Beethoven, the Man and the Artist Part 11

(To Haslinger, the music publisher, when the latter had complained about the indifference of the Viennese to music.)

ON EDUCATION

Beethoven's observations on this subject were called out by his experiences in securing an education for his nephew Karl, son of his like-named brother, a duty which devolved on him on the death of his brother in the winter of 1815. He loved his nephew almost to idolatry, and hoped that he would honor the name of Beethoven in the future. But there was a frivolous vein in Karl, inherited probably from his mother, who was on easy footing with morality both before and after her husband's death. She sought with all her might to rid her son of the guardianship of his uncle. Karl was sent to various educational inst.i.tutions and to these Beethoven sent many letters containing advice and instructions. The nephew grew to be more and more a care, not wholly without fault of the master. His pa.s.sionate nature led to many quarrels between the two, all of which were followed by periods of extravagant fondness. Karl neglected his studies, led a frivolous life, was fond of billiards and the coffee-houses which were then generally popular, and finally, in the summer of 1826, made an attempt at suicide in the Helenental near Baden, which caused his social ostracism. When he was found he cried out: "I went to the bad because my uncle wanted to better me."

Beethoven succeeded in persuading Baron von Stutterheim, commander of an infantry regiment at Iglau, to accept him as an aspirant for military office. In later life he became a respected official and man. So Beethoven himself was vouchsafed only an ill regulated education. His dissolute father treated him now harshly, now gently. His mother, who died early, was a silent sufferer, had thoroughly understood her son, and to her his love was devotion itself. He labored unwearyingly at his own intellectual and moral advancement until his death.

It seems difficult to reconcile his almost extravagant estimate of the greatest possible liberty in the development of man with his demands for strict constraint to which he frequently gives expression; but he had recognized that it is necessary to grow out of restraint into liberty.

His model as a sensitive and sympathetic educator was his motherly friend, the wife of Court Councillor von Breuning in Bonn, of whom he once said: "She knew how to keep the insects off the blossoms."

Beethoven's views on musical education are to be found in the chapters "On Composition" and "On Performing Music."

149. "Like the State, each man must have his own const.i.tution."

(Diary, 1815.)

150. "Recommend virtue to your children; that, alone can bring happiness; not wealth,--I speak from experience. It was virtue alone that bore me up in my misery; to her and my art I owe that I did not end my life by self-murder."

(October 6, 1802, to his brothers Karl and Johann [the so-called Heiligenstadt Will].)

151. "I know no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child."

(January 7, 1820, in a communication to the Court of Appeals in the suit touching the guardianship of his nephew Karl.)

152. "Nature's weaknesses are nature's endowments; reason, the guide, must seek to lead and lessen them."

(Diary, 1817.)

153. "It is man's habit to hold his fellow man in esteem because he committed no greater errors."

(May 6, 1811, to Breitkopf and Hartel, in a letter complaining of faulty printing in some of his compositions.)

154. "There is nothing more efficient in enforcing obedience upon others than the belief on their part that you are wiser than they...Without tears fathers can not inculcate virtue in their children, or teachers learning and wisdom in their pupils; even the laws, by compelling tears from the citizens, compel them also to strive for justice."

(Diary, 1815.)

155. "It is only becoming in a youth to combine his duties toward education and advancement with those which he owes to his benefactor and supporter; this I did toward my parents."

(May 19, 1825, to his nephew Karl.)

156. "You can not honor the memory of your father better than to continue your studies with the greatest zeal, and strive to become an honest and excellent man."

(To his nephew, 1816-18.)

157. "Let your conduct always be amiable; through art and science the best and n.o.blest of men are bound together and your future vocation will not exclude you."

(Baden, July 18, 1825, to his nephew, who had decided to become a merchant.)

158. "It is very true that a drop will hollow a stone; a thousand lovely impressions are obliterated when children are placed in wooden inst.i.tutions while they might receive from their parents the most soulful impressions which would continue to exert their influence till the latest age."

(Diary, spring of 1817. Beethoven was dissatisfied with Giannatasio's school in which he had placed his nephew. "Karl is a different child after he has been with me a few hours" (Diary). In 1826, after the attempt at suicide, Beethoven said to Breuning: "My Karl was in an inst.i.tute; educational inst.i.tutions furnish forth only hot house plants.")

159. "Drops of water wear away a stone in time, not by force but by continual falling. Only through tireless industry are the sciences achieved so that one can truthfully say: no day without its line,--nulla dies sine linea."

(1799, in a sketch for a theoretical handbook for Archduke Rudolph.)

ON HIS OWN DISPOSITION AND CHARACTER

So open-hearted and straightforward a character as Beethoven could not have pictured himself with less reserve or greater truthfulness than he did during his life. Frankness toward himself, frankness toward others (though sometimes it went to the extreme of rudeness and ill-breeding) was his motto. The joyous nature which was his as a lad, and which was not at all averse to a merry prank now and then, underwent a change when he began to lose his hearing. The dread of deafness and its consequences drove him nearly to despair, so that he sometimes contemplated suicide.

Increasing hardness of hearing gradually made him reserved, morose and gloomy. With the progress of the malady his disposition and character underwent a decided change,--a fact which may be said to account for the contradictions in his conduct and utterances. It made him suspicious, distrustful; in his later years he imagined himself cheated and deceived in the most trifling matters by relatives, friends, publishers, servants.

Nevertheless Beethoven's whole soul was filled with a high idealism which penetrated through the miseries of his daily life; it was full, too, of a great love toward humanity in general and his unworthy nephew in particular. Towards his publishers he often appeared covetous and grasping, seeking to rake and sc.r.a.pe together all the money possible; but this was only for the purpose of a.s.suring the future of his nephew.

At the same time, in a merry moment, he would load down his table with all that kitchen and cellar could provide, for the reflection of his friends. Thus he oscillated continuously between two extremes; but the power which swung the pendulum was always the aural malady. He grew peevish and capricious towards his best friends, rude, even brutal at times in his treatment of them; only in the next moment to overwhelm them most pathetically with attentions. Till the end of his life he remained a sufferer from his pa.s.sionate disposition over which he gradually obtained control until, at the end, one could almost speak of a sunny clarification of his nature.

He has heedlessly been accused of having led a dissolute life, of having been an intemperate drinker. There would be no necessity of contradicting such a charge even if there were a scintilla of evidence to support it; a drinker is not necessarily a dishonorable man, least of all a musician who drinks. But, the fact of the matter is that it is not true. If once Beethoven wrote a merry note about merrymaking with friends, let us rejoice that occasions did sometimes occur, though but rarely, when the heart of the sufferer was temporarily gladdened.