The communications of both (Cramer and Madame Cherubini) agreed in saying that in mixed society his conduct was reserved, stiff and marked by artist’s pride; whereas among his intimates he was droll, lively, indeed, voluble at times, and fond of giving play to all the arts of wit and sarcasm, not always wisely especially in respect of political and social prejudices. To this the two were able to add much concerning his awkwardness in taking hold of such objects as glasses, coffee cups, etc., to which Master Cherubini added the comment: “Toujours brusque.” These statements confirmed what I had heard from his older friends touching the social demeanor of Beethoven in general.
The communications of both (Cramer and Madame Cherubini) agreed in saying that in mixed society his conduct was reserved, stiff and marked by artist’s pride; whereas among his intimates he was droll, lively, indeed, voluble at times, and fond of giving play to all the arts of wit and sarcasm, not always wisely especially in respect of political and social prejudices. To this the two were able to add much concerning his awkwardness in taking hold of such objects as glasses, coffee cups, etc., to which Master Cherubini added the comment: “Toujours brusque.” These statements confirmed what I had heard from his older friends touching the social demeanor of Beethoven in general.
Cramer reached Vienna early in September, and remained there, according to Schindler, through the following winter; but he does not appear to have given any public concerts, although, during the first month of his stay, we learn from a newspaper, he “earned general and deserved applause by his playing.” It is needless to dwell upon the advantages to Beethoven of constant intercourse for several months with a master like Cramer, whose noblest characteristics as pianist were the same as Mozart’s, and precisely those in which Beethoven was deficient.
Let us pass in review the compositions which had their origin in the years 1798 and 1799. First of all come the three Trios for stringed instruments, Op. 9. The exact date of their conception has not yet been determined, all that is positive being that Beethoven sold them to Traeg on March 16, 1798, and that the publisher’s announcement of them appeared on July 21st of the same year. The only sketches for the Trios quoted by Nottebohm show them in connection with a sketch for the last movement of the “Sonate pathétique,” which was published in 1799; but this proves nothing. It may be easily imagined that Beethoven desired to make more extended use of the experience gained in writing the Trios, Op. 3, and that he therefore began sketching Op. 9 in 1796 or 1797. Beethoven dedicated the works to Count Browne in words such as could hardly have been called forth by the present of a horse. Perhaps some future investigator will be able to show upon what grounds Beethoven in the dedication called CountBrowne his “first Mæcenas,” a title better deserved by Prince Lichnowsky.
The First Two Pianoforte Concertos
The first two concertos for pianoforte call for consideration here, for it was not until 1798 that they acquired the form in which they are now known. That the Concerto in B-flat was the earlier of the two has been proved in a preceding chapter of this volume. It was this Concerto and not the one in C major (as Wegeler incorrectly reported) that was played in March, 1795. Wegeler’s error was due to the circumstance that the Concerto in C was published first. Sketches for the Concerto in B-flat major are found among the exercises written for Albrechtsberger, sketches for the Sonata in E major (Op. 14, No. 1), and others for a little quartet movement which was owned by M. Malherbe of Paris; on this sheet occurs a short exercise with the remark “Contrapunto all’ottava” which points to the beginning of 1795 or even 1794. The sketch is an obviously early form of a passage in the free fantasia. This agrees with the statement that on March 29, 1795, Beethoven played a new concerto, the key of which is not indicated. It is most likely that it was this in B-flat, since the one in C did not exist at the time. Beethoven, it appears, played it a few times afterward in Vienna and then rewrote it. According to Tomaschek’s account he played the B-flat Concerto (expressly distinguished from that in C) in 1798, again in Prague. Tomaschek added, “which he had composed in Prague.” This is confounding the original version with the revision, concerning which Nottebohm gives information in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” on the basis of sketches which point to 1798. The fact of the revision is proved by Beethoven’s memoranda, such as “To remain as it was,” “From here on everything to remain as it was.” The revision of the first movement was radical, and the entire work was apparently undertaken in view of an imminent performance, most likely that of Prague in 1798. It was published by Hoffmeister und Kühnel and dedicated to Carl Nikl Edlen von Nikelsberg.
That the Concerto in C was composed later than that in B-flat has been proved by Beethoven’s testimony as well as other external evidences and is confirmed by the few remaining sketches analyzed by Nottebohm. They appear in connection with a sketch for the cadenza for the B-flat Concerto which, therefore, must have been finished when its companion was begun. A sketch for a cadenza for the C major Concerto comes after sketches for the Sonata in D, Op. 10, No. 3, which was published in 1798. This new concerto must, therefore, have been finished. According to the testimony of Tomaschek he played it in 1798 in the Konviktsaal in Prague.Schindler says he played it for the first time “in the spring of 1800 in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater,” but this concert is likely to have been that of April 2nd, 1800, described by Hanslick in his “Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien” (p. 127). Schindler evidently knew nothing of the performance in Prague and a confusion must be at the bottom of Czerny’s statement that the Concerto was played in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater in 1801. The Concerto in C, dedicated to the Countess Odescalchi,néeKeglevich, was published by Mollo in Vienna in 1801. There are three cadenzas for the first movement of the Concerto, the last two of which call for an extended compass of the pianoforte and are thus shown to be of later date than the first.
