Chapter VII (1)

The Year 1825--The London Philharmonic Society again--Karl
Holz--The Early Biographies--Visits of Rellstab, Kuhlau, Smart and
Others--Stephan von Breuning--The A Minor Quartet, Op. 132.

The letter from Neate referred to at the conclusion of the last chapter brought with it an invitation from the Philharmonic Society of London which kept the thought of an English visit alive in Beethoven’s irresolute mind for a considerable space longer. Neate wrote in an extremely cordial vein. He had long wished to see Beethoven in England, he said, where he believed that his genius was appreciated more than in any other country; and now he had received the pleasant charge from the Philharmonic Society to invite him to come. He made no doubt but that in a short time he would earn enough money richly to compensate him for all the inconveniences of the journey. The Philharmonic Society was disposed to give him 300 guineas for conducting at least one of his works at each of the Society’s concerts in the coming season, and composing a new symphony which was to be produced during his visit but to remain the composer’s property. As an additional pecuniary inducement he held out that Beethoven could give a concert of his own at which he would make at least £500, besides which there were many other avenues of profit open to him. If he were to bring along the quartets of which he had written, they would yield him £100 more, and he might therefore be sure of carrying back a large sum of money, enough, indeed, to make all the remainder of his life much pleasanter than the past had been. He told Beethoven that the new Symphony had arrived and the first rehearsal of it set for January 17. He hoped that Beethoven would be on hand to direct it at the first concert of the Society and trusted that a report that a copy of it was in Paris was not true.

[Sidenote: PLANS FOR THE TRIP TO LONDON]

Beethoven replied: He was delighted with the terms which the Society offered, but would like to have 100 guineas more to pay for the expenses of the trip, it being necessary that he buy a carriage for the journey, and take a companion with him. He would bring a new quartet. The rumor that there was a copy of the Symphony was not true; it would, indeed, be published in Germany, but not before the year was past during which it was to remain the society’s property.[121] He urged that separate string rehearsals be held and the choruses be thoroughly studied above all, and directions for the _reprise_ in the second movement, the marks for which had been forgotten in the copy. An early reply was asked, as he had been requested to write a large work upon which he did not wish to begin before receiving an answer, for while he did not write in the hope of gaining a fortune it was necessary that he have assurance that he would earn a living. To this letter Neate replied on February 1. He had conveyed the contents of Beethoven’s letter to the directors of the Philharmonic Society and had now regretfully to report that they had declined to make any change in their offer. He was personally willing to give the advance asked, but the individual directors were not masters of their conduct in all things; they had to abide by the laws of the Society. He hoped that under the circumstances Beethoven would come; he was sure the trip would pay him, and the directors would impatiently await his presence at the second concert, it being already too late for the first. There was to be another rehearsal of the Symphony that evening.

Again Beethoven had to struggle with the question as to whether or not he should make the journey to London. He was strongly urged to go by his desire to earn a large sum of money. His friends pressed him with arguments in favor of the trip. Karl admonished him to make up his mind without giving heed to his insatiably sordid brother, but reminded him that Neate had assured him he would make enough money to be free of care for the rest of his life. Johann did not talk of the financial advantage alone but said that he would benefit physically, travel being good for the health. Apparently answering an objection of Beethoven’s on the score of his age, Karl reminded him that Haydn also went to London when he was fifty years old and he was “not so famous.” Schuppanzigh bursts out with his brusque third person singular: “I wish he would pluck up enough courage to make the trip; he would not regret it.” Who should accompany him? Schindler had been recommended by Neate, but his name does not occur in these conversations; instead, there is talk of Schuppanzigh and young Streicher. But as it turned out, no one was to accompany him, nobody alight with him either at the house of Stumpff or the Hotel de la Sablonière in Leicester Square which Neate had recommended as a French house much visited by foreigners. His doubts, suspicions, fears for his health, anxiety about his nephew, his fatal indecision, prevailed;--he would make the visit some other time--perhaps in the fall, as he wrote to Neate. Meanwhile would Neate aid him in the matter of the quartets? He had finished one and was at work on a second, which would be completed soon. Then he wrote again--on May 25; he was satisfied with the offer of £100 for the three quartets, was Neate agreed to his plan of sending them to a banker to be delivered on payment of the fee? If so he would send the first quartet at once and the fee might be paid after he had given notice of the completion of the other two.

[Sidenote: THE NINTH SYMPHONY AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE]

The absence of Ries’s name in these negotiations is explained by the fact that he was no longer in London. He had purchased an estate in Godesberg, near Bonn, and removed thither in 1824. He had invited Beethoven to be his guest there and it would seem that he was advised about the English situation. At least in a letter, presumably written early in 1825, Beethoven deems it incumbent to inform Ries that the present efforts to dispose of the Ninth Symphony were tentative and that the period during which the Philharmonic Society was to hold the work would be scrupulously respected. It had never been sent to Bremen or to Paris as had been reported. The occasion for this letter was one from Ries requesting metronome marks for “Christus am Ölberg,” and for the score of the Ninth Symphony for the approaching Lower Rhenish Music Festival, which he had been engaged to conduct. These _Niederrheinische Musikfeste_ had come into existence in 1817. The seventh meeting was to be held at Aix-la-Chapelle. Reports of the Vienna performance had been spread and it was desired to make the Symphony a feature of the festival scheme. In January, Schott and Sons were asked if the score would be in print by May and replied in the negative. Thereupon Ries was asked to write to Beethoven for a manuscript copy. Ries did not favor the production of the Symphony[122] but wrote for the music nevertheless, and Beethoven sent him the score of the purely instrumental movements and the parts of the finale. This was about March 12; a week later, on March 19 (two days, by the way, before the first performance in London), he sent the chorusmaster’s score of the finale and suggested that the instrumental score might be written out and appended. In the earlier letter in which Beethoven had promised to send the Symphony and in which he enclosed the metronome marks for the “Christus am Ölberg,” Beethoven offered to send also the Mass in D, an overture which he had written “for the Philharmonic Society,” and some smaller things for orchestra and chorus, which would enable the festival managers to give two or three concerts instead of one. He suggested that 40 Carolines would, perhaps, not be too much as a fee. Beethoven explained to Ries that he had only one copy of the score of the Ninth Symphony, and as there was a concert in prospect he could not send it; so Ries had a score made of the finale for the festival performance. Beethoven had also sent the “Opferlied,” the Overture in C (Op. 115, of course), the _Kyrie_ and _Gloria_ of the Mass and an Italian duet. He was still to send a grand march and chorus (from “The Ruins of Athens”), and might add an overture which was as yet unknown outside of Vienna, but thought he had sent enough. The Symphony and “Christus am Ölberg” were performed on the second day of the festival. The time was too short for the difficult music thoroughly to be learned and at the performance portions of the slow movement and Scherzo of the Symphony were “regretfully” omitted. There were 422 performers in chorus and orchestra, and the popular reception of the music was enthusiastic enough to enable Ries to report to Beethoven that the performance had been a success; and he sent him 40 Louis d’ors as a fee. Ries recognized the symphony as a work without a fellow and told Beethoven that had he written nothing else it would have made him immortal. “Whither will you yet lead us?” he asked. Very naturally, Beethoven had reported the negotiations touching a visit to England to Ries, who expressed his satisfaction that he had not accepted the engagement and added: “If you want to go there you must make thorough preparations. Rossini got £2500 from the Opera alone. If Englishmen want to do an extraordinary thing, they must all get together so as to make it worth while. There will be no lack of applause and marks of honor, but you have probably had enough of these all your life.”

[Sidenote: A JOKE ON HASLINGER MISCARRIES]

Mass and symphony had been delivered to Fries, the banker, on January 16, to be forwarded to Schott and Sons. Beethoven informed the firm by letter and took occasion to deny the report that it had been printed elsewhere. However, he does not seem to be entirely at ease in the matter. “Schlesinger is not to be trusted, for he takes where he can; both _Père et fils_ bombarded me for the Mass, etc., but I did not deign to answer either of them, since after thinking them over I had cast them out long before.”[123] He asks their attention to his plan for a complete edition of his works, which he would like to prepare and take a lump sum as an honorarium. He sends two canons for publication in the journal “Cäcilia,” and attempted a joke on his friend Haslinger which exercised his mind not a little during the next month or two. This was a skit purporting to be an outline or draft for an article on Haslinger’s career. The Schotts, either not understanding the joke or desiring to injure a rival who had spoken ill of them to Beethoven, printed the communication together with the two canons as if they belonged together. Beethoven either felt or affected to feel great anger at the proceeding; he sent a letter to the publishers and demanded its publication without change or curtailment. In this he rebuked them for printing what was intended as a pleasantry but might easily be construed as an intentional insult. He had not destined it for publication, and it was contrary to his nature intentionally to give offence to anybody. He had never resented anything that had been said about him as an artist, but he felt differently about things which affected him as a man. Haslinger was a respected old friend and he had thought to heighten the effect of the joke by suggesting that his consent to the publication be obtained. The printing was an abuse of the privileges of private correspondence, especially as the canons printed,[124] being set forth as a supplement to the skit, thereby became inexplicably incongruous. He would have a care that such a thing should not occur again. Whether or not the communication was ever printed does not appear; neither does it appear that Beethoven took the matter so greatly to heart as his letter was calculated to make the public believe, had it been printed. In August he wrote to his new friend Karl Holz: “I hear with amazement that the Mayence street-boys really abused a joke! It is contemptible; I assure you it was not at all my intention. What I meant was to have Castelli write a poem on these lines under the name of the musical Tobias, which I would set to music. But since it has so happened, it must be accepted as a dispensation from heaven. It will form a companion-piece to Goethe’s Bardt _sans comparaison_ with all other authors. But I believe Tobias has wronged you a little, etc.,--_Voila_ it is better to be revenged than to fall into the maw of a monster.[125] I can’t shed tears over it but must laugh like--.” To his nephew he wrote: “It was not right for Mayence to do a thing like that, but as it is done it will do no harm. The times demand strong men to castigate these petty, tricky, miserable little fellows”; and then, as if repenting him of the sounding phrase, he wrote in the margin: “much as my heart rebels against doing a man harm; besides it was only a joke and I never thought of having it printed.” It would seem that Haslinger must have known of the skit before it was sent to Schott, for in a letter of February 5, Beethoven suggested to the firm, as a joke, to ask Haslinger for the “romantic biography” which Beethoven had written of him, and added: “That is the way to handle this fellow, a heartless Viennese, who is the one who advised me not to deal with you. _Silentium!_” And he describes Steiner as a “rascally fellow and skinflint,” and Haslinger as a “weakling” whom he made useful to himself in some things. Haslinger may have felt incensed at the publication, but he eventually accepted it in an amiable spirit and it did not lead to any rupture of friendship between the men.

An amusing illustration of how Beethoven could work himself into a rage even when alone is preserved at the Beethoven Museum in Bonn, in the shape of some extraordinary glosses on a letter from a copyist named Wolanek, who was in his employ in the spring of the year. Wolanek was a Bohemian. Beethoven had railed against him whenever sending corrections to a publisher or apologizing for delays, and it is not difficult to imagine what the poor fellow had to endure from the composer’s voluble tongue and fecund imagination in the invention and application of epithets. In delivering some manuscripts by messenger some time before Easter, Wolanek ventured a defense of his dignity in a letter which, though couched in polite phrase, was nevertheless decidedly ironical and cutting. He said that he was inclined to overlook Beethoven’s conduct towards him with a smile; since there were so many dissonances in the ideal world of tones, why not also in the world of reality? For him there was comfort in the reflection that if Beethoven had been copyist to “those celebrated artists, Mozart and Haydn,” he would have received similar treatment. He requested that he be not associated with those wretches of copyists who were willing to be treated as slaves simply for the sake of a livelihood, and concluded by saying that nothing that he had done would cause him to blush in the slightest degree in the presence of Beethoven. It did not suffice Beethoven to dismiss the man from his employ; such an outcome seemed anticipated in the letter. He must make him feel that his incompetency was wholly to blame and realize how contemptible he looked in the eyes of the composer. The reference to Mozart and Haydn was particularly galling. Beethoven read the letter and drew lines across its face from corner to corner. Then in letters two inches long he scrawled over the writing the words: “_Dummer, Eingebildeter, Eselhafter Kerl_” (“Stupid, Conceited, Asinine Fellow”). That was not enough. There was a wide margin at the bottom of the sheet, just large enough to hold Beethoven’s next ebullition: “Compliments for such a good-for-nothing, who pilfers one’s money?--better to pull his asinine ears!” Then he turned the sheet over. A whole page invited him--and he filled it, margins and all. “Dirty Scribbler! Stupid Fellow! Correct the blunders which you have made in your ignorance, insolence, conceit and stupidity--this would be more to the purpose than to try to teach me, which is as if a _Sow_ were to try to give lessons to Minerva!” “Do YOU do honor to Mozart and Haidn by never mentioning their names.” “It was decided yesterday and even before then _not to have you write any more_ for me.”

[Sidenote: FIRST PERFORMANCES OF THE E-FLAT QUARTET]

The E-flat Quartet was now finished and about to be performed by Schuppanzigh and his companions. Beethoven was greatly concerned about the outcome and, as if at once to encourage and admonish them, he drafted a document in which all pledged themselves to do their best and sent it to them for signature. They obeyed, Linke adding to his name the words: “The Grand Master’s accursed violoncello.” and Holz: “The last--but only in signing.” The performance took place on March 6, and the result was disappointing. The music was not understood either by the players or the public and was all but ineffective. Schuppanzigh was held responsible and his patience must have been severely taxed by Beethoven’s upbraidings and his determination to have an immediate repetition by other players. Schuppanzigh defended himself as vigorously as possible and was particularly vexed because Beethoven cited his brother’s opinion of the performance--that of a musical ignoramus. He wanted to play the Quartet a second time, but told Beethoven that he had no objections to the work being handed over to Böhm; yet he protested with no little energy, that the fault of the fiasco was not his individually, as Beethoven had been told. He could easily master the technical difficulties, but it was hard to arrive at the spirit of the work: the _ensemble_ was faulty, because of this fact and too few rehearsals. Beethoven decided that the next hearing should be had from Böhm, and though Schuppanzigh had acquiesced, he harbored a grievance against the composer for some time. Böhm had been leader of the quartet concerts in Vienna during Schuppanzigh’s long absence. He has left an account of the incident, in which he plainly says that Schuppanzigh’s attitude toward the work was not sympathetic and that he had wearied of the rehearsals, wherefore at the performance it made but a _succès d’estime_. Beethoven sent for him (Böhm) and curtly said: “You must play my Quartet”--and the business was settled; objections, questionings, doubts were of no avail against Beethoven’s will. The Quartet was newly studied under Beethoven’s own eyes, a circumstance which added to the severity of the rehearsals, for, though he could not hear a tone, Beethoven watched the players keenly and detected even the slightest variation in tempo or rhythm from the movement of the bows. Böhm tells a story in illustration of this:

At the close of the last movement of the quartet there occurred
a _meno vivace_,[126] which seemed to me to weaken the general
effect. At the rehearsal, therefore, I advised that the original
tempo be maintained, which was done, to the betterment of the
effect. Beethoven, crouched in a corner, heard nothing, but watched
with strained attention. After the last stroke of the bows he said,
laconically “Let it remain so,” went to the desks and crossed out
the _meno vivace_ in the four parts.

The Quartet was played twice by Böhm and his fellows at a morning concert in a coffee-house in the Prater, late in March or early in April, and was enthusiastically received. Steiner, who had attended one or more of the rehearsals, was particularly enraptured by it and at once offered to buy it for publication for 60 ducats--a fact which Beethoven did not fail to report to Schott and Sons when he sent the manuscript to them. Subsequently Mayseder also played it at a private concert in the house of Dembscher, an official or agent of the war department of the Austrian Government, and this performance Holz described as a _réparation d’honneur_. Beethoven was now completely satisfied and, no doubt, went to work on its successor with a contented mind.

[Sidenote: KARL HOLZ SUPPLANTS SCHINDLER]

It is now become necessary to pay attention to the new friend of Beethoven whose name has been mentioned--the successor of Schindler, as he had been of Oliva, in the office of factotum in ordinary. This was Karl Holz, a young man (he was born in 1798) who occupied a post in the States’ Chancellary of Lower Austria. He had studied music with Glöggl in Linz and was so capable a violinist that, on Schuppanzigh’s return from Russia in 1823, he became second in the latter’s quartet. He seems to have come into closer contact with Beethoven early in the spring of 1825, probably when, having to conduct a performance of the B-flat Symphony at a concert in the Ridotto Room, he asked an audience of the composer in order that he might get the _tempi_ for that work. Though not a professional musician, he gave music lessons, later occasionally conducted the _Concerts spirituels_ and eventually became the regular director of these affairs. Emboldened by the kindness with which he was first received he gradually drew nearer to the composer and in August, 1825, an intimate friendship seems imminent, as is indicated by Beethoven’s remark in a letter to his nephew: “It seems as if Holz might become a friend.” He was good at figures, a quality which made him particularly serviceable to Beethoven (who was woefully deficient in arithmetic)[127] at a time when he was dealing with foreign publishers and there was great confusion in money values and rates of exchange. He was also a well-read man, a clever talker, musically cultured, a cheery companion, and altogether an engaging person. All these qualities, no less than the fact that he was strong and independent in his convictions and fearless in his proclamation of them, recommended him to Beethoven, and he does not seem to have hesitated to take advantage of the fact that he entered the inner circle of Beethoven’s companions at a time when the composer had begun to feel a growing antipathy to Schindler. He promptly embraced the opportunity which his willing usefulness brought him, to draw close to the great man, to learn of him and also to exhibit himself to the world as his confidential friend. He was not obsequious, and this pleased Beethoven despite the fact that he himself was not indisposed to play upon his friends for his own purposes “like instruments,” as he himself once confessed. In a short time Holz made himself indispensable and acquired great influence over the composer. He aided him in the copying of his works, looked into the affairs of Nephew Karl and reported upon them, advised him in his correspondence, and directed his finances at a time when he was more than ordinarily desirous to acquire money so that he might leave a competency on his death to his foster-son. In time Beethoven came to entrust weighty matters to his decision, even the choice of publishers and his dealings with them. His prepossessing address, heightened by his independence of speech, made it less easy to contradict him than Schindler. Moreover, the recorded conversations show that he was witty, that he had a wider outlook on affairs than Beethoven’s other musical advisers, that his judgments were quickly reached and unhesitatingly pronounced. His speeches are not free from frivolity nor always from flattery, but he lived at a time and among a people accustomed to extravagant compliments and there can be no doubt of his reverence for Beethoven’s genius. Beethoven could endure a monstrous deal of lip-service, as all his friends knew, and surely took no offence when Holz said to him: “I am no flatterer, but I assure you that the mere thought of Beethovenian music makes me glad, first of all, that I am alive!”

We owe much of our knowledge of the relations between Beethoven and Holz to Schindler’s statements as they appear in his biography,[128] two articles which appeared in the “Kölnische Zeitung” in 1845, and among the glosses on the Conversation Book. But many of his utterances show ill-feeling, which it is not unfair to trace to a jealousy dating back to the time when Holz crowded Beethoven’s “Secretary _sans_ salary” out of Beethoven’s service and good graces. There was no open rupture between Beethoven and Schindler, but a feeling of coolness and indifference which grew with the advancement of the younger man in the favor of the composer. There is considerably more to be read between Schindler’s lines than on their surface, and because of their personal equation they ought to be received with caution. True, he does not deny that Holz was possessed of excellent artistic capacities, that he was well educated and entirely respectable as a man. He describes him as a prime specimen of the Viennese “Phæacians” of whom Beethoven was wont to speak with supreme contempt; and there is ample evidence that Holz was indeed given to the pleasures which Beethoven attributed to the denizens of Scheria. But the results of Beethoven’s fellowship with a cheery companion were certainly not so great as Schindler says, nor so evil and grievous as he intimates. His earlier insinuation, that in order to exhibit his influence to the public Holz led Beethoven into company and practices which he would otherwise have avoided, among them to the frequenting of taverns and to excessive wine-bibbing, were subsequently developed into an accusation that Holz had spread a report that the composer had contracted dropsy from vinous indulgence. Beethoven was accustomed to drink wine from youth up, and also to the companionship which he found in the inns and coffee houses of Vienna, which are not to be confounded with the groggeries with which straitlaced Americans and Englishmen are prone to associate the words. It was, moreover, undoubtedly a charitable act to drag him out of his isolation into cheerful company. We know that he was so accustomed to take wine at his meals that his physicians found it difficult to make him obey their prohibition of wine and heating spices when he was ill; but that he was more given to wine-drinking in 1825 and 1826 than at any other period, we learn only from Schindler, whose credibility as a witness on this point is impeached by the fact that, as he himself confesses, he seldom saw Beethoven between March 1825 and August 1826. Nor is it true, as Schindler asserts, that Beethoven’s habits now cost him the loss of old friendships. On the contrary, it was in this period that the cordial relations between him and Stephan von Breuning, which had been interrupted many years before, were restored and became peculiarly warm. Czerny told Jahn that Beethoven’s hypochondria led to many estrangements; but when he was ill, Count Lichnowsky, Haslinger and Piringer were visitors at his bedside, and not even Schindler seems to have been able to name a man whose sympathy the composer had sacrificed. His life was solitary; but not more than it had been for years.[129] In Gerhard von Breuning’s recollections, as recorded in “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” there is scarcely a mention of Holz and none at all of the dangers into which Beethoven is alleged to have been led by him.

Beethoven’s letters bear witness to the fond regard in which he held him. His name, which in German signifies wood and in the literature of the church also cross, provided Beethoven with a welcome chance to indulge his extravagant fondness for punning. Thus in the composer’s jovial address-book, not distinguished by reverence for anything sacred or profane, Holz becomes “Best Mahoghany,” “Best Splinter from the Cross of Christ,” “Best _lignum crucis_.” The tone of the letters is always respectful, and once he begs his friend to forget an undescribed happening. Holz had his entire confidence, and when the great catastrophe of 1826 came, Holz was the strongest prop upon which he leaned. Schindler says that Beethoven was godfather to Holz’s child, but that is plainly an error; Holz was married in the early winter of 1826, only three or four months before Beethoven’s death. The extent to which he had won Beethoven’s confidence and Beethoven’s high opinion of his character and ability are attested by the following document, which was signed only a short time after the intimacy began:

[Sidenote: HOLZ AUTHORIZED TO WRITE A BIOGRAPHY]

With pleasure I give my friend, Karl Holz, the assurance which
has been asked of me, that I consider him competent to write my
eventual biography, assuming that such a thing should be desired,
and I repose in him the fullest confidence that he will give to the
world without distortion all that I have communicated to him for
this purpose.

Vienna, August 30, 1826.

Ludwig van Beethoven.

There can be no question as to the sincerity of the desire which finds utterance in this declaration. It was made in the midst of a period when Holz was of incalculable service to him, and he had every reason to believe that Holz had both the ability and the disposition to write the truthful, unvarnished account of his life which he wanted the world to have. Schindler says that he subsequently changed his mind, said that the document was the result of a surprise sprung upon him in the confusion of occurrences, and asked von Breuning to request Holz to return it. Breuning declined to do so, says Schindler, and Beethoven, not having courage himself to make the request, contented himself with doubting the validity of a paper which was written only in pencil. On his deathbed, Schindler continues,[130] Beethoven, in answer to a question directly put to him by Breuning, unhesitatingly declared that Rochlitz was his choice as biographer; and at a later date, realizing that death was approaching, he requested Breuning and Schindler to gather up his papers, make such use of them as could be done in strict truth, and to write to Rochlitz. Two months after Beethoven had passed away Breuning followed him, and Schindler was left alone to fulfil the composer’s wish. He wrote to Rochlitz, who regretfully declined the pious task on the ground that the state of his health did not permit him to undertake so large a work. Thereupon Schindler let the matter rest, waiting for time and circumstances to determine the course which he should follow.

Stephan von Breuning had informed his brother-in-law, Dr. Wegeler, of Beethoven’s charge with reference to the papers, and Wegeler had sent Schindler notes on Beethoven’s boyhood years and his life in Bonn. In 1833 Schindler visited Wegeler in Coblenz and consulted with him about the biography which, as Wegeler knew, Rochlitz had been asked, but declined, to write. Wegeler thereupon suggested that Schindler, he and Ferdinand Ries collaborate in the writing. Ries was consulted and agreed, but work had scarcely been begun before differences arose between Schindler and Ries as to the propriety of giving to the world matters which Schindler (who insisted that Ries was paying a grudge which he owed his erstwhile teacher) thought of no interest or too offensive for publication. Ries contended that to tell the whole truth about great men was right and could do them no injury. Schindler says he then persuaded Wegeler to continue the collaboration without Ries, but, delays resulting from correspondence with persons in Vienna, Wegeler became impatient and in October, 1844,[131] announced that his notes were about to be published. They did not appear, however, and Schindler tried again to work in company with Ries; but the latter persisted in his purpose, and the project fell through a second time. This was in 1837, and the next year, shortly after Ries’s sudden death, appeared the “Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven” by Wegeler and Ries. In the remarks with which the men prefaced their reminiscences there is no reference to the projected collaboration described by Schindler, nor can it truthfully be said that anything in Ries’s observations bears out Schindler’s charge that he felt a grudge against Beethoven and sought to feed it by telling unpleasant truths about him.

To continue the story of these early biographies: Schindler now asked counsel of Dr. Bach, who advised him to betake himself to the task of writing the life of Beethoven alone. He did so, and his book appeared in 1840. Holz never made use of the _imprimatur_ which he had received from Beethoven, but in 1843 formally relinquished his authorization to Dr. Gassner, of Carlsruhe, promising to deliver all the material which he held into his hands and to use his influence in the procurement of dates from authentic sources, “so that the errors in the faulty biographies which have appeared up to the present time may be corrected.” That this was a fling at Schindler’s book is evident from a document[132] in which, on November 1, 1845, Holz, at that time director of the _Concerts spirituels_ in Vienna, declares that the forthcoming biography (by Gassner) would “not derive its dates from _fictitious_ or _stolen_ conversation books, and _unsophisticated_ evidence will also give more intimate information about Mr. Schindler.” Twice did Schindler attack Holz in the “Kölnische Zeitung” in 1845 and once, it would appear, Holz answered him, but anonymously. The subject need not be continued here, however; it has a bearing only on the credibility of the two men in the discussion of each other. Gassner’s biography never appeared.

Perhaps it was characteristic of Beethoven, and also of the friends who came to his help in need, that though Schindler had been written down in his bad books before Holz established himself in his confidence, and though there was never a serious estrangement between Beethoven and Holz, it was Schindler upon whom Beethoven leaned most strongly for help when the days of physical dissolution arrived--Schindler, not Holz. The latter’s devotion had either undergone a cooling process or been interfered with by his newly assumed domestic obligations. But Schindler’s statement that he was “dismissed” in December, 1826, is an exaggeration, to say the least; Beethoven wrote him a letter a month before he died, asking his help in collecting money from the Archduke. Holz died on November 9, 1858. He had been helpful to Otto Jahn when the latter was gathering material for a life of Beethoven.[133]

[Sidenote: STRICT PHYSICIANS AND AN UNRULY PATIENT]

The E-flat Quartet had been successfully brought forward, a pause had been reached in the correspondence with Schott and Sons and Neate, a summer home for Beethoven was in prospect, and considerable progress had been made in the draft for a new quartet designed for Prince Galitzin, when an illness befell Beethoven which kept him within doors, and for a portion of the time in bed, from about the middle of April to the beginning of May, 1825. Beethoven had been told by his physician that he was in danger of an inflammation of the bowels, and as such Beethoven described his ailment in letters to his brother and to Schott and Sons. Dr. Staudenheimer had been in attendance on him before and had insisted upon strict obedience to his prescriptions. Beethoven now called in Dr. Braunhofer, who proved to be even less considerate of the patient’s wilfulness; he was so blunt and forceful in his demands for obedience that Beethoven was somewhat awed, and beneficial results followed. Were it possible for the readers of these pages who are curious on such subjects to consult the Conversation Books of this period, they would there find interesting information as to diagnosis and treatment in the case of the distinguished patient. Dr. Braunhofer did not want to “torment” Beethoven long with medicines, but he gave orders for a strict diet. “No wine; no coffee; no spices of any kind. I’ll arrange matters with the cook.”--“Patience, a sickness does not disappear in a day.” “I shall not trouble you much longer with medicine, but you must adhere to the diet; you’ll not starve on it.” “You must do some work in the daytime so that you can sleep at night. If you want to get entirely well and live a long time, you must live according to nature. You are very liable to inflammatory attacks and were close to a severe attack of inflammation of the bowels; the predisposition is still in your body. I’ll wager that if you take a drink of spirits you’ll be lying weak and exhausted on your back inside of an hour.” The doctor inspired him with courage and hope, and admonished him to keep quiet and be patient. In dry weather he was to take walks, but even after going to Baden he must take no baths so long as the weather remained damp and symptoms of his illness remained.

Beethoven went to Baden early in May and probably within a week of his arrival he reported his condition to Dr. Braunhofer in a semi-humorous manner by writing down a dialogue between doctor and patient in which the latter suggests desired changes in his treatment. He asks for something strengthening to help him get to his desk, thinks that he might be permitted to drink white wine and water, as the “mephitic beer” revolts him; he is still very weak, expectorates blood freely “probably from the bronchial tubes,” etc. The physician had asked for a few notes written by his own hand as a souvenir. Beethoven complies with the request by sending him a canon written while taking a walk on May 11. It looks like a sign of mingled apprehension and returning spirits:

Doktor sperrt das Thor dem Tod, Note hilft auch aus der Noth.
Close the door ’gainst Death, I plead, Doctor, notes will help in
need.
]

On May 17, he reports to his nephew that he is beginning to do considerable work.

[Sidenote: LUDWIG RELLSTAB VISITS BEETHOVEN]

It was while Beethoven was ill in Vienna that Ludwig Rellstab made several visits to him, of which he has left enthusiastic reports.[134] He was 26 years old at the time and had made a mark as essayist and poet; the chief object of his journey to Vienna from Berlin, on which he set out on March 21, was to see the composer. He reached the Austrian capital in the last days of March or the first days of April. His account of the meeting is like many others except that it is written with literary elegance, albeit with that excessive fervor, that _Überschwänglichkeit_, which is characteristic of German hero-worshippers. Zelter had given him a letter of introduction and had written that Rellstab wanted to write the libretto of an opera to be set by the composer, and this was the first subject broached after Beethoven had warmly greeted his visitor and expressed delight with Zelter’s letter. Beethoven is pleased at the prospect of getting an opera-book from Rellstab:

It is so difficult to get a good poem. Grillparzer promised me
one. He has already made one for me but we can not come to an
understanding with each other. I want one thing, he wants another.
You’ll have trouble with me!... I care little what genre the works
belong to, so the material be attractive to me. But it must be
something which I can 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!

Rellstab had had it in mind to write an opera-book for Weber and had pondered over many subjects, and he now gave a list of these to Beethoven--“Attila,” “Antigone,” “Belisarius,” “Orestes” and others. Beethoven read the names thoughtfully and then apologized for the trouble he was causing his visitor. Rellstab, seeing an expression of weariness in his face, took his departure, after saying that he would send him a specimen of his handiwork. In a Conversation Book used in the middle of April there is further talk between Rellstab and Beethoven about opera, but the notes, which are fragmentary, give no indications of Beethoven’s views. The most interesting incident of the meetings occurred at a subsequent visit. Rellstab had told that he had been deeply moved (he dared not express a more specific opinion on the subject, being in doubt himself) by the Quartet in E-flat, which he had heard performed twice in succession.[135] He continues:

Beethoven read and remained silent; we looked at each other mutely,
but a world of emotions surged in my breast. Beethoven, too,
was unmistakably moved. He arose and went to the window, where
he remained standing beside the pianoforte. To see him so near
the instrument gave me an idea which I had never before dared to
harbor. If he--Oh! he needed only to turn half way around and he
would be facing the keyboard--if he would but sit down and give
expression to his feelings in tones! Filled with a timid, blissful
hope, I approached him and laid my hand upon the instrument. It
was an English pianoforte by Broadwood. I struck a chord lightly
with my right hand in order to induce Beethoven to turn around;
but he seemed not to have heard it. A few moments later, however,
he turned to me, and, seeing my eyes fixed upon the instrument he
said: “That is a beautiful pianoforte! I got it as a present from
London. Look at these names.” He pointed to the cross-beam over
the keyboard. There I saw several names which I had not before
noticed--Moscheles, Kalkbrenner, Cramer, Clementi, Broadwood
himself.... “That is a beautiful gift,” said Beethoven looking at
me, “and it has such a beautiful tone,” he continued and moved his
hands towards the keys without taking his eyes off me. He gently
struck a chord. Never again will one enter my soul so poignant,
so heartbreaking as that one was! He struck C major with the
right hand and B as a bass in the left, and continued his gaze
uninterruptedly on me, repeated the false chord several times in
order to let the sweet tone of the instrument reverberate; and the
greatest musician on earth did not hear the dissonance! Whether or
not Beethoven noticed his mistake I do not know; but when he turned
his head from me to the instrument he played a few chords correctly
and then stopped. That was all that I heard from him directly.

Rellstab had planned a short excursion to Hungary and then intended to leave Vienna for his home. Fearful that he might not see Beethoven on his return to the city he went to him to say farewell:

Beethoven spoke very frankly and with feeling. I expressed
my regret that in all the time of my sojourn in Vienna I had
heard, except one of his symphonies and a quartet, not a single
composition of his in concert; why had “Fidelio” not been given?
This gave him an opportunity to express himself on the subject of
the taste of the Vienna people. “Since the Italians (Barbaja) have
gotten such a strong foothold here the best has been crowded out.
For the nobility, the chief thing at the theatre is the ballet.
Nothing can be said about their appreciation of art; they have
sense only for horses and dancers. We have always had this state
of things. But this gives me no concern; I want only to write that
which gives me joy. If I were well it would be all the same to me!”

On his departure Beethoven, who had been absent from his lodgings when Rellstab called for his final leavetaking, sent him a letter to Steiner and Co., containing a canon on the words from Matthison’s “Opferlied” of which he had made use on at least one earlier occasion (“Das Schöne zu dem Guten”).

[Sidenote: AN UTTERANCE ON ECCLESIASTICAL MUSIC]

Karl Gottfried Freudenberg, a young musician who afterwards became Head Organist at Breslau and wrote a book of reminiscences entitled “Erinnerungen eines alten Organisten,” visited Beethoven in July of the year and has left a record which is none the less interesting because its lack of literary flourish is offset by succinct reports of the great composer’s estimate of some of his contemporaries, and his views on ecclesiastical music. Beethoven, according to Freudenberg, described Rossini as a “talented and a melodious composer; his music suits the frivolous and sensuous spirit of the time, and his productivity is such that he needs only as many weeks as the Germans do years to write an opera.” He said of Spontini: “There is much good in him; he understands theatrical effects and the musical noises of warfare thoroughly”; of Spohr: “He is too rich in dissonances, pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody”; of Bach: “His name ought not to be Bach (brook) but Ocean, because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of combinations and harmonies. He was the ideal of an organist.” This led Beethoven into the subject of music for the church. “I, too, played the organ a great deal in my youth,” he said, “but my nerves could not stand the power of the gigantic instrument. I place an organist who is master of his instrument, first among virtuosi.” Pure church music, he remarked, ought to be performed only by voices, unless the text be a _Gloria_ or something of the kind. For this reason he preferred Palestrina to all other composers of church music, but it was folly to imitate him unless one had his genius and his religious beliefs; moreover, it was practically impossible for singers to-day to sing the long-sustained notes of this music in a cantabile manner.

Karl August Reichardt, afterwards Court Organist in Altenburg, S. M. de Boer, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, Carl Czerny, Friedrich Kuhlau, Sir George Smart and Moritz Schlesinger were among the visitors to Baden in the summer to whose meetings with the composer the Conversation Books bear always interesting and sometimes diverting witness. Reichardt’s visit seems to have been brief, and it is safe to presume that the young man received scant encouragement to remain long, for his talk was chiefly about himself, his desire to get advice as to a good teacher and to have Beethoven look at some of his music. The man from Holland, who probably had used his predicate as a member of the Academy which had elected Beethoven an honorary member to gain an audience, must have diverted the composer with his broken German, which looks no more comical in the Conversation Book than it must have sounded; but a canon without words which he carried away with him may be said to bear witness to the fact that he made a good impression on Beethoven, to whom he gave information concerning the state of music in the Dutch country. Czerny, apparently, was urged by his erstwhile teacher to get an appointment and to compose in the larger forms. Beethoven was curious to learn how much Czerny received for his compositions and Czerny told him that he attached no importance to his pieces, because he scribbled them down so easily, and that he took music from the publishers in exchange.

The visit of the Danish composer, flautist and director, Friedrich Kuhlau, led to a right merry feast, for a description of which Seyfried found a place in the appendix of his “Studien.” That the boundaries of nice taste in conversation and story-telling may have been strained a bit is an inference from the fact that several pages of the Conversation Book containing the recorded relics of the affair are missing. After a promenade through the Helenenthal in which Beethoven amused himself by setting all manner of difficult tasks in hill-climbing, the party sat down to dinner at an inn. Champagne flowed freely, and after the return to Beethoven’s lodgings red Vöslauer, brought from his closet or cellar, did its share still further to elevate the spirits of the feasters. Beethoven seems to have held his own in the van of the revel. Kuhlau improvised a canon on B-a-c-h, to which Beethoven replied with the same notes as an opening motive and the words “Kühl, nicht lau” (“Cool, not lukewarm”)--a feeble play on the Danish musician’s name, but one which served to carry the music. Beethoven wrote his canon in the Conversation Book. The next day Kuhlau confessed to Schlesinger that he did not know how he had gotten home and to bed: Beethoven’s post-festal reflections may be gathered from the letter which accompanied a copy of the canon which he sent to Kuhlau by the hands of Holz:

Baden, September 3, 1825.

I must admit that the champagne went too much to my head also,
yesterday, and that I was compelled again to make the experience
that such things retard rather than promote my capacities; for easy
as it generally is for me to meet a challenge on the instant, I do
not at all remember what I wrote yesterday.

In handing over letter and canon to Holz for delivery he wrote to him that he had scarcely reached home before it occurred to him that he might have made a dreadful mess of it on the day before.

[Sidenote: A GARRULOUS PARISIAN PUBLISHER]

Schlesinger, of Paris, son of the Berlin publisher, was a very insistent as well as persistent courtier, with an auspicious eye to business at all times. He wanted to purchase the two new quartets and did succeed in getting one of them, and he aroused Beethoven’s suspicions by the pertinacity with which he pleaded for permission to attend a rehearsal of the second; the pride of the composer revolted, evidently, at the thought that a publisher should ask to hear a work of his which he purposed buying. But Schlesinger, who had Nephew Karl as his advocate at court in all things, made it appear that he was eager only for the inestimable privilege of hearing the new works of the master, and put in a plea that he might also hear the Quartet which had already been sold to Schott and Sons. Holz discloses a distrust of him very plainly and misses no occasion to warn Beethoven against entangling alliances with the Parisian publisher. Schlesinger wins his way to a very familiar footing with Beethoven, going so far once as to ask him if a report which he had heard that Beethoven had wanted to marry the pianist, Cibbini, was true.[136] The old page does not tell us what answer Beethoven gave, but Schlesinger, who had disclosed his own heartwounds and railed against the fair sex because of his experiences, tells the composer that he shall be the first to make the bride’s acquaintance should he ever get married. Schlesinger appears desirous to become a sort of dealer _en gros_ in Beethoven’s products; he would like the two new Quartets (in A minor and B-flat major); he will publish a Complete Edition and begin with the chamber pieces, to which ends he wants still another quartet and three quintets; he seeks to awaken a literary ambition in the writer of notes--the journal published by the Schlesingers in Berlin will be glad to republish whatever Beethoven may write to the Mayence journal about the joke on Haslinger, and Beethoven ought really to write some essays--on what a symphony and an overture ought to be and on the art of fugue, of which he was now the sole repository. He knows how to approach genius on its most susceptible side. Beethoven must go to England, where he is so greatly admired; he reports that Cherubini had said to his pupils at the Conservatoire in Paris: “The greatest musical minds that ever lived or ever will live, are Beethoven and Mozart.” At dinner, at the suggestion of the same garrulous talker, the company drink the healths of Goethe and Cherubini. Again Schlesinger urges Beethoven to go to London: “I repeat again that if you will go to England for three months I will engage that, deducting your travelling expenses, you will make 1000 pounds, or 25,000 florins W. W. at least, if you give only two concerts and produce some new music.... The Englishmen are proud enough to count themselves fortunate if Beethoven would only be satisfied with them.” When the toast to Cherubini is drunk, Schlesinger takes occasion to satisfy the curiosity of Beethoven touching the status of the composer whom he most admired among living men.