Chapter X (2)

“Then from the focus of enthusiasm I must discharge melody in all
directions; I pursue it, capture it again passionately; I see it
flying away and disappearing in the mass of varied agitations;
now I seize upon it again with renewed passion; I cannot tear
myself from it; I am impelled with hurried modulations to multiply
it, and, at length I conquer it:--behold, a symphony! Music,
verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensuous life. I
should like to talk with Goethe about this--would he understand
me?”.... “Speak to Goethe about me,” he said; “tell him to hear my
symphonies and he will say that I am right in saying that music is
the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge
which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend....
We do not know what knowledge brings us. The encased seed needs
the moist, electrically warm soil to sprout, to think, to express
itself. Music is the electrical soil in which the mind thinks,
lives, feels. Philosophy is a precipitate of the mind’s electrical
essence; its needs which seek a basis in a primeval principle are
elevated by it, and although the mind is not supreme over what it
generates through it, it is yet happy in the process. Thus every
real creation of art is independent, more powerful than the artist
himself and returns to the divine through its manifestation. It is
one with man only in this, that it bears testimony of the mediation
of the divine in him.... Everything electrical stimulates the mind
to musical, fluent, out-streaming generation.

“I am electrical in my nature. I must interrupt the flow of my
undemonstrable wisdom or I might neglect my rehearsal. Write
to Goethe if you understand what I have said, but I cannot
be answerable for anything and will gladly be instructed by
him.” I promised to write you everything to the best of my
understanding.... Last night I wrote down all that he had said;
this morning I read it over to him. He remarked: “~Did I say that?
Well, then I had a raptus!~” He read it again attentively and
struck out the above and wrote between the lines, for he is greatly
desirous that you shall understand him. Rejoice me now with a
speedy answer, which shall show Beethoven that you appreciate him.
It has always been our purpose to discuss music; it was also my
desire, but through Beethoven I feel for the first time that I am
not fit for the task.

[Sidenote: GOETHE’S REPLY TO BETTINA]

To this letter Goethe answered:

Your letter, heartily beloved child, reached me at a happy time.
You have been at great pains to picture for me a great and
beautiful nature in its achievements and its strivings, its needs
and the superabundance of its gifts. It has given me great pleasure
to accept this picture of a truly great spirit. Without desiring at
all to classify it, it yet requires a psychological feat to extract
the sum of agreement; but I feel no desire to contradict what I can
grasp of your hurried explosion; on the contrary, I should prefer
for the present to admit an agreement between my nature and that
which is recognizable in these manifold utterances. The ordinary
human mind might, perhaps, find contradictions in it; but before
that which is uttered by one possessed of such a dæmon, an ordinary
layman must stand in reverence, and it is immaterial whether he
speaks from feeling or knowledge, for here the gods are at work
strewing seeds for future discernment and we can only wish that
they may proceed undisturbedly to development. But before they
can become general, the clouds which veil the human mind must be
dispersed. Give Beethoven my heartiest greetings and tell him that
I would willingly make sacrifices to have his acquaintance, when
an exchange of thoughts and feelings would surely be beautifully
profitable; mayhap you may be able to persuade him to make a
journey to Karlsbad whither I go nearly every year and would have
the greatest leisure to listen to him and learn from him. To think
of teaching him would be an insolence even in one with greater
insight than mine, since he has the guiding light of his genius
which frequently illumines his mind like a stroke of lightning
while we sit in darkness and scarcely suspect the direction from
which daylight will break upon us.

It would give me great joy if Beethoven were to make me a present
of the two songs of mine which he has composed, but neatly and
plainly written. I am very eager to hear them. It is one of my
greatest enjoyments, for which I am very grateful, to have the
old moods of such a poem (as Beethoven very correctly says) newly
aroused in me....

June 6, 1810.

