Chapter II (2)

Very best fellow!

Yesterday, in the carriage on the way to Vienna, I was overcome by
sleep, naturally enough, since (because of my early rising here)
I had never slept well. While thus slumbering I dreamed that I
had made a long journey--to no less distant a country than Syria,
no less than India, back again, no less than Arabia, finally I
reached Jerusalem; the Holy City aroused in me thoughts of Holy
Writ and small wonder that the man Tobias now occurred to me, and
how natural that our little Tobias should enter my mind and the
_pertobiasser_, and now during my dream journey the following canon
came to me: “O Tobias _dominus_ Haslinger, O, O!” But scarcely
awakened, away went the canon and nothing of it would come back
to my memory. But when, next day, I was on my way hither in the
same conveyance (that of a poor Austrian musician) and continued
the dream journey of the day before, now awake, behold, according
to the laws of association of ideas, the same canon occurred to
me again; now fully awake I held it fast, as erst Menelaus held
Proteus, only allowing it to change itself into 3 voices.

Farewell. Presently I shall send you something on Steiner to show
you that he has no stony (_steinernes_) heart. Farewell, very best
of fellows, we ever wish that you will always belie your name of
publisher (_Verleger_) and never become embarrassed (_verlegen_)
but remain a publisher (_Verleger_) never at a loss (_verlegen_)
either in receiving or paying--Sing the epistles of St. Paul every
day, go to pater Werner,[34] who will show you the little book by
which you may go to heaven in a jiffy. You see my anxiety for your
soul’s salvation; and I remain with the greatest pleasure from
everlasting to everlasting,

Your most faithful debtor
Beethoven.

[Sidenote: NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE MASS IN D]

And now as to the creative work of the two years. Paramount attention must be given to the Mass in D, which, though long in hand and destined for a function in which Beethoven and his Imperial Archepiscopal pupil were profoundly concerned, was yet incomplete when the time for that function arrived. Archduke Rudolph was installed as Archbishop of Olmütz on March 20, 1820. Exactly what condition the Mass was in at that time we have no means of knowing; it was, however, in a sufficient state of forwardness to enable Beethoven to begin negotiations for its publication. On March 18 he wrote to Simrock:

As regards the mass, I have pondered the matter carefully and might
give it to you for the honorarium of 100 Louis d’ors which you
offered me, provided you agree to a few conditions which I shall
propose and which I think, will not be found burdensome by you. We
have gone through the plan for publication here and believe that
with a few modifications it can be put into effect very soon, which
is very necessary; wherefore I shall make haste to inform you of
the necessary changes soon.

This would seem to indicate that the work had been practically completed, and that this view obtained amongst Beethoven’s friends we know from the evidence of the Conversation Books. In the summer at Mödling he was frequently asked if it was finished and when it would be performed. Some hurried sketches belonging to the _Credo_ are found amongst the remarks of his friends, and also sketches for the _Agnus Dei_. Schindler asks him in August: “Is the _Benedictus_ written out in score? Are those sketches for the _Agnus_?” Rudolph had communicated to him his intention to spend a part of the summer in Mödling. Beethoven writes to him on August 3 and September 2, making apologies for apparent neglect in not waiting upon him (he had no carriage the first time, was in ill-health the second), but says not a word about the mass. Some of the remarks in the Conversation Book are vague as to the composition referred to, but many are plain enough to show that Beethoven had informed his friends and advisers of the negotiations with Simrock. Surprise is expressed at Simrock’s delay. Beethoven is advised to write to him and also to Brentano in Frankfort, who had been authorized to collect the honorarium. In April somebody writes: “Have you written to Simrock that he _must not_ publish the mass at once, as you want first to send it or hand it to the Archduke?” Again: “If you send the _Recepisse_ of the stage-coach he will certainly send you the money _at once_.” And later: “It would be quicker to give the music to the stage-coach and send Brentano the receipt--at the same time informing Simrock that Brentano had been assured of its despatch; then Brentano can send you the money at once without waiting to receive the music.” In April again: “But he has not yet replied to your last offer of the mass? I mean Simrock--200 ducats could help you out greatly--Because of _your circumstances_. You must not delay writing to Simrock or Brentano. Brentano can send you the money _at once_--or at least very soon.” “I am surprised that Simrock has not answered yet.” Meanwhile Simrock answers. “Leave Simrock’s letter with me,” says the mentor, “I’ll answer it and give you the letter this afternoon--if you are satisfied with it you will sign it and I will post it to-morrow. There must be no delay.” “He says the mass can be used only by Catholics, which is not true.” “He is paying too little rather than too much with 200 ducats.”

