Chapter III: Part 3

The success was unprecedented; the net pecuniary result was a sum equivalent to sixty dollars. Beethoven was angry. Some days after the concert, dining in a restaurant with Schindler and Duport, he accused them of having swindled him; nor would he be persuaded by Schuppanzigh that the charge was absurd, for Beethoven’s brother Johann and nephew Karl had watched the cashiers.

There was a second performance in Vienna on May 23, 1824, in the large Hall of the Redoutes. Duport assumed all the expenses, and guaranteed Beethoven 500 florins. The programme was not the same, but it included the symphony, the _Kyrie_, and the overture. The hour, noon, was unfavorable. Duport lost some hundreds of florins. These were the only performances at which Beethoven could be present.

Beethoven had purposed to dedicate the symphony to the Tsar Alexander; he finally dedicated it to Friedrich Wilhelm III, the King of Prussia. The King answered, expressing appreciation, and saying that he had sent to him a diamond ring. The gem turned out to be not a diamond, but a reddish stone valued by the court jeweler at 300 florins in paper money. The indignant Beethoven was inclined to return the ring; but he sold it to the jeweler who had appraised it. Some thought that the “reddish stone” had been substituted for the diamond ring on the way to Vienna.

Though Beethoven had long been fond of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” the Ninth symphony was not conceived at first as a celebration of joy. In 1818, he had the plan of introducing voices into a symphony “in the ancient modes,” but the text was to be relating to some Greek myth, or a pious song.

The symphony begins _Allegro ma non troppo_, D minor, 2-4; but the chief theme, though hinted at, does not appear until after sixteen measures. There is a continuous melodic development which may be divided into several distinct periods, but there is no marked contrast in character between what might be called eight separate themes.

The second movement, _molto vivace_, D minor, 3-4, is a _scherzo_, though it is not so called in the score. It is built on three leading themes. The peculiar rhythm of the dotted triplet is maintained either in the melody or in the accompaniment.

The third movement, _adagio molto e cantabile_, B flat major, 4-4, has been described as a double theme with variations.

The _finale_ begins with several orchestral sections, the first _presto_, D minor, 3-4. There are recitatives for the lower strings. Finally, the baritone enters with this recitative:

_O brothers, these sad tones no longer!
Rather raise we now together our voices,
And joyful be our song!_

_Allegro assai_, D major, 4-5. The baritone “with the encouragement of the basses of the choruses at the beginning,” sings the first theme. Then follow passages for chorus, quartet, until the tempo changes to _allegro assai vivace alla marcia_, B flat major, 6-8. There are later changes in tempo until the final _prestissimo_, “in which the chorus goes stark mad with joy.”

The following translation of Schiller’s ode is by the late Henry G. Chapman:

_TO JOY_

_Joy, thou spark from flame immortal
Daughter of Elysium!
Drunk with fire, O heav’n-born Goddess,
We invade thy halidom!
Let thy magic bring together
All whom earth-born laws divide;
All mankind shall be as brothers
’Neath thy tender wings and wide._

_He that’s had that best good fortune,
To his friend a friend to be,
He that’s won a noble woman,
Let him join our Jubilee!
Ay, and who a single other
Soul on earth can call his own;
But let him who ne’er achieved it
Steal away in tears alone._

_Joy doth every living creature
Draw from Nature’s ample breast;
All the good and all the evil
Follow on her roseate quest.
Kisses doth she give, and vintage,
Friends who firm in death have stood;
Joy of life the worm receiveth,
And the Angels dwell with God!_

_Glad as burning suns that glorious
Through the heavenly spaces sway,
Haste ye brothers, on your way,
Joyous as a knight victorious._

_Love toward countless millions swelling,
Wafts one kiss to all the world!
Surely, o’er yon stars unfurl’d,
Some kind Father has his dwelling!_

_Fall ye prostrate, O ye millions!
Dost thy Maker feel, O world?
Seek Him o’er yon stars unfurl’d,
O’er the stars rise His pavilions!_

OVERTURE TO “LEONORE NO. 3,” OP. 72

The overture is in itself a condensation of what is dramatic in an opera that has commonplace, yes, bourgeois pages. Hearing the overture, one is spared the sight of a bulbous and shrieking prima donna; of a tenor whose throat had been seriously affected by a long confinement in a “dem’d moist” dungeon; of the operetta young man and woman chatting with a flatiron among the stage properties; of four persons, each with an individual sentiment, singing the same tune in an approved scholastic form.

It might be well to play in the same concert the three Leonore overtures in the order in which they were probably written: Nos. 2, 3, 1. A programme composed exclusively of piano sonatas by Beethoven is an invention of the Adversary, and it deserves the attention of the police as a deliberate act against public morals. Nor is an orchestral programme devoted exclusively to the works of any composer to be encouraged, except possibly when the Ninth symphony is given. But with these overtures the case is different, for here is a revelation of Beethoven’s processes of musical and dramatic thought when he was mightily interested in the same subject.... How many composers, after the achievement of a _Leonore No. 2_, would have the courage or the ability to shape from it a _Leonore No. 3_? After the three were attentively heard and thoughtfully considered, then _No. 3_ might be reasonably reserved for concert use and the other two put away ready but surely on the shelf.

