The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

The first two concertos for pianoforte call for consideration here, for it was not until 1798 that they acquired the form in which they are now known. That the Concerto in B-flat was the earlier of the two has been proved in a preceding chapter of this volume. It was this Concerto and not the one in C major (as Wegeler incorrectly reported) that was played in March, 1795. Wegeler’s error was due to the circumstance that the Concerto in C was published first. Sketches for the Concerto in B-flat major are found among the exercises written for Albrechtsberger, sketches for the Sonata in E major (Op. 14, No. 1), and others for a little quartet movement which was owned by M. Malherbe of Paris; on this sheet occurs a short exercise with the remark “Contrapunto all’ottava” which points to the beginning of 1795 or even 1794. The sketch is an obviously early form of a passage in the free fantasia. This agrees with the statement that on March 29, 1795, Beethoven played a new concerto, the key of which is not indicated. It is most likely that it was this in B-flat, since the one in C did not exist at the time. Beethoven, it appears, played it a few times afterward in Vienna and then rewrote it. According to Tomaschek’s account he played the B-flat Concerto (expressly distinguished from that in C) in 1798, again in Prague. Tomaschek added, “which he had composed in Prague.” This is confounding the original version with the revision, concerning which Nottebohm gives information in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” on the basis of sketches which point to 1798. The fact of the revision is proved by Beethoven’s memoranda, such as “To remain as it was,” “From here on everything to remain as it was.” The revision of the first movement was radical, and the entire work was apparently undertaken in view of an imminent performance, most likely that of Prague in 1798. It was published by Hoffmeister und Kühnel and dedicated to Carl Nikl Edlen von Nikelsberg.

That the Concerto in C was composed later than that in B-flat has been proved by Beethoven’s testimony as well as other external evidences and is confirmed by the few remaining sketches analyzed by Nottebohm. They appear in connection with a sketch for the cadenza for the B-flat Concerto which, therefore, must have been finished when its companion was begun. A sketch for a cadenza for the C major Concerto comes after sketches for the Sonata in D, Op. 10, No. 3, which was published in 1798. This new concerto must, therefore, have been finished. According to the testimony of Tomaschek he played it in 1798 in the Konviktsaal in Prague. Schindler says he played it for the first time “in the spring of 1800 in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater,” but this concert is likely to have been that of April 2nd, 1800, described by Hanslick in his “Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien” (p. 127). Schindler evidently knew nothing of the performance in Prague and a confusion must be at the bottom of Czerny’s statement that the Concerto was played in the Kärnthnerthor-Theater in 1801. The Concerto in C, dedicated to the Countess Odescalchi, née Keglevich, was published by Mollo in Vienna in 1801. There are three cadenzas for the first movement of the Concerto, the last two of which call for an extended compass of the pianoforte and are thus shown to be of later date than the first.

To these concertos must be added the Rondo in B-flat for Pianoforte and Orchestra found unfinished among Beethoven’s compositions and published by Diabelli and Co. in 1829. Sonnleithner, on the authority of Diabelli, says it was completed by Czerny, who also filled out the accompaniment. There is no authentic record of the time of its composition. O. Jahn surmised that it may have been designed for the Concerto in B-flat. Its contents indicate an earlier period. A sketch printed by Nottebohm associated with a Romanza for Pianoforte, Flute and Bassoon, judged by the handwriting, is not of later date than 1795. E. Mandyczewski compared the original manuscript, now in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, with the printed form and decided that the work was completed in plan and motiri by Beethoven, who, however, did not carry out the cadenzas and only indicated the passages. The share which Czerny had in it is thus indicated; he added the cadenzas and extended the pianoforte passages which Beethoven had only indicated, making them more effective and brilliant. The use of the high registers of the pianoforte which Czerny employs somewhat too freely in view of the simple character of the piece, was not contemplated by Beethoven, who once remarked of Czerny: “He uses the piccolo too much for me.” In Mandyczewski’s opinion the handwriting points to a time before 1800, and the contents indicate the early Vienna if not the Bonn period. Mandyczewski also thinks that the romanza-like Andante is palpably a very early composition and that the correspondence in key and measure with the B-flat Concerto might indicate that it was originally designed as a part of that work, a supposition which is strengthened by the fact that the original manuscript is neither dated nor signed. This internal evidence has much in its favor, the more since it is not at all obvious what might have prompted Beethoven to write an independent rondo for concert use. There is no external evidence; if there were, the conception of the B-flat Concerto would have to be set at a much earlier date than has yet been done. The first Vienna sketches for the Concerto, as Nottebohm shows, prove that the present three movements belonged together from the beginning. They were, therefore, surely played at the first performance in 1795. Nottebohm, who repeated Jahn’s surmise in his “Thematisches Verzeichniss,” changed his mind after a study of the sketches and rejected the notion that the rondo had been designed for the Concerto. Only by assuming an earlier date for the rondo can the theory be upheld. Attention may here be called to Wegeler’s statement (“Notizen,” p. 56) that the rondo of the first Concerto (he says, of course, the Concerto in C) was not composed until the second afternoon before the performance. There may possibly have been another. This is not necessarily disproved by the fact that sketches for the present one were in existence. The question is not settled by the evidence now before us, but the probabilities are with Mandyczewski.

