Life of Beethoven Part 1

Life of Beethoven.

by Anton Schindler.

PREFACE.

Although on appearing for the first time as the Editor of a literary publication, my feelings may be somewhat like those of a child putting on a new dress, yet I feel the responsibility of my position far more than its novelty; for the subject of my first essay is one not to be approached by me, at least, without seriousness and reverence. That the amount, however, of this editorial responsibility may be thought neither greater nor less than it really is, I must beg leave to state my precise share in this publication, and to advert to the qualifications with which I have entered on my task.

In acceding to Mr. Colburn's request that I would add to the English translation of Schindler's Biography of Beethoven which he was about to publish, such explanatory notes, characteristics, and letters as might tend more fully to ill.u.s.trate and complete the whole, I had to subscribe to one clause in the agreement between Mr. Schindler and the publisher, namely, that the work should be given as he wrote it, without omission or alteration. The Notes bearing my signature, then, are all that belong to me in these volumes. The Appendix is, however, of my collection, and will be found to consist of the following doc.u.ments:--

VOLUME I.

Letters from Beethoven to Kapellmeister Hoffmeister and C. F.

Peters, music-publishers, relative to the sale of some of his compositions.

Letter on the first appearance of Beethoven's "Fidelio."

Beethoven's Letters to Madame Bettine Von Arnim.

Letter of Madame Bettine Von Arnim to Gothe.

A Day with Beethoven.

VOLUME II.

Beethoven's Letters to Mademoiselle Von Breuning, Wegeler, and Ries.

Beethoven's Correspondence with Messrs. Neate and Ries.

Account of a Concert given by Beethoven at the Kaernthnerthor Theatre, Vienna.

Characteristics of Beethoven from Wegeler and Ries's "Notizen."

Additional Characteristics, Traits, and Anecdotes of Beethoven.

Beethoven's Last Moments.

Funeral Honours to Beethoven, and Miserere. Amplius. Libera, for four voices, with an Organ accompaniment, performed at the funeral.

Concert in aid of Beethoven's Monument, at Drury Lane Theatre, July 19th, 1837.

Sale of Beethoven's MSS. and Musical Library.

Systematic Catalogue of all the original Works of Beethoven, published by T. Haslinger, from Vienna.

Moscheles' complete Edition of Beethoven's Works, published by Messrs. Cramer and Co.

So far the task of explanation is easy; but I am now entering upon more delicate ground--my own qualifications for the editorship. If in stating these I appear to be somewhat prolix, I hope that a little indulgence may be conceded to me from my desire to show that my impressions of reverence for Beethoven's genius are not things of yesterday; but that I began early to follow him in his glorious creations, and to study his personal, as well as his artistical character, with an enthusiasm which years and experience have done nothing to diminish. To satisfy the craving which I felt, when a boy nine or ten years old, at Prague, for the best musical productions of the time, I subscribed to a library which afforded me the compositions of Dussek, Steibelt, Woelffl, Kozeluch, and Eberl--works of no insurmountable difficulty to me; though, indeed, so far from mastering them, I only ran through them, without particular attention to finish, enjoying in each its peculiar style. I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysius Weber, the founder and present director of the Prague Musical Conservatory; and he, fearing that, in my eagerness to read new music, I might injure the systematic development of my Piano-forte playing, prohibited the library; and, in a plan for my musical education which he laid before my parents, made it an express condition, that for three years I should study no other authors but Mozart, Clementi, and S. Bach.

I must confess, however, that, in spite of such prohibitions, I visited the library, gaining access to it through my pocket-money. It was about this time that I learnt from some school-fellows that a young composer had appeared at Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff possible--such as no one could either play or understand; crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this composer's name was _Beethoven_. On repairing to the library to satisfy my curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there Beethoven's _Sonate pathetique_. This was in the year 1804.

My pocket-money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric productions until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, minding his injunctions, I seized upon the piano-forte works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and a delight such as no other composer afforded me.