To these concertos must be added the Rondo in B-flat for Pianoforte and Orchestra found unfinished among Beethoven’s compositions and published by Diabelli and Co. in 1829. Sonnleithner, on the authority of Diabelli, says it was completed by Czerny, who also filled out the accompaniment. There is no authentic record of the time of its composition. O. Jahn surmised that it may have been designed for the Concerto in B-flat. Its contents indicate an earlier period. A sketch printed by Nottebohm associated with a Romanza for Pianoforte, Flute and Bassoon, judged by the handwriting, is not of later date than 1795. E. Mandyczewski compared the original manuscript, now in the library of theGesellschaft der Musikfreunde, with the printed form and decided that the work was completed in plan andmotiriby Beethoven, who, however, did not carry out the cadenzas and only indicated the passages. The share which Czerny had in it is thus indicated; he added the cadenzas and extended the pianoforte passages which Beethoven had only indicated, making them more effective and brilliant. The use of the high registers of the pianoforte which Czerny employs somewhat too freely in view of the simple character of the piece, was not contemplated by Beethoven, who once remarked of Czerny: “He uses the piccolo too much for me.” In Mandyczewski’s opinion the handwriting points to a time before 1800, and the contents indicate the early Vienna if not the Bonn period. Mandyczewski also thinks that the romanza-like Andante is palpably a very early composition and that the correspondence in key and measure with the B-flat Concerto might indicate that it was originally designed as a part of that work, a supposition which is strengthened by the fact that the original manuscript is neither dated nor signed. This internal evidence has much in its favor, the more since it is not at all obvious what might have prompted Beethoven to write an independent rondo for concertuse. There is no external evidence; if there were, the conception of the B-flat Concerto would have to be set at a much earlier date than has yet been done. The first Vienna sketches for the Concerto, as Nottebohm shows, prove that the present three movements belonged together from the beginning. They were, therefore, surely played at the first performance in 1795. Nottebohm, who repeated Jahn’s surmise in his “Thematisches Verzeichniss,” changed his mind after a study of the sketches and rejected the notion that the rondo had been designed for the Concerto. Only by assuming an earlier date for the rondo can the theory be upheld. Attention may here be called to Wegeler’s statement (“Notizen,” p. 56) that the rondo of the first Concerto (he says, of course, the Concerto in C) was not composed until the second afternoon before the performance. There may possibly have been another. This is not necessarily disproved by the fact that sketches for the present one were in existence. The question is not settled by the evidence now before us, but the probabilities are with Mandyczewski.
Now begins the glorious series of sonatas. The first were the three (Op. 10) which, though begun in part at an earlier date, were definitively finished and published in 1798. Eder, the publisher, opened a subscription for them by an advertisement in the “Wiener Zeitung,” July 5th, 1798; therefore they were finished at that time. The sketching for them had begun in 1796, as appears from Nottebohm’s statement,[84]and Beethoven worked on the three simultaneously. Sketches for the first movement of the first Sonata are mixed with sketches for the soprano air for Umlauf’s “Schusterin” which have been attributed to 1796, and the Variations for three Wind-Instruments which were played in 1797. Sketches for the third sonata are found among notes for the Sextet for Wind-Instruments (composed about 1796) and also for the Concerto in C minor, which, therefore, was begun thus early, and for one of the seven country dances which appeared in 1799, or perhaps earlier. The sketches for the last movement of No. 3 are associated alone with sketches for a cadenza for the C major Concerto which Beethoven played in Prague in 1798, and may therefore be placed in this year. It follows that the three sonatas were developed gradually in 1796-98, and completed in 1798. From the sketches and the accompanying memoranda[85]we learn, furthermore, that for the first Sonata, which now has three movements, a fourth, an Intermezzo,was planned on which Beethoven several times made a beginning but permitted to fall. Two of these movements became known afterwards as “Bagatelles.” We learn also that the last movement of the first Sonata, and the second movement of the second, were originally laid out on a larger scale.
Composition of the “Sonate Pathétique”
The “Sonate pathétique,” Op. 13, was published by Eder, in Vienna, in 1799, and afterwards by Hoffmeister, who announced them on December 18 of the same year. Sketches for the rondo are found among those for the Trio, Op. 9, and after the beginning of a fair copy of the Sonata, Op. 49, No. 1. From this there is no larger deduction than that the Sonata probably had its origin about 1798. One of the sketches, however, indicates that the last movement was originally conceived for more than one instrument, probably for a sonata for pianoforte and violin. Beethoven published the two Sonatas, Op. 14, which he dedicated to the Baroness Braun, immediately after the “Sonate pathétique.” They came from the press of Mollo and were announced on December 21, 1799. The exact time of their composition cannot be determined definitely. Up to the present time no sketches for the second are known to exist; copious ones for the first, however, are published by Nottebohm in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 45et seq.), some of which appear before sketches for the Sonata, Op. 12, No. 3, then approaching completion, and some after sketches for the Concerto in B-flat. Because of this juxtaposition, Nottebohm places the conception of the Sonata in 1795.
Touching the history of the Trio, Op. 11, for Pianoforte, Clarinet and Violoncello, little is known. It was advertised as wholly new by Mollo and Co. on October 3, 1798, and is inscribed to the Countess Thun. Sketches associated with works that are unknown or were never completed are in the British Museum and set forth by Nottebohm in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 515). The sketch for the Adagio resembles the beginning of the minuet in the Sonata, Op. 49, No. 2, and is changed later; this points approximately to 1798. The last movement consists of a series of variations on the theme of a trio from Weigl’s opera “L’Amor marinaro,” beginning “Pria ch’io l’impegno.” Weigl’s opera was performed for the first time on October 15, 1797. Czerny told Otto Jahn that Beethoven took the theme at the request of a clarinet player (Beer?) for whom he wrote the Trio. The elder Artaria told Cipriani Potter in 1797, that he had given the theme to Beethoven and requested him to introduce variations on it into a trio, and added that Beethoven did not know that the melody was Weigl’s until after the Trio was finished, whereuponhe grew very angry on finding it out. Czerny says in the supplement to his “Pianoforte School”:
It was at the wish of the clarinet player for whom Beethoven wrote this Trio that he employed the above theme by Weigl (which was then very popular) as the finale. At a later period he frequently contemplated writing another concluding movement for this Trio, and letting the variations stand as a separate work.
It was at the wish of the clarinet player for whom Beethoven wrote this Trio that he employed the above theme by Weigl (which was then very popular) as the finale. At a later period he frequently contemplated writing another concluding movement for this Trio, and letting the variations stand as a separate work.
