princesses, afterwards known in history as the Empresses Elizabeth Petrowna and Catherine II. Thus the two Rasums, born in 1709 and 1728, of half-Cossack parentage, in the obscure Ukraine village of Lemeschi, became the Counts Rasoumowsky, nobles of the Russian Empire. They were men of rare ability, and, like Shakespeare’sDuncan, “bore their faculties so meek,” that none of the monarchs under whom they served, not even those who personally disliked either of them, made him the victim of imperial caprice or ill will. A whimsical proof of the rapidity with which the new name became known throughout Europe is its introduction in 1762 into a farce of the English wit, Samuel Foote.[40]The Empresses provided their paramours with wives from noble families and continued their kindness to the children born of these unions—one of whom came in time to occupy a rather prominent place among the patrons of Beethoven.
Count Andreas Rasoumowsky
Andreas Kyrillovitch (born October 22, 1752), fourth son of the younger Rasoumowsky, was destined for the navy and received the best education possible in those days for his profession, even to serving in what was then the best of all schools, an English man-of-war. He had been elevated to the rank of captain when, at the age of 25, he was transferred to the diplomatic service. He was Ambassador successively at Venice, Naples, Copenhagen and Stockholm; less famous, perhaps, for his diplomacy than notorious for the profuseness of his expenditures, and for his amours with women of the highest rank, the Queen of Naples not excepted.
Rasoumowsky was personally widely known at Vienna, where he had married (November 4, 1788) Elizabeth, Countess Thun, elder sister of the Princess Charles Lichnowsky, and whither he was transferred as Ambassador early in 1792, being officially presented to the Emperor on Friday, May 25, as the “Wiener Zeitung” records. Near the end of Czar Paul’s reign (in March, 1799) he was superseded by Count Kalichev; but on the accession of Alexander was restored, his “presentation audience” taking place October 14, 1801. His dwelling and office had formerly been in the Johannes-Gasse, but now (1805-6) he was in the Wallzeil, but on the point of removing to a new palace built by himself. Schnitzer says: “Rasoumowsky lived in Vienna like a prince, encouraging art and science, surrounded by a luxuriouslibrary and other collections and admired and envied by all; what advantages accrued from all this to Russian affairs is another question.” This palace, afterwards nearly destroyed by fire and rebuilt, is now, after various vicissitudes, the seat of the Imperial Geological Institute, Landstrasse, Rasoumowsky-Gasse No. 3.
True to the traditions of his family, the Count was a musician and one of the best connoisseurs and players of Haydn’s quartets, in which he was accustomed to play the second violin. It is affirmed, evidently on good authority, that he had studied these works under that master himself. It would seem a matter of course, that this man, so nearly connected, too, with Lichnowsky, was one of the first to appreciate and encourage the genius of the young Beethoven upon his removal from Rome to Vienna. In fact, this has been affirmed most positively and discoursed upon at great length; and yet the few known data on this point—all of a negative character—are in conflict with that opinion. Neither Wegeler nor Ries mentions Rasoumowsky. Whatever Seyfried and Schindler may conjecture, all the facts given by them belong to the period on which we are now entering. Up to Op. 58, inclusive, not a composition of Beethoven’s is dedicated to Rasoumowsky. Just now (end of 1805), the Count has given the composer an order for quartets with Russian themes, original or imitated; but only once, in all the contemporary printed or manuscript authorities yet discovered, have the two names been brought into connection; namely, in the subscription to the Trios in 1795, where we find the Countess of Thun, her daughters and the Lichnowskys down (in the aggregate) for 32 copies, and “S. E. le Comte Rasoumoffsky, Embassadeur de Russie”—for one.
