 Section 18 of the Life of Ludwig von Beethoven, Volume 1 by Alexander Wheelock Thayer, translated by Henry Edward Krebel. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 16, Beethoven's Social Life in Vienna, is Friends, Vogel, Kiesse Wetter, Zemeskel, Amanda, Count Lignowski, Eppinger, Krompoltz, Schopenzee, and his quartet, Hummel, Friendships with Women, His Dedications. The chronological progress of the narrative must again be interrupted for a chapter or two, since no picture of a man's life can be complete without the lights or shades arising from his social relations, without some degree of knowledge, respecting those with whom he is on terms of equality and intimacy and whose company he most affects. The attempt to draw such a picture in the case of Beethoven that is during his first years in Vienna leaves much to be desired, for although the search for materials has not been very unsuccessful, many of the data are but vague and scattered notices in a conversation book bearing Beethoven's own date on the 20th of March 1820, some person unknown writes, Do you want to know where I first had the honor and good fortune to see you more than 25 years ago? I lived with Prague or Prague in the Drachen Gossel in the old fish market. Several noblemen, for instance, His Excellency Von B. Christen, a neural vocal, now a singer, Kers Dettter Basso, now court counselor, Krayenstein, has long been living in France, etc. Here we often use this size, etc., supersized, etc., punchized, etc., and at the conclusion, Your Excellency often rejoiced us at my B.F. I was then court counselor in the War Office. I've practiced since then at least 15,000, Métiers. Did we meet in Prague in what year, 1796, three days? I was in Prague also in 1791, too. There is nothing in the portions of this conversation book copied for this work to show who this man of 15,000 Métiers was now sitting with Beethoven in an eating house and recalling to his memory the phoenix of his first year and a quarter in Vienna, nor are high neural, Christian, Krayenstein, and Frank of Prague sufficiently known to fame as to be now identified. But Johann Michael Vogel, less than two years older than Beethoven, was afterward a very celebrated tenor of the opera. In 1793 to four he was still pursuing the study of jurisprudence which he abandoned in 1795 for the stage. May not this early friendship for Beethoven have been among the causes of the resuscitation of Videlio in 1814 for the benefit performance of Vogel, Saul, and Weinmühler. There is a story first put in circulation by a certain Auguste Bart to the effect that the singer of that name, once finding Beethoven employed in burning a mass of musical and other papers, sang one vocal piece thus destined to destruction, was pleased with it, and saved the immortal Adelaide. The story is sufficiently refuted by the fact that when Bart first came to Vienna in 1807 the Adelaide had been in print some ten years. If the name Vogel be substituted in the tale there may perhaps be so much truth in it as this, that he was consulted upon the merits of the composition by Beethoven, approved it and first sang it and made it known as he was the first years afterwards to sing in public the Earl Kearney and other fine productions of Franz Schubert. The cosvetter Abbaso was Raphael Georg Kaysvetter who lived to be renowned as a writer upon topics of musical history and to play a part in the revival of ancient music in Vienna, not less noteworthy than that of Tebo in Heidelberg at the period of the music making, supping and punch drinking by the noblemen in the apartments of Frank of Prague. Kaysvetter was a young man of twenty, engaged like Vogel in the study of the law in the spring of 1794 and thus the date of these meetings is determined. He received an appointment in the military chancelory and went at once to the headquarters at Schweitzsignen on the Rhine. More important and valuable during these years as subsequently was the warm sincere friendship of Nikolaius Zemsko, von Damana Wetz and official in the Royal Hungarian court chancelory. You belong to my earliest friends in Vienna, writes Beethoven in 1816, Zemsko to quote the words of Sun Lightner was an expert, the alone jealous, a sound and tasteful composer to modest to publish his compositions. He willed them to the archives of the Gasol Schaft der Musikfreunde. After personal examination, I can only give assurance that his three string quartets would entitle him to an honorable place among masters of the second rank and are more deserving to be heard than many new things which for all manner of reasons we are compelled to hear. Beethoven's regard for Zemsko, that Zemsko was a very constant attendant at the musical parties of Prince Karl Lugnowski and frequently took part in them may be seen from Begler's record. He was ten years older than Beethoven had been long enough in Vienna to know the best society there into which he was admitted not more because of his musical attainments than because of the respectability of his position and character and was therefore what the young student pianist needed most a friend who at the same time could be to a certain degree an authoritative advisor and at all times was a judicious one. On the part of Zemsko, there was an instant and hearty appreciation of the extraordinary powers of the young stranger from the Rhine and a clear anticipation of his splendid artistic future. A singular proof of this is the care with which he preserved the most insignificant scraps of paper if Beethoven had written a few words upon them for certainly no other motive could have induced him to save many notes of this kind and of no importance ten, fifteen, twenty years as may be seen in the published letters of the composer. On the part of Beethoven there was sincere respect for the dignity and gravity of Zemsko's character which usually restrained him within proper limits in their personal intercourse but he delighted especially in the earlier period to give in his notes and letters full play to his queer fancies and sometimes extravagant humor. Here are a few examples in point to his well, well highest and best born, the Herr von Zemsko, Imperial and Royal, as also Royal and Imperial Court Secretary, with his high and well-born, his Haren von Zemsko Zemskoality have the kindness to say where we can speak to him tomorrow, we are your most damnably devoted Beethoven. My dearest Baron, Muck Cartdriver, je vous suis bien obligé pour votre faiblesse de vos yeux. Moreover, I forbid you henceforth to rob me of the good humor into which I occasionally fall, for yesterday your Zemsko, the manavitzian chatter, made me melancholy. The devil will take you, I want none of your moral precepts, for power is the morality of men who loom above the others and it is also mine. And if you begin again today, I'll torment you till you agree that everything that I do is good and praiseworthy for ever when going to the swan, the ox will be preferable, yet this rest with your Zemskoalian domenah, that's the indecision. Hurray, Pons, adieu, Baron, Baron, noron, oh, no, no, more, voilà quelque chose from the old pawn shop. Mechanical skill was never so developed in Beethoven that he could make good pens from goosequills and the days of other pens were not yet, when therefore he had no one with him to aid him in this he usually sent to Zemsko for a supply of the large number of such applications preserved by his friend and now scattered in all civilized lands as autographs here are two specimens. Best of music counts, I beg of you to send me one or a few pens, of which I'm really in great need as soon as I learn where real good and admirable pens are to be found, I will buy some of them. I hope to see you at the swan today. Adieu, most precious music count, yours, et cetera. His Highness Bonzi is commanded to hasten a bit with the plucking out of a few of his quills, among them no doubt some not his own. It is hoped that they may not be too tightly grown as soon as you have done all that we shall ask, we shall be with excellent esteem, your F Beethoven. As Zemsko not carefully treasured these notes they would never have met in any eye but his own, it is evident therefore that he entered fully into their humor and that it was the same to him whether he found himself addressed as baron count, cheapest baron music count, baron muck cart driver, is Zemescalian Zemescality or simply dear Z, which last is the more usual. He knew his man and loved him and these quips and quiddities were received in the spirit which begat them. The whole tenor of the correspondence between the two shows that Zemescal had more influence for good upon Beethoven than any other of his friends. He could reprove him for faults and check him when in the wrong without producing a choral more serious than the one indicated in the protest abovegiven against interrupting his good humor. As a musician as well as man and friend Zemescal stood high in Beethoven's esteem his apartments number 1166 in that huge conglomeration of buildings known as the Berger Spittle were for a long series of years the scene of a private morning concert to which only the first performers of chamber music and a very few guests were admitted. Here after the rupture with Prince Liknowski Beethoven's productions of this class were usually first tried over not until Beethoven's death did their correspondence cease. Esteem and affection for Amanda. Another young man who gained an extraordinary place in Beethoven's esteem and affection and who departed from Vienna before anything occurred to cause a breach between them was a certain Carl Amanda from the shore of the Baltic who died some 40 years later as provost in Coraland. He was a good violinist belonged to the circle of Dilla Tanti which Beethoven so much affected and on party received from the composer one of his first attempts at quartet composition. His name most naturally suggests itself to fill the blank in a letter to Reese July 1804 wherein some living person not named is mentioned as one with whom he Beethoven never had a misunderstanding but he adds although we have known nothing of each other for nearly six years which was not true of Amanda since letters passed between them in 1801 the small portion of their written correspondence which has been made public shows that their friendship was of the romantic character once so much the fashion and the letter of Amanda is filled with incense which in our day would bear the name of almost two gross lattery but times change and taste with them his name appears once in those of mescal correspondence namely in a mutilated note now in the royal imperial court library beginning my cheapest baron tell the guitarist to come to me today Amanda is to make an Amanda part torn away which he deserves for his bad pauses torn provide the guitarist Carl Amanda was born on october 4 1771 at La Pican in Courland he studied music with his father and chapel master bike mer was so good a violinist that he was able to give a concert at 14 years of age and continued his musical studies after he was matriculated as a student of theology at the University of Vienna after a