It is obvious that some difficulty had arisen between Beethoven and Simrock. What that difficulty was is explained in a letter from Simrock to Brentano dated November 12, 1820. It was a misunderstanding concerning the price of the “new grand musical mass” which the composer wished to sell for 100 Louis d’ors. The publisher had agreed to the price, understanding Louis d’ors to mean what the term meant in Bonn, Leipsic and throughout Germany, namely, the equivalent of Friedrichs d’ors, pistoles. In order to avoid unpleasantness after the reception of the mass he had explained this clearly to Beethoven and in a letter, dated September 23, had repeated that by Louis d’ors he meant Friedrichs d’ors; he was not in a position to give more. He would hold the sum in readiness against the receipt of the mass, which Beethoven had promised to provide with German as well as Latin words. He was also under the impression that he had asked a speedy decision, as he did not want to keep his money tied up in Frankfort. Hearing nothing for four weeks he had quit counting on the mass and made other use of his money. Learning, however, from Brentano’s letter of November 8th that Beethoven had agreed to let him have the mass, he now finds himself in the embarrassment of not having the gold Louis d’ors on hand, but as Brentano had said nothing on the subject he would in the meantime try to secure the coin, unless Brentano were willing to take the equivalent in florins at the rate of 9.36. He asked to be informed of the arrival of the music so that he might instruct Heinrich Verhuven to receive it on paying the sum mentioned.

Simrock waited four weeks before abandoning hope that Beethoven would send the mass; it was ten weeks and more before Beethoven answered Simrock’s letter. Then he sent his reply to Brentano enclosed in a letter dated November 28. The letter has not been found, or at least not made public; but the letter to Brentano[35] makes it plain that Beethoven had acceded to Simrock’s offer and agreed to take pistoles for Louis d’ors. He says:

Your kindness permits me to hope that you will not refuse to have
the enclosure sent to Simrock, inasmuch as in it my views are set
forth concerning the whole matter. Nothing remains now except to
take what he offers, namely the 100 pistoles and as much more as
you, an expert in the business, can get for me by the rate of
exchange. I am convinced of your kind disposition in this regard.
I am very hard-pressed just now, but such things are to be told
_last of all to a publisher_; it is, thank God, not my fault, but
my sacrifices for others, chiefly, too, for the weak Cardinal who
led me into this morass and does not know how to help himself. As
soon as the translation is finished I shall trouble you again by
sending you the mass, and I pray you give a little attention then
to securing what you can for me from the Jewish[36] publisher.

Thus matters stand with the Mass at the end of 1820, and thus they seem to have remained throughout the next year. Simrock always was to be but never was blest with the score. On July 18, 1821, Beethoven promises to put the work into the Archduke’s hands “while here”--i. e., at Unterdöbling; he leaves the reasons for the delay to the imagination of his patron: “the details might prove anything but pleasant to Y. I. H.” In November he thinks again of Simrock and on the 12th writes to Brentano:

The mass might have been sent before this, but had to be _carefully
looked through_, for the publishers in other countries do not get
along well with my manuscript, as I know from experience, and a
copy for the engraver must be examined note by note. Moreover,
I could not come because of illness, the more since despite
everything I have been compelled to make a considerable number
of potboilers (as unfortunately I must call them). I think I am
justified in making an attempt to get Simrock to reckon the Louis
d’ors at a higher rate, inasmuch as several applications have been
made from other quarters, concerning which I shall write you soon.
As for the rest, do not question my honesty; frequently I think of
nothing except that your kind advance may soon be repaid.

[Sidenote: LOAN ADVANCED ON THE MASS]

It seems a fair inference from the concluding remark, together with the advice of his friend or friends in the Conversation Book of the previous summer concerning a collection through Brentano as soon as the mass had been handed over to the stage-coach, that Beethoven had got an advance from Brentano on the money which was awaiting the arrival of the work in Frankfort. The following letter to Brentano strengthens the inference:

Vienna, December 20, 1821.

Noble man!

I am awaiting another letter respecting the mass, which I shall
send you to give you an insight into the whole affair. In any event
the entire honorarium will be paid to you whereupon you will please
deduct the amount of my indebtedness to you, my gratitude to you
will always be unbounded. I was so presumptuous as without asking
to dedicate a composition of mine to your daughter Maxe, please
accept the deed as a mark of my continual devotion to you and your
entire family--do not misinterpret the dedication as prompted by
interest or as a recompense--this would pain me greatly. There are
nobler motives to which such things may be ascribed if reasons must
be found. The new year is about to enter, may it fulfil all your
wishes and daily increase your happiness as the father of a family
in your children. I embrace you cordially and beg you to present
my compliments to your excellent, only and glorious Toni.

Yours, etc.