If Czerny is correct in his statement, obvious deductions from it are these, which are scarcely consistent with Artaria’s story: if the theme was “very popular” at the time the opera must have had several performances, and it is not likely that the melody was unfamiliar to Beethoven, who also, it may be assumed, wrote the title of Weigl’s trio, which is printed at the beginning of the last movement of Beethoven’s composition. Beethoven produced the Trio for the first time at the house of Count Fries on the occasion of his first meeting with Steibelt. The three Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 12, were advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” of January 12, 1799, as published by Artaria, which would seem to place their origin in 1798. The program of a concert given by Madame Duschek on March 29, 1798, preserved in the archives of theGesellschaft der Musikfreunde, announces a sonata with accompaniment to be played by Beethoven. The accompanying (obbligato) instrument is not mentioned, but the work may well have been one of these Sonatas. Nottebohm discusses the juxtaposition of sketches for the second Sonata with sketches for the Pianoforte Concerto in B-flat and the sonata in E, Op. 14, No. 1, and is inclined to fix 1795 as the year of the sonata’s origin. But we are in the dark as to whether the sketches for the Pianoforte Concerto were for its original or its revised form.
Among the instrumental compositions of this year belong the Variations for Pianoforte and Violoncello on “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from Mozart’s “Zauberflöte,” of which nothing more is known than that Traeg announced their publication on September 12, 1798. They were afterward taken over by Artaria. The Variation for Pianoforte on a theme from Grétry’s “Richard, Cœur de Lion” (“Une fièvre brûlante”) were announced as newly published on November 7, 1798, by Traeg; Cappi and Diabelli acquired them later. Sketches for them are found by the side of sketches for the first movement of the Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1, which circumstance indicates that 1796 was the year of their origin. According to Sonnleithner, “Richard, Cœur de Lion” was first performed at the Hoftheater, Vienna, onJanuary 7, 1788; then again on June 13, 1799 in the Theater auf den Wieden; but a ballet, “Richard Löwenherz,” by Vigano, music by Weigl, in which Grétry’s romance, “Une fièvre brûlante,” was interpolated, was brought forward on July 2, 1795, in the Hof- und Nationaltheater and repeated often in that year, and it was thence, no doubt, that the suggestion for the variations came to Beethoven. The six little Variations on a Swiss air were published, according to Nottebohm, by Simrock in Bonn in 1798. The ten Variations on “La stessa, la stessissima” from Salieri’s “Falstaff, ossia le tre Burle,” were announced as just published in the “Wiener Zeitung” of March 2, 1799. Salieri’s opera was performed on January 3 (Wlassak says January 6), 1799, in the Hoftheater; Beethoven’s, therefore, was an occasional composition conceived and produced in a very short time. Sketches are found among some for the first Quartet, Op. 18, and others. The Variations are dedicated to the Countess Babette Keglevich. Twice more in the same year operatic productions induced similar works. The publication of the Variations on “Kind, willst du ruhig schlafen?” from Winter’s “Unterbrochenes Opferfest,” was announced in the “Wiener Zeitung” of December 21, 1799, by Mollo and Co.; the opera had its first performance in Vienna on June 15, 1796, and was repeated frequently within the years immediately following—six times in 1799. In this case also it may be assumed that publication followed hard on the heels of composition. Sketches are found in companionship with others belonging to the Quartet, Op. 18, No. 5, and the Septet. The Variations on “Tändeln und Scherzen,” from Süssmayr’s opera “Soliman II, oder die drei Sultaninnen,” belong to the same time. The opera was performed on October 1, 1799, in the Hoftheater; the publication of the variations by Hoffmeister was announced in the “Wiener Zeitung” on December 18, 1799. They may have been printed previously by Eder. They were dedicated to Countess Browne,néevon Bietinghoff. It is interesting to learn from Czerny that these Variations were the first of Beethoven’s compositions which the master gave him to study when he became his pupil. Before them he had pieces by C. P. E. Bach and after them the “Sonate pathéthique.”
The Period of the First Symphony
As evidence pointing to the period in which the first Symphony was written we have, first of all, the report of the first performance on April 2, 1800; but inasmuch as the copying of the parts and the rehearsals must have consumed a considerable time, the period would be much too short (especially in view of Beethoven’s method of working) if we were also to assume that the Symphony originated in 1800. It is very likely that, with the Quartets, it was sketchedat an earlier period and worked out in the main by 1799 at the latest. It was published toward the end of 1801 by Hoffmeister and Kühnel as Op. 21, dedicated to Baron van Swieten and advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” of January 16, 1802. Beethoven had already planned a symphony while studying with Albrechtsberger. Nottebohm reports on his purposes after a study of some sketches and from him we learn that the theme of the present last movement was originally intended for a first movement. Beethoven must have worked on this composition in 1794-’95, perhaps at the suggestion of van Swieten—a conclusion suggested by the fact that the dedication of the first symphony went to him. Beethoven abandoned this early plan and turned to other ideas for the new symphony, but there is no clue as to the precise time when this was done. In 1802, Mollo published an arrangement of the symphony as a quintet at the same time that Hoffmeister and Kühnel published a like arrangement of the Septet. Beethoven published the following protest in the “Wiener Zeitung” of October 20, 1802:
I believe that I owe it to the public and myself publicly to announce that the two Quintets in C major and E-flat major, of which the first (taken from a symphony of mine) has been published by Mr. Mollo in Vienna, and the second (taken from my familiar Septet, Op. 20) by Mr. Hoffmeister in Leipzig, are not original quintets but transcriptions prepared by the publishers. The making of transcriptions at the best is a matter against which (in this prolific day of such things) an author must protest in vain; but it is possible at least to demand of the publishers that they indicate the fact on the title-page, so that the honor of the author may not be lessened and the public be not deceived. This much to hinder such things in the future. At the same time I announce that a new Quintet of mine in C major, Op. 29, will shortly be published by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig.
I believe that I owe it to the public and myself publicly to announce that the two Quintets in C major and E-flat major, of which the first (taken from a symphony of mine) has been published by Mr. Mollo in Vienna, and the second (taken from my familiar Septet, Op. 20) by Mr. Hoffmeister in Leipzig, are not original quintets but transcriptions prepared by the publishers. The making of transcriptions at the best is a matter against which (in this prolific day of such things) an author must protest in vain; but it is possible at least to demand of the publishers that they indicate the fact on the title-page, so that the honor of the author may not be lessened and the public be not deceived. This much to hinder such things in the future. At the same time I announce that a new Quintet of mine in C major, Op. 29, will shortly be published by Breitkopf and Härtel in Leipzig.