* * *

In the year that saw the production of _Fidelio_ (November 20, 1805), Napoleon’s army was hastening toward Vienna. There was an exodus from the town of the nobility, merchants, and other residents. The vanguard of the French army entered on November 13. Those of the Viennese who would have appreciated the opera had fled the town. The theater was not well filled. Many in the audience were or had been officers in Napoleon’s army. The success of the opera was small. Only two performances followed the first. At the first and at the second the overture _Leonore No. 2_ was performed. Anna Pauline Milder, afterwards Mme Hauptmann, was the heroine. “The opera was hastily put upon the stage, and the inadequacy of the singers thus increased by the lack of sufficient rehearsals.” Beethoven had received the text in 1804. He worked on the music the following summer at Hetzendorf. On his return to Vienna, rehearsals were begun. In later years _Fidelio_ was one of Anna Milder’s great parts: “Judging from the contemporary criticism, it was now [1805] somewhat defective, simply from lack of stage experience.”

_Leonore No. 2_ was the overture played at the first performance in Vienna. The opera was withdrawn, revised, and produced again on March 29, 1806, when _Leonore No. 3_, a remodeled form of _No. 2_, was the overture. There was talk of a performance at Prague in 1807. Beethoven wrote for it a new overture, retaining the theme derived from Florestan’s air, “In des Lebens Frülingstagen.” The other material in _Nos. 2_ and _3_ was not used. The opera was not performed; the autograph of the overture disappeared. _Fidelio_ was revived at Vienna in 1814. For this performance Beethoven wrote the _Fidelio_ overture. We know from his diary that he “rewrote and bettered” the opera by working on it from March to May 15 of that year.

The dress rehearsal was on May 22, but the promised overture was not ready. On the 20th or 21st, Beethoven was dining at a tavern with his friend Bartolini. After the meal was over, Beethoven took a bill of fare, drew lines on the back of it, and began to write. “Come, let us go,” said Bartolini. “No, wait a while: I have the scheme of my overture,” answered Beethoven, and he sat until he had finished his sketches. Nor was he at the dress rehearsal. They waited for him a long time, then went to his lodgings. He was fast asleep in bed. A cup of wine and biscuits were near him, and sheets of the overture were on the bed and the floor. The candle was burnt out. It was impossible to use the new overture, which was not even finished. Schindler said a _Leonore_ overture was played. According to Seyfried, the overture used was that to _The Ruins of Athens_.

The order, then, of these overtures, according to the time of composition, is now supposed to be _Leonore No. 2_, _Leonore No. 3_, _Leonore No. 1_, _Fidelio_. It was said that _Leonore No. 2_ was rewritten because certain passages given to the wood-wind troubled the players. Others say it was too difficult for the strings and too long. In _No. 2_, as well as in _No. 3_, the chief dramatic stroke is the trumpet signal, which announces the arrival of the Minister of Justice, confounds Pizarro, and saves Florestan and Leonore.

The _Fidelio_ overture is the one generally played before performances of the opera in Germany, although Weingartner has tried earnestly to restore _Leonore No. 2_ to that position. _Leonore No. 3_ is sometimes played between the acts of the opera. The objection to this is that the trumpet episode of the prison will then discount the dramatic ending of the overture when it comes in the following act, nor does the joyous ending of the overture prepare the hearer for the lugubrious scene with the Florestan soliloquy. Bülow therefore performed the overture at the end of the opera. Zumpe did likewise in Munich. They argued with Wagner that this overture is the quintessence of the opera, “the complete and definite synthesis of the drama that Beethoven had dreamed of writing.” There has been a tradition that the overture should be played between the scenes of the second act.

The key of the _Leonore Overture No. 3_ is C major. A short _fortissimo_ is struck. It is diminished by wood-wind and horns, then taken up, _piano_, by the strings. From this G there is a descent down the scale of C major to a mysterious F sharp. The key of B minor is reached, finally A flat major, when the opening measures of Florenstan’s air, “In des Lebens Frülingstagen” (Act II of the opera), is played. The theme of the _allegro_, C major, begins _pianissimo_, first violins and violoncellos, and waxes impetuously. The second theme has been described as “woven out of sobs and pitying sighs.” The working out consists in alternating a pathetic figure, taken from the second theme and played by the wood-wind over a nervous string accompaniment, with furious outbursts from the whole orchestra. Then comes the trumpet call off stage. The twice-repeated call is answered in each instance by the short song of thanksgiving from the same scene. Leonore’s words are: “_Ach! du bist gerettet! Grosser Gott!_” A gradual transition leads from this to the return of the first theme at the beginning of the third part (flute solo). The third part is developed in general as the first part and leads to a wildly jubilant _coda_.

OVERTURE TO “EGMONT,” OP. 84

Strange things have been done by conductors to Beethoven’s overture. We remember Franz Wüllner in Berlin slackening the pace in the _allegro_ section when he came to the heavy chords that are supposed by some commentators, finders of sunbeams in cucumbers, to represent Alva, and then playing the chords with brutal emphasis and a long pause between them. Another conductor, no less a person than Arthur Nikisch, made a long hold on the short, incisive violin stroke just before the _coda_, and then brought the figure slowly down _portamento_. We doubt if he did this in later years.

* * *

This overture was composed in 1810; it was published in 1811. The music to Goethe’s play—overture, four entr’actes, two songs sung by Clärchen, “Clärchen’s Death,” “Melodrama,” and “Triumph Symphony” (identical with the coda of the overture), for the end of the play, nine numbers in all—was performed for the first time with the tragedy at the Hofburg Theater, Vienna, May 24, 1810. Antonie Adamberger was the Clärchen.

When Hartl took the management of the two Vienna Court theaters, January 1, 1808, he produced plays by Schiller. He finally determined to produce plays by Goethe and Schiller with music, and he chose Schiller’s _Tell_ and Goethe’s _Egmont_. Beethoven and Gyrowetz were asked to write the music. The former was anxious to compose the music for _Tell_; but, as Czerny tells the story, there were intrigues, and, as _Egmont_ was thought to be less suggestive to a composer, the music for that play was assigned to Beethoven. Gyrowetz’s music to _Tell_ was performed June 14, 1810. It was described by a correspondent of a Leipsic journal of music as “characteristic and written with intelligence.” No allusion was made at the time anywhere to Beethoven’s _Egmont_.