three years course there he set out on a tour and reached Vienna in the spring of 1798 there he first became pre-center for prince lab calvates and afterward music teacher in the family of Mozart's widow how thereupon he became acquainted with Beethoven we are able to report from a document still in the possession of the family which bears the superscription brief account of the friendly relations between LV Beethoven and Carl Frederick Amanda afterward provost at Talsen and Courland written down from oral tradition after the completion of his theological studies k f Amanda goes to Vienna where he several times meets Beethoven at the tabla dot attempts to enter into conversation with him but without success since beef remains very reserve a after some time Amanda who meanwhile had become music teacher at the home of Mozart's widow received an invitation from a friendly family and their place first violin in a quartet while it was playing somebody turned the pages for him and when he turned about at the finish he was frightened to see Beethoven who had taken the trouble to do this and now withdrew with a bow the next day the extremely amiable host at the evening party appeared and cried out whatever you done you have captured Beethoven's heart b request that you rejoice him with your company a much pleased hurries to be who had once asked him to play with him this is done and went after several hours a takes his leave b accompanies him to his quarters where there was music again as b finally prepared to go he said to a i suppose you can accompany me this is done and b kept a till evening and went with him to his home late at night from that time the mutual visits became more and more numerous and the two took walks together so that the people in the streets when they saw only one of them in the street at once called out where's the other one a also introduced millick with whom he had come to vienna to be and millick often played trios of b and a his instrument was the second violin or viola once when b heard that millick had a sister in core launt who played the piano for tape ridley he handed him a sonata and manuscript with the inscription to the sister of my good friend millick the manuscript was rolled up and tugged with a little silk ribbon he complained that he could not get along on the violin asked by a to try it nevertheless he played so fearfully that a had to call out have mercy quit b quit playing and the two left till they had to hold their sides one evening b improvised marvelously on the piano for tape and at the close a said it is a great pity that such glorious music is born and lost in a moment whereupon b there you are mistaken i can repeat every extemporization whereupon he set himself down and played it again without a change b was frequently embarrassed for money once he complained to a he had to pay rent and had no idea how he could do it that's easily remedy said a and gave him a theme forid vol leid vol unlocked him in his room with the remark that he must make a beginning on the variations within three hours when a returns he finds b on the spot but he'll temper to the question whether or not he had begun b handed over a paper with a remark there's your stuff dot is there vish a takes the notes joyfully to b's landlord and tells them to take it to a publisher who would pay him handsomely for it the landlord hesitated at first but finally decided to do the errand and returning joyfully asks if other bits of paper like that were to be had but in order definitely to relieve such financial needs a advised b to make a trip to italy b says he is willing but only on a condition that a go with him a agrees gladly and the trip is practically planned unfortunately news of a death calls a back to his home his brother has been killed in an accident and the duty of caring for the family devolves on him with doubly oppressed heart a takes leave of b to return to his home in corollant there he receives a letter from b saying since you cannot go along i shall not go to italy later the friends frequently exchange thoughts by correspondence though as we have learned it was music which brought Beethoven into contact with amanda it was the latter's amy ability and nobility of character that endeared him to the composer who cherished him as one of his dearest friends and confided things to him which he concealed from his other intimates his deafness for instance a striking proof of Beethoven's affection is offered by the fact that he gave amanda a copy of his quartet in f opus 18 number one writing on the first violin part dear amanda take this quartet as a small memorial of our friendship and whenever you play it recall the days which we pass together and the sincere affection felt for you then and which will always be felt by your true and warm friend ludwig von Beethoven vienna 1799 june 25 in a letter written nearly a year later Beethoven asks his friend not to lend the quartet as he had revised it a letter written evidently about the time of amanda's departure from vienna indicated that Beethoven was oppressed at this period with another grief and that caused by the loss of his friend's companionship Beethoven speaks of his already lacerated heart says that the worst of the storm is over it mentions an invitation to poland which he had accepted nothing came of this polish enterprise dr ac kalesker suspected that the lacerated heart was due to the composers unrequited love for magdalena vilman a singer then in vienna to whom he made a proposal of marriage which was never answered friendship with count levonovsky count moritz levonovsky brother prince carl of whom we shall not lose sight and tell until the closing scene was another of the friends of those years he had been a pupil of Mozart played the piano forte with much skill and was an influential member of the party which defended the novelty and felt the grandeur of his friend's compositions shinler saw much of him during Beethoven's last years and eulogizes the noble count in very strong terms another that circle of young dilettante and one of the first players of Beethoven's compositions was a young jewish violinist Heinrich he played at a charity concert in vienna making his first appearance there in 1789 he became an after years as a correspondent of the time a dilettante of the most excellent reputation lived modestly on a small fortune and devoted himself entirely to music at the period before us up and there was one of Beethoven's first violins at the private concerts of the nobility hurrying who became a distinguished merchant and banker belong now to the circle of young amateur musicians and in 1795 had the reputation of being at the head of the amateur violinists the youthful friendship between him and the composer was not interrupted as they advanced into life and 20 years later was of great advantage to but a more interesting person for us is the instructor under whom Beethoven in Vienna resumed his study of the violin effect happily preserved by Ries, Wenzel, Krump-Holtz he was a brother of the very celebrated bohemian harp player who drowned himself in the Sain in 1790 in his youth Krump-Holtz had been for a period of three years a pupil of Haydn at Esterhaus and had played first violin in the orchestra there he left Esterhaus to enter the service of Grinskinsky but came to Vienna in 1795 to join the operatic orchestra and at once became noted as a performer in Haydn's quartets he was as Eugene Eiserl in Glugl's Neue Weiner Music Zeitung of August 13, 1857 a highly sensitive art enthusiast and one of the first of those who foresaw and recognized Beethoven's greatness he attached himself to Beethoven with such pertinacity and self-sacrifice that the letter though he always called him his fool accepted him as a most intimate friend made him acquainted with all his plans for compositions and generally reposed the utmost confidence in him Krump-Holtz formed also an exceedingly close friendship with his countryman Wenzel Zerny a music teacher living in the Leopoldstadt and from 1797 onwards spent most of his leisure evenings with the Zerny family and thus the little son Karl in his eight and ninth years learned almost daily what works Beethoven had in hand and like Krump-Holtz became filled with enthusiasm for the tone he wrote. Krump-Holtz was a virtuoso on the mandolin and hence probably that page of sketches by Beethoven in the Artaria collection headed Sanatina for Mandolin Upf among the Semesko papers in the Royal Imperial Library in Vienna there is a half sheet of coarse full-scat paper pun which is written with lead pencil and huge letters by the hand of Beethoven the music count is dismissed with infamy today the first violin will be exiled to the misery of Siberia the baron is forbidden for a whole month to ask questions and never again to be over hasty and he must concern himself with nothing but his ipsy Miss Serum B music count and baron are of course Semesko but these notices of Beethoven's various first violins show the folly of attempting to decide whether one of them or Schupenzig was to be sent to Siberia so long as there is no hint whatever as to the time and occasion of the note the very common mistake of forgetting that there is a time in the lives of distinguished men when they are but aspirants to fame when they have their reputation still to make often in fact attracting less notice and raising feebler hopes of future distinction in those who know them than many or more precocious contemporary this mistake has thrown the figures of Schupenzig and his associates in that quartet concerts at Prince Carl Liknowsky's into a very false prominence in the picture of these first seven years of Beethoven's Vienna life the composer himself was not the Beethoven whom we know had he died in 1800 his place in musical history would have been that of a great pianoforte player and of a very promising young composer whose deceased thus in his prime had disappointed well-founded hopes of great future eminence Schupenzig and his quartet this is doubly true of the members of the quartet had they passed away in early manhood not one of them except perhaps young craft the only one who ever distinguished himself as a virtuoso upon his instrument would have been remembered in the annals of music they were during these years but laying the foundation for future excellence and celebrity as performers of Mozart's Haydn's firsters and Beethoven's quartets Schupenzig first violin and vice viola alone appear to have been constantly associated in their quartet playing craft the alone jealous was often absent when his father or zemescal or some other supplied his place and as the second violin was often taken by the master of the house when they were engaged for private concerts Sina was naturally absent still from 7094 to 7099 the four appeared to have practiced much and very regularly together they enjoyed an advantage known to know other quartet that are playing the compositions of Haydn and first or under the eyes of the composers and being taught by them every effect that the music was intended to produce each of the performers therefore knowing precisely the intentions