Mention may here be made in conclusion of the two French songs, “Que le temps (jour) me dure” (Rousseau) and “Plaisir d’aimer,” recovered from sketches and described by Jean Chantavoine in “Die Musik” (Vol. I, No. 12, 1902). The origin of the latter is fixed in 1799, by its association with a sketch for the Quartets, Op. 18.
Beethoven’s Social Life in Vienna—His Friends: Vogl, Kiesewetter, Zmeskall, Amenda, Count Lichnowsky, Eppinger, Krumpholz—Schuppanzigh and His Quartet—Hummel—Friendships with Women—His Dedications.
Beethoven’s Social Life in Vienna—His Friends: Vogl, Kiesewetter, Zmeskall, Amenda, Count Lichnowsky, Eppinger, Krumpholz—Schuppanzigh and His Quartet—Hummel—Friendships with Women—His Dedications.
The chronological progress of the narrative must again be interrupted for a chapter or two, since no picture of a man’s life can be complete without the lights or shades arising from his social relations—without some degree of knowledge respecting those with whom he is on terms of equality and intimacy and whose company he most affects. The attempt to draw such a picture in the case of Beethoven, that is, during his first years in Vienna, leaves much to be desired, for, although the search for materials has not been very unsuccessful, many of the data are but vague and scattered notices. In a Conversation Book, bearing Beethoven’s own date “on the 20th of March, 1820,” some person unknown writes:
Do you want to know where I first had the honor and good fortune to see you? More than 25 years ago I lived with Frank of Prague in the Drachengassel in the old Fish Market. Several noblemen, for instance His Excellency van B. Cristen (?), Heinerle, Vogl (now a singer), Kösswetter, basso, now Court Councillor, Greyenstein (?), has long been living in France, etc. There we oftenmusicicised, etc.supperized, etc.punchized, etc.and at the conclusion Your Excellency often rejoiced us atmyP. F. I was then Court Councillor in the War Office (?). I have practised since then at least 15 thousand métiers—Did we meet in Prague? In what year?—1796—3 days—I was in Prague also in 1790-1-2.
Do you want to know where I first had the honor and good fortune to see you? More than 25 years ago I lived with Frank of Prague in the Drachengassel in the old Fish Market. Several noblemen, for instance His Excellency van B. Cristen (?), Heinerle, Vogl (now a singer), Kösswetter, basso, now Court Councillor, Greyenstein (?), has long been living in France, etc. There we often
musicicised, etc.supperized, etc.punchized, etc.
musicicised, etc.supperized, etc.punchized, etc.
and at the conclusion Your Excellency often rejoiced us atmyP. F. I was then Court Councillor in the War Office (?). I have practised since then at least 15 thousand métiers—Did we meet in Prague? In what year?—1796—3 days—I was in Prague also in 1790-1-2.
There is nothing in the portions of this Conversation Book, copied for this work, to show who this man of “15 thousand métiers” was, now sitting with Beethoven in an eating-house, and recallingto his memory the frolics of his first year and a quarter in Vienna; nor are Heinerle, Cristen, Greyenstein and Frank of Prague sufficiently known to fame as to be now identified; but Johann Michael Vogl, less than two years older than Beethoven, was afterward a very celebrated tenor of the opera. In 1793-4 he was still pursuing the study of jurisprudence, which he abandoned in 1795 for the stage. May not this early friendship for Beethoven have been among the causes of the resuscitation of “Fidelio” in 1814, for the benefit performance of Vogl, Saal and Weinmüller?
There is a story, first put in circulation by a certain August Barth, to the effect that the singer of that name once finding Beethoven employed in burning a mass of musical and other papers, sang one vocal piece thus destined to destruction, was pleased with it, and saved the immortal “Adelaide!” The story is sufficiently refuted by the fact that when Barth first came to Vienna, in 1807, the “Adelaide” had been in print some ten years. If the name Vogl be substituted in the tale, there may, perhaps, be so much truth in it as this: that he was consulted upon the merits of the composition by Beethoven, approved it, and first sang it and made it known—as he was the first, years afterwards, to sing in public the “Erlkönig” and other fine productions of Franz Schubert. The “Kösswetter, basso,” was Raphael George Kiesewetter, who lived to be renowned as a writer upon topics of musical history, and to play a part in the revival of ancient music in Vienna, not less noteworthy than that of Thibaut in Heidelberg. At the period of the “music-making, supping and punch drinking” by the “noblemen” in the apartments of Frank of Prague, Kiesewetter was a young man of twenty, engaged, like Vogl, in the study of the law. In the spring of 1794—and thus the date of these meetings is determined—he received an appointment in the military chancellary, and went at once to the headquarters at Schwetzingen on the Rhine. More important and valuable during these years, as subsequently, was the warm, sincere friendship of Nicolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, an official in the Royal Hungarian Court Chancellary. “You belong to my earliest friends in Vienna,” writes Beethoven in 1816. Zmeskall, to quote the words of Sonnleithner,
was an expert violoncellist, a sound and tasteful composer. Too modest to publish his compositions, he willed them to the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. After personal examination I can only give assurance that his three string quartets would entitle him to an honorable place among masters of the second rank, and are more deserving to be heard than many new things which, for all manner of reasons, we are compelled to hear.
was an expert violoncellist, a sound and tasteful composer. Too modest to publish his compositions, he willed them to the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. After personal examination I can only give assurance that his three string quartets would entitle him to an honorable place among masters of the second rank, and are more deserving to be heard than many new things which, for all manner of reasons, we are compelled to hear.