The overture has a short, slow introduction, _sostenuto ma non troppo_, F minor, 3-2. The main body of the overture is an _allegro_, F minor, 3-4. The first theme is in the strings; each phrase is a descending _arpeggio_ in the violoncellos, closing with a sigh in the first violins; the antithesis begins with a “sort of sigh” in the wood-wind, then in the strings; then there is a development into passage work. The second theme has for its thesis a version of the first two measures of the sarabande theme of the introduction, _fortissimo_ (strings), in A flat major, and the antithesis is a triplet in the wood-wind. The coda, _allegro con brio_, F major, 4-4, begins _pianissimo_. The full orchestra at last has a brilliant fanfare figure, which ends in a shouting climax, with a famous shrillness of the piccolo against fanfares of bassoons and brass and between crashes of the full orchestra.

Long and curious commentaries have been written in explanation of this overture. As though the masterpiece needed an explanation! We remember one in which a subtle meaning was given to at least every half-dozen measures: The Netherlanders are under the crushing weight of Spanish oppression; Egmont is melancholy, his blood is stagnant, but at last he shakes off his melancholy (violins), answers the cries of his country-people, rouses himself for action; his death is portrayed by a descent of the violins from C to G; but his countrymen triumph. Spain is typified by the sarabande movement; the heavy, recurring chords portray the lean-bodied, lean-visaged Duke of Alva; “the violin theme in D flat, to which the clarinet brings the under-third, is a picture of Clärchen,” etc. One might as well illustrate word for word the solemn ending of Thomas Fuller’s life of Alva in _The Profane State_: “But as his life was a mirror of cruelty, so was his death of God’s patience. It was admirable that his tragical acts should have a comical end; that he that sent so many to the grave should go to his own, and die in peace. But God’s justice on offenders goes not always in the same path, nor the same pace; and he is not pardoned for the fault who is for a while reprieved from the punishment; yea, sometimes the guest in the inn goes quietly to bed before the reckoning for his supper is brought to him to discharge.” The overture is at first a mighty lamentation. There are voices of an aroused and angry people, and there is at the last tumultuous rejoicing. The “Triumph Symphony” at the end of the play forms the end of the overture.

OVERTURE TO “CORIOLANUS,” OP. 62

Someone said—was it A. W. Thayer?—of this overture that he could not understand it—until he read Collin’s tragedy; that he could not reconcile the music with Shakespeare’s text. Pray, what would the gentleman have had? It is immaterial whether Beethoven had Collin or Shakespeare in mind. The name Coriolanus was enough, even if he knew it only from some schoolboy history of Rome; for in this music we hear the proud voice, we hear the haughty, inexorable bearing of the soldier-patrician. Nor does it matter whether the lyrical theme is the entreating voice of wife or mother. Possibly if one should read Collin’s play he would wonder that Beethoven should have written an overture for it. There it is—one of Beethoven’s greatest works. From his own disdain of the mob, from his own contempt of what the public thought of his music, he recognizes in Coriolanus a kindred spirit.

* * *

The original manuscript of the overture bears this inscription: _Overtura_ (_zum Trauerspiel Coriolan_) _composta da L. v. Beethoven, 1807_. The words in parentheses are crossed out. The overture was published in 1808. The tragedy by Heinrich Joseph von Collin, in which the hero kills himself, was produced in Vienna on November 24, 1802. Collin (1771-1811) was jurist and poet. In 1803 he was ennobled. In 1809 he became court councillor. Other tragedies by him were _Regulus_ and _Polyxena_. In 1807 Beethoven was expecting a libretto from him. Collin tried _Macbeth_, Tasso’s _Jerusalem Delivered_, and a _Bradamante_ to which J. F. Reichardt set music. But Beethoven wrote to Collin:

“Great irate poet, give up Reichardt. Take my _music_ for your _poetry_; I promise that you will not thereby suffer. As soon as my concert is over ... I will come to you, and then we will at once take in hand the opera—and it shall soon sound. For the rest you can ring out your just complaints about me by word of mouth.” The libretto before this had seemed to Beethoven “too venturesome” in respect of its use of the supernatural. Collin’s biographer, Laban, says that the _Macbeth_ libretto was left unfinished in the middle of the second act “because it threatened to become too gloomy.” At various times Beethoven thought of Grillparzer’s _Melusine_, Körner’s _Return of Ulysses_, Treitschke’s _Romulus and Remus_, Berger’s _Bacchus_, Shakespeare’s _Romeo and Juliet_, Schiller’s _Fiesco_, Grillparzer’s _Dragomira_, Voltaire’s tragedies, and Goethe’s _Faust_, as operatic subjects. He told Rellstab that the material must be attractive to him; that it must be something he could take up with sincerity and love. “I could not compose operas like _Don Juan_ and _Figaro_. They are repugnant to me. I could not have chosen such subjects; they are too frivolous for me!”

It is in one movement, _allegro con brio_, in C minor, 4-4, as written, _alla breve_ as played. It begins with a succession of three long-held _fortissimo_ C’s in the strings, each one of which is followed by a resounding chord in the full orchestra. The agitated first theme in C minor soon gives place to the second lyrically passionate theme in E flat major. The development of this theme is also short. The free fantasia is practically passage-work on the conclusion theme. The tendency to shorten the academic sonata form is seen also in the third part, or recapitulation. The first theme returns in F minor with curtailed development. The second theme is now in C major. The _coda_ begins with this theme; passage-work follows; there is a repetition of the C’s and the chords of the beginning; and the purely dramatic close in C minor may be suggestive of the hero’s death.