I have received from here and elsewhere offers of 200 ducats in
gold for the mass. I think I can get 100 florins W. W. more. On
this point I am waiting for a letter which I will send you at once,
the matter might then be presented to Simrock, who will certainly
not expect me to lose so much. Till then please be patient and do
not think that you have acted magnanimously towards an unworthy man.

[Sidenote: THREE SONATAS AT A BREATH]

Brentano informed Simrock of the situation; but the subject is now carried over into the next year and must be left for the nonce, while we take up the history of some other compositions. The last three pianoforte sonatas, Op. 109, 110 and 111, belong to this period. Also the Bagatelles Op. 119, Nos. 7 to 11 inclusive. Their story is known. Friedrich Starcke, Chapelmaster of an Austrian regiment of infantry, had undertaken the publication of a pianoforte method which he called the “Wiener Pianoforteschule.” Part III of the work, which appeared early in 1821, contained these five Bagatelles under the title “Trifles” (_Kleinigkeiten_). Above them Starcke printed: “A contribution from the great composer to the publisher.” They must have been asked for in 1820. Somewhere about February of that year an unidentified hand writes in the Conversation Book: “Starcke wants a little music-piece by you for the second part of his _Klavierschule_, for which he has contributions from the leading composers besides short notices.... We must give him something. Notwithstanding his great deserts in music and literature he is extremely modest, industrious and humble.... He understands the art of compiling well. There are now weaklings everywhere even among the strong.” To this appeal Beethoven yielded. He wrote the five Bagatelles, sketches for which are found amongst some for the Sonata in E major (Op. 109) and the _Benedictus_ of the mass. No. 6 is also sketched among studies for the _Credo_. No doubt these little pieces were some of the “potboilers” (_Brodarbeit_) referred to in the letter to Brentano; also some folksong arrangements; and it may even be, that Beethoven included also the three great sonatas. Schindler relates that when Beethoven heard that it was bruited about that he had written himself out, his invention was exhausted, and that he had taken up Scottish melodies like Haydn in his old age, he seemed amused and said: “Wait a while, you’ll soon learn differently.” Schindler then adds: “Late in the Fall (1820), returned from his summer sojourn in Mödling, where like a bee he had been engaged busily in gathering ideas, he sat himself down to his table and wrote out the three sonatas Op. 109, 110, 111 ‘in a single breath,’ as he expressed it in a letter to Count Brunswick in order to quiet the apprehension of his friends touching his mental condition.” Schindler was dubious about the “single breath” and, indeed, there was a considerable lapse of time between the writing of the first of the three sonatas and the last two. The Sonata in E belongs unquestionably to the year 1820. The first theme is found in the Conversation Book of April, and the work was sketched before he began the _Benedictus_ of the mass and while he was at work on this movement, the _Credo_, the _Agnus Dei_ and the Bagatelles for Starcke. Before the end of the year Archduke Rudolph received the manuscript for his collection. It was dedicated to Maximiliane Brentano,[37] and published in November, 1821, by Schlesinger in Berlin.

Beethoven has himself left data concerning the other two sonatas. On the autograph of that in A-flat major, Op. 110, he wrote the date “December 25, 1821.” Sketches for it follow sketches for the _Agnus Dei_ of the mass, which were begun in 1820.[38] It was published by Schlesinger in Berlin and Paris in 1822. There is evidence in a memorandum to Schindler found among the latter’s papers, and also in a letter to Schlesinger of 1823, that Beethoven intended to dedicate both of the last two sonatas to Madame Brentano. “Ries-nichts” (“nothing to Ries”), says the memorandum, significantly. Ideas utilized in the C minor Sonata, Op. 111, are found amongst those for Op. 110 and particularly among some for the _Agnus Dei_. The autograph bears the date January 13, 1822,[39] and it is plain that most of the work was done in 1821. It was published by Schlesinger in April, 1823, after Beethoven had offered it to Peters of Leipsic. Corrections for these three sonatas occupied a great deal of time; the engraving of the French edition of the C minor was so faulty that Beethoven demanded proof copies three times; twice his call was granted, the third time it was refused.[40] This Sonata, Op. 111, was dedicated to Archduke Rudolph. Beethoven had left the matter to Schlesinger, but he afterward made a suggestion as to his wishes, for in a letter to the Archduke on June 1, 1823, he writes: “Y. I. H. seemed to find pleasure in the Sonata in C minor, and therefore I feel that it would not be presumptuous if I were to surprise you with its dedication.”