Beethoven’s Regard for Zmeskall
That Zmeskall was a very constant attendant at the musical parties of Prince Carl Lichnowsky and frequently took part in them, may be seen from Wegeler’s record. He was ten years older than Beethoven, had been long enough in Vienna to know the best society there, into which he was admitted not more because of his musical attainments than because of the respectability of his position and character; and was, therefore, what the young student-pianist needed most, a friend, who at the same time could be to a certain degree an authoritative adviser, and at all times was a judicious one. On the part of Zmeskall there was an instant and hearty appreciation of the extraordinary powers of the young stranger from the Rhine and a clear anticipation of his splendid artistic future. A singular proof of this is the care with which he preserved the most insignificant scraps of paper, if Beethoven had written a few words upon them; for, certainly, no other motive could have induced him to save many notes of this kind and of no importance ten, fifteen, twenty years, as may be seen in the published letters of the composer. On the part of Beethoven, there was sincere respect for the dignity and gravity of Zmeskall’s character, which usually restrained him within proper limits in their personal intercourse; but he delighted, especially in the earlier period, to give, in his notes and letters, full play to his queer fancies and sometimes extravagant humour.
Here are a few examples in point:
To His Well Well Highest and Bestborn, the Herr von Zmeskall, Imperial and Royal as also Royal and Imperial Court Secretary:Will His High and Wellborn, His Herrn von Zmeskall’s Zmeskallity have the kindness to say where we can speak to him to-morrow?We are your most damnablydevotedBeethoven.
To His Well Well Highest and Bestborn, the Herr von Zmeskall, Imperial and Royal as also Royal and Imperial Court Secretary:
Will His High and Wellborn, His Herrn von Zmeskall’s Zmeskallity have the kindness to say where we can speak to him to-morrow?
We are your most damnablydevotedBeethoven.
My dearest Baron Muckcartdriver.Je vous suis bien obligé pour votre faiblesse de vos yeux.Moreover I forbid you henceforth to rob me of the good humor into which I occasionally fall, for yesterday your Zmeskall-damanovitzian chatter made me melancholy. The devil take you; I want none of your moral (precepts) for Power is the morality of men who loom above the others, and it is also mine; and if you begin again to-day I’ll torment you till you agree that everything that I do is good and praiseworthy (for I am going to the Swan—the Ox would be preferable, yet this rests with your Zmeskallian Domanovezian decision (résponse).Adieu Baron Ba...ron,ron / nor / orn / rno / onr /(voilà quelque chosefrom the old pawnshop.)
My dearest Baron Muckcartdriver.
Je vous suis bien obligé pour votre faiblesse de vos yeux.Moreover I forbid you henceforth to rob me of the good humor into which I occasionally fall, for yesterday your Zmeskall-damanovitzian chatter made me melancholy. The devil take you; I want none of your moral (precepts) for Power is the morality of men who loom above the others, and it is also mine; and if you begin again to-day I’ll torment you till you agree that everything that I do is good and praiseworthy (for I am going to the Swan—the Ox would be preferable, yet this rests with your Zmeskallian Domanovezian decision (résponse).
Adieu Baron Ba...ron,ron / nor / orn / rno / onr /(voilà quelque chosefrom the old pawnshop.)
Mechanical skill was never so developed in Beethoven that he could make good pens from goose quills—and the days of otherpens were not yet. When, therefore, he had no one with him to aid him in this, he usually sent to Zmeskall for a supply. Of the large number of such applications preserved by his friend and now scattered in all civilized lands as autographs, here are two specimens.
Best of Music Counts! I beg of you to send me one or a few pens of which I am really in great need. As soon as I learn where real good, and admirable pens are to be found I will buy some of them. I hope to see you at the Swan today.Adieu, most preciousMusic Countyours etc
Best of Music Counts! I beg of you to send me one or a few pens of which I am really in great need. As soon as I learn where real good, and admirable pens are to be found I will buy some of them. I hope to see you at the Swan today.
Adieu, most preciousMusic Countyours etc
His Highness von Z. is commanded to hasten a bit with the plucking out of a few of his quills (among them, no doubt, some not his own). It is hoped that they may not be too tightly grown. As soon as you have done all that we shall ask we shall be, with excellent esteem yourF——Beethoven.
His Highness von Z. is commanded to hasten a bit with the plucking out of a few of his quills (among them, no doubt, some not his own). It is hoped that they may not be too tightly grown. As soon as you have done all that we shall ask we shall be, with excellent esteem your
F——Beethoven.
Had Zmeskall not carefully treasured these notes, they would never have met any eye but his own; it is evident, therefore, that he entered fully into their humor, and that it was the same to him, whether he found himself addressed as “Baron,” “Count,” “Cheapest Baron,” “Music Count,” “Baron Muckcartdriver,” “His Zmeskallian Zmeskallity,” or simply “Dear Z.”—which last is the more usual. He knew his man, and loved him; and these “quips and quiddities” were received in the spirit which begat them. The whole tenor of the correspondence between the two shows that Zmeskall had more influence for good upon Beethoven than any other of his friends; he could reprove him for faults, and check him when in the wrong, without producing a quarrel more serious than the one indicated in the protest, above given, against interrupting his “good humor.”
As a musician, as well as man and friend, Zmeskall stood high in Beethoven’s esteem. His apartments, No. 1166, in that huge conglomeration of buildings known as the Bürgerspital, were for a long series of years the scene of a private morning concert, to which only the first performers of chamber music and a very few guests were admitted. Here, after the rupture with Prince Lichnowsky, Beethoven’s productions of this class were usually first tried over. Not until Beethoven’s death did their correspondence cease.