Now begins the glorious series of sonatas. The first were the three (Op. 10) which, though begun in part at an earlier date, were definitively finished and published in 1798. Eder, the publisher, opened a subscription for them by an advertisement in the “Wiener Zeitung,” July 5th, 1798; therefore they were finished at that time. The sketching for them had begun in 1796, as appears from Nottebohm’s statement,[84] and Beethoven worked on the three simultaneously. Sketches for the first movement of the first Sonata are mixed with sketches for the soprano air for Umlauf’s “Schusterin” which have been attributed to 1796, and the Variations for three Wind-Instruments which were played in 1797. Sketches for the third sonata are found among notes for the Sextet for Wind-Instruments (composed about 1796) and also for the Concerto in C minor, which, therefore, was begun thus early, and for one of the seven country dances which appeared in 1799, or perhaps earlier. The sketches for the last movement of No. 3 are associated alone with sketches for a cadenza for the C major Concerto which Beethoven played in Prague in 1798, and may therefore be placed in this year. It follows that the three sonatas were developed gradually in 1796-98, and completed in 1798. From the sketches and the accompanying memoranda[85] we learn, furthermore, that for the first Sonata, which now has three movements, a fourth, an Intermezzo, was planned on which Beethoven several times made a beginning but permitted to fall. Two of these movements became known afterwards as “Bagatelles.” We learn also that the last movement of the first Sonata, and the second movement of the second, were originally laid out on a larger scale.

Composition of the “Sonate Pathétique”

The “Sonate pathétique,” Op. 13, was published by Eder, in Vienna, in 1799, and afterwards by Hoffmeister, who announced them on December 18 of the same year. Sketches for the rondo are found among those for the Trio, Op. 9, and after the beginning of a fair copy of the Sonata, Op. 49, No. 1. From this there is no larger deduction than that the Sonata probably had its origin about 1798. One of the sketches, however, indicates that the last movement was originally conceived for more than one instrument, probably for a sonata for pianoforte and violin. Beethoven published the two Sonatas, Op. 14, which he dedicated to the Baroness Braun, immediately after the “Sonate pathétique.” They came from the press of Mollo and were announced on December 21, 1799. The exact time of their composition cannot be determined definitely. Up to the present time no sketches for the second are known to exist; copious ones for the first, however, are published by Nottebohm in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 45 et seq.), some of which appear before sketches for the Sonata, Op. 12, No. 3, then approaching completion, and some after sketches for the Concerto in B-flat. Because of this juxtaposition, Nottebohm places the conception of the Sonata in 1795.

Touching the history of the Trio, Op. 11, for Pianoforte, Clarinet and Violoncello, little is known. It was advertised as wholly new by Mollo and Co. on October 3, 1798, and is inscribed to the Countess Thun. Sketches associated with works that are unknown or were never completed are in the British Museum and set forth by Nottebohm in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 515). The sketch for the Adagio resembles the beginning of the minuet in the Sonata, Op. 49, No. 2, and is changed later; this points approximately to 1798. The last movement consists of a series of variations on the theme of a trio from Weigl’s opera “L’Amor marinaro,” beginning “Pria ch’io l’impegno.” Weigl’s opera was performed for the first time on October 15, 1797. Czerny told Otto Jahn that Beethoven took the theme at the request of a clarinet player (Beer?) for whom he wrote the Trio. The elder Artaria told Cipriani Potter in 1797, that he had given the theme to Beethoven and requested him to introduce variations on it into a trio, and added that Beethoven did not know that the melody was Weigl’s until after the Trio was finished, whereupon he grew very angry on finding it out. Czerny says in the supplement to his “Pianoforte School”:

It was at the wish of the clarinet player for whom Beethoven wrote this Trio that he employed the above theme by Weigl (which was then very popular) as the finale. At a later period he frequently contemplated writing another concluding movement for this Trio, and letting the variations stand as a separate work.

If Czerny is correct in his statement, obvious deductions from it are these, which are scarcely consistent with Artaria’s story: if the theme was “very popular” at the time the opera must have had several performances, and it is not likely that the melody was unfamiliar to Beethoven, who also, it may be assumed, wrote the title of Weigl’s trio, which is printed at the beginning of the last movement of Beethoven’s composition. Beethoven produced the Trio for the first time at the house of Count Fries on the occasion of his first meeting with Steibelt. The three Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 12, were advertised in the “Wiener Zeitung” of January 12, 1799, as published by