of the composer acquired the difficult art of being independent and at the same time of being subordinate to the general effect then Beethoven began to compose quartets he had therefore a set of performance schooled to perfection by his great predecessors and who already have experience in his own music through his trios and quartets Ignaz Schupenzig the leader born 1776 died march to 1830 in Vienna originally studied music as a deletante and became a capital player of the viola but about the time when Beethoven came to Vienna he exchanged that instrument for the violin and made music his profession he was fond of directing orchestral performances and seems to have gained a considerable degree of local reputation do have been somewhat of a favorite in that capacity before reaching his 21st year in 1798 to 99 he took charge of those concerts in the odd garden established by Mozart and martin and afterwards led by Rudolf Seyfried writing after his death called Schupenzig a natural born and really energetic leader of the orchestra the difference in age character and social position between him and Beethoven was such as not to admit between them that higher and nobler friendship which united the latter as a mescal but they could be a and were of great use to each other and there was a strong personal liking if not affection which was mutual Schupenzig's person early assumed very much of the form and proportions of Stern's Dr. Slopp and after his return from Russia is one of the malored false staffs of Beethoven's correspondence and conversation books his obesity was however already the subject of the composer's jests and he must have been an exceedingly good tempered young man to bear with and forgive the course and even abusive text of the short vocal piece 1801 headed lob alf den dicken praise of the fat one but it is evidently a mere jest and was taken as such it is worthy of note that Beethoven and Schupenzig in addressing each other use neither the familiar do nor the respectful z but err a fact which has been supposed to prove Beethoven's great contempt for the violinist but as it would prove equal contempt on the other side it proves too much of sinna and vice both salisians by birth there is little that need be added here vice became the first viola player of Vienna and a not unsuccessful composer a ballet and other music and tonkott the father came from bohemian to pursue his legal studies in vienna but abandoned them to enter the imperial court orchestra as a violon cellist in 1778 he accepted an invitation from heiden to join the orchestra in estra house where on the 18th of december of the same year his son nicolas and tonk was born the child in doubt about nature with great musical talents enjoyed the advantages of his father's instructions an example of growing up under the eye of heiden and in the constant study of that great musicians works upon the death of estra hazy and the dispersion of his orchestra croft came with his son now in his 14th year to vienna on april 15th 1792 nicolas played a concerto composed by his father at the widows and orphans concert and on the 21st again appeared in a concert given by the father notwithstanding a very remarkable success the son was destined for another profession i'm using and from this time until his 18th year he played his instrument only as an amateur and as such Beethoven first knew the youth but when the young prince labcavitz formed his orchestra in 1796 both the crafts engaged and nicolas and tonk henceforth made music his profession in the maturity of his years and powers his only rival among all the german violon cellists was bernhard romberg schindler with his characteristic inattention today subserves speaking of schupenzig vice and the eldercroft knowledge of orchestral instruments these three artists are intimately connected with the development of Beethoven and indeed with a large portion of his creations wherefore they will frequently be remembered here meanwhile it may suffice to say that it was to this company of practically trained musicians that the rising young composer owed his knowledge of the efficient use of stringed instruments in addition are to be mentioned joseph freed who taught our master the mechanism of the clarinet and the famous hornist Johann pencil stitch who called himself Giovanni Panto in Italian to whom Beethoven owed what he knew of the proper writing for horn of which he already gave striking illustration in a sonata for horn opus 17 in the mechanism of the flute and its construction which underwent so many changes in the first decades of the century carol shoal steadily remained Beethoven's instructor there's doubtless some degree of truth in this and so far as it relates to a later period Panto of course gave Beethoven a new revelation of the powers and possibilities of the horn as dragonetta did have a contra base but he first came to Vienna near the end of 1799 and died at Prague only three years after February 16 1803 all the others here named by Schindler with one exception the eldercroft were used of 16 to 18 years and Beethoven composed his first and second concertos works which proved that he was not altogether ignorant of the use of orchestral instruments as Schindler known something of the history of Max Franz's orchestra and bond he would have avoided many a mistake Johann Neppa Muck Hummel the pupil of Mozart was another of the use whom Beethoven drew into his circle in 1795 the elder Hummel brought back his center Vienna from that very successful concert tour which had occupied the last six years and had made the boy known even to the cities of distant Scotland and put him to the studies of counterpoint in composition of Albrecht's burger and salieri he seems to have been quietly at his studies playing only in private until April 28 1799 when he again appeared in public both as pianist and composer in a concert in the agar ten saw directed by Schupenze he performed his symphony besides a melodrama composed for the occasion and between them played prettily composed improvisations on the piano forte that the talented and promising boy of 17 years should upon arriving home again seek the acquaintance and favor of one who during his absence have made so profound an impression upon the Vienna public as Beethoven and that the latter should have rejoiced to show kindness to Mozart's favorite pupil hardly needs to be mentioned a chapter of description would not illustrate the nature of their intercourse so vividly as to short but exceedingly characteristic notes of Beethoven's which Homo preserved and which found their way into print after his death one he is not to come to me again he is a treacherous dog and may the flair get all such treacherous dogs two persons not zero you are an honest fellow and I now see you are right come then to me this afternoon you'll find Schupenze here also we too will bump bump and pump you to your heart's delight a kiss from your Beethoven also called mecca burl envious viennese musicians in a letter to Eleonora von Brunning Beethoven described many of the Vienna pianists as his deadly enemies Schindler's observations upon the composer's relations with the viennese musicians though written in his peculiar style seemed to be very judicious and correct nobody is likely to expect he says by 1 23 to 24 that an artist who made his way upwards as our Beethoven although almost confining his activities exclusively to aristocratic circles that upheld him in extraordinary fashion would remain free from the attacks of his colleagues on the contrary the reader will be prepared to see a host of enemies advance against him because of the shining qualities and evidences of genius of our hero in contrast with the heavy burden of social idiosyncrasies and uncouthness more than anything else but seem least tolerable to his opponents was the notion that his appearance the excitability which he controlled too little in his intercourse with his colleagues and his lack of consideration in passing judgment were natural accompaniments of genius his too small toleration and many bazaaris and weaknesses of high society and on the other hand his severe demand on his colleagues for higher culture even his bond dialect afforded his enemies more than enough material to revenge themselves on him by evil gossip and slander new musicians in vienna at that time without very few exceptions were lacking not only in artistic but also in the most necessary degree of general education and we're as full of the envy of handicraftsmen as the members of the gills themselves there was a particular antipathy to all foreigners as soon as they manifested a purpose to make their homes in the imperial city schindler might have added that the change had been in no small degree produced through the instructions an example of Beethoven as they acted upon the zernes maus shells and other young admirers of his genius and short Beethoven's instant achievement of a position as artist only parallel by Mozart and of a social rank which pollute salieri hyden had gained only after making their names famous throughout europe together with the general impression that the mantle of Mozart had fallen upon him all this begat bitter envy in those whom his talents and genius overshadowed they revenge themselves by deriding him for his personal peculiarities and by condemning and ridiculing the novelties in his compositions while he met their envy with disdain their criticisms with contempt and when he did not treat their compositions with indifference but too often only noticed them with sarcasm this picture certainly is not an agreeable one but all the evidence proves it unfortunately faithful such minisalieri giro vets beagle are not to be understood as included in the term pianist as used by Beethoven in his letter to elinor von bruney for these men stood high in Beethoven's respect says schender and his words are confirmed to the fullest extent by the conversation books and other authorities which also show that eibler's name might have been added to the list they were all more or less older than Beethoven and for their contrapuntal learning particularly in the case of beagle and eibler he esteemed them very highly no indications however have been found that he was upon terms of close private friendship and intimacy with either david tovin was no exception to the general rule that men of genius delight and warm and lasting friendship with women of superior minds and culture not meeting those conquests which according to beagle even during his first three years in vienna he occasionally made which if not impossible for many and adonis would still have been difficult that such matters even if details concerning them were now attainable be forgotten his celibacy was by no means owing to a deliberate choice of a single life what is necessary and proper of that little that is known on this point will in due time be imparted simply and free from gloss for superfluous comment as to his friendships with the other sex it would be throwing the view of them into very false perspective to employ those of later years in giving pecan see to a chapter here let them also come in