Esteem and Affection for Amenda
Another young man who gained an extraordinary place in Beethoven’s esteem and affection, and who departed from Viennabefore anything occurred to cause a breach between them, was a certain Karl Amenda, from the shore of the Baltic, who died some forty years later as Provost in Courland. He was a good violinist, belonged to the circle of dilettanti which Beethoven so much affected, and, on parting, received from the composer one of his first attempts at quartet composition. His name most naturally suggests itself to fill the blank in a letter to Ries, July, 1804, wherein some living person, not named, is mentioned as one with whom he (Beethoven) “never had a misunderstanding,” but he adds “although we have known nothing of each other for nearly six years,” which was not true of Amenda, since letters passed between them in 1801. The small portion of their written correspondence which has been made public shows that their friendship was of the romantic character once so much the fashion; and a letter of Amenda is filled with incense which in our day would bear the name of almost too gross flattery. But times change and tastes with them. His name appears once in the Zmeskall correspondence, namely, in a mutilated note now in the Royal Imperial Court Library, beginning “My cheapest Baron! Tell the guitarist to come to me to-day. Amenda is to make anAmende(part torn away) which he deserves for his bad pauses (torn) provide the guitarist.”
Karl Amenda was born on October 4, 1771, at Lippaiken in Courland. He studied music with his father and Chapelmaster Beichtmer, was so good a violinist that he was able to give a concert at 14 years of age, and continued his musical studies after he was matriculated as a student of theology at the University of Jena. After a three years’ course there he set out on a tour, and reached Vienna in the spring of 1798. There he first became precentor for Prince Lobkowitz and afterward music-teacher in the family of Mozart’s widow. How, thereupon, he became acquainted with Beethoven we are able to report from a document still in the possession of the family, which bears the superscription “Brief Account of the Friendly Relations between L. v. Beethoven and Karl Friedrich Amenda, afterward Provost at Talsen in Courland, written down from oral tradition”:
After the completion of his theological studies K. F. Amenda goes to Vienna, where he several times meets Beethoven at the table d’hôte, attempts to enter into conversation with him, but without success, since Beeth. remains veryréservé. After some time Amenda, who meanwhile had become music-teacher at the home of Mozart’s widow, receives an invitation from a friendly family and there plays first violin in a quartet. While he was playing somebody turned the pages for him, and when he turned about at the finish he was frightened to see Beethoven, who had taken the trouble to do this and now withdrew with abow. The next day the extremely amiable host at the evening party appeared and cried out: “What have you done? You have captured Beethoven’s heart! B. requests that you rejoice him with your company.” A., much pleased, hurries to B., who at once asks him to play with him. This is done and when, after several hours, A. takes his leave, B. accompanies him to his quarters, where there was music again. As B. finally prepared to go he said to A.: “I suppose you can accompany me.” This is done, and B. kept A. till evening and went with him to his home late at night. From that time the mutual visits became more and more numerous and the two took walks together, so that the people in the streets when they saw only one of them in the street at once called out: “Where is the other one?” A. also introduced Mylich, with whom he had come to Vienna, to B., and Mylich often played trios with B. and A. His instrument was the second violin or viola. Once when B. heard that Mylich had a sister in Courland who played the pianoforte prettily, he handed him a sonata in manuscript with the inscription: “To the sister of my good friend Mylich.” The manuscript was rolled up and tied with a little silk ribbon. B. complained that he could not get along on the violin. Asked by A. to try it, nevertheless, he played so fearfully that A. had to call out: “Have mercy—quit!” B. quit playing and the two laughed till they had to hold their sides. One evening B. improvised marvellously on the pianoforte and at the close A. said: “It is a great pity that such glorious music is born and lost in a moment.” Whereupon B.: “There you are mistaken; I can repeat every extemporization”; whereupon he sat himself down and played it again without a change. B. was frequently embarrassed for money. Once he complained to A.; he had to pay rent and had no idea how he could do it. “That’s easily remedied,” said A. and gave him a theme (“Freudvoll und Leidvoll”) and locked him in his room with the remark that he must make a beginning on the variations within three hours. When A. returns he finds B. on the spot but ill-tempered. To the question whether or not he had begun B. handed over a paper with the remark: “There’s your stuff!” (Da ist der Wisch!) A. takes the notes joyfully to B.’s landlord and tells him to take it to a publisher, who would pay him handsomely for it. The landlord hesitated at first but finally decided to do the errand and, returning joyfully, asks if other bits of paper like that were to be had. But in order definitely to relieve such financial needs A. advised B. to make a trip to Italy. B. says he is willing but only on condition that A. go with him. A. agrees gladly and the trip is practically planned. Unfortunately news of a death calls A. back to his home. His brother has been killed in an accident and the duty of caring for the family devolves on him. With doubly oppressed heart A. takes leave of B. to return to his home in Courland. There he receives a letter from B. saying: “Since you cannot go along, I shall not go to Italy.” Later the friends frequently exchanged thoughts by correspondence.[86]
After the completion of his theological studies K. F. Amenda goes to Vienna, where he several times meets Beethoven at the table d’hôte, attempts to enter into conversation with him, but without success, since Beeth. remains veryréservé. After some time Amenda, who meanwhile had become music-teacher at the home of Mozart’s widow, receives an invitation from a friendly family and there plays first violin in a quartet. While he was playing somebody turned the pages for him, and when he turned about at the finish he was frightened to see Beethoven, who had taken the trouble to do this and now withdrew with abow. The next day the extremely amiable host at the evening party appeared and cried out: “What have you done? You have captured Beethoven’s heart! B. requests that you rejoice him with your company.” A., much pleased, hurries to B., who at once asks him to play with him. This is done and when, after several hours, A. takes his leave, B. accompanies him to his quarters, where there was music again. As B. finally prepared to go he said to A.: “I suppose you can accompany me.” This is done, and B. kept A. till evening and went with him to his home late at night. From that time the mutual visits became more and more numerous and the two took walks together, so that the people in the streets when they saw only one of them in the street at once called out: “Where is the other one?” A. also introduced Mylich, with whom he had come to Vienna, to B., and Mylich often played trios with B. and A. His instrument was the second