CONCERTO FOR PIANOFORTE, NO. 4, IN G MAJOR, OP. 58

I. Allegro moderato
II. Andante con moto
III. Rondo: vivace

This concerto was probably composed for the most part, and it was surely completed, in 1806, although Schindler, on advice from Ries, named 1804 as the year, and an edition of the concerto published by Breitkopf & Härtel states that the year 1805 saw the completion.

The concerto was performed by Beethoven in one of two private subscription concerts of his works given in the dwelling house of Prince Lobkowitz, Vienna, in March, 1807. The first public performance was in the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, December 22, 1808.

The score was dedicated “humbly” by Beethoven to “his Imperial Highness, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria.”

I. _Allegro moderato_, G major, 4-4. The first movement, contrary to the tradition that prevailed at the time, begins with the pianoforte alone. The pianoforte announces the first four measures of the first theme, five measures if an introductory chord be counted. (These measures are to be found in a sketchbook of Beethoven which is dated 1803, but in this book they end in the tonic, and not in the dominant.) The orchestra then enters in B major, but soon returns to G major, and develops the theme, until after a short climax with a modulation a second theme appears, which is given to the first violins. There is a third theme _fortissimo_ in G major, with a supplement for the wood-wind instruments, and still another new theme, an expressive melody in B flat major.

II. _Andante con moto_, E minor, 2-4. This movement is free in form. Beethoven put a footnote in the full score to this effect: “During the whole _andante_, the pianist must use the soft pedal (_una corda_) unintermittently; the sign ‘Ped’ refers to the occasional use of the ordinary pedal.” This footnote is contradicted at one point in the score by the marking “_tre corde_” for five measures near the end of the movement. A stern and powerful recitative for strings alternates with gentle and melodic passages for the pianoforte. “The strings of the orchestra keep repeating a forbidding figure of strongly marked rhythm in _staccato_ octaves; this figure continues at intervals in stern, unchanging _forte_ through about half the movement and then gradually dies away. In the intervals of this harsh theme the pianoforte as it were improvises little scraps of the tenderest, sweetest harmony and melody, rising for a moment into the wildest frenzied exultation after its enemy, the orchestra, has been silenced by its soft pleading, then falling back into hushed sadness as the orchestra comes in once more with a whispered recollection of its once so cruel phrase; saying as plainly as an orchestra can say it, ‘The rest is silence!’”[12]

III. _Rondo_: _vivace_. The first theme, of a sunny and gay character, is announced immediately by the strings. The pianoforte follows with a variation. A short but more melodic phrase for the strings is also taken up by the pianoforte. A third theme, of a bolder character, is announced by the orchestra. The fourth theme is given to the pianoforte. The _rondo_, “of a reckless, devil-may-care spirit in its jollity,” is based on this thematic material. At the end the tempo becomes _presto_.

CONCERTO FOR PIANOFORTE, NO. 5, IN E FLAT MAJOR, OP. 73

I. Allegro
II. Adagio un poco mosso
III. Rondo: allegro ma non tanto

There are noble pages, also moments of tenderness, in the first movement; there is a majestic, compelling sweep. In the second movement there is simplicity, serenity of contemplation, Buddhistic music of singular detachment, found only in certain measures of Beethoven and Handel; but the _finale_ with the endless repetitions of a Kangaroo theme leads one to long for the end.

* * *

Beethoven, having made some sketches in 1808, wrote this concerto in 1809 at Vienna. The town was occupied by the French from May 12 to October 14.

It is said that the first public performance of which there is any record was at Leipsic on November 28, 1811. It is also stated that this performance was late in 1810. The pianist was Friedrich Schneider. The _Allgemeine Musik Zeitung_ described the concerto as “without doubt one of the most original, imaginative, effective, but most difficult of all existing concertos.” Schneider, it seems, played “with soul” as well as force, and the orchestra accompanied remarkably, for “it respected and admired composer, composition, and pianist.”

The first performance with which Beethoven was concerned was at Vienna on February 12, 1812, when Karl Czerny (1791-1857) was the pianist. The occasion was a singular sort of entertainment. Theodor Körner, who had been a looker-on in Vienna only for a short time, wrote home on February 15: “Wednesday there took place for the benefit of the Charitable Society of Noble Ladies a concert and a representation of three pictures after Raphael, Poussin, and Troyes, as Goethe describes them in his _Elective Affinities_. A new concerto by Beethoven for the pianoforte did not succeed”; but Castelli’s _Thalia_ gave as the reason of this failure the unwillingness of Beethoven, “full of proud self-confidence,” to write for the crowd. “He can be understood and appreciated only by the connoisseurs, and one cannot reckon on their being in a majority at such an affair.” Thayer moralizes on this statement. “The trills of Miss Sessi and Mr. Siboni and Mayseder’s Variations on the March from _Aline_ were appropriate to the occasion and the audience.”

The Vienna correspondent of the _Allgemeine Musik Zeitung_ wrote that the extravagant length of the concerto diminished the total effect which the “noble production of the mind” would otherwise have made. As for Czerny, “he played with much accuracy and fluency, and showed that he has it in his power to conquer the greatest difficulties.” But the correspondent wished that there had been greater purity in his performance, a finer contour.

The tableaux pleased mightily, and each one was repeated.

The first movement, _allegro_, in E flat, 4-4, opens with a strong chord for full orchestra, which is followed by a _cadenza_ for the solo instrument.

The first theme is given out by the strings and afterward taken up by the clarinets. The second theme soon follows, first in E flat minor, softly and staccato by the strings, then _legato_ and in E flat major by the horns. It was usual at that time for the pianist to extemporize his _cadenza_, but Beethoven inserted his own with the remark, “_non si fa, una cadenza ma s’attacca subito il seguente_” (that is to say, “Do not insert a _cadenza_, but attack the following immediately”); and he then went so far as to accompany with the orchestra the latter portion of his _cadenza_.

The second movement, _adagio un poco moto_, in B major, 2-2, is in the form of “quasi-variations,” developed chiefly from the theme given at the beginning by muted strings. This movement goes, with a suggestion hinted by the pianoforte of the coming first theme of the _rondo_, into the _rondo_, the _finale_, _allegro_, in E flat, 6-8. Both the themes are announced by the pianoforte and developed elaborately. The end of the _coda_ is distinguished by a descending long series of pianoforte chords which steadily diminish in force, while the kettledrums keep marking the rhythm of the opening theme.

CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, IN D MAJOR, OP. 61

I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Larghetto
III. Rondo

Beethoven composed this concerto in 1806 for the violinist, Franz Clement, who played it for the first time at the latter’s concert in the Theater an der Wien, December 23 of that year.

Beethoven, often behindhand in finishing compositions for solo players—according to the testimony of Dr. Bartolini and others—did not have the concerto ready for rehearsal. Clement played it at the concert _a vista_.

The first movement, _allegro ma non troppo_, in D major, 4-4, begins with a long orchestral _ritornello_. The first theme is announced by oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. It is introduced by four taps of the kettledrums on D. (There is a story that these tones were suggested to the composer by his hearing a neighbor knocking at the door of his house for admission late at night.) The wind instruments go on with the second phrase. Then come the famous and problematical four D sharps in the first violins. The short second theme is given out by wood-wind and horns in D major, repeated in D minor, and developed at length. The solo violin enters after a half cadence on the dominant. The first part of the movement is repeated. The solo violin plays the themes or embroiders them. The working out is long and elaborate. A _cadenza_ is introduced at the climax of the conclusion theme. There is a short _coda_.

The second movement, _Larghetto_, in G major, 4-4, is a romance in free form. The accompaniment is lightly scored. The theme is almost wholly confined to the orchestra, while the solo violin embroiders with elaborate figuration until the end, when it brings in the theme, but soon abandons it to continue the embroidery. A _cadenza_ leads to the _finale_.

The third movement, _rondo_, in D major, 6-8, is based on a theme that has the character of a folk dance. The second theme is a sort of hunting call for the horns. There is place for the insertion of a free _cadenza_ near the end.

* * *

Beethoven’s great development of the symphony was in his use of the instruments—not in their number. For the most part, he called for virtually the same orchestra which his predecessors, Mozart and Haydn, evolved: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums and strings. This applies to Beethoven’s First, Second, Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth symphonies (exceptions: the addition of a third horn in the _Eroica_ symphony, and use of a single flute in the Fourth).

In the Fifth symphony, he gave greater sonority to his _finale_ with three trombones, double bassoon, and piccolo.

In the Sixth, he added a piccolo for the storm, two trombones for the storm and _finale_.

In the Ninth, he increased his horns to four, added three trombones, and the following instruments in the _alla marcia_ of the _finale_: piccolo, double bassoon, cymbals, triangle, and bass drum.

In the overtures here listed, Beethoven added to the above essential orchestration as follows: _Egmont_—two additional horns, piccolo; _Leonore_—two additional horns and three trombones. The concertos call for the minimum orchestration, “in twos.”—EDITOR.

HECTOR
BERLIOZ

(Born at La Côte Saint-André, December 11, 1803; died at Paris, March
9, 1869)

The more Berlioz is studied, the more the wonder grows at his colossal originality. Yet there are some who still insist that he had little melodic invention. They have ears, and they do not hear. They should read the essay of Romain Rolland, and the essay of Felix Weingartner in his _Akkorde_, for there are many, unfortunately, who do not trust their own judgment and are eager to accept the sayings of others who are considered men of authority.

Berlioz wrote his _Fantastic_ symphony in a high-strung, hotly romantic period. Romanticism was in the air. Much that seems fantastic to us, living in a commercial and material period, was natural then. It was as natural to be extravagant in belief, theories, speech, manner of life, dress, as it was to breathe. And Berlioz was a revolutionary of revolutionaries. His “antediluvian hair” that rose from his forehead was as much of a symbol as was the flaming waistcoat worn by Théophile on the memorable first night of _Hernani_. We smile now at the eccentricities and the extravagancies of the period, but we owe the perpetrators a heavy debt of gratitude. They made the art of today possible.

It is easy to call Berlioz a _poseur_, but the young man was terribly in earnest. He put his own love tragedy into his _Fantastic_ symphony; he was a man; he suffered; he was there; and so the music did not pass away with the outward badges of romanticism, with much of Byron’s poetry, with plays and novels of the time. The emotions he expressed are still universal and elemental.

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, IN C MAJOR, OP. 14 a

I. Dreams, Passions: Largo: Allegro agitato e appassionato assai
II. A Ball: Waltz: allegro non troppo
III. Scene in the Meadows: Adagio
IV. March to the Scaffold: Allegretto non troppo
V. A Witches’ Sabbath: Larghetto: allegro

When one remembers that Beethoven had died only a few years before Berlioz wrote his symphony; that Schubert also had died; that Schumann and Wagner were not known as composers, one must regard this audacious work of Berlioz as nothing less than marvelous. No predecessor had given him hints for orchestration: he invented his own system; he thought and wrote orchestrally. Liszt, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Strauss, the Russian School, in fact, the musical world of the last century is indebted deeply to Hector Berlioz. Without him all would have been sadly at a loss.

One may smile in this matter-of-fact age at the frantic love of Berlioz for the Irish actress; at the programme of the _Fantastic_ symphony, written when he was not twenty-seven years old. But there’s no denying the genius in this work, the genius that has kept this music alive in spite of a few cheap or arid pages; for there is the imagination, the poetic sensitiveness that we rightly associate with genius. If one would gladly shorten the “Scene in the Fields,” what is to be said against that masterpiece “The March to the Scaffold,” with its haunting, nightmarish rhythm, its ghostly chatter of the bassoons, its mocking shouts of brass? Or who does not find beauty in the first movement, brilliance in the second, and a demoniacal spirit in the _finale_?

Ernest Newman has wisely said that the harmonies of Berlioz suited exactly his aims; that however strange they may seem on paper, they are justified when they are heard. As for the charge of failure as a melodist, there are the songs; there is the pathetic air of Marguerite in _The Damnation of Faust_, the “Farewell of the Shepherds” in _The Childhood of Christ_, the grand arias in _Les Troyens_.

* * *

This symphony forms the first part of a work entitled _Épisode de la vie d’un artiste_ (Episode in the Life of an Artist), the second part of which is a lyric monodrama, _Lélio, ou le retour à la vie_ (Lelio; or, The Return to Life). Berlioz published the following preface to the full score of the symphony:

“PROGRAMME OF THE SYMPHONY

“A young musician of morbid sensibility and ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of amorous despair. The narcotic dose, too weak to result in death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest visions, during which his sensations, sentiments, and recollections are translated in his sick brain into musical thoughts and images. The beloved woman herself has become for him a melody, like a fixed idea which he finds and hears everywhere.

“Part I
“DREAMS, PASSIONS

“He first recalls that uneasiness of soul, that _vague des passions_, those moments of causeless melancholy and joy, which he experienced before seeing her whom he loves; then the volcanic love with which she suddenly inspired him, his moments of delirious anguish, of jealous fury, his returns to loving tenderness, and his religious consolations.

“Part II
“A BALL

“He sees his beloved at a ball, in the midst of the tumult of a brilliant fête.

“Part III
“SCENE IN THE FIELDS

“One summer evening in the country he hears two shepherds playing a _Ranz-des-vaches_ in alternate dialogue; this pastoral duet, the scene around him, the light rustling of the trees gently swayed by the breeze, some hopes he has recently conceived, all combine to restore an unwonted calm to his heart and to impart a more cheerful coloring to his thoughts; but _she_ appears once more, his heart stops beating, he is agitated with painful presentiments; if she were to betray him!... One of the shepherds resumes his artless melody, the other no longer answers him. The sun sets ... the sound of distant thunder ... solitude ... silence.

“Part IV
“MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD

“He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to execution. The procession advances to the tones of a march which is now sombre and wild, now brilliant and solemn, in which the dull sound of the tread of heavy feet follows without transition upon the most resounding outburst. At the end, the _fixed idea_ reappears for an instant, like a last love-thought interrupted by the fatal stroke.

“Part V
“WALPURGISNIGHT’S DREAM

“He sees himself at the witches’ Sabbath, in the midst of a frightful group of ghosts, magicians, and monsters of all sorts, who have come together for his obsequies. He hears strange noises, groans, ringing laughter, shrieks to which other shrieks seem to reply. The _beloved melody_ again reappears; but it has lost its noble and timid character; it has become an ignoble, trivial, and grotesque dance tune; it is _she_ who comes to the witches’ Sabbath.... Howlings of joy at her arrival ... she takes part in the diabolic orgy.... Funeral knells, burlesque parody on the _Dies Iræ_. Witches’ dance. The Witches’ dance and the _Dies Iræ_ together.”

In a preamble to this programme, relating mostly to some details of stage-setting when the _Épisode de la vie d’un artiste_ is given entire, Berlioz also writes: “If the symphony is played separately at a concert ... the programme does not absolutely need to be distributed among the audience, and only the titles of the five movements need be printed, as the symphony can offer by itself (the composer hopes) a musical interest independent of all dramatic intention.”

The score is dedicated to Nicholas I of Russia.

* * *

The symphony begins with a slow introduction, _Largo_, C minor, 4-4. Two measures of soft preluding lead to a plaintive theme played by the strings, _pianissimo_. This theme is a melody of romance composed by Berlioz in his youth and recurs in modified form in each movement. “Strange to say,” wrote Berlioz of the imagined artist, “the image of the loved one never comes into his mind without the accompaniment of a musical thought in which he finds the characteristic grace and nobility attributed by him to his beloved. This double _idée fixe_—obsessing idea—constantly pursues him; hence the constant apparition in all the movements of the chief melody of the first _allegro_.”

The symphony is scored for two flutes (and piccolo), two oboes (and English horn), two clarinets and E flat clarinet, four bassoons, four horns, two cornets-à-pistons, two trumpets, three trombones, two tubas, two pairs of kettledrums (three players) bells, snaredrum, bass drum, cymbals, two harps, and strings.

What was the origin of this symphony? Who was the woman that inspired the music and was so bitterly assailed in the argument sent to his friend Ferrand? Boschot describes her as she looked in 1827: “Tall, lithe, with shoulders rather fat and with full bust, a supple figure, a face of an astonishing whiteness, with bulging eyes like those of the glowing Mme de Staël, but eyes gentle, dreamy, and sometimes sparkling with passion. And this Harriet Smithson had the most beautiful arms—bulbous flesh, sinuous line. They had the effect on a man of a caress of a flower. And the voice of Harriet Smithson was music.”[13]

Harriet Constance Smithson, known in Paris as Henrietta Smithson, born at Ennis, Ireland, March 18, 1800, was seen as Ophelia by Berlioz at the Odéon, Paris, September 11, 1827, after engagements in Ireland and England. She appeared there first on September 6 with Kemble, Powers, and Liston. Her success was immediate and overwhelming. She appeared as Juliet, September 15 of the same year. Berlioz saw these first performances. He did not then know a word of English: Shakespeare was revealed to him only through the mist of Letourneur’s translation. After the third act of _Romeo and Juliet_ he could scarcely breathe; he suffered as though “an iron hand was clutching” his heart, and he exclaimed, “I am lost.” And the story still survives, in spite of Berlioz’s denial, that he then exclaimed: “That woman shall be my wife! And on that drama I shall write my greatest symphony.” He married her, and he was thereafter miserable. He wrote the _Romeo and Juliet_ symphony. To the end he preferred the “Love Scene” to all his other music.

Berlioz has told in his Memoirs the story of his wooing. He was madly in love. After a tour in Holland, Miss Smithson went back to London, but Berlioz saw her always by his side; she was his obsessing idea, the inspiring muse. When he learned through the journals of her triumphs in London in June, 1829, he dreamed of composing a great work, the _Episode in the Life of an Artist_, to triumph by her side and through her. He wrote Ferrand, February 6, 1830: “I am again plunged in the anguish of an interminable and inextinguishable passion, without motive, without cause. She is always at London, and yet I think I feel her near me: all my remembrances awake and unite to wound me; I hear my heart beating, and its pulsations shake me as the piston strokes of a steam engine. Each muscle of my body shudders with pain. In vain! ’Tis terrible! O unhappy one! if she could for one moment conceive all the poetry, all the infinity of a like love, she would fly to my arms, were she to die through my embrace. I was on the point of beginning my great symphony (_Episode in the Life of an Artist_), in which the development of my infernal passion is to be portrayed; I have it all in my head, but I cannot write anything. Let us wait.”

He wrote Ferrand on April 16, 1830: “Since my last I have experienced terrible hurricanes, and my vessel has cracked and groaned horribly, but at last it has righted itself; it now sails tolerably well. Frightful truths, discovered and indisputable, have started my cure; and I think that it will be as complete as my tenacious nature will permit. I am about to confirm my resolution by a work which satisfies me completely.” He then inserted a description of the work. “Behold, my dear friend, the scheme of this immense symphony. I am just writing the last note of it. If I can be ready on Whitsunday, May 30, I shall give a concert at the Nouveautés, with an orchestra of two hundred and twenty players. I am afraid I shall not have the copied parts ready. Just now I am stupid; the frightful effort of thought necessary to the production of my work has tired my imagination, and I should like to sleep and rest continually. But if the brain sleeps, the heart keeps awake.”

He wrote to Ferrand on May 13, 1830: “I think that you will be satisfied with the scheme of my _Fantastic_ symphony which I sent you in my letter. The vengeance is not too great; besides, I did not write the _Dream of a Sabbat Night_ in this spirit. I do not wish to avenge myself. I pity her and I despise her. She’s an ordinary woman, endowed with an instinctive genius for expressing the lacerations of the human soul, but she has never felt them, and she is incapable of conceiving an immense and noble sentiment, as that with which I honored her. I make today my last arrangements with the managers of the Nouveautés for my concert the 30th of this month. They are very honest fellows and very accommodating. We shall begin to rehearse the _Fantastic_ symphony in three days; all the parts have been copied with the greatest care; there are 2,300 pages of music; nearly 400 francs for the copying. We hope to have decent receipts on Whitsunday, for all the theaters will be closed.... I hope that the wretched woman will be there that day; at any rate, there are many conspiring at the Feydeau to make her go. I do not believe it, however; she will surely recognize herself in reading the programme of my instrumental drama, and then she will take good care not to appear. Well, God knows all that will be said, there are so many who know my story!” He hoped to have the assistance of the “incredible tenor,” Haizinger, and of Schröder-Devrient, who were then singing in opera at the Salle Favart.

The “frightful truths” about Miss Smithson were sheer calumnies. Berlioz made her tardy reparation in the extraordinary letter written to Ferrand, October 11, 1833, shortly after his marriage. He too had been slandered: her friends had told her that he was an epileptic, that he was mad. As soon as he heard the slanders, he raged, he disappeared for two days, and wandered over lonely plains outside Paris, and at last slept, worn out with hunger and fatigue, in a field near Sceaux. His friends had searched Paris for him, even the morgue. After his return he was obstinately silent for several days.

At last Berlioz determined to give a grand concert at which his cantata _Sardanapale_, which took the prix de Rome, and the _Fantastic_ symphony would be performed. Furthermore, Miss Smithson was then in Paris. The concert was announced for November 14, 1830, but it was postponed till December 5 of that year. But Miss Smithson was not present; she was at the Opéra at a performance for her benefit, and she mimed there for the first and last time the part of Fenella in Auber’s _Muette de Portici_. The symphony made a sensation; it was attacked and defended violently, and Cherubini answered, when he was asked if he heard it: “_Ze n’ai pas besoin d’aller savoir comment il né faut pas faire_.”

After Berlioz returned from Italy, he purposed to give a concert. He learned accidentally that Miss Smithson was still in Paris; but she had no thought of her old adorer; after professional disappointments in London, due perhaps to her Irish accent, she returned to Paris in the hope of establishing an English theater. The public in Paris knew her no more; she was poor and at her wit’s end. Invited to go to a concert, she took a carriage, and then, looking over the programme, she read the argument of the _Fantastic_ symphony which with _Lélio_, its supplement, was performed on December 9, 1832. Fortunately, Berlioz had revised the programme and omitted the coarse insult (“She is now only a courtesan worthy to figure in such an orgy”) in the programme of the _Sabbat_; but, as soon as she was seen in the hall of the Conservatory, some who knew Berlioz’s original purpose chuckled, and spread malicious information. Miss Smithson, moved by the thought that her adorer, as the hero of the symphony, tried to poison himself for her, accepted the symphony as a flattering tribute.

Tiersot[14] describes the scene at this second performance in 1832. The pit was crowded, as on the great days of romantic festival occasions—Dumas’s _Antony_ was then jamming the Porte Saint-Martin—with pale, long-haired youths, who believed firmly that “to make art” was the only worthy occupation on the earth; they had strange, fierce countenances, curled mustaches, Merovingian hair or hair cut brushlike, extravagant doublets, velvet-faced coats thrown back on the shoulders. The women were dressed in the height of the prevailing fashion, with coiffures _à la girafe_, high shell combs, shoulder-of-mutton sleeves, and short petticoats that revealed buskins. Berlioz was seated behind the drums, and his “monstrous antediluvian hair rose from his forehead as a primeval forest on a steep cliff.” Heine was in the hall. He was especially impressed by the _Sabbat_, “where the Devil sings the mass, where the music of the Catholic church is parodied with the most horrible, the most outrageous buffoonery. It is a farce in which all the serpents that we carry hidden in the heart raise their heads, hissing with pleasure and biting their tails in the transport of their joy.... Mme Smithson was there, whom the French actresses have imitated so closely. M. Berlioz was madly in love with this woman for three years, and it is to this passion that we owe the savage symphony which we hear today.” It is said that, each time Berlioz met her eyes, he beat the drums with redoubled fury. Heine added: “Since then Miss Smithson has become Mme Berlioz, and her husband has cut his hair. When I heard the symphony again last winter, I saw him still at the back of the orchestra, in his place near the drums. The beautiful Englishwoman was in a stage box, and their eyes again met: but he no longer beat with such rage on his drums.”

Musician and play actress met, and after mutual distrust and recrimination there was mutual love. She was poor and in debt; on March 16, 1833, she broke her leg, and her stage career was over. Berlioz pressed her to marry him; both families objected; there were violent scenes; Berlioz tried to poison himself before her eyes; Miss Smithson at last gave way, and the marriage was celebrated on October 3, 1833. It was an unhappy one.

“A separation became inevitable,” says Legouvé.[15] “She who had been Mlle Smithson, grown old and ungainly before her time, and ill besides, retired to a humble lodging at Montmartre, where Berlioz, notwithstanding his poverty, faithfully and decently provided for her. He went to see her as a friend, for he had never ceased to love her, he loved her as much as ever; but he loved her differently, and that difference had produced a chasm between them.”

After some years of acute physical as well as mental suffering, the once famous play actress died, March 3, 1854. Berlioz put two wreaths on her grave, one for him and one for their absent son, the sailor. And Jules Janin sang her requiem in a memorable _feuilleton_.

OVERTURE, “THE ROMAN CARNIVAL,” OP. 9

Berlioz’s overture, _Le Carnaval Romain_, originally intended as an introduction to the second act of _Benvenuto Cellini_, is dedicated to Prince de Hohenzollern-Hechingen. It was performed for the first time, and under the direction of the composer, at the Salle Herz, Paris, on February 3, 1844. The overture was composed in Paris in 1843, shortly after a journey in Germany. The score and parts were published in June, 1844.

The chief thematic material of the overture was taken by Berlioz from his opera _Benvenuto Cellini_, originally in two acts, libretto by Léon de Wailly and Augusta Barbier. It was produced at the Opéra, Paris, on September 10, 1838.

The success of _The Roman Carnival_ overture was immediate. The applause was so long-continued that the work was repeated then and there. Berlioz gives an account of the performance in the forty-eighth chapter of his Memoirs. He first says that Habeneck, the conductor at the Opéra, would not take the time of the _saltarello_ fast enough.

“Some years afterwards, when I had written the overture _The Roman Carnival_, in which the theme of the _allegro_ is the same _saltarello_ which he never could make go, Habeneck was in the foyer of the Salle Herz the evening that this overture was to be played for the first time. He had heard that we had rehearsed it without wind instruments, for some of my players, in the service of the National Guard, had been called away. ‘Good!’ said he. ‘There will surely be some catastrophe at this concert, and I must be there to see it!’ When I arrived, all the wind players surrounded me; they were frightened at the idea of playing in public an overture wholly unknown to them.

“‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said; ‘the parts are all right, you are all talented players; watch my stick as much as possible, count your rests, and it will go.’

“There was not a mistake. I started the _allegro_ in the whirlwind time of the Transteverine dancers; the audience shouted, ‘_Bis!_’ We played the overture again, and it went even better the second time. I went to the foyer and found Habeneck. He was rather disappointed. As I passed him, I flung at him these few words: ‘Now you see what it really is!’ He carefully refrained from answering me.

“Never have I felt more keenly than on this occasion the pleasure of conducting my own music, and my pleasure was doubled by thinking on what Habeneck had made me suffer.

“Poor composers, learn to conduct, and conduct yourselves well! (Take the pun, if you please.) For the most dangerous of your interpreters is the conductor. Don’t forget this.”

* * *

The overture is scored for two flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two cornets, three trombones, kettledrums, two side drums, cymbals, triangle, and strings.

ERNEST
BLOCH

(Born at Geneva, Switzerland, July 24, 1880)

“SCHELOMO” (SOLOMON), HEBREW RHAPSODY FOR VIOLONCELLO AND ORCHESTRA