due order and thus while they lose nothing of interest they may per chance afford relief and give brightness to canvas which otherwise might sometimes become too sombre happily during these prosperous years now before us the picture has been for the most part bright and sunny and the paucity of the information upon the topic in question is of less consequence in the present connection one of our old bond friends again comes upon the scene the beautiful talented and accomplished magdalena vile man was invited to sing at venice during the carnival of 1794 she left bond the preceding summer with her brother max and his wife vile line dribble a to fulfill the engagement after leaving venice they gave a concert in grots and journeyed on to vienna here max and his wife remained having accepted engagements from chic canita while magdalena went on to berlin not suiting the operatic public there she returned to vienna and was soon engaged to sing both german and italian parts in the court opera Beethoven renewed his intercourse with them and soon became so captivated with the charms of the beautiful magdalena as to offer her his hand this fact was communicated to the author by a daughter of max velman still living in 1860 who had often heard her father speak of it to the question why her aunt did not accept the offer of Beethoven madame s hesitated a moment and then laughing replied because he was so ugly and half crazy in 1799 magdalena married a certain galvani but her happiness was short she died toward the end of 1801 two letters of Beethoven to be found in the printed collection have been preserved from the period before us addressed to christine gearhardy a young woman of high distinction in society at the time for the splendor of her talents in her high culture dr son leitner wrote of her she was the daughter of an official at the court of the emperor leopold the second an excellent singer but remained a dilettante and sang chiefly in concerts for charitable purposes which he herself arranged or for the benefit of eminent artists oh professor peter frank was director of the general hospital of vienna in the neighborhood of which number 20 house sir strasa she lived he was a great lover of music but his son dr joseph frank was a greater he made essays in composition and arranged musical soiree at the home of his father at which Beethoven and frauland gearhardy took part playing and singing the son frequently composed cantatas which Beethoven corrected for the name days and birthdays of his father and in which froy line gearhardy sang the soprano solos she was at the time the most famous amateur singer in vienna in his sense much as hide and knew her well there's no doubt but that he had her in mind when he composed the creation indeed she sang the soprano part with great applause not only its farsian bird but also at the first performance in the burg theater all reports agree that she met Beethoven often at france and that he frequently accompanied her singing on the piano forte he did not give her lessons dr joseph von frank and christine gearhardy were married on august 2078 they moved away from vienna in 1804 a few notes upon certain young women to whom Beethoven dedicated compositions of this period of his life may form no inappropriate clothes to this chapter it was much the custom then for teachers of music to dedicate their works to pupils especially to those who belong to the higher social ranks such dedications being at the same time compliments to the pupils and advertisements for the instructors with a further advantage often of being sources of pecuniary profit when therefore we read the name of baroness albini on the title page of certain sonatas by sterkel of julia countess giocardi on one of client heights abana counters my life on songs by taber we assume it was the probability in these and like instances that the relation of master and pupil existed Beethoven also followed the custom and the young ladies subjects of the following notices are all known or supposed to have taken lessons of him anna louisa barbara la comtesse by that was the daughter of carl count keglavix the bosom of hungarian Croatian lineage and barbara counters zishi she married prince in a sense darba au descalci on the 10th of february 1801 another authority gives 1800 Beethoven's dedication to her are the sonata opus 7 published in 1797 the variations la stessa la sessima 1799 and the piano foretaken chair to opus 15 1801 the last to her as princess Oda Skalci a note by the composer to the mescal which judging both from its contents and the handwriting could not have been written later than 1801 to 2 shows that the Oda Skalci palace was one of those at which he took part in musical soiree countess Henrietta Lechnavsky writes count amada was the sister of the ruling prince carl and was doubtless married to the Marquis of Carnavia after the dedication to her of the Rondo G major opus 51 member 2 published in september 1802 she lived in Paris after her marriage and died about 1830 the Rondo was first dedicated to countess Gialetta Joe Cardi but Beethoven asked it back in exchange for the C sharp minor sonata to which fact we shall recur presently countess Thun to whom Beethoven dedicated the clarinet trio opus 11 in 1797 was the mother of Prince Carl Lechnavsky and countess Henrietta Lechnavsky she died May 18 1800 the sonata knee flat opus 27 number one was dedicated to Yosef Sophia wife of Prince Johann Yosef van Lichtenstein daughter of Joachim Egan Landgrave of Firstenburg Vitra she was born on June 2017 76 married on April 22 7092 and died February 23 1848 whether her father was related at all and if so how to the Firstenburg in whose house Beethoven gave lessons and Bonn was not known her husband however was first cousin to Count Ferdinand Bonn Valstein the Baroness Bronn to whom Beethoven dedicated the two pianoforte sonatas opus 14 and the sonata for horn in 1801 was the wife of Baron Peter von Bonn the C of the National Theater and afterwards of that theater on their vine the dedication is disclosed an early association which eventually led to Beethoven's being asked to compose an opera it is not known that Beethoven was a social visitor in the house of Baron Bronn but he was a highly respected guest in the house of Count Brown to whose wife Beethoven dedicated the followed margin variations in the three piano forte sonatas opus 10 end of section 18 section 19 of the life of Ludwig von Beethoven volume one by alexander we a lot they are translated by Henry Edward quibble this leap of ox recording is in the public domain section 19 chapter 17 Beethoven's character and personality his disposition love of nature relations with the opposite sex literary tastes his letters manner of composing the sketchbooks origin of his deafness year 1800 is an important era in Beethoven's history it is the year in which cutting loose from the piano forte he asserted his claims to a position with Mozart and the still living and productive hiding in the higher forms of chamber and orchestral composition the quartet and the symphony it is the year two in which the bitter consciousness of an increasing derangement of his organs of hearing was forced upon him and the terrible anticipation of its incurable nature and of its final result in almost total deafness began to harass and distress him the course of his life was afterwards so modified on the one hand by the prosperous issue of these new appeals to the taste and judgment of the public and on the other by the unhappy progress of his melody each acting and reacting upon a nature singularly exceptional that for this and other reasons some points in his personal character and habits and a few general remarks upon an illustrations of another topic or two must be made before resuming the narrative of events a true and exhausted picture of Beethoven as a man would present an almost ludicrous contrast to that which is generally entertained as correct as sculptors and painters have each in turn idealized the work of his predecessor until the composer stands before us like a Homeric god until those who knew him personally could they return to earth would never suspect that the grand form and noble features of the more pretentious portraits are intended to represent the short muscular figure and pocketed face of their old friend so in literature evoked by the composer a similar process has gone on with a corresponding suppression of whatever is deemed common and trivial until he is made being living in his own peculiar realm of gigantic ideas above and apart from the rest of mankind a sort of intellectual thorn dwelling in darkness and clouds of awful state and making in his music mysterious revelations of things unutterable but it is really some generations too soon for a conscientious investigator of his history to view him as a semi-mythological personage or to discover that his notes to friends asking for pens making appointments to dinner at taverns or complaining of servants are cyclopean blocks of granite which like the chops and tomato sauce of mr pickwick contain depths unfathomable of profound meaning the present age must be content to find in Beethoven with all his greatness a very human nature one which if it showed extraordinary strength exhibited also extraordinary weaknesses inconsistent traits of character it was the great misfortune of Beethoven's youth his impulses good and bad being by nature exceedingly quick and violent that he did not grow up under the influence of a wise and strict parental control which would have given him those habits of self-restraint that once fixed are a second and better nature and through which the passions curved and moderated remain only as sources of noble energy and power his very early admission into the orchestra of the theater as symbolist was more to the advantage of his musical event of his moral development it was another misfortune that in those years when the strict regulations of our school would have compensated in some measure for the unwise unsteady often harsh discipline of his father he was thus thrown into close connection with actors and actresses who in those days were not very distinguished for the propriety of their manners and morals before his 17th or 18th year when he became known to the brooning family and count valstine he could hardly have learned the importance of cultivating those high principles of life and conduct on which in later years he laid so much stress and at that period of life the character even under ordinary circumstances is so far developed the habits have become so far formed and fixed and the natural tendencies have acquired so much strength that it is as a rule too late to conquer the power of a perfect self-command at all events the consequences of a deficient early moral education followed Beethoven through life and are visible in their frequent contest between his worse and his better nature and in his constant tendency to extremes today upon some perhaps trivial matter he bursts into ungovernable wrath tomorrow his penitent succeeds the measure of his fault today he is proud and bending offensively careless of those claims