In the year 1809, my studies with my master, Weber, closed; and, being then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for my residence to work out my future musical career. Above all, I longed to see and become acquainted with _that man_ who had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole being; whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly worshipped. I learnt that Beethoven was most difficult of access, and would admit no pupil but Ries; and, for a long time, my anxiety to see him remained ungratified. In the year 1810, however, the longed-for opportunity presented itself. I happened to be one morning in the music-shop of Domenico Artaria, who had just been publishing some of my early attempts at composition, when a man entered with short and hasty steps, and, gliding through the circle of ladies and professors a.s.sembled on business or talking over musical matters, without looking up, as though he wished to pa.s.s unnoticed, made his way direct for Artaria's private office at the bottom of the shop. Presently Artaria called me in, and said, "_This is Beethoven!_" and, to the composer, "This is the youth of whom I have just been speaking to you." Beethoven gave me a friendly nod, and said he had just heard a favourable account of me. To some modest and humble expressions which I stammered forth he made no reply, and seemed to wish to break off the conversation. I stole away with a greater longing for that which I had sought than I had felt before this meeting, thinking to myself--"Am I then indeed such a n.o.body that he could not put one musical question to me?--nor express one wish to know who had been my master, or whether I had any acquaintance with his works?" My only satisfactory mode of explaining the matter and comforting myself for this omission was in Beethoven's tendency to deafness, for I had seen Artaria speaking close to his ear.

But I made up my mind that the more I was excluded from the private intercourse which I so earnestly coveted, the closer I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of his mind. I never missed the Schuppanzigh Quartetts, at which he was often present, or the delightful Concerts at the Augarten, where he conducted his own Symphonies. I also heard him play several times, which however he did but rarely, either in public or private. The productions which made the most lasting impression upon me, were his Fantasia with orchestral accompaniments and chorus, and his Concerto in C minor. I also used to meet him at the houses of MM. Zmeskall and Zizius, two of his friends, through whose musical meetings Beethoven's works first made their way to public attention: but, in place of better acquaintance with the great man, I had mostly to content myself on his part with a distant salute.

It was in the year 1814, when Artaria undertook to publish a piano-forte arrangement of Beethoven's "Fidelio," that he asked the composer whether I might be permitted to make it: Beethoven a.s.sented, upon condition that he should see my arrangement of each of the pieces, before it was given into the engraver's hands. Nothing could be more welcome to me, since I looked upon this as the long wished-for opportunity to approach nearer to the great man, and to profit by his remarks and corrections. During my frequent visits, the number of which I tried to multiply by all possible excuses, he treated me with the kindest indulgence. Although his increasing deafness was a considerable hindrance to our conversation, yet he gave me many instructive hints, and even played to me such parts as he wished to have arranged in a particular manner for the piano-forte. I thought it, however, my duty not to put his kindness to the test by robbing him of his valuable time by any subsequent visits; but I often saw him at Maelzel's, where he used to discuss the different plans and models of a Metronome which the latter was going to manufacture, and to talk over the "Battle of Vittoria," which he wrote at Maelzel's suggestion. Although I knew Mr. Schindler, and was aware that he was much with Beethoven at that time, I did not avail myself of my acquaintance with him for the purpose of intruding myself upon the composer. I mention these circ.u.mstances to show how very difficult of access this extraordinary man was, and how he avoided all musical discussion; for even with his only pupil, Ries, it was very seldom that he would enter into any explanations. In my later intercourse with him, he gave me but laconic answers on questions of art; and on the character of his own works, made only such condensed remarks as required all my imagination and fancy to develop what he meant to convey. The impatience naturally accompanying his infirmity of deafness, no doubt greatly increased his const.i.tutional reserve in the latter part of life.

On subsequent visits to Vienna, after I had established myself in London, in the year 1821, Beethoven received me with increased cordiality; and that he counted on me as a friend I think is proved, by his intrusting me, during his last illness, with an important mission to the Philharmonic Society of London, of which mention is made in the following pages.

My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no variation, save to become warmer. In the first half-score of years of my acquaintance with his works, he was repulsive to me as well as attractive. In each of them, while I felt my mind fascinated by the prominent idea, and my enthusiasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, his unlooked-for episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations, gave me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to them! All that had appeared hard, I soon found indispensable. The gnome-like pleasantries, which at first appeared too distorted--the stormy ma.s.ses of sound, which I found too chaotic--I have, in after-times, learned to love. But, while retracting my early critical exceptions, I must still maintain as my creed, that eccentricities like those of Beethoven are reconcileable with _his_ works alone, and are dangerous models to other composers, many of whom have been wrecked in their attempts at imitation. Whether the musical world can ever recognise the most modern examples of effort to outdo Beethoven in boldness and originality of conception, I leave to future generations to decide.