Countess Erdödy and Baroness Ertmann
The Hungarian Count Peter Erdödy married, June 6, 1796, the Countess Anna Marie Niczky (born 1779), then just seventeen years of age. Reichardt describes her, in December, 1808, as a “very beautiful, fine little woman who from her first confinement (1799) was afflicted with an incurable disease which for ten years has kept her in bed for all but two to three months”—in which he greatly exaggerates the evil of her condition—“but nevertheless gave birth to three healthy and dear children who cling to her like burs; whose sole entertainment was found in music; who plays even Beethoven’s pieces right well and limps with still swollen feet from one pianoforte to another, yet is so merry and friendly and good—all this often saddens me during an otherwise joyous meal participated in by six or eight good musical souls.” There is nothing to show how or when the very great intimacy between the Countess and Beethoven began; but for many years she is prominent among the most useful and valued of his many female friends, and it is not at all improbable that the vicinity of the Erdödy estate at Jedlersee am Marchfelde was one reason for his frequent choice of summer lodgings in the villages on the Danube, north of the city. Their intercourse was at length (about 1820) abruptly terminated by the banishment for life of the Countess beyond the limits of the Austrian Empire—unhappily, for reasons that cannot be impugned. It is a sad and revolting story, over which a veil may be drawn. There is no necessity, arising from Beethoven’s relations to her, to give it now the publicity which was then so carefully and effectually avoided. It is even possible that Beethoven’s heart was never wrung by a knowledge of the particulars.
The Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann, wife of an Austrian officer who was stationed in those years at or near Vienna, studied Beethoven’s compositions with the composer, and became, as all contemporary authorities agree, if not the greatest player of these works at least the greatest of her sex. Reichardt, a most competent judge, heard her repeatedly in the winter of 1808-09 and recorded a highly favorable impression of her.
Well might the master call her his “Dorothea-Cäcilia!” In that delightful letter, in which the young Felix Mendelssohn describes his visit at Milan (1831) to the Ertmanns, “the most agreeable, cultured people conceivable, both in love as if they were a bridal couple, and yet married 34 years,” where he and the lady delighted each other by turns in the performance of Beethoven’s compositions and “the old General, who now appeared in his stately gray commander’s uniform, wearing many orders, was very happy and wept with joy”; and in the intervals he told “the loveliest anecdotes about Beethoven, how, in the evening when she played for him, he used the candle snuffers as a toothpick, etc.” In this letter there is one touching and beautiful reminiscence of the Baroness. “She related,” says Mendelssohn, “that when she lost her last child, Beethoven at first did not want to come into the house; at length he invited her to visit him, and when she came he sat himself down at the pianoforte and said simply: ‘We will now talk to each other in tones,’ and for over an hour played without stopping, and as she remarked: ‘he told me everything, and at last brought me comfort.’”
It was noted in a former chapter, that the leading female pianists also of Vienna were divided intoproandantiBeethovenists. The former party just at this time gained a valuable accession in a young lady who, during her five years’ residencethere, became one of the most devoted as well as most highly accomplished players of Beethoven’s compositions—Marie Bigot. From 1809 to her death in 1820 she lived in Paris, where her superiority, first as dilettante, then as professional player and teacher, made her the subject of one of the most pleasing sketches in Fétis’s “Biographie Universelle des Musiciens.” From this we learn that she was born of a family named Kiene on March 3, 1786, at Colmar in Alsatia and married M. Bigot, who took her to Vienna in 1804. In the Austrian capital she became acquainted with Haydn, and formed a friendship also with Beethoven and Salieri. Such associations naturally fired her ardently musical nature, and at 20 years of age she had already developed great skill and originality. The first time that she played in the presence of Haydn, the old gentleman was so moved that he clasped her in his arms and cried: “O, my dear child, I did not write this music—it is you who have composed it!” And upon the printed sheet from which she had played he wrote: “On February 20, 1805, Joseph Haydn was happy.” The melancholy genius of Beethoven found an interpreter in Madame Bigot, whose enthusiasm and depth of feeling added new beauties to those which he had conceived. One day she played a sonata which he had just composed, in such a manner as to draw from him the remark: “That is not exactly the character which I wanted to give this piece; but go right on. If it is not wholly mine it is something better.” (Si ce n’est pas tout à fait moi, c’est mieux que moi.)
Beethoven and Madame Bigot
Bigot, according to Reichardt, was “an honest, cultivated Berliner, Librarian of Count Rasoumowsky.” As this was precisely in those years when Beethoven was most patronized by that nobleman, the composer and the lady were thus brought often together and very warm, friendly relations resulted. Jahn possessed for many years the copy of a very characteristic letter of Beethoven to the Bigots, which leads one to suspect that his attentions to the young wife had at one time the appearance of being a little too pointed. The letter is undated; but as the precise date happens to be of no importance, and was of course before 1809, it may be inserted here in order to explode at the outset the nonsense which has been published concerning a fancied inordinate passion of the master for the young lady. Perhaps for this very reason Jahn finally sent it to the “Grenzboten” (II, 1867):