which society grants to people of high rank tomorrow his humility is more than adequate to the occasion the poverty in which he grew up was not without its effect upon his character he never learned to estimate money at its real value though often profuse and generous to a fault even wasteful yet at times he would fall into the other extreme with all his sense of nobility of independence he really formed the habit of leaning upon others and this the more as his malady increased which certainly was a partial justification but he thus became prone to follow unwise councils or when his pride was touched to a certain equally unwise independence at other times in the multitude of counselors he became the victim of utter irresolution when decision and firmness were indispensable and essential to his welfare thus both by following the impulse of the moment and by hesitation when a prompt determination was demanded he took many a false step which could no longer be retrieved when reflection brought with it bitter regret he would be doing great injustice both to Beethoven and to the present writer to understand the preceding remarks as being intended to represent the composer's lapses in these regards as being more than unpleasant and unfortunate episodes and that general tenor of his life but as they did occur to his great disadvantage the fact cannot be silently passed over a romantically sentimental admiration of a hero's of ancient classic literature having its origin in paris have become widely the fashion in Beethoven's youth the democratic theories of the french sentimentalists had received a new impulse from the dignified simplicity of the foreign representatives of the young american republic franklin adams j from the retirement to private life on their plantations and farms of the great military leaders in the contest washington green skyler knocks and others after the war with england was over from the pride taken by the french officers who had served in america in their insignia of the order of the Cincinnati and even from the letters and journals of german officers who in captivity had formed friendships with many of the better class of the republican leaders unseen with their own eyes in what simplicity they lived while guiding the destinies of the new born nation thus through the greater part of central europe the idea became current about pure and sublime humanity above and beyond the influence of the passions of which since the matter's sipeo kato washington franklin were the supposed representatives zaki makes his you and say virtue and the heroes of antiquity had inspired me with enthusiasm for virtue and heroism and so also Beethoven he exalted his imagination and fancy by the perusal of the german poets and translations of the ancient and english classics especially homo clutarch and shakespey dwelt fondly upon the great characters as models for the conduct of life but between the sentiment which one feels and the active principle on which he acts there is often a wide cleft that Beethoven proved to be no stoic that he never succeeded in governing his passions with absolute sway was not because the spirit was unwilling the flesh was weak adequate firmness of character had not been acquired in early years for those who have most thoroughly studied his life no best how pure and lofty were his aspirations how wide and deep his sympathies with all that is good how great his heart how on the whole heroic his endurance of his great calamity they can best feel the man's true greatness admire the mobility of his nature and drop the tear of sorrow and regret upon his vagaries and faults he who is morbidly sensitive and compelled to keep constant ward and watch over his passions can best appreciate and sympathize with the man Beethoven truth and candor compelled the confession that in those days of prosperity he bore his honors with less of meekness than we could wish that he had lost something of that modesty and ingenuousness eulogized by yonker ten years before in his mergent time letter his somewhat lofty bearing had even been reported by the correspondent of the alamania musila liska zeitung traces of self sufficiency and even arrogance faults almost universal among young and successful geniuses often in a far higher degree than was true of Beethoven and with not a tithe of his reason are unquestionably visible no one can read without regret his remarks upon certain persons not named with whom at this very time he was upon terms of apparently intimate friendship i value them he writes only about what they do for me i look upon them only as instruments upon which i play when i feel so disposed his somewhat lofty bearing was matter for jest to the venerable hyden who according to a trustworthy tradition when Beethoven's visits to him had become few and far between would inquire of other visitors how goes it with our great mogul nor would the young nobles whose society he frequented take offense but it certainly made him enemies among those whom he valued according to their service and looked upon as mere instruments and no wonder pierce in his addition of the so-called Beethoven studio has added to safe reads personal sketches a few reminiscences of that greysinger who was so long sacks the minister in vietnam and to whom we owe the valuable biographs visca notice an uber yosef hyden one of his anecdotes to the purpose here and may be taken as substantially historical Beethoven's self-esteem injured when he was still only an attache and Beethoven was little known except as a celebrated pianoforte player both being still young they happened to meet at the house of prince lob kovitz in conversation with a gentleman present Beethoven said in substance that he wished to be relieved from all bargain and sale of his works and would gladly find someone willing to pay him a certain income for life for which he should possess the exclusive right of publishing all he wrote adding and i would not be idle in composition i believe gertha does this with codder and if i mistake not handles london publisher hell similar terms with him my dear young man return the other you must not complain for you are neither a girder nor a handle and it is not to be expected that you ever will be for such masters will not be born again Beethoven bit his lips gave out most contemptuous glance at the speaker and said no more lob kovitz endeavor to appease him and in a subsequent conversation said my dear Beethoven the gentleman did not intend to wound you it is an established maxim to which most minute here that the present generation cannot possibly produce such mighty spirits as the dead who have already earned their fame so much the worse your highness retorted Beethoven but with men who will not believe and trust in me because i am as yet unknown to universal fame i cannot hold into course it is easy for this generation which has the productions of the composer's whole life as the basis of its judgment of his powers to speak disparaging of his contemporaries for not being able to discover in his first 12 or 15 works good reason for classic him of girder and handle but he who stand upon a mountain cannot just ridicule him on the plane for the narrow extent of his view it was as difficult then to conceive the possibility of instrumental music being elevated to heights greater than those reached by Haydn and Mozart as it is for us to conceive of Beethoven being here after surpassed in the short personal sketches of Beethoven's friends which have been introduced the dates of their births have been noted so far as known that the reader may observe how very large a proportion of them were the same age as the composer or still younger some indeed but boys when he came to vienna and so it continued as the years passed by in our narrative and names familiar to us disappear the new ones which take their places with rare exceptions are still of men much younger than himself the older generation of musical amateurs at vienna von Staten and his class had accepted the young von organist and patronized him as a pianist but when Beethoven began to press his claims as a composer and somewhat later as his deafness increased to neglect his playing some of the elder friends had passed away others had withdrawn from society and the number was few of those who like lick novski could comprehend that the partures from the forms and styles of Mozart and Haydn were not necessarily false with a greater number as per section necessarily admits of no improvement and both quartet and symphony and form had been carried to that point by Haydn and Mozart it was a perfectly logical conclusion that farther progress was impossible they could not perceive that there was still room for the invention or discovery of new elements of interest beauty power for such perceptions are the offspring of genius with Beethoven they were instinctive one more remark towards the decline of life the masterpieces of literature and art which the taste was formed our app to become invested in the mind with a sort of nimbus of sanctity hence the productions of a young and daring innovator even when the genius and talent despite in them are felt and received just acknowledgement have the aspect not only of an extravagant and erring waste of misapplied powers but of a kind of profane audacity for these and similar reasons Beethoven's novelties found little favor with the veterans of the concert room the homage of young disciples the criticism of the day was naturally ruled and stimulated by the same spirit Beethoven's own confession how it at first wounded him will come in its order but after he felt that his victory over it was sure was in fact gained with a younger generation he only laughed at the critics to answer them except by new works was beneath him safe read it says of him during the years of the eroica fidelio etc when he came across criticisms in which he was accused of grammatical errors he rubbed his hands in glee and cried out without loud laugh yes yes they marvel and put their heads together because they do not find it in any school of thorough base before the young of both sexes Beethoven's music had an extraordinary john and this not upon technical grounds nor solely for its novelties always an attractive feature to the young but because it appealed to the sensibilities excited emotions and touched the heart as no other purely instrumental compositions had ever done and so it was that Beethoven also in his quality of composer soon gathered about him a circle of young disciples enthusiastic admirers their homage may well have been grateful to him as such is to every artist and scholar of genius who's striking out instead vastly pursuing a new path subjects himself to the sharp animate versions of critics who in all honesty really can't see little or nothing of good in that which is not to be measured and judged by old standards the voice of praise under such circumstances as doubly pleasing it is known that when Beethoven's works began to find a just appreciation from a new generation of critics who had indeed been schooled by them he collected and preserved a considerable number of lottery articles