violin or viola. Once when B. heard that Mylich had a sister in Courland who played the pianoforte prettily, he handed him a sonata in manuscript with the inscription: “To the sister of my good friend Mylich.” The manuscript was rolled up and tied with a little silk ribbon. B. complained that he could not get along on the violin. Asked by A. to try it, nevertheless, he played so fearfully that A. had to call out: “Have mercy—quit!” B. quit playing and the two laughed till they had to hold their sides. One evening B. improvised marvellously on the pianoforte and at the close A. said: “It is a great pity that such glorious music is born and lost in a moment.” Whereupon B.: “There you are mistaken; I can repeat every extemporization”; whereupon he sat himself down and played it again without a change. B. was frequently embarrassed for money. Once he complained to A.; he had to pay rent and had no idea how he could do it. “That’s easily remedied,” said A. and gave him a theme (“Freudvoll und Leidvoll”) and locked him in his room with the remark that he must make a beginning on the variations within three hours. When A. returns he finds B. on the spot but ill-tempered. To the question whether or not he had begun B. handed over a paper with the remark: “There’s your stuff!” (Da ist der Wisch!) A. takes the notes joyfully to B.’s landlord and tells him to take it to a publisher, who would pay him handsomely for it. The landlord hesitated at first but finally decided to do the errand and, returning joyfully, asks if other bits of paper like that were to be had. But in order definitely to relieve such financial needs A. advised B. to make a trip to Italy. B. says he is willing but only on condition that A. go with him. A. agrees gladly and the trip is practically planned. Unfortunately news of a death calls A. back to his home. His brother has been killed in an accident and the duty of caring for the family devolves on him. With doubly oppressed heart A. takes leave of B. to return to his home in Courland. There he receives a letter from B. saying: “Since you cannot go along, I shall not go to Italy.” Later the friends frequently exchanged thoughts by correspondence.[86]
Though, as we have learned, it was music which brought Beethoven into contact with Amenda, it was the latter’s amiability and nobility of character that endeared him to the composer, who cherished him as one of his dearest friends and confided things to him which he concealed from his other intimates—his deafness, for instance. A striking proof of Beethoven’s affection is offered by the fact that he gave Amenda a copy of his Quartet in F (Op. 18, No. 1), writing on the first violin part:
Dear Amenda: Take this quartet as a small memorial of our friendship, and whenever you play it recall the days which we passed together and the sincere affection felt for you then and which will always be felt byYour true and warm friendLudwig van Beethoven.Vienna, 1799, June 25.
Dear Amenda: Take this quartet as a small memorial of our friendship, and whenever you play it recall the days which we passed together and the sincere affection felt for you then and which will always be felt by
Your true and warm friendLudwig van Beethoven.
Vienna, 1799, June 25.
In a letter written nearly a year later Beethoven asks his friend not to lend the quartet, as he had revised it. A letter written, evidently, about the time of Amenda’s departure from Vienna indicated that Beethoven was oppressed at this period with another grief than that caused by the loss of his friend’s companionship. Beethoven speaks of his “already lacerated heart,” says that “the worst of the storm is over” and mentions an invitation to Poland—which he had accepted. Nothing came of this Polish enterprise. Dr. A. C. Kalischer suspected that the lacerated heart was due to the composer’s unrequited love for Magdalena Willmann, a singer then in Vienna to whom he made a proposal of marriage which was never answered.
Friendship with Count Lichnowsky
Count Moritz Lichnowsky, brother of Prince Carl, of whom we shall not lose sight entirely until the closing scene, was another of the friends of those years. He had been a pupil of Mozart, played the pianoforte with much skill and was an influential member of the party which defended the novelty and felt the grandeur of his friend’s compositions. Schindler saw much of him during Beethoven’s last years, and eulogizes the “noble Count” in very strong terms.
Another of that circle of young dilettanti, and one of the first players of Beethoven’s compositions, was a young Jewish violinist, Heinrich Eppinger. He played at a charity concert in Vienna, making his first appearance there in 1789. “He became, in after years,” says a correspondent of the time, “a dilettante of the most excellent reputation, lived modestly on a small fortune and devoted himself entirely to music.” At the period before us Eppinger was one of Beethoven’s first violins at the private concerts of thenobility. Häring, who became a distinguished merchant and banker, belonged now to this circle of young amateur musicians, and in 1795 had the reputation of being at the head of the amateur violinists. The youthful friendship between him and the composer was not interrupted as they advanced into life, and twenty years later was of great advantage to Beethoven.
But a more interesting person for us is the instructor under whom Beethoven in Vienna resumed his study of the violin (a fact happily preserved by Ries)—Wenzel Krumpholz. He was a brother of the very celebrated Bohemian harp player who drowned himself in the Seine in 1790. In his youth Krumpholz had been for a period of three years a pupil of Haydn at Esterhaz and had played first violin in the orchestra there. He left Esterhaz to enter the service of Prince Kinsky, but came to Vienna in 1795 to join the operatic orchestra, and at once became noted as a performer in Haydn’s quartets. He was (says Eugene Eiserle in Glöggl’s “Neue Wiener Musik-Zeitung” of August 13, 1857),
a highly sensitive art-enthusiast, and one of the first of those who foresaw and recognized Beethoven’s greatness. He attached himself to Beethoven with such pertinacity and self-sacrifice that the latter, though he always called him “his fool,” accepted him as “a most intimate friend,” made him acquainted with all his plans for compositions and generally reposed the utmost confidence in him. Krumpholz formed also an exceedingly close friendship with his countryman Wenzel Czerny, a music-teacher living in the Leopoldstadt, and from 1797 onward spent most of his leisure evenings with the Czerny family, and thus the little son Karl, in his eighth and ninth years, learned almost daily what works Beethoven had in hand, and, like Krumpholz, became filled with enthusiasm for the tone-hero.
a highly sensitive art-enthusiast, and one of the first of those who foresaw and recognized Beethoven’s greatness. He attached himself to Beethoven with such pertinacity and self-sacrifice that the latter, though he always called him “his fool,” accepted him as “a most intimate friend,” made him acquainted with all his plans for compositions and generally reposed the utmost confidence in him. Krumpholz formed also an exceedingly close friendship with his countryman Wenzel Czerny, a music-teacher living in the Leopoldstadt, and from 1797 onward spent most of his leisure evenings with the Czerny family, and thus the little son Karl, in his eighth and ninth years, learned almost daily what works Beethoven had in hand, and, like Krumpholz, became filled with enthusiasm for the tone-hero.