But all that I have ever felt or thought of Beethoven, his elevation above all his contemporaries, and his importance to art, are so beautifully expressed by the celebrated critic, H. G. Nageli, that I shall not forbear to avail myself of a pa.s.sage in one of his lectures,[1] although the fear of being charged with vanity, from its containing a compliment to myself, might have deterred me from so doing.

It may be necessary to premise that the critic considers J. S. Bach as the fountain-head of instrumental music, and ascribes its further and gradual development to C. P. E. Bach, J. Haydn, Mozart, Clementi, Cramer, Pleyel, until the art attained its climax under Beethoven at the beginning of the present century.--"Beethoven (says Nageli) appeared a hero in the art; and where shall the historian find words to depict the regeneration he produced, when the poet himself must here feel at a loss? Music had received two-fold injury in its purity of style--I mean instrumental music, unaided by the charms of vocalisation, as it had existed at the point to which it had been elevated by the Bachs.

Mozart's Cantabile, as contrasted with the strict school, and Pleyel's divertimento style, had diluted and debased it; and to Beethoven, the hero, do we owe its regeneration now and for ever. Instinctively original, keenly searching for novelty, resolutely opposing antiquated forms, and freely exploring the new world which he had created not only for himself but for all his brethren in the art, he may be said to have set to all a task, the solution of which is a constant regeneration of design and idea; thus giving full scope to the emanations of the mind.

Beethoven's music wears an ever-varying aspect, bright in all its changes, yet could its language not at once become familiar to those, who had lulled their higher powers to rest with the hum of Divertimento's and Fantasias, whilst on all sides the worshippers of the _Cantilena_ were heard to exclaim, 'And is such originality beautiful?

and should there not be beauty to render originality palatable?'--little thinking that Beethoven's weapons were of a higher order, and that he conquered, not by winning over his hearers to the soft Cantilena alone, but by speaking in sounds unearthly, thrilling, penetrating, filling the soul, and carrying along--not individuals, but cities--even the whole of Europe. As to the art of piano-forte playing, that too gained a new aspect under him; running pa.s.sages were set aside; the Toccata style took unexpected forms in his hands. He introduced combinations of distant intervals, original in their very aspect, and heightened by peculiarities of rhythm and staccato's, absorbing in their sparkling brilliancy the Cantabile, to which they formed a glaring contrast.

Unlike Steibelt, Dussek, and some of their cotemporaries, in their endeavours to _draw_ out the tone (_filez le son_), Beethoven would _throw_ it out in detached notes, thus producing the effect of a fountain gushing forth and darting its spray on all sides, well contrasting with the melodious episodes which he still preserved. But a genius like his soon found the limits of piano-forte music too narrow a sphere to move in, and he produced, in turn, works for stringed instruments, and for a whole band. Nevertheless, he never _would_ dive into the mysteries of the science of counterpoint; had he done so, he would have trodden the path of a J. S. Bach, and his imaginative vein, as well as his creative genius, might have been checked. Let us then bow to him, as the inventor, _par excellence_, of our era. The cotemporaries who vied with him at the beginning of the new century were--Eberl, Haak, Hummel, Liste, Stadler, Tomaschek, Weyse, and Wolffl; but he towered above them all, and did not cease to pour out endless stores of invention and originality, exciting in later years anew body of aspirants to enter the lists of inventive composition,--and with success. We name Feska, Hummel, Onslow, Reicha, Ries, the two Rombergs, Spohr, C. M. v. Weber; and of a yet later date, Kuhlau, Tomaschek, and Worzischek: these have been joined in the last few years by Carl Czerny and Moscheles. Thus do we live in an era fertile in genius, fertile in productions--an era, regenerated by the master spirit--Beethoven!"

But I will detain the reader no longer. If, in my preface, I have appeared to him tedious, I would beg him to remember the words of Pliny the younger--"I have not time to write a short letter, therefore I send you a long one."

I. MOSCHELES.

_3, Chester Place, Regent's Park, January, 1841._

INTRODUCTION.

During the painful illness of full four months which terminated in the death of Ludwig van Beethoven, he was one day conversing with Hofrath von Breuning and myself on the subject of Plutarch's Lives. Breuning took advantage of the long-wished-for opportunity to ask Beethoven, apparently without any particular object, which of his contemporaries he should prefer for his biographer. Without the least hesitation, he replied, "Rochlitz, if he should survive me." He went on to say that it might be antic.i.p.ated with certainty, that after his decease many officious pens would hasten to amuse the world with stories and anecdotes concerning him, utterly dest.i.tute of truth--for such is the usual lot of those who have had any influence upon their times. It was, therefore, his sincere wish that whatever might hereafter be said concerning him "should be in every respect strictly consonant with truth, no matter how hard it might bear upon this or the other person, or even upon himself."

This sentiment of Beethoven's, uttered at a moment when his dissolution appeared to us to be near at hand--though his physicians still held out to him some hopes of recovery, while at the same time they felt thoroughly convinced of its impossibility--this sentiment was too important for us to neglect following it up. In so doing, however, we were obliged to proceed with the utmost caution; as indeed we were in everything which, in his state of severe suffering, had any reference, however remote, to death: for his imagination, more excited than when in health, ranged through the universe, formed projects of tours, of prodigious compositions, and other enterprises. In short, he had no idea that death was so near, neither would he take any warning of its approach. In fact, all his desire was to live; for he still intended to do much, that none but himself, perhaps, was capable of accomplishing.

Prudence, therefore, enjoined us to refrain from touching upon that point, which he himself avoided, and to watch for a suitable opportunity when we should find him again disposed to speak further upon it. This opportunity occurred but too soon, as his end was evidently approaching.

Sensible of the rapid decline of his physical powers, he now himself declared that all hope of his recovery was vain, and began to look death in the face with stoic fort.i.tude.

Plutarch and other favourite Greek authors lay around him, and thus one day--it might be the seventh or eighth before his decease--he made some observations on Lucius Brutus, whose character he highly admired. This was a signal to Breuning and myself to resume the conversation, which we had dropped, with respect to his biographer, and to direct it according to our wishes. Resigned already to his fate, Beethoven read with great attention a paper on this subject, drawn up by his older friend Breuning, and then very calmly said, "There lies such a paper, there such another--take them, and make the best use you can of them; but let the truth be strictly adhered to in every point. For this I hold both of you responsible, and write on the subject to Rochlitz." Our object was now accomplished, for he gave us himself the necessary explanations respecting the papers. This memorable scene by the sick-bed of our beloved friend terminated in his desiring me to take charge of all the letters that were there, and Breuning of all his other papers, among which was the first version of the opera of "Fidelio," in score--an injunction with which we punctually complied.

After Beethoven's death, we resolved jointly to communicate to M.

Rochlitz the wish of our deceased friend, when M. von Breuning was taken ill, and in two months followed him to the grave. This totally unexpected event placed me in a particularly unpleasant situation with regard to the joint duty undertaken for Beethoven. M. von Breuning's widow soon afterwards gave up to me the papers committed to the care of her deceased husband; and I was now obliged to apply singly on the subject to M. Rochlitz. This I did by a letter, dated the 12th of September, 1827. On the 18th of the same month I received the following answer:--

"I have long been aware how much there was great and n.o.ble in the character of our respected Beethoven, notwithstanding the eccentricity and roughness of his manner; and though, during my visit to Vienna in 1822, I conversed with him only a few times with frankness and confidence, this was owing solely to the complaint with which he was afflicted, and which was so great an obstacle to any intercourse with him. This, together with the cheerful acknowledgment of his extraordinary genius and professional merit, caused me to follow, to the best of my ability, the course of his mind and of his whole inward life, in so far as it is exhibited in his works, from his youth to his death.

And as I availed myself also of every opportunity to gain, from time to time, authentic particulars concerning his outward life, I deemed myself, at his death, not wholly incompetent to be his biographer. I resolved, therefore, to undertake the office for Beethoven in the same manner that I had done for Karl Maria von Weber, by making their lives princ.i.p.al articles in the third volume of my work, _Fur Freunde der Tonkunst_ (For Friends of Music). To this is now added a further inducement in your proposal to supply me with materials, and the wish of Beethoven himself, conveyed to me through you. From all this put together, you may judge whether I feel disposed to comply with the wish expressed by you, as well as by several other friends of Beethoven's. So much the more mortifying is it, then, to me, that it is not in my power to do so. A life devoted in early years to close and almost unremitting application has, of late, been severely revenging itself upon me....

Hence I am at length compelled to submit to an almost total change of my former pursuits; and the most important part of this change is, that I sit and write much less than formerly; and, that I may not be again forced or enticed to break this rule, I decline undertaking any work of consequence. And thus I am obliged to renounce the fulfilment of your wish as well as my own.... I cannot tell you how it grieves me to give this answer; but we must all bow to necessity. Accept my thanks for your confidence."