whose fate cannot now be traced when however the natural and just satisfaction which is afforded by the homage of honest admirers can deservedly eulogistic criticism degenerates into a love of indiscriminate praise and flattery it becomes a weakness a fault of this era in Beethoven there are traces easily discernible and especially in his later years there are pages of full some eulogy addressed to him in the conversation books which would make the reader blush for him did not the mere fact that such books existed remind him of the bitterness of the composer's lot the failing was also sometimes his misfortune for those who were at most profuse in their flatters and best gained his ear were by no means the best of his counselors but aside from the attractive force of his genius Beethoven possessed a personal magnetism which attached his young worshipers to him and all things considered to his solid and lasting benefit in his private affairs just at this time and for some years to come his brothers usually rendered him the aid he needed but thus forth to the close of his life the names of our constant succession of young men will appear in and vanish from our narrative who were ever necessary to him and ever ready at his call with their voluntary services. Beethoven's love of nature was already a marked trait of his character this was indulged and strengthened by long rambles upon the lofty hills and in the exquisitely beautiful valleys which render the environs of Vienna to the north and west so charming hence when he left the city to spend the hot summer months in the country with but an exception or two in a long series of years his residents were selected with a view to the indulgence of this noble passion hence to his great delight in the once celebrated work of Christian Stern, Bayer Bach, Tangon, Uber, D.A. Verca Gattis which however absurd much of its natural philosophy in the old editions appears now in the light of advanced knowledge was then by far the best manual of popular scientific truth and was unsurpassed in fitness to awaken and foster taste for and the understanding of the beauties of nature. Schindler has recorded the master's lifelong study and admiration of this book it was one which cherished his veneration for the creator and preserver of the universe and yet left his contempt for procrustian religious systems and ecclesiastical dogmas its free course to him who in the love of nature holds communion with her visible forms she speaks a various language says Brian her language was thoroughly well understood by Beethoven and when in sorrow and affliction his art his Plutarch his advocacy proved to be resources to feeble for his comfort he went to nature for solace and rarely failed to find it. Beethoven's moral principles art has been so often disgraced by the bad morals and shameless lives of its voteries that it is doubly gratifying to be able to affirm of Beethoven that like Handel Bach and Mozart he did honor to his profession by his personal character and habits although irregular still he was as simple and temperate and eating and drinking as was possible in the state of society in which he lived that he was no inordinate lover of wine or strong drinks is certain no illusion is remembered in any of his letters notes memoranda or in the conversation books which indicates a liking for any game of chance or skill he does not appear to have known one playing card from another music books conversation with men and women of taste and intelligence dancing according to Reese who as that he could never learn to dance in time the Beethoven's dancing days were soon over and above all his long walks were his amusements and recreations his whim for writing was of short duration at all events the last delusion to any horse owned by him is in the anecdote on a previous page one rather delicate point demands a word and surely what Franklin and his autobiography could confess of himself and Lockhart mentioned without scruple of Walter Scott his father-in-law need not be here suppressed nor can it well be sense of false assumption on the point has been made the basis already of a considerable quantity of fine writing and employed to explain certain facts relative to Beethoven's compositions spending his whole life in a state of society in which the vow of celibacy was by no means a vow of chastity in which the parentage of a cardinals or Archbishop's children was neither a secret nor a disgrace in which the illegitimate offspring of princes and magnates were proud of their descent informed upon it well grounded hopes of advancement and success in life in which the moderate gratification of the sexual was no more discounted than the satisfying of any other natural appetite it is nonsense to suppose that under such circumstances Beethoven could have puritanic scruples on that point those who have had occasion and opportunity to ascertain the facts know that he had not and are also aware that he did not always escape the common penalties of transgressing the laws of strict purity but he had too much dignity of character ever to take part in scenes of low debauchery or even when still young to descend to the familiar jesting once so common between tavern girls and the guests thus as the elder Simrock related upon the journey to margain time recorded in the earlier pages of this work it happened at some place where the company dined that some of the young men prompted the waiting girl to play offer charms upon Beethoven he received her advances and familiarity with repellent coldness and as she encouraged by the other still persevered he lost his patience and put an end to her importunities by a smart box on the ear the practice not uncommon in his time of living with an unmarried woman as a wife was always apparent to him how much so a sad story will her after illustrate to a still graded degree in intrigue with the wife of another man in his later years he so broke off his once familiar intercourse with a distinguished composer and conductor of Vienna as hardly to return his greetings with common politeness Schindler affirmed that the only reason for this was that the man in question had taken to his bed and bore the wife of another the names of two married women might be here given to whom at a later period Beethoven was warmly attached names which happily have hitherto escaped the eyes of literary scavengers and are therefore here suppressed certain of his friends used to joke him about these ladies and it is certain that he rather enjoyed their jests even when the insinuations that his affection was beyond the limit of the platonic were somewhat broad but careful inquiry has failed to elicit any evidence that even in these cases he proved unfaithful to his principles a story related by Jan is also to the point these that Beethoven only by the urgent solicitations of the zoning family was after much refusal persuaded to extemporize in the presence of a certain madame half the male she was the widow of a man who had attempted her life and then committed suicide and the refusal of Beethoven to play before her arose from his having the general belief at the time that a two great intimacy had existed between her and Mozart Jan it may be observed has recently had the great satisfaction of being able to prove the innocence of Mozart in this matter and of rescuing his memory from the only dark shadow which rested upon it this much on this topic it has been deemed necessary to say here not only for the reason above given but to put an end to long prevailing misconceptions and misconceptions of passages and Beethoven's letters and private memoranda and to say further comment when they shall be introduced hereafter Beethoven's fine sense for the lyric element in poetry was already conspicuous in the fine tag with which the texts of his songs belonging in date to his last years in bond were selected from the annual publications in which most of them appeared another fine proof of this is afforded by a glance through the older editions of Matheson's poems in the fourth seventy ninety seven there are but two which are really well adapted to composition in the song one the adelaide and does up for lead a third Beethoven left unfinished he had doubtless been led to attempt its composition through the force of its appeal to his personal feelings and sympathies but soon discovering its non lyrical character abandoned it it is the bunch rocklets in his letters from Vienna eighteen twenty two reports Beethoven's humorous account of his enthusiasm for clop stock in his early life since that summon carlsbad i read girder every day that is when i read it all he girder has killed clop stock for me you are surprised and now you laugh aha it is because i've read clop stock i carried him about with me for years while walking and also at other times well i did not always understand him of course he leaps about so much and he begins at two lofty an elevation always my sto so d flat major isn't it so but he is great and uplifts the soul nevertheless when i could not understand him i could sort of guess if only he did not always want to die that will come quickly enough well it always sounds well at any rate etc that's whatever scattered hints bearing upon the point come under our notice combined to impart a noble idea of Beethoven's poetic taste and culture and to show that the illusions to the ancient classic authors in his letters and conversation were not made for display but were the natural consequence of a love for and a hearty appreciation of them derived from their frequent perusal in translations Beethoven as a letter writer Beethoven's correspondence forms so important a portion of his biography that something must be set here upon his character as a letter writer a few of his autograph letters bear marks of previous study and careful elaboration but in general whatever he wrote in the way of private correspondence was dashed off on that spur of the moment it would not thought that it would ever come under any eye but that for which it was intended it is therefore easy to imagine how energetically he would have protested but he have known that his most insignificant notes were preserved in such numbers and that the time would come when they would all be made public or still worse that some which were but the offspring of momentary peak against those with whom he lived in closest relations would be used after his death to their injury and that outburst of sudden passion when the wrong was perhaps as often on his side as on the other after all the parties concerned of past away would have been almost judicial authority would accorded to them in studying a collection of some 800 of his letters and notes originals and copies and printer manuscript the most striking fact is the insignificance of by far the greater number that so few bear marks of any care in their preparation or contain matter of any intrinsic value in fact perhaps the greater part of the short notes to the mescal and others owe their origin to Beethoven's dislike of interesting oral messages to his servants for the most part it is in vain to seek in his correspondence anything bearing upon the theory or art of music very seldom is any opinion expressed upon the productions of any contemporary composer no vivid sketches of men and manners flow from his pen like those which render the letters of Mozart and Mendelssohn's so charming the proportion of their correspondence which possesses more than a merely biographical value was large of Beethoven's very small his letters of course exhibit the usual imperfections of a hasty and confidential correspondence sometimes indeed of an aggravated character some of them contain loose statements of facts such as all men are liable to make through haste or imperfect knowledge others contain passages of which the only conceivable explanation is gender statement that Beethoven sometimes amused himself with the harmless mystification of others but taken together the more important letters while they usually events his difficulty in finding the best expressions of his thoughts and his constant struggle with the rules of his mother tongue places truth and candor in a very favorable light and sometimes rise into a rude eloquence the reader feels that when the writer is unjust he is under the influence of a mistake or passion and as a rule it is not too late to detect such injustice that is there is a factor of simply mistakes honestly made and easily corrected that if in the mass a few paragraphs occur which can be neither fully justified nor excused it is not to be forgotten that they were not intended for our eyes and that they were written under the constant pressure of a great calamity which made him doubly sensitive and irritable and so it will be easy like Stern's recording angel to block such passages without tear another striking fact of Beethoven's correspondence when viewed as a whole is the proof it affords that except in his hours of profound depression he was far from being the melancholy and gloomy character of popular belief he shows himself here as he was by nature of a gay and lively temperament fond of a jest and in better though not always a very happy punster a great lover of wit and humor it is a cause for profound gratitude that it was so since he thus preserved in a elasticity of spirits that enabled him to escape the consequences of brooding in solitude over his great misfortune to rise superior to his fate and concentrate his great powers upon his self-imposed tasks and to meet with hope and courage the cruel fortune which put an end to so many well-founded expectations and ambitious projects and confined him to a single road to fame and honor that of composition it happens that several of the more valuable and interesting of his letters belong to the period immediately following that now before us and in them we are able to trace with reasonable accuracy the effect which is insipid and increasing duffness produced upon him first the anxiety caused by earliest symptoms then the profound grief bordering upon despair when the final result had become certain and at last his submission to and acceptance of his fate there is in truth something nobly heroic in that manner in which Beethoven at length rose superior to his great affliction the magnificent series of works produced in the 10 years from 1798 to 1808 are no greater monuments to his genius than to the godlike resolution with which he wrought out the inspirations of that genius under circumstances most fitted to weaken its efforts and restrain its energies Beethoven and his sketchbooks Beethoven was seldom without a folded sheet or two of music paper in his pocket upon which he wrote with pencil and two or three measures of music hints of any musical thought which might occur to him wherever he chanced to be towards the end of his life his conversation books often answered the same purpose and there are traditions of bills of fare at dining rooms having been honored with ideas afterwards made immortal this habit gave Abe Galanek a foundation for the following amusing nonsense as related by Thomas Chek he Galanek declared says Thomas Chek as if it were an aphorism that all of Beethoven's compositions were lacking internal coherency and that not infrequently they were overloaded these things he looked upon as grave faults of composition and sought to explain them from the manner in which Beethoven went about his work saying that he had always been in the habit of noting every musical idea that occurred to him upon a bit of paper which he threw into our corner of his room and that after a while there was a considerable pile of the memoranda which the maid was not permitted to touch when cleaning the room now when Beethoven got into a mood for work he would hunt a few musical motifs out of his treasure heap which he thought might serve as principal and secondary themes for the composition and contemplation and often his selection was not a lucky one I Thomas Chek did not interrupt the flow of his passionate yet awkward speech but briefly answered that I was unfamiliar with Beethoven's method of composing but was inclined to think that the aberrations occasionally to be found in his compositions were to be ascribed to his individuality that only an unprejudiced and keen psychologist who had had an opportunity to observe Beethoven from the beginning of his artistic development to his maturity in order gradually to familiarize himself with his views on art could fit himself to give the musical world an explanation of the intellectual cross relationships and Beethoven's glorious works a thing just as impossible to his blind enthusiasts as to his virulent opponents Galenek may have applied these last words to himself and not incorrectly this conversation took place in 1814 the day after a rehearsal of Beethoven's symphony in a the seventh Galenek's pile of little bits of paper in the corner of the room when touched by the wand of truth resolves itself into blank music books to which his new ideas were transferred from the original slight pencil sketches and frequently with two or three words to indicate the kind of composition to which they were suited diverse anecdotes are current which pretend to give the origin of some of the themes thus recorded and afterwards wrought out but few judicious readers will attach much weight to most of them for although conceptions can sometimes be traced directly to their exciting causes the musical composer can sell them say more than that they occurred to him at such a time and place often not even that it is certainly not improbable that Beethoven's admirers may have questioned him upon this point as Schindler did upon the pastoral symphony and that he was able to satisfy them but hand those harmonious blacksmiths may be taken as the type of most of the current stories which only need truth to make them interesting to return to the sketchbooks which performed a two-fold office being not alone the registers of new conceptions but containing the preliminary studies of the instrumental works into which they were wrought out the introduction to the excellent pamphlet Ein, Schiessenbuch, von Beethoven, des Schreibern, und in Al-Zuggen, Dargis, Stelt, von Gustav Nottebaum they're properly confined by him to the single book which he was describing is equally true of so many that have been examined with care as to warrant his general application the following extracts may be taken as true of the greater part of the sketchbooks how the sketching was done before as he says lies a volume in oblong folio teatro of 192 pages and bearing 16 staves on each page and save a few empty places containing throughout notes and sketches in Beethoven's handwriting for compositions of various sorts the volume is bound in craftsman's style primmed and has a stout pasteboard cover it was bound thus before it was used to receive the notes accepting the number of pages this description applies to most of the true sketchbooks the sketches are for the greater part one part that is they occupy but a single staff only exceptionally are they on two or more staves in some of the later books the proportion of sketches in two or more parts is much greater than in this it is permissible to assume in advance that they were written originally and in the order in which they follow each other in the sketchbook when a cursory glance over the hole does not seem to contradict this assumption a careful study nevertheless compels a modification at times it is to be observed that generally Beethoven began a new page with a new composition and moreover that he worked alternately or simultaneously at different movements as a result different groups of sketches are crowded so closely together that in order to find room he was obliged to make use of spaces which had been left open and thus eventually sketches for the most different compositions had to be mixed together and brought into companionship in some of the books vi hyphen not infrequently meets the eye it was the one of Beethoven's modes of keeping the clue in the labyrinth of sketches being part of the word we day the second syllable day can always be found on the same or a neighboring page in b number 100 number 500 number 1000 etc and in later sketches milieu are common all which signs are explained by Schindler as being a whimsical motive estimating the comparative value of different musical ideas or forms of the same again not a bomb continues in spite of this confused working it is plain that Beethoven as a rule was conscious from the beginning of the goal for which he was driving that he was true to his first concept and carried out the projected form to the end the contrary is also true at times and the sketchbook like others disclosed a few instances in which Beethoven in the course was led from the form originally conceived into another so that eventually something different appeared from what was planned in the first instance once more in general it may be observed that Beethoven in all his work begun in the sketchbook proceeded in the most varied manner and at times reached his goal in a direction opposite to that upon which you first set out at times the thematic style dominates the first sketch breaks off abruptly with the principal subject and the work that follows is confined to transforming and reshaping the thematic kernel at first thrown on the paper until it appears to be fitted for development then the same process as undertaking with intermediary sections everywhere we find beginnings never whole a whole comes before us only outside of the sketchbook in the printed composition where sections which were scattered in the sketchbook are brought together in other cases the thematic manner is excluded every sketch is aimed at our unity and is complete in itself the very first one gives the complete outline for a section of a movement those that follow are then complete reshapings of the first as other readings directed towards the change in the summary character or a reformation of the whole an extension of the middle sections etc naturally the majority of the sketches do not belong exclusively to either of the two tendencies but hover between them now leaning toward one now toward the other one readily sees that when that general plan of a work is clear and distinct before the mind it is quite different in what order the various parts are studied and that Beethoven simply adopted the method of many a dramatic and other author who sketches his scenes or chapters not in course but as new fancier opportunity dictates it is equally evident that the composer could have half a dozen works upon his hands at the same time not merely without disadvantage do any one of them but to the gain of all since he returned to one or another as the spirit of composition impelled like the author of a profound literary work who relieves and recreates his mind by burying his labors and executes his grand task all the more satisfactory because he from time to time refreshes himself by turning his attention to other and lighter topics when Beethoven writes to vegler as i am writing now i often compose three or four pieces at once he could have referred only to the preliminary studies of the sketch books sometimes it is true works were laid aside incomplete after he had begun the task of writing them out in full and finished when occasion demanded but as a rule his practice was quite different these all the parts of a work having been thus studied until he had determined upon the form character and style of every important division and subdivision and recorded the results in his sketchbook by a few of the first measures followed by etc or and so on the labor of composition maybe said to have been finished and there remained only the task of writing out the clean copy of what now existed full and complete in his mind and they're making such minor corrections and improvements as might occur to him on revision the manuscript showed that these were sometimes very numerous though they rarely extend to any change in the form or to any alteration in the grand effect except to heighten it or render it more unexpected or exciting when upon reflection he was dissatisfied with the movement as a whole he seems rarely to have attempted its improvement by mere correction choosing rather to discard it at once and compose a new one based even upon the same themes or upon entirely new motives the several overtures to fidelia are illustrations of both procedures the sketches of the greater part of Beethoven's songs after the bond period are preserved and proved with what extreme care he wrought out his melodies the sketchbook analyzed by not a bomb before the curious illustration in Matheson's up for lead the melody being written out in full not less than six times the theme and substance remaining unchanged absolute correctness of accent emphasis rhythm a prosody in short was within a leading object and various papers as well as the conversation books attested familiarity with metrical signs and his group useless obedience to metrical laws since the shameful mutilation and dispersion of Beethoven's manuscripts at the time of their sale probably no one person has been able to trace and examine half of the sketchbook still enough have come under observation during the researchers up for this work to establish with reasonable certainty these points one that each sketchbook was filled in pretty regular course from beginning to end before a new one was taken two that had the collection being kept entire it would have afforded the means of determining for the good degree of certainty the chronology of most of his instrumental works after coming to Vienna as to their first conception and studies excluding of course those which in one form or another he brought with him from bond three that the more important vocal compositions were studied separately four that only from the sketchbooks can an adequate idea of the vast fertility of Beethoven's genius performed they are in music like Hawthorne's notebooks in literature the record of a never-ceasing flow of new thoughts and ideas until death sealed the fountain forever there are themes and hints never used for all kinds of instrumental compositions from the trifles which he called bag of tales to symphonies evidently intended to be as different from those we know as they are from each other and these since are in such numbers that those which can be traced in the published works are perhaps much the smaller proportion of the whole whoever has the will and opportunity to devote an hour or two to an examination of a few of these monuments of Beethoven's invented genius will easily comprehend the remark which he made near the close of his life it seems to me that I have just begun to compose symptoms of approaching deafness one topic more demands brief notice before closing this chapter in the merry making of the country folk of Beethoven's pastoral symphony at the point where the fun grows most fast and furious and the excitement rises to its height and ominous sound as a distant thunder gives the first faint warning of the coming storm so in the life of the composer at the moment of that highest success and prosperity which we have labored to place vividly before the mind of the reader just when he could first look forward with well-grounded confidence to the noblest gratification of a musician's honorable ambition a new and discordant element thrust itself into the harmony of his life this was the symptoms of approaching deafness his own account fixes their appearance in the year 7099 then they were still so feeble and intermittent as to have caused him at first no serious anxiety but in another year they had assumed so much the appearance of a clinic an increasing evil as to compel him to abandon plans for travel which he had formed and for which he was preparing himself with great industry and perseverance to appear in the twofold capacity of virtuoso and composer instead therefore in 1801 of having long since journey through half the world he for two years had been confined to Vienna or its immediate vicinity vainly seeking relief from surgeons and physicians it is not difficult to imagine calamities greater than that which now threaten Beethoven as the loss of sight to rafiella rubens and the height of their fame and power so partial paralysis or other incurable disease of the brain cutting short the career of a shakespeare or girder a bacon or cunt a mutant or humble better the untimely fate of a buckle than to live long years of unavailing regret over the blast of hopes and promise of early manhood in such cases there remains no resource hope itself is dead but to Beethoven even if his worst fears should prove prophetic and his infirmity at length close all prospects of a career as virtuoso and conductor the field of composition still remained open this he knew and it saved him from utter despair who can say that the world has not been a gainer by a misfortune which stirred the profoundest depths of his being and compelled the concentration of all his powers into one direction as the disease made progress and the prospect of relief became less notwithstanding a grief and anxiety which caused him such mental agony as even to induce the thought of suicide he so well succeeded in keeping it concealed from all but a few intimate and faithful friends that no notice whatever is to be found of it until 1802 except in papers from his own hand they form a very touching contrast to his letters to other correspondents neither the head nor the heart is to be ended of the man who can read them without emotion the two most important are letters to beggar giving full details of his case doubly valuable because they are not merely letters to a friend but an elaborate account of the symptoms and medical treatment of his disease made to a physician of high standing who thoroughly understood the constitution of the patient they are therefore alike significant for what they contain and for what they omit no hypothesis as to the cause of the evil can be entertained which is discordant with them reserving them however for their proper places in the order of time our story are too inconsistent with them may here be disposed of the so-called fish-off manuscript says theories as to the loss of hearing in the year 1796 Beethoven on a hot summer day came greatly overheated to his home through open doors and windows disrobed down to his trousers and cooled himself in a draft at the open window the consequence was a dangerous sickness which on his convalescence settled in his organs of hearing and from this time his deafness steadily increased in this passage both the date and the environment are irreconcilable with the letters to begler dr. Weissenbach and his risa soon congress 1814 gives what appears to be the same story but in fewer words he Beethoven once endured a fearful attack of typhus from this time dates the decay of his nervous system and probably also that to him great misfortune of the loss of hearing neither typhus nor typhoid fever is a matter of a few days or weeks if severe and the chronology of our narrative is to say the least so far fixed and certain as to exclude the possibility of his having passed through any very serious illness of that nature since he came to Vienna but it is not at all improbable that in 1784 or 1785 he may have been a victim to this frightful disorder and that it may have been the cause of his melancholic condition of health at the time of his mother's death and of that chronic diarrhea with which he was so long troubled do there is no record of such an illness but that proves nothing there is no record that he passed through an attack of small parts except that which the disease left upon his face but the most extraordinary and inexplicable account of the origin of his deafness is that given by Beethoven himself to the English pianist Charles Neat in 1815 mr. Neat was once urging Beethoven to visit England and mentioned as a father inducement the great skill of certain English physicians in treating diseases of the ear assuring him that he might cherish hopes of relief Beethoven replied in substances followers no i've already had all sorts of medical advice i shall never be cured i will tell you how it happened i was once busy writing an opera neat fidelio Beethoven no it was not fidelio i had a very ill temper troublesome primo tenore to deal with i'd already written two grand heirs to the same text with which he was dissatisfied and now a third which upon trial he seemed to have proven took away with him i think the stars that i was at length rid of him and sat down immediately to a work which i had laid aside for those heirs in which i was anxious to finish i've not been half an hour at work when i heard a knock at my door which i once recognized as that of my primo tenore i sprang up from my table and under such an excitement of rage that as the man entered the room i threw myself upon the floor as they do upon the stage here be spread out his arms and made a gesture of illustration coming down upon my hands when i arose i found myself deaf and i've been so ever since the physicians say the nerve is in you that Beethoven really related to a strange story cannot be questioned the word of the venerable Charles Neat to the author is sufficient on that point what is to be thought of it is a very different matter here at least it may stand without comment end of section 19