Krumpholz was a virtuoso on the mandolin, and hence, probably, that page of sketches by Beethoven in the Artaria Collection headed “Sonatine für Mandolin u. P. F.” Among the Zmeskall papers in the Royal Imperial Library in Vienna there is a half-sheet of coarse foolscap paper upon which is written with lead-pencil in huge letters by the hand of Beethoven,
The Music Count is dismissed with infamy to-day.—The First Violin will be exiled to the misery of Siberia.TheBaronis forbidden for a whole month to ask questions and never again to be overhasty, and he must concern himself with nothing but hisipse miserum.B.
The Music Count is dismissed with infamy to-day.—
The First Violin will be exiled to the misery of Siberia.
TheBaronis forbidden for a whole month to ask questions and never again to be overhasty, and he must concern himself with nothing but hisipse miserum.
B.
“Music Count” and “Baron” are, of course, Zmeskall; but these notices of Beethoven’s various first violins show the follyof attempting to decide whether one of them or Schuppanzigh was to be sent to Siberia, so long as there is no hint whatever as to the time and occasion of the note.
The very common mistake of forgetting that there is a time in the lives of distinguished men when they are but aspirants to fame, when they have their reputations still to make, often, in fact, attracting less notice and raising feebler hopes of future distinction in those who know them, than many a more precocious contemporary—this mistake has thrown the figures of Schuppanzigh and his associates in the quartet concerts at Prince Carl Lichnowsky’s into a very false prominence in the picture of these first seven years of Beethoven’s Vienna life. The composer himself was not the Beethoven whom we know. Had he died in 1800, his place in musical history would have been that of a great pianoforte player and of a very promising young composer, whose decease thus in his prime had disappointed well-founded hopes of great future eminence.
Schuppanzigh and His Quartet
This is doubly true of the members of the quartet. Had they passed away in early manhood, not one of them, except perhaps young Kraft, the only one who ever distinguished himself as a virtuoso upon his instrument, would have been remembered in the annals of music. They were during these years but laying the foundation for future excellence and celebrity as performers of Mozart’s, Haydn’s, Förster’s and Beethoven’s quartets. Schuppanzigh, first violin, and Weiss, viola, alone appear to have been constantly associated in their quartet-playing. Kraft, violoncellist, was often absent, when his father, or Zmeskall, or some other, supplied his place; and as the second violin was often taken by the master of the house, when they were engaged for private concerts, Sina was, naturally, absent. Still, from 1794 to 1799, the four appear to have practised much and very regularly together. They enjoyed an advantage known to no other quartet—that of playing the compositions of Haydn and Förster under the eyes of the composers, and being taught by them every effect that the music was intended to produce. Each of the performers, therefore, knowing precisely the intentions of the composer, acquired the difficult art of being independent and at the same time of being subordinate to the general effect. When Beethoven began to compose quartets he had, therefore, a set of performers schooled to perfection by his great predecessors, and who already had experience in his own music through his trios and quartets.
Ignatz Schuppanzigh, the leader, born 1776, died March 2, 1830 in Vienna, originally studied music as a dilettante and becamea capital player of the viola; but, about the time when Beethoven came to Vienna, he exchanged that instrument for the violin and made music his profession. He was fond of directing orchestral performances and seems to have gained a considerable degree of local reputation and to have been somewhat of a favorite in that capacity before reaching his 21st year. In 1798-99, he took charge of those concerts in the Augarten established by Mozart and Martin, and afterwards led by Rudolph. Seyfried, writing after his death, calls Schuppanzigh a “natural born and really energetic leader of the orchestra.” The difference in age, character and social position between him and Beethoven was such as not to admit between them that higher and nobler friendship which united the latter and Zmeskall; but they could be, and were, of great use to each other, and there was a strong personal liking, if not affection, which was mutual. Schuppanzigh’s person early assumed very much of the form and proportions of Sterne’s Dr. Slop, and after his return from Russia he is one of the “Milord Falstaffs” of Beethoven’s correspondence and Conversation Books. His obesity was, however, already the subject of the composer’s jests, and he must have been an exceedingly good-tempered young man, to bear with and forgive the coarse and even abusive text of the short vocal piece (1801) headed “Lob auf den Dicken” (“Praise of the Fat One”). But it is evidently a mere jest, and was taken as such. It is worthy of note that Beethoven and Schuppanzigh in addressing each other used neither the familiar “du” nor the respectful “Sie,” but “er”—a fact which has been supposed to prove Beethoven’s great contempt for the violinist; but as it would prove equal contempt on the other side, it proves too much. Of Sina and Weiss, both Silesians by birth, there is little that need be added here. Weiss became the first viola player of Vienna, and a not unsuccessful composer of ballet and other music.
Anton Kraft (the father) came from Bohemia to pursue his legal studies in Vienna, but abandoned them to enter the Imperial Court Orchestra as violoncellist. In 1778, he accepted an invitation from Haydn to join the orchestra in Esterhaz; where, on the 18th of December of the same year, his son Nicholas Anton was born. The child, endowed by nature with great musical talents, enjoyed the advantages of his father’s instructions and example and of growing up under the eye of Haydn and in the constant study of that great musician’s works. Upon the death of Esterhazy and the dispersion of his orchestra, Kraft came with his son, now in his fourteenth year, to Vienna. On April 15th,1792, Nicholas played a concerto composed by his father at the “Widows and Orphans” concert, and on the 21st again appeared in a concert given by the father. Notwithstanding a very remarkable success, the son was destined for another profession than music; and from this time until his eighteenth year, he played his instrument only as an amateur, and as such Beethoven first knew the youth. But when the young Prince Lobkowitz formed his orchestra in 1796, both the Krafts were engaged, and Nicholas Anton thenceforth made music his profession. In the maturity of his years and powers, his only rival among all the German violoncellists was Bernhard Romberg.
Schindler, with his characteristic inattention to dates, observes, speaking of Schuppanzigh, Weiss and the elder Kraft: