Chapter II: Part 2

The composition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor was interrupted by work on the Symphony in B flat major, No. 4, a symphony of a very different character. The symphony was probably planned and composed in the summer of 1806. “Having been played in March, 1807, at one of the two subscription concerts at Lobkowitz’s,” Thayer is justified in adding solemnly that “it must have been finished at that time.”

After the performance of the _Eroica_, Beethoven also worked on his opera, _Fidelio_. The French army entered Vienna November 13, 1805; on the 15th, Napoleon sent to the Viennese a proclamation dated at Schönbrunn, and on November 20, 1805, _Fidelio_ was performed for the first time, before an audience largely composed of French officers. There were three performances, and the opera was withdrawn until March 29, 1806, when it was reduced from three acts to two. The opera was again coldly received; there were two performances; and there was no revival in Vienna until 1814.

Beethoven, disturbed by the disaster which attended the first performances of his _Fidelio_ in Vienna, during the French invasion, went in 1806 to Hungary to visit his friend, Count Brunswick. He visited the Prince Lichnowsky at Castle Grätz, which was near Troppau in Silesia. It has been said that at Martonvásár, visiting the Brunswicks, he found that he loved Therese and that his love was returned. Some, therefore, account for the postponement of the Fifth symphony, begun before the Fourth, “by the fact that in May, 1806, Beethoven became engaged to the Countess Therese.... The B flat symphony has been mentioned as ‘the most tenderly classical’ of all works of its kind; its keynote is ‘happiness’—a contentment which could have come to the master only through such an incident as the one above set forth—his betrothal.” We do not see the force of this reasoning.

It is better to say with Thayer that nothing is known about the origin of the Fourth beyond the inscription put by the composer on the manuscript which belongs to the Mendelssohn family: “_Sinfonia 4^ta 1806. L. v. Bthvn._”

This we do know: that, while Beethoven was visiting Prince Lichnowsky at the latter’s Castle Grätz, the two called on Franz, Count Oppersdorff, who had a castle near Grossglogau. This count, born in 1778, rich and high-born, was fond of music; he had at this castle a well-drilled orchestra, which then played Beethoven’s Symphony in D major in the presence of the composer. In June, 1807, he commissioned Beethoven to compose a symphony, paid him two hundred florins in advance and one hundred and fifty florins more in 1808. Beethoven accepted the offer, and purposed to give the Symphony in C minor to the Count; but he changed his mind, and in November, 1808, the Count received, not the symphony, but a letter of apology, in which Beethoven said that he had been obliged to sell the symphony which he had composed for him, and also another—these were probably the Fifth and the Sixth—but that the Count would receive soon the one intended for him. The Fifth and Sixth were dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky. Oppersdorff at last received the Fourth symphony, dedicated to him, a symphony that was begun before he gave the commission; he received it after it had been performed. He was naturally offended, especially as the Fourth symphony at first met with little favor. He did not give Beethoven another commission, nor did he meet him again, although Beethoven visited again the Castle Grätz in 1811. The Count died January 21, 1818.

The Fourth symphony was performed for the first time at one of two concerts given in Vienna about the 15th of March, 1807, at Prince Lobkowitz’s. The concert was for the benefit of the composer. The _Journal des Luxus und der Moden_ published this review early in April of that year:

“Beethoven gave in the dwelling house of Prince L. two concerts in which only his own compositions were performed: the first four symphonies, an overture to the tragedy _Coriolanus_, a pianoforte concerto, and some arias from _Fidelio_. Wealth of ideas, bold originality, and fullness of strength, the peculiar characteristics of Beethoven’s Muse, were here plainly in evidence. Yet many took exception to the neglect of noble simplicity, to the excessive amassing thoughts, which on account of their number are not always sufficiently blended and elaborated, and therefore often produce the effect of uncut diamonds.”

Was this “Prince L.” Lobkowitz or Lichnowsky? Thayer decided in favor of the former.

Berlioz writes of this symphony:

“Here Beethoven abandons wholly the ode and the elegy—a reference to the _Eroica_ symphony—to return to the less lofty and somber but perhaps no less difficult style of the Second symphony. The character of this score is generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness. If we except the meditative _adagio_, which serves as an introduction, the first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness. The motive in detached notes, with which the _allegro_ begins, is only a canvas, on which the composer spreads other and more substantial melodies, which thus render the apparently chief idea of the beginning an accessory. This artifice, although it is fertile in curious and interesting results, has already been employed by Mozart and Haydn with equal success. But we find in the second section of this same _allegro_ an idea that is truly new, the first measures of which captivate the attention; this idea, after leading the hearer’s mind through mysterious developments, astonishes it by its unexpected ending.... This astonishing _crescendo_ is one of the most skillfully contrived things we know of in music: you will hardly find its equal except in that which ends the famous _scherzo_ of the Symphony in C minor. And this latter, in spite of its immense effectiveness, is conceived on a less vast scale, for it sets out from _piano_ to arrive at the final explosion without departing from the principal key, while the one whose march we have just described starts from _mezzo-forte_, is lost for a moment in a _pianissimo_ beneath which are harmonies with vague and undecided coloring, then reappears with chords of a more determined tonality, and bursts out only at the moment when the cloud that veiled this modulation is completely dissipated. You might compare it to a river whose calm waters suddenly disappear and only leave the subterranean bed to plunge with a roar in a foaming waterfall.

“As for the _adagio_—it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness, that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely. You are seized, from the first measure, by an emotion which at the end becomes overwhelming in its intensity; and it is only in the works of one of these giants of poetry that we can find a point of comparison with this sublime page of the giant of music. Nothing, indeed, more resembles the impression produced by this _adagio_ than that which we experience when we read the touching episode of Francesca da Rimini in the _Divina Commedia_, the recital of which Virgil cannot hear ‘without weeping in sobs,’ and which, at the last verse, makes Dante ‘fall, as falls a dead body.’ This movement seems to have been sighed by the archangel Michael, one day when, overcome by melancholy, he contemplated the worlds from the threshold of the empyrean.

“The _scherzo_ consists almost wholly of phrases in binary rhythm forced to enter into combinations of 3-4 time.... The melody of the trio, given to wind instruments, is of a delicious freshness; the pace is a little slower than that of the rest of the _scherzo_, and its simplicity stands out in still greater elegance from the opposition of the little phrases which the violins throw across the wind instruments, like so many teasing but charming allurements.

“The _finale_, gay and lively, returns to ordinary rhythmic forms; it consists of a jingling of sparkling notes, interrupted, however, by some hoarse and savage chords, in which are shown the angry outbursts which we have already had occasion to notice in the composer.”

SYMPHONY NO. 5, IN C MINOR, OP. 67

I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante con moto
III. Allegro; trio—
IV. Allegro

As for the Fifth symphony, what words can be said of its composer more fitting than those of De Quincey’s apostrophe to Shakespeare; “O mighty poet! Thy works are not those of other men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers, the frost and the dew, hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert, but that the farther we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had nothing but accident!”

In all modern music there is no page more thrilling than that of the mysterious, unearthly transition from the _scherzo_ to the _finale_, and the preceding pages are the triumph of absolute music over that which needs a programme or is the translation of something into music. Here is music that was not suggested, but it suggests that which can only be imagined, not spoken, not painted, not written in lofty rhyme or passionate prose.

* * *

Beethoven sketched motives of the _Allegro_, _Andante_, and _scherzo_ of this symphony as early as 1800 and 1801. We know from sketches that while he was at work on _Fidelio_ and the pianoforte concerto in G major—1804-06—he was also busied with this symphony, which he put aside to compose the Fourth symphony, in B flat.

The Symphony in C minor was finished in the neighborhood of Heiligenstadt in 1807. Dedicated to the Prince von Lobkowitz and the Count Rasoumowsky, it was published in April, 1809. It was first performed at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, December 22, 1808.

Instead of inquiring curiously into the legend invented by Schindler—“and for this reason a statement to be doubted,” as Bülow said—that Beethoven remarked of the first theme, “So knocks Fate on the door!” (it is said that Ferdinand Ries was the author of this explanation and that Beethoven was grimly sarcastic when Ries, his pupil, made it known to him), instead of investigating the statement that the rhythm of this theme was suggested by the note of a bird—oriole or goldfinch—heard during a walk; instead of a long analysis, which is vexation and confusion without the themes and their variants in notation, let us read and ponder the words of the great Hector Berlioz:

“The most celebrated of them all, beyond doubt and peradventure, is also the first, I think, in which Beethoven gave the reins to his vast imagination, without taking for guide or aid a foreign thought. In the First, Second, and Fourth, he more or less enlarged forms already known, and poetized them with all the brilliant and passionate inspirations of his vigorous youth. In the Third, the _Eroica_, there is a tendency, it is true, to enlarge the form, and the thought is raised to a mighty height; but it is impossible to ignore the influence of one of the divine poets to whom for a long time the great artist had raised a temple in his heart. Beethoven, faithful to the Horatian precept, ‘_Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna_,’ read Homer constantly, and in his magnificent musical epopee, which, they say, I know not whether it be true or false, was inspired by a modern hero, the recollections of the ancient Iliad play a part that is as evident as admirably beautiful.

“The Symphony in C minor, on the other hand, seems to us to come directly and solely from the genius of Beethoven; he develops in it his own intimate thought; his secret sorrows, his concentrated rage, his reveries charged with a dejection, oh, so sad, his visions at night, his bursts of enthusiasm—these furnish him the subject; and the forms of melody, harmony, rhythm, and orchestration are displayed as essentially individual and new as they are powerful and noble.

“The first movement is devoted to the painting of disordered sentiments which overthrow a great soul, a prey to despair; not the concentrated, calm despair that borrows the shape of resignation; not the dark and voiceless sorrow of Romeo who learns of the death of Juliet; but the terrible rage of Othello when he receives from Iago’s mouth the poisonous slanders which persuade him of Desdemona’s guilt. Now it is a frenetic delirium which explodes in frightful cries; and now it is the prostration that has only accents of regret and profound self-pity. Hear these hiccups of the orchestra, these dialogues in chords between wind instruments and strings, which come and go, always weaker and fainter, like unto the painful breathing of a dying man, and then give way to a phrase full of violence, in which the orchestra seems to rise to its feet, revived by a flash of fury; see this shuddering mass hesitate a moment and then rush headlong, divided in two burning unisons as two streams of lava; ... and then say if this passionate style is not beyond and above everything that had been produced hitherto in instrumental music....

“The _adagio_” [_andante con moto_] “has characteristics in common with the _allegretto_ in A minor of the Seventh symphony and the slow movement of the Fourth. It partakes alike of the melancholy soberness of the former and the touching grace of the latter. The theme, at first announced by the united violoncellos and violas, with a simple accompaniment of the double-basses _pizzicato_, is followed by a phrase for wind instruments, which returns constantly, and in the same tonality throughout the movement, whatever be the successive changes of the first theme. This persistence of the same phrase, represented always in a profoundly sad simplicity, produces little by little on the hearer’s soul an indescribable impression....

“The _scherzo_ is a strange composition. Its first measures, which are not terrible themselves, provoke that inexplicable emotion which you feel when the magnetic gaze of certain persons is fastened on you. Here everything is somber, mysterious; the orchestration, more or less sinister, springs apparently from the state of mind that created the famous scene of the Blocksberg in Goethe’s _Faust_. Nuances of _piano_ and _mezzoforte_ dominate. The trio is a double-bass figure, executed with the full force of the bow; its savage roughness shakes the orchestral stands and reminds one of the gambols of a frolicsome elephant. But the monster retires, and little by little the noise of his mad course dies away. The theme of the _scherzo_ reappears in _pizzicato_. Silence is almost established, for you hear only some violin tones lightly plucked and strange little cluckings of bassoons.... At last the strings give gently with the bow the chord of A flat and doze on it. Only the drums preserve the rhythm; light blows struck by sponge-headed drumsticks mark the dull rhythm amid the general stagnation of the orchestra. These drum notes are C’s; the tonality of the movement is C minor; but the chord of A flat sustained for a long time by the other instruments seems to introduce a different tonality, while the isolated hammering of the C on the drums tends to preserve the feeling of the foundation tonality. The ear hesitates—but will this mystery of harmony end?—and the dull pulsations of the drums, growing louder and louder, reach the violins, which now take part in the movement and with a change of harmony, to the chord of the dominant seventh, G, B, D, F, while the drums roll obstinately their tonic C; the whole orchestra, assisted by the trombones, which have not yet been heard, bursts in the major into the theme of a triumphal march, and the _finale_ begins....

“Criticism has tried, however, to diminish the composer’s glory by stating that he employed ordinary means, the brilliance of the major mode pompously following the darkness of a _pianissimo_ in minor; that the triumphal march is without originality, and that the interest wanes even to the end, whereas it should increase. I reply to this: Did it require less genius to create a work like this because the passage from _piano_ to _forte_ and that from minor to major were the means already understood? Many composers have wished to take advantage of the same means; and what result did they obtain comparable to this gigantic chant of victory in which the soul of the poet-musician, henceforth free from earthly shackles, terrestrial sufferings, seems to mount radiantly towards heaven? The first four measures of the theme, it is true, are not highly original, but the forms of a fanfare are inherently restricted, and I do not think it possible to find new forms without departing utterly from the simple, grand, pompous character which is becoming. Beethoven wished only an entrance of the fanfare for the beginning of his _finale_, and he quickly found in the rest of the movement and even in the conclusion of the chief theme that loftiness and originality of style which never forsook him. And this may be said in answer to the reproach of his not having increased the interest to the very end; music, in the state known at least to us, would not know how to produce a more violent effect than that of this transition from _scherzo_ to triumphal march; it was then impossible to enlarge the effect afterwards.

“To sustain one’s self at such a height is of itself a prodigious effort; yet in spite of the breadth of the developments to which he committed himself, Beethoven was able to do it. But this equality from the beginning to end is enough to make the charge of diminished interest plausible, on account of the terrible shock which the ears receive at the beginning; a shock that, by exciting nervous emotion to its most violent paroxysm, makes the succeeding instant the more difficult. In a long row of columns of equal height, an optical illusion makes the most remote appear the smallest. Perhaps our weak organization would accommodate itself to a more laconic peroration, as that of Gluck’s ‘_Notre général vous rappelle_.’ Then the audience would not have to grow cold, and the symphony would end before weariness had made impossible further following in the steps of the composer. This remark bears only on the _mise en scène_ of the work; it does not do away with the fact that this _finale_ in itself is rich and magnificent; very few movements can draw near without being crushed by it.”

SYMPHONY NO. 6, IN F MAJOR, “PASTORALE,” OP. 68

I. Awakening of serene impressions on arriving in the country:
allegro, ma non troppo
II. Scene by the brookside: andante molto moto
III. Jolly gathering of country folk: allegro; in tempo d’allegro
Thunderstorm; tempest: allegro
IV. Shepherd’s song; gladsome and thankful feelings after the storm:
allegretto

When justly read, this symphony is indeed pastoral, light-hearted, something more than a fearsome length relieved only by the little ornithological passage in which nightingale, quail, and cuckoo are neatly imitated; at least, it is fair to suppose this; we have never heard the nightingale sing. Jean Cocteau, in his amusing little book full of aphorisms designed to make the bourgeois sit up, says that the nightingale sings badly. So we must not be unduly prejudiced by praise of the bird coming from Milton, Matthew Arnold, and other poetical enthusiasts. Then there is the thunderstorm—the tempest, to use the good country term that has come down from Shakespeare and before him. And how charming the first two movements! To borrow the Host’s characterization of Master Fenton, the symphony smells April and May.

* * *

This symphony—_Sinfonia pastorale_—was composed in the country round about Heiligenstadt in the summer of 1808. It was first performed at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, December 22, 1808. The descriptive headings were probably an afterthought. In the sketchbook, which contains sketches for the first movement, is a note: “_Characteristic Symphony. The recollections of life in the country._” There is also a note: “_The hearer is left to find out the situations for himself._”

M. Vincent d’Indy in his _Beethoven_ (Paris, 1911) devotes several pages to Beethoven’s love of nature. “Nature was to Beethoven not only a consoler for his sorrows and disenchantments; she was also a friend with whom he took pleasure in familiar talk, the only intercourse to which his deafness presented no obstacle.” Nor did Beethoven understand Nature in the dryly theoretical manner of Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose writings then were in fashion, for there could be no point of contact between the doctrines of this Calvinist of Geneva and the effusions of Beethoven, a Catholic by birth and by education. Nor did Beethoven share the views of many Romantics about Nature. He would never have called her “immense, impenetrable, and haughty,” as Berlioz addressed her through the mouth of his Faust. A little nook, a meadow, a tree—these sufficed for Beethoven. He had so penetrated the beauty of nature that for more than a dozen years all his music was impregnated by it.

His bedside book for many, many years soon after his passion for Giulietta Guicciardi was the _Lehr und Erbauungs Buch_ of Sturm. Passages underscored show the truth of the assertions just made, and he copied these lines that they might always be in his sight: “Nature can be justly called the school of the heart; it shows us beyond all doubt our duty towards God and our Neighbor. I wish therefore to become a disciple of this school, and offer my heart to it. Desirous of self-instruction, I wish to search after the wisdom that no disillusion can reject; I wish to arrive at the knowledge of God, and in this knowledge I shall find a foretaste of celestial joys.”

Nature to Beethoven was the country near by, which he could visit in his daily walks. If he was an indefatigable pedestrian, he was never an excursionist.

M. d’Indy draws a picture of the little _Wirthschaften_ in the suburbs of the large towns, humble inns “not yet ticketed with the pompous barbarism of ‘restaurant.’” They were frequented by the bourgeoisie, who breathed the fresh air and on tables of wood ate the habitual sausage and drank the traditional beer. There was a dance hall with a small orchestra; there was a discreet garden with odorous alleys in which lovers could walk between the dances. Beyond was the forest where the peasant danced and sang and drank, but the songs and dances were here of a ruder nature.

Beethoven, renting a cottage at Döbling, Grinzing, or Heiligenstadt, which then were not official faubourgs, could in a few minutes be in the forest or open country. He did not attempt to reproduce the material, realistic impression of country sounds and noises, but only the spirit of the landscape.

Thus in the _Pastoral_ symphony, to suggest the rustic calm and the tranquillity of the soul in contact with Nature, he did not seek curious harmonic conglomerations, but a simple, restrained melody which embraces only the interval of a sixth (from _fa_ to _re_). This is enough to create in us the sentiment of repose—as much by its quasi-immobility as by the duration of this immobility. The exposition of this melody based on the interval of a sixth is repeated with different timbres, but musically the same, for fifty-two measures without interruption. In an analogous manner Wagner portrayed the majestic monotony of the river in the introduction to _Rheingold_. Thus far the landscape is uninhabited. The second musical idea introduces two human beings, man and woman, force and tenderness. The second musical thought is the thematic base of the whole work. In the _scherzo_ the effect of sudden immobility produced by the bagpipe tune of the strolling musician (the oboe solo, followed by the horn), imposing itself on the noisy joy of the peasants, is due to the cause named above; here, with the exception of one note, the melody moves within the interval of a fifth.

The storm does not pretend to frighten the hearer. The insufficient kettledrums are enough to suggest the thunder, but in four movements of the five there is not a fragment of development in the minor mode. The key of F minor, reserved for the darkening of the landscape hitherto sunny and gay, produces a sinking of the heart and the distressing restlessness that accompany the approach of the tempest. Calm returns with the _ambitus_ of the sixth, and then the shepherd’s song leads to a burst of joyfulness. The two themes are the masculine and feminine elements exposed in the first movement.

According to M. d’Indy the _andante_ is the most admirable expression of true nature in musical literature. Only some passages of _Siegfried_ and _Parsifal_ are comparable. Conductors usually take this _andante_ at too slow a pace and thus destroy the alert poetry of the section. The brook furnishes the basic movement, expressive melodies arise, and the feminine theme of the first _allegro_ reappears, alone, disquieted by the absence of its mate. Each section is completed by a pure and prayer-like melody. It is the artist who prays, who loves, who crowns the diverse divisions of his work by a species of Alleluia.

It has been said that several of the themes in this symphony were taken from Styrian and Carinthian folk songs. It is dedicated to Prince von Lobkowitz and Count Rasoumowsky. The work was published in 1809.

SYMPHONY NO. 7, IN A MAJOR, OP. 92

I. Poco sostenuto; vivace
II. Allegretto
III. Presto; assai meno presto; tempo primo
IV. Allegro con brio

The rhapsodists have had their say; the commentators have pried and conjectured; the later symphonies are still sublime in their grandeur. They well-nigh express the inexpressible.

Nor have the legends, fondly believed for years, done injury to the music. It matters not whether the Seventh symphony be a description of Germany exulting in its deliverance from the French yoke, or the apotheosis of the dance; whether the allegretto picture a procession in the catacombs or be the love dream of an odalisque. Whenever the music is played, whenever it comes into the mind, it awakens new thoughts and each one dreams his own dreams.

Each writer in turn publishes in print or by word of mouth his little explanation, but Beethoven broods, mysterious, gigantic, above commentators, above even conductors when they misunderstand him, or plume themselves upon a new and striking interpretation, or in their endeavor to grasp and convey to others the essential greatness of the composer put their trust in din and speed.

* * *

The first sketches of this symphony were probably made before 1811 or even 1810. The score of the symphony was dedicated to the Count Moritz von Fries and published in 1816. The edition for the pianoforte was dedicated to the Tsarina Elizabeth Alexievna of All the Russias.

The Seventh and Eighth symphonies were probably played over for the first time at the Archduke Rudolph’s in Vienna on April 20, 1813. Beethoven in the same month vainly endeavored to produce them at a concert. The first performance of the Seventh was at Vienna in the large hall of the university, on December 8, 1813.

Mälzel, the famous maker of automata, exhibited in Vienna during the winter of 1812-13 his automatic trumpeter and panharmonicon. The former played a French cavalry march with calls and tunes; the latter was composed of the instruments used in the ordinary military band of the period—trumpets, drums, flutes, clarinets, oboes, cymbals, triangle, etc. The keys were moved by a cylinder. Overtures by Handel and Cherubini and Haydn’s Military symphony were played with ease and precision. Beethoven planned his _Wellington’s Victory_, or _Battle of Vittoria_, for this machine. Mälzel made arrangements for a concert—a concert “for the benefit of Austrian and Bavarian soldiers disabled at the battle of Hanau.”

This Johann Nepomuk Mälzel (Mälzl) was born at Regensburg, August 15, 1772. He was the son of an organ builder. In 1792 he settled at Vienna as a teacher of music, but he soon made a name for himself by inventing mechanical music works. In 1816 he constructed a metronome, though Winkel, of Amsterdam, claimed the idea as his. Mälzel also made ear trumpets, and Beethoven tried them, as he did others. His life was a singular one, and the accounts of it are contradictory. Two leading French biographical dictionaries insist that Mälzel’s “brother Leonhard” invented the mechanical toys attributed to Johann, but they are wholly wrong. Fétis and one or two others state that he took the panharmonicon with him to the United States in 1826 and sold it at Boston to a society for four hundred thousand dollars—an incredible statement. No wonder that the Count de Pontécoulant, in his _Organographie_, repeating the statement, adds, “I think there is an extra cipher.” But Mälzel did visit America, and he spent several years here. He landed at New York, February 3, 1826, and the _Ship News_ announced the arrival of “Mr. Maelzel, Professor of Music and Mechanics, inventor of the Panharmonicon and the Musical Time Keeper.” He brought with him the famous automata—the Chess Player, the Austrian Trumpeter, and the Rope Dancers—and opened an exhibition of them at the National Hotel, 112 Broadway, April 13, 1826. The Chess Player was invented by Wolfgang von Kempelen. Mälzel bought it at the sale of von Kempelen’s effects after the death of the latter, at Vienna, and made unimportant improvements. The Chess Player had strange adventures. It was owned for a time by Eugène Beauharnais, when he was viceroy of the kingdom of Italy, and Mälzel had much trouble in getting it away from him. Mälzel gave an exhibition in Boston at Julien Hall, on a corner of Milk and Congress streets. The exhibition opened September 13, 1826, and closed October 28 of that year. He visited Boston again in 1828 and 1833. On his second visit he added _The Conflagration of Moscow_, a panorama, which he sold to three Bostonians for six thousand dollars. Hence, probably, the origin of the panharmonicon legend. He also exhibited an automatic violoncellist. Mälzel died on the brig _Otis_ on his way from Havana to Philadelphia on July 21, 1838, and was buried at sea, off Charleston. The _United States Gazette_ published his eulogy and said, with due caution: “He has gone, we hope, where the music of his harmonicons will be exceeded.” The Chess Player was destroyed by fire in the burning of the Chinese Museum at Philadelphia, July 5, 1854. An interesting and minute account of Mälzel’s life in America, written by George Allen, is published in the _Book of the First American Chess Congress_, pp. 420-84 (New York, 1859); see also _Métronome de Maelzel_ (Paris, 1833); the _History of the Automatic Chess Player_, published by George S. Hilliard, Boston, 1826; Mendel’s _Musikalisches Conversations-Lexicon_; and an article, _Beethoven and Chess_, by Charles Willing, published in _The Good Companion Chess Problem Club_ of May 11, 1917 (Philadelphia), which contains facsimiles of Mälzel’s programmes in Philadelphia (1845) and Montreal (1847). In Poe’s fantastical “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” the description of his Kempelen, of Utica, N. Y., is said by some to fit Mälzel, but Poe’s story was probably not written before 1848. His article, “Maelzel’s Chess Player,” a remarkable analysis, was first published in the _Southern Literary Messenger_ of April, 1836. Portions of this article other than those pertaining to the analysis were taken by Poe from Sir David Brewster’s _Lectures on Natural Magic_.

The programme of the Vienna concert was announced: “A brand-new symphony,” the Seventh, in A major, by Beethoven; and also _Wellington’s Sieg, oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria_. _Wellington’s Sieg_ was completed in October, 1813, to celebrate the victory of Wellington over the French troops in Spain on June 21 of that year. Mälzel had persuaded Beethoven to compose the piece for his panharmonicon. He furnished material for it and gave him the idea of using “God Save the King” as the subject of a lively fugue. He purposed to produce the work at concerts, so as to raise money enough for him and Beethoven to visit London. A shrewd fellow, he said that if the “_Battle_” symphony were scored for orchestra and played in Vienna with success, an arrangement for his panharmonicon would then be of more value to him. Beethoven dedicated the work to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, and forwarded a copy to him, but the “First Gentleman in Europe” never acknowledged the compliment. _Wellington’s Sieg_ was not performed in London until February 10, 1815, when it had a great run. The news of this success pleased Beethoven very much. He made a memorandum of it in the notebook which he carried with him to taverns.

The benefit concert was brilliantly successful, and there was a repetition of it December 12 with the same prices of admission, ten and five florins. The net profit of the two performances was four thousand six gulden. Spohr tells us that the new pieces gave “extraordinary pleasure, especially the symphony; the wondrous second movement was repeated at each concert; it made a deep, enduring impression on me. The performance was a masterly one, in spite of the uncertain and often ridiculous conducting by Beethoven.” Glöggl was present at a rehearsal when violinists refused to play a passage in the symphony and declared that it could not be played. “Beethoven told them to take their parts home and practise them; then the passage would surely go.” It was at these rehearsals that Spohr saw the deaf composer crouch lower and lower to indicate a long _diminuendo_, and rise again and spring into the air when he demanded a climax. And he tells of a pathetic yet ludicrous blunder of Beethoven, who could not hear the soft passages.

Beethoven was delighted with his success, so much so that he wrote a public letter of thanks to all that took part in the two performances. “It is Mälzel especially who merits all our thanks. He was the first to conceive the idea of the concert, and it was he who busied himself actively with the organization and the ensemble in all the details. I owe him special thanks for having given me the opportunity of offering my compositions to the public use and thus fulfilling the ardent vow made by me long ago of putting the fruits of my labor on the altar of the country.”

The first movement opens with an introduction, _poco sostenuto_, A major, 4-4. The main body is _vivace_, 6-8. The _allegretto_ is in A minor, 2-4; the third movement, _presto_, F major, 3-4. The _finale_, _allegro con brio_, A major, 2-4, is a wild rondo on two themes. Here, according to Mr. Prod’homme and others, as Beethoven achieved in the _scherzo_ the highest and fullest expression of exuberant joy—“unbuttoned joy,” as the composer himself would have said—so in the _finale_ the joy becomes orgiastic. The furious bacchantic first theme is repeated after the exposition, and there is a sort of coda to it, “as a chorus might follow upon the stanzas of a song.”[10]

SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN F MAJOR, OP. 93

I. Allegro vivace e con brio
II. Allegretto scherzando
III. Tempo di menuetto
IV. Allegro vivace

Beethoven characterized his Eighth symphony as “a little symphony” and in the same letter spoke of the Seventh as a great one; yet if Czerny is to be believed the composer was vexed because the audience was cool when the Eighth was first performed. He said, “because it is much better” than the Seventh, which was played at the same concert. Authors often pronounce strange judgments on their works, as parents often favor a stupid or unpleasant child; but this composer had a right to be proud of the little Benjamin—the colossal Ninth was not then born—for the Eighth symphony is charged with the spirit of the greater Beethoven.

Some commentators have endeavored to read a programme into the symphony, thinking perhaps thus to give it greater importance. One speaks of the symphony as a “military trilogy”; another thinks the _allegretto_ is a parody of Rossini’s manner, but the movement was written in 1812, and Vienna did not go mad over the Olympian Rossini until after that year. We even find Vincent d’Indy citing the Eighth as revealing impressions of Nature made on the composer’s soul; the trio of the pompous minuet is to M. d’Indy a representation in grotesque fashion of a peasant band, and the Hungarian theme in the _finale_, the hymn of Hunyadi, denotes the arrival of gypsy musicians in the midst of a festival.

The symphony needs not such support to excite extraneous interest. In the music we find Beethoven in reckless mood, whimsical, delighting in abrupt contrasts, shouting his joy, ready to play a practical joke. There is, no doubt, the absence of the “fine taste” which Debussy misses in the case of Beethoven and finds ruling the musical life of Bach and Mozart. No, Beethoven was not Paterian in a struggle after taste. He was an elemental person, coarse in his life, with an enormous capacity for hard work. There are others who have been condemned for a lack of taste: Euripides, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Verdi, Walt Whitman. De Quincey, a stylist, found Goethe lacking in taste when he wrote _Wilhelm Meister_.

And in this symphony, characterized by mad jollity, and a playfulness that at times approaches buffoonery, there are exquisite musical thoughts; there are passages that for a moment sound the depths and reach the heights.

* * *

The Eighth symphony was composed at Linz in the summer of 1812. Beethoven was in poor physical condition in that year, and as Staudenheim, his physician, advised him to try Bohemian baths, he went to Töplitz by way of Prague; to Carlsbad, where a note of the postillion’s horn found its way among the sketches for the Eighth symphony; to Franzensbrunn, and again to Töplitz; and lastly to his brother Johann’s home at Linz, where he remained until into November.

At the beginning of 1812 Beethoven contemplated writing three symphonies at the same time; the key of the third, D minor, was already determined, but he postponed work on this; and as the autograph score of the first of the remaining two, the Symphony in A, No. 7, is dated May 13, it is probable that he contemplated the Seventh before he left Vienna on his summer journey. His sojourn in Linz was not a pleasant one. Johann, a bachelor, lived in a house too large for his needs, and so he rented a part of it to a physician, who had a sister-in-law, Therese Obermeyer, a cheerful and well-proportioned woman of an agreeable if not handsome face. Johann looked on her kindly, made her his housekeeper, and according to the gossips of Linz, there was a closer relationship. Beethoven meddled with his brother’s affairs, and, finding him obdurate, visited the bishop and the police authorities and persuaded them to banish her from the town, to send her to Vienna if she should still be in Linz on a fixed day. Naturally, there was a wild scene between the brothers. Johann played the winning card: he married Therese on November 8. Ludwig, furious, went back to Vienna and took pleasure afterwards in referring to his sister-in-law in both his conversation and his letters as the “Queen of Night.”

This same Johann said that the Eighth symphony was completed from sketches made during walks to and from the Pöstlingberge, but Thayer considered him to be an untrustworthy witness.

The two symphonies were probably played over the first time at the Archduke Rudolph’s in Vienna, April 20, 1813. Beethoven in the same month endeavored to produce them at a concert, but without success. The Seventh was not played until December 8, 1813, at a concert organized by Mälzel. The first performance of the Eighth symphony was at a concert given by Beethoven at Vienna in the Redoutensaal on Sunday, February 27, 1814.

The _Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung_, in a review of this concert, stated that the Seventh symphony was again heartily applauded, and the _allegro_ was repeated. “All were in anxious expectation to hear the new symphony (F major, 3-4), the latest product of Beethoven’s muse; but this expectation _after one hearing_ was not fully satisfied, and the applause which the work received was not of that enthusiastic nature by which a work that pleases universally is distinguished. In short, the symphony did not make, as the Italians say, a _furore_. I am of the opinion that the cause of this was not in weaker or less artistic workmanship (for in this, as in all of Beethoven’s works of this species, breathes the peculiar genius which always proves his originality), but partly in the mistake of allowing this symphony to follow the one in A major, and partly in the satiety that followed the enjoyment of so much that was beautiful and excellent, whereby natural apathy was the result. If this symphony in future should be given alone, I have no doubt concerning its favorable reception.”

There were in the orchestra at this concert eighteen first violins, eighteen second violins, fourteen violas, twelve violoncellos, seven double basses. The audience numbered about three thousand, although Schindler spoke of five thousand.

We know from his talk noted down that Beethoven originally planned an elaborate introduction to this symphony.

It is often said that the second movement, the celebrated _allegretto scherzando_, is based on the theme of a “three-voice circular canon, or round, _Ta, ta, ta, lieber Mälzel_, sung in honor of the inventor of the metronome at a farewell dinner given to Beethoven in July, 1812, before his leaving Vienna for his summer trip into the country.” This story was first told by Schindler, who, however, did not say that the dinner was given to Beethoven alone, and did say that the dinner was in the spring of 1812. Beethoven was about to visit his brother Johann in Linz; Mälzel was going to England to produce there his automaton trumpeter but was obliged to defer this journey. Beethoven, who among intimate friends was customarily “gay, witty, satiric, ‘unbuttoned,’ as he called it,” improvised at this parting meal a canon, which was sung immediately by those present. The _allegretto_ was founded on this canon, suggested by the metronome, according to Schindler. Thayer[11] examined this story with incredible patience, and he drew these conclusions: the machine that we now know as Mälzel’s metronome was at first called a musical chronometer, and not until 1817 could the canon include the word “Metronom.” Schindler, who was seventeen years old in 1812, heard the story from Count Brunswick, who was present at the meal, but was not in Vienna from March, 1810, till the end of February, 1813, four months after the completion of the symphony. Furthermore, Beethoven is reported as having said: “I, too, am in the second movement of the Eighth symphony—ta, ta, ta, ta—the canon on Mälzel. It was a right jolly evening when we sang this canon. Mälzel was the bass. At that time I sang the soprano. I think it was toward the end of December, 1817.” Thayer says: “That Mälzel’s ‘ta, ta, ta’ suggested the _allegretto_ to Beethoven, and that at a parting meal the canon on this theme was sung, are doubtless true; but it is by no means sure that the canon preceded the symphony.... If the canon was written before the symphony, it was not improvised at this meal; if it was then improvised, it was only a repetition of the _allegretto_ theme in canon form.” However this may be, the persistent ticking of a wind instrument in sixteenth notes is heard almost throughout the movement, of which Berlioz said: “It is one of those productions for which neither model nor pendant can be found. This sort of thing falls entire from heaven into the composer’s brain. He writes it at a single dash, and we are amazed at hearing it.”

SYMPHONY NO. 9, IN D MINOR, WITH FINAL CHORUS ON SCHILLER’S “ODE TO
JOY,” OP. 125

I. Allegro, ma non troppo, un poco maestoso
II. Molto vivace; presto
III. Adagio molto e cantabile
IV. Presto
Allegro assai
Presto
Baritone recitative
Quartet and chorus: allegro assai
Tenor solo and chorus: allegro assai vivace, alla marcia
Chorus: allegro assai
Chorus: andante maestoso
Adagio, ma non troppo, ma divoto
Allegro energico, sempre ben marcato
Quartet and chorus: allegro ma non tanto; prestissimo

Much has been written about the Ninth symphony, a symphony that has been and is a stumbling block to certain conductors and hearers. It is easy to smile at such books as _Le Livre de la Genèse de la IX Symphonie de Beethoven_, by Ricciotto Canudo, with its fantastical theories and titles given to the leading themes, but the comments of more ordinary mortals have led conductors into singular experiments. Some have rewritten passages. Some, fearing the inherent difficulties in the _finale_, have transposed this _finale_ a tone lower. There are hearers who, knowing the theory of Wagner—that the Ninth symphony was the logical end of purely instrumental music, and Beethoven introduced singers in the finale to show his impatience with the orchestra as a medium of full expression—look on the symphony as a polemical work and in turn deny all absolute music written after Beethoven’s death.

The music remains, in spite of the commentators and the too anxious conductors. The instrumental movements are among the proudest achievements of man. Mr. Canudo may begin his “explanation” of the opening _allegro_ by saying: “In the beginning was space; and all possibilities were in space; and life was space”; he may find in a certain page the “religious affirmation of Creation”; he may entitle the first theme of the _adagio_ “The rhythm of the blessed cosmic night” and thus take his pleasure.

The music of the first three movements is not the less sublime or beautiful because it has no programme, because it has no text for singers. With the exception of a few stupendous passages in the _finale_, where Beethoven is among the stars, the _finale_ falls below the movements that precede it. There is more frenzied joy in the _scherzo_; there is greater, world-embracing humanity, a loftier, nobler spirit in the _adagio_. The theme of Joy is not in itself one of Beethoven’s most fortunate inventions, and there are pages both for singers and for orchestra that disconcert even if they do not seem to the hearer abnormal and impotent. The answer made by some is that if an ideal performance could be attained the grandeur of the thought would then be overwhelming. Unfortunately, human voices have their limitations.

Yet if the first three movements are performed alone, there is a sense of incompleteness. If the _finale_ is transposed, the effect is diminished. And so the Ninth symphony as a whole is still a stumbling block to many.

* * *

Beethoven made sketches for his Ninth symphony as early as 1815. The symphony was completed about February, 1824. The idea of adding a chorus to the last movement probably came to him only in the course of his work, for there are sketches of a purely instrumental _finale_ which Nottebohm says were made in June or July, 1823; but Schiller’s _Hymn to Joy_ had long tempted Beethoven. At Bonn, in 1792, he thought of setting music to it. His _Fantaisie_ for piano, orchestra, and chorus (1800) contains the melodic germ that he afterwards used for Schiller’s words. Perhaps the “mother melody” may be found in a folk song, “Freu’ dich sehr, O meine Selle, und vergiss’ all’ Noth und Qual.” Wasielewski thinks the origin is in a song of Beethoven’s, “Kleine Blümen, kleine Blätter,” with text by Goethe, while the music was composed in 1810.

According to Beethoven’s sketchbooks, he was planning two symphonies; one, for England, was to be purely instrumental; the other was the _Sinfonie allemand_, either with variations after the chorus when it entered, or without variations; the _finale_ with “Turkish music”—that is, bass drum, cymbals, and triangle—“and choral song.”

In 1817, there was correspondence between the Philharmonic Society of London and Beethoven with reference to the latter’s visiting England. He was offered 300 guineas if he would come to London and superintend the production of two symphonies to be composed for the Society. Beethoven asked for 400 guineas; 150 to be paid in advance (one hundred were for traveling expenses). The previous offer was repeated, but Beethoven abandoned his intention of going to London.

At the first performance of the Ninth symphony in England (March 21, 1825), the programme read: “New Grand Characteristic Sinfonia, MS. with vocal _finale_, the principal parts to be sung by Madame Caradori, Miss Goodall, Mr. Vaughan, and Mr. Phillips; _composed expressly for this Society_.” There was also a note in which it was said that in 1822 the directors of the Philharmonic had offered Beethoven £50 for a symphony to be delivered at the stipulated time; and as it had been performed and published at Vienna before the Society could use it, the remuneration was ample. It should be remembered that the Philharmonic Society, learning of Beethoven’s sickness in 1827, sent him £100. Beethoven acknowledged in most grateful terms, eight days before his death, the receipt of the sum given him by these “generous” Englishmen, and spoke of a tenth symphony wholly sketched, also a new overture, that he might send to them. He had written to Ries in 1823 that only his poverty compelled him to write the Ninth symphony for the Philharmonic; he had sent to it the overture _The Dedication of the House_, and he asked Ries to drive as good a bargain as he could for it. He had been vexed because the Philharmonic Society had characterized three overtures delivered for 75 guineas in 1815: _Ruins of Athens_, _King Stephen_, and _Zur Namensfeier_, as “unworthy” of the composer.

After Beethoven’s death, the Philharmonic Society reclaimed the gift of £100, but was persuaded to withdraw the claim. A portion of the money was applied to the payment of the funeral expenses.

The first performance of the Ninth symphony was at the Kärthnerthor Theater, Vienna, on May 7, 1824. Musicians and wealthy amateurs organized the concert, for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde had refused the undertaking on account of the expense. Beethoven then proposed to give the first performance of the symphony and the great Mass in Berlin, where Count Brühl, the Intendant of the Royal theaters there, was favorably inclined. This led the Viennese patrons and musicians to sign a petition, begging Beethoven to spare Vienna the shame. He reflected, and consented. The programme, approved by the police, was as follows: Grand Overture, Op. 124; Three Grand Hymns for solo voices and chorus; Grand Symphony with a _finale_ in which solo voices and chorus enter, on the text of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” The three “Hymns” were the _Kyrie_, _Credo_, _Agnus Dei_, of the Mass in D. Sedlinsky, the chief of police, acting on the advice of the Archbishop, had forbidden the printing of “Sacred words” on a play-bill, and the church authorities were opposed to the performance of missal music in a theater.

The solo singers were Henriette Sontag, Karolina Unger, Anton Haitzinger, and J. Seipelt. The chorus was composed of amateurs from the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Ignaz Schuppanzigh was the concertmaster; Michael Umlauf conducted. Beethoven asked for twenty-four violins, ten violas, twelve violoncellos and double basses, and a doubling of wind instruments. The rehearsals were laborious. The solo singers had great difficulty in learning their parts. Mmes Sontag and Unger begged Beethoven to make changes in their music. He was obdurate. Mme Unger called him to his face “tyrant over all the vocal organs.” When he refused to change the music, she said to Mme Sontag: “Well, then we must go on torturing ourselves in the name of God.” The success of the symphony was great, though the performance was imperfect. “There was lack of homogeneous power, a paucity of nuance, a poor distribution of lights and shades.” When the drum alone beat the _scherzo_ motive, the audience applauded so that a repetition seemed inevitable. (It was of the _scherzo_ that Rossini, hearing the symphony in Paris, exclaimed, “I could not have written that.”) Mme Unger led Beethoven to the edge of the stage that he might see the crowd waving hats and handkerchiefs. He bowed and was calm. Mme Grebner, who had sung in the chorus, told Felix Weingartner that Beethoven sat in the middle of the orchestra and followed the score. Thalberg, the pianist, who was in the audience, told A. W. Thayer that Beethoven was dressed in a black dress-coat, white neckerchief and waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, black silk stockings, shoes with buckles; but Thalberg was mistaken if Schindler’s story is true, for he called on Beethoven just before the concert and said, “O great master, you do not own a black frock-coat! The green one will have to do. The theater will be dark, and no one will notice it. In a few days the black one will be ready.”