There are few other compositions of these two years to ask attention, the Canons and five Bagatelles having been mentioned. There is a song, “Abendlied unter dem gestirnten Himmel,” words by Heinrich Göbel, the original manuscript of which bears date March 4, 1820, and which was published as a supplement to the “Modenzeitung” on March 28, 1820, with a dedication to Dr. Braunhofer.[41] The twenty-five Scotch Songs, Op. 108, were published in 1821 by Schlesinger. The performances of Beethoven’s works in Vienna in 1820 and 1821 are quickly summed up. The Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde performed the “Eroica” on February 20, the C minor on April 9 and the F major on November 19. The Overture in C, Op. 115, was played at a concert for the benefit of Widows and Orphans on April 16, 1820. In the _Concerts spirituels_, conducted by F. X. Gebauer in the season 1820-21, the Symphonies in C minor, A major, and F major, and the Oratorio “Christus am Ölberg,” were performed. Leopoldine Blahetka, a young woman of 18 who was creating something of a furore by her pianoforte playing at the time, played the Concerto in B-flat on April 3, having studied it with J. Czerny.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] “Two things fill the soul with ever new and increasing wonder and reverence the oftener the mind dwells upon them--the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.”--Kant’s “Criticism of Practical Reason.”

[25] The greeting was in the form of a four-part canon beginning with a short homophonic chorus, the words: “Seiner Kaiserlichen Hoheit! Dem Erzherzog Rudolph! Dem geistlichen Fürsten! Alles Gute, alles Schöne!” The autograph is preserved by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. B. and H. Ges. Aus. Series XXIII, page 187.

[26] The reader who desires to read the documents in full is referred to the German edition of this biography for the decrees and minutes of the courts and to the Kalischer-Shedlock collection of letters for Beethoven’s pleadings.

[27] 11 Dr. Deiters remarks on this point: “No doubt Beethoven had hoped to attain his ends by general statements and thus spare himself the shame and humiliation which would have followed had he presented the truth, even in disguise, touching the lewdness and shameless life of his own sister-in-law; and her legal advisers and the members of the Magisterial Court knew how to turn this fact to their own advantage.”

[28] Made to Thayer.

[29] Here, as in several other cases, in which opinions only and not definitely ascertained facts are concerned, the present Editor is inclined to attach as much importance to Thayer’s judgment as to that of his critics and revisers. Thayer’s working copy of his “Chronologisches Verzeichniss,” which contains annotations of a much later date than Nottebohm’s publication in the “Thematisches Verzeichniss” which he edited for Breitkopf and Härtel, pays no attention to Nottebohm’s conclusion.

[30] See the letter in the Kalischer-Shedlock Coll. II, 178.

[31] Thayer.

[32] This anecdote is recorded in Thayer’s note-book as a memorandum of a conversation had with Höfel on June 23, 1860.

[33] For the music the reader is referred to Series XXIII of the Complete Edition of Beethoven’s works published by Breitkopf and Härtel.

[34] The dramatic poet Zacharias Werner, who had become a convert to Roman Catholicism and, now an ordained priest, was preaching to great crowds of Viennese. The puns on the German word _Verleger_ and _verlegen_ are untranslatable.

[35] The letter is preserved in the Beethoven House at Bonn. It was first published in the “Vossische Zeitung” by Dr. Kalischer on July 26, 1903. See Kalischer-Shedlock, II, 177.

[36] Dr. Kalischer refers the remark about the “Jewish publisher” to Schlesinger in Berlin; but this may be a mistake. In a later correspondence with Peters, who suggests the term, Schlesinger is thus referred to; but there is nothing to indicate that when correspondence between Schlesinger and Beethoven had scarcely begun, Brentano was called on to come to the rescue. Beethoven may mean a fling at Simrock for his action in the matter of the Louis d’ors.

[37] See the letter to Franz Brentano of December 20, 1821, and the note to his daughter dated December 6, 1821. (Kalischer-Shedlock, II, 189.)

[38] See Nottebohm, “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 465 and 471.

[39] Beethoven wrote, as if absentmindedly, “Ludwig Ludwig am 13ten Jenner 1822.”

[40] It is noteworthy, as shown by Nottebohm (“Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 467, 468) that the first theme of the first movement of the C minor Sonata was originally intended for a third movement in a “second sonata” which (Op. 109 being finished) can only have been the one in C minor. It would seem as if the use of the theme in the first movement did not occur to the composer until after he had conceived the theme of the variations. But the theme had figured twenty years before in a sketchbook used when the Sonata in A major, Op. 30, was in hand. Its key then was F-sharp minor, and it may have been intended for Op. 30.

[41] Published also, together with three other songs--“Geheimniss,” “Resignation” and “So oder so”--by Sauer and Leidesdorf as Op. 113 in 1821 or 1822. Beethoven presented a copy of it to Fanny Giannatasio on April 19, 1820.