(Bettina to Goethe)

Dearest friend! I communicated your beautiful letter to Beethoven
so far as it concerned him. He was full of joy and cried: “If there
is any one who can make him understand music, I am the man!” The
idea of hunting you up at Karlsbad filled him with enthusiasm. He
struck his forehead a blow and said: “Might I not have done that
earlier?--but, in truth, I did think of it but omitted to do it
because of timidity which often torments me as if I were not a
real man: but I am no longer afraid of Goethe.” You may count,
therefore, on seeing him next year....

I am enclosing both songs by Beethoven; the other two are by me.
Beethoven has seen them and said many pretty things about them,
such as that if I had devoted myself to this lovely art I might
cherish great hopes; but I merely graze it in flight, for my art is
only to laugh and sigh in a little pocket--more than that there is
none for me.

Bettina.

By the middle of June she was in Bohemia.

There are a few letters from this period to which attention may be paid. On July 9, 1810, Beethoven wrote to Zmeskall telling him of his distracted state of mind: he ought to go away from Vienna for the sake of his health, but Archduke Rudolph wanted him to remain near him; so he was one day in Schönbrunn, the next in Vienna. “Every day there come new inquiries from strangers, new acquaintances, new conditions even as regards art--sometimes I feel as if I should go mad because of my undeserved fame; fortune is seeking me and on that account I almost apprehend a new misfortune.” On July 17th, he sent to Thomson the Scotch songs which he had arranged, accompanied by a letter (in French) in which he discusses business matters, gives some instructions touching the repetitions in the songs, repeats his offer to compose three quintets and three sonatas and to send him such arrangements for quartet and quintet as have been made of his symphonies. Soon thereafter he wrote to Bettina Brentano:[79]

[Sidenote: BEETHOVEN’S LETTER TO BETTINA]

Vienna, August 11, 1810.

Dearest Bettine:

No lovelier spring than this, that say I and feel it, too, because
I have made your acquaintance. You must have seen for yourself that
in society I am like a frog on the sand which flounders about and
cannot get away until some benevolent Galatea puts him into the
mighty sea again. I was right high and dry, dearest Bettine, I was
surprised by you at a moment when ill-humor had complete control
of me; but of a truth it vanished at sight of you, I knew at once
that you belonged to another world than this absurd one to which
with the best of wills one cannot open his ears. I am a miserable
man and am complaining about the others!!--Surely you will pardon
this with your good heart which looks out of your eyes and your
sense which lies in your ears--at least your ears know how to
flatter when they give heed. My ears, unfortunately, are a barrier
through which I cannot easily have friendly intercourse with
mankind--otherwise!--Perhaps!--I should have had more confidence in
you. As it is I could only understand the big, wise look of your
eyes, which did for me what I shall never forget. Dear Bettine,
dearest girl! Art!--who understands it, with whom can one converse
about this great goddess!--How dear to me are the few days in
which we chatted, or rather corresponded with each other, I have
preserved all the little bits of paper on which your bright,
dear, dearest answers are written. And so I owe it to my bad ears
that the best portion of these fleeting conversations is written
down. Since you have been gone I have had vexatious hours, hours
of shadow, in which nothing can be done; I walked about in the
Schönbrunn Alley for fully three hours after you were gone, and on
the bastion; but no angel who might fascinate me as you do, Angel.
Pardon, dearest Bettine, this departure from the key. I must have
such intervals in which to unburden my heart. You have written to
Goethe, haven’t you?--would that I might put my head in a bag so
that I could see and hear nothing of what is going on in the world.
Since you, dearest angel, cannot meet me. But I shall get a letter
from you, shall I not?--Hope sustains me, it sustains half of the
world, and I have had her as neighbor all my life, if I had not
what would have become of me?--I am sending you herewith, written
with my own hand, “Kennst du das Land,” as a souvenir of the hour
in which I learned to know you, I am sending also the other which I
have composed since I parted with you dear, dearest heart!

Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,
Was bedränget dich so sehr?
Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!
Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.

Yes, dearest Bettine, answer this, write me what it is shall happen
to me since my heart has become such a rebel. Write to your most
faithful friend--

Beethoven.

The cessation in Beethoven’s productiveness in this period is partly explained by the vast amount of labor entailed by the preparation of manuscripts for publication, the correction of proofs, etc. Of this there is evidence in a number of letters to Breitkopf and Härtel. On July 2 he wrote demanding an honorarium of 250 florins for works that he had specified, and sending the first installment, two sonatas for pianoforte, five variations for pianoforte and six ariettas (probably Op. 75). The second installment, he said, should be a Concerto in E-flat, the Choral Fantasia and three Ariettas. The third, the Characteristic Sonata “Farewell, Absence and Return,” five Italian ariettas and the score of “Egmont.” On August 21, 1810, he wrote to the firm at great length. He sends a draft of a plan for a complete edition of his works, in which Breitkopf and Härtel were to figure as the principal publishers. He asks what they are willing to pay for “a concerto, quartet, etc., and then you will be able to see that 250 ducats is a small honorarium.”... “I do not aim at being a musical usurer, as you think, who composes only in order to get rich, by no means, but I love a life of independence and cannot achieve this without a little fortune, and then the honorarium must, like everything else that he undertakes, bring some honor to the artist.” He gives directions as to the dedications. Of the “Egmont” he says: “As soon as you have received the score you will best know what use to make of it and how to direct the attention of the public to it--I wrote it purely out of love for the poet, and to show this I accepted nothing from the theatre directors who accepted it, and as a reward, as ever and always, have treated my work with great indifference. There is nothing smaller than our great folk, but I make an exception in favor of the archdukes--give me your opinion as to a complete edition of my works, one of the chief obstacles seems to be in the case of new works which I shall continue to bring into the world I shall have to suffer in the matter of publication.”...

Without date, but endorsed by the firm as of August 21st, is the following little note containing an important correction in the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony:

... I have found another error in the Symphony in C minor, namely,
in the third movement in 3/4 time where, after the ♮ ♮ ♮ the minor
returns again, it reads (I just take the bass part) thus:

The two measures marked by a X are redundant and must be stricken
out, of course also in all the parts that are pausing.

[Sidenote: SORROWS BORNE IN SILENCE]

If the correspondence in this chapter seems in tone and character at variance with the assumption that, for some reason or other, this was a disastrous year to Beethoven, it must not be forgotten that there are troubles and sorrows which must be borne in silence--when to complain and lament is apter to excite ridicule than compassion. Though the burden be almost insupportable, the sufferer must perform his duties and pursue the business of life with a serene countenance, and permit no outward sign to reveal the secret pain. “The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun,” says Longfellow. “The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us and the world seems but a dim reflection--itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself.” When “surprised” by Bettina, Beethoven’s great hope had set and “ill humor had complete control” of him. His “marriage project had fallen through.” Whoever the lady was, the blow had now fallen and must be borne in silence. Its disastrous effect upon Beethoven’s professional energies is therefore for us the only measure of its severity. True, he writes to Zmeskall and talks of his art as if great things were in prospect; but he had no heart for such labor, and not until October did he take up and finish the ~Quartetto Serioso~ for his friend. The long bright summer days, that in other years had awakened his powers to new and joyous activity and added annually one at least to the list of his grandest works, came and departed, leaving no memorial but a few songs and minor instrumental works--the latter apparently composed to order. He took no country lodging this summer--alternating between Baden and Vienna, and indulging in lonely rambles among the hills and forests. We think it must have been in this period of song composition and oriental studies that, on such an excursion, he had with him the undated paper containing a selection from the songs in Herder’s “Morgenländische Blumenlese” and wrote upon it in pencil:

My decree [meaning the annuity contract] says only “to remain in
the country”--perhaps this would be complied with by any spot.
My unhappy ears do not torment me here. It seems as if in the
country every tree said to me “Holy! Holy!” Who can give complete
expression to the ecstasy of the woods? If everything else fails
the country remains even in winter--such as Gaden, Unterer Brühl,
etc.--easy to hire a lodging from a peasant, certainly cheap at
this time.

Another half-sheet in the Library of the Musikfreunde in Vienna, mostly covered with rude musical sketches, is a suitable pendant to the above, as it contains these words: “Without the society of some loved person it would not be possible to live even in the country.”

It is well known that Beethoven’s duties to Archduke Rudolph soon became irksome and at last almost insupportable. It was, however, for his good that he was compelled to perform them and be master of himself to that extent; it was also fortunate that Elizabeth Brentano came just at the crisis with beauty, grace and genius to turn his thoughts into other channels. Nor was it without benefit to him that Thomson’s melodies, which required no severe study, gave some desultory but profitable employment to his mind. Just at the close of the year it was rumored that he contemplated a journey into Italy “next spring, in order to seek restoration of his health, which had suffered greatly for several years, under southern skies.” There was some foundation for this, for some years later Beethoven himself states in one of his letters: “I declined a call to Naples.”

[Sidenote: WORKS PUBLISHED IN 1810]

The compositions of the year 1810 are:

1. The incidental music to Goethe’s “Egmont.” It was composed
between October, 1809 and May, 1810, and the first performance took
place on the 24th day of the latter month. There are sketches for
the song “Freudvoll und Leidvoll” in a sketchbook used in 1809;
but Nottebohm does not recognize them as having been conceived
for use in the tragedy, since there are indications that the song
was to have pianoforte accompaniment and be sung in part by two
voices. In a sketchbook begun early in January, 1810 (Nottebohm,
“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 276), on the first twenty-nine pages
there are sketches for seven numbers in the following order, viz:
7, 1, 8, 9, 2, 3, 6. Sketches for the overture are not to be found
in the book, but in other places in connection with sketches for
the Pianoforte Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, which was also in hand in
1809. Beethoven’s admiration for Goethe (stimulated, it is fair to
assume, by his intercourse with Elizabeth Brentano) is shown by the
fact that, besides the “Egmont” lyrics, others of Goethe’s poems
were sketched or completed in the year which saw the production
of the tragedy. “Egmont” was first performed on May 24, 1810.
Though Beethoven contemplated dedicating it to Archduke Rudolph,
it eventually appeared without a dedication. Beethoven offered the
music to Breitkopf and Härtel in a letter dated May 6 (1810) for
1400 florins in silver.

2. Two songs: “Kennst du das Land” and “Herz, mein Herz.”

3. Three songs: “Wonne der Wehmuth,” “Sehnsucht,” and “Mit einem
gemalten Bande.” The manuscript bears the following inscription
in Beethoven’s hand: “3 Gesänge--1810--Poesie von Goethe in Musik
gesetzt von Ludwig van Beethoven.”

4. Forty-three Irish melodies, with ritornellos and accompaniments
for pianoforte, violin and violoncello (completed).

5. Écossaise for military band.

6. Polonaise for military band.

7. March in F major for military band. “Composed in 1810, in Baden,
for Archduke Anton--3rd Summer-month.”

8. String Quartet, F minor. Op. 95. The autograph manuscript
preserved in the Royal Imperial Court Library at Vienna bears the
inscription: “~Quartetto serioso~--1810--in the month of October.
Dedicated to Herr von Zmeskall and written in the month of October
by his friend L. v. Beethoven.”

The publications of the year were:

1. “Das Lied aus der Ferne.” Published by Breitkopf and Härtel, in
February.

2. “Andenken,” song by Matthison. Breitkopf and Härtel, in March.

3. The opera “Leonore,” in two acts, etc., without overture and
finales. Breitkopf and Härtel, in March.

4. ~Sestetto pour 2 Clarinettes, 2 Cors et 2 Bassons, par L. v.
Beethoven.~ In parts, by Breitkopf and Härtel, in April.

5. ~Ouverture à grand Orchestre de l’Opéra Leonore, etc.~
(“Leonore, No. 3”), by Breitkopf and Härtel, in July.

6. Five Songs: Lied aus der Ferne (“Als mir noch die
Thräne”--thirteen pages composed stanza by stanza, newly
published); Der Liebende (“Welch’ ein wunderbares Leben”); Der
Jüngling in der Fremde (“Der Frühling entblühet”); An den fernen
Geliebten (“Einst wohnten süsse Ruh”); Der Zufriedene (“Zwar schuf
das Glück hienieden”), published in “Achtzehn deutsche Gedichte mit
Begleitung des Pianoforte von verschiedenen Meistern ... Erzherzog
Rudolph ... gewidmet von C. L. Reissig,” by Artaria and Co.,
Vienna, in July.

7. “Die Sehnsucht von Goethe, mit vier Melodien nebst
Clavierbegleitung....” No. 38, Vienna and Pesth, Kunst-und
Industrie-Comptoir, in September. A later edition bears the imprint
of S. A. Steiner and Co.

8. ~Variations pour le Pianoforte composées et dediées à son Ami
Oliva par L. v. Beethoven. Œuv. 76.~ Breitkopf and Härtel, in
October.

9. ~Quatuor pour deux Violons, etc., composé et dedié à son Altesse
le Prince régnant de Lobkowitz, Duc de Raudnitz, par, etc.~ Op. 74.
Breitkopf and Härtel, in November.

10. Six Songs with accompaniment for the Pianoforte. Op. 75.
Dedicated to Princess Kinsky. Breitkopf and Härtel, in November.
Mignon (“Kennst du das Land”); Neue Liebe, neues Leben (“Herz, mein
Herz”); Aus Goethe’s Faust (“Es war einmal ein König”); Gretel’s
Warnung (“Mit Liebesblick und Spiel und Sang”); An den fernen
Geliebten (“Einst wohnten süsse Ruh”); Der Zufriedene (“Zwar schuf
das Glück hienieden”). The last two had been published in July in
Reissig’s Collection (see No. 6).

11. ~Fantaisie pour le Pianoforte composée et dediée à son Ami
Monsieur le Conte François de Brunswick par L. v. Beethoven.~ Op.
77. Breitkopf and Härtel, in November.

12. ~Sonate pour le Pianoforte composée et dediée à Madame la
Comtesse Thérèse de Brunswick, etc.~ Op. 78. Breitkopf and Härtel,
in November.

13. ~Sonatine pour le Pianoforte, etc.~ Op. 79. Breitkopf and
Härtel, in November.

14. ~Sextuor pour 2 Violons, Alto, Violoncello et 2 Cors obligés.~
Op. 81 (81b), by Simrock, Bonn, in the spring.

FOOTNOTES:

[77] The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker, connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not unearthed until five years after his death.

[78] This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents, remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth, when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the letter renders it nearly worthless.

[79] From the “Athenæum.” There are a few variations in the letter as printed in the Nuremburg journal and in “Ilius Pamphilius”--“Bettine” is changed to “friend,” “frog” to “fish,” “and on the bastion” is omitted, “fascinated” (gebannt) is altered to “seized” (gepackt). A few other differences are grammatical errors.

It seems proper at this place for the English Editor to remark that Mr. Thayer’s argument in favor of the authenticity of the Bettina letters was printed in the Appendix to Vol. III of the original edition with a concluding foot-note by Dr. Deiters in which he said that he had not been convinced by his author’s painstaking exposition that the letters are genuine. Dr. Riemann in the second German edition prints the letters and the argument in the text, distributing the latter in two chapters and appending a foot-note in which he gives it as his opinion that only the second (that dated February 10, 1811, the autograph of which is in existence) is authentic ~as a letter~, while the other two, though probably based on observations made by Beethoven to Bettina, were put into epistolary shape by her. One of Bettina’s letters to Pückler-Muskau, which tells of Beethoven’s rudeness to Goethe as illustrated in the anecdote which plays so important a rôle in the third letter, would seem to bear out this theory. But it is also likely that Beethoven’s original letters were tricked out by her for literary effect, which would help to explain the disappearance of the autographs of the letters of 1810 and 1812. The second letter, which was printed in ~facsimile~ in the Marx-Behncke critical biography of Beethoven (4th ed., 1884), was in possession of Pastor Nathusius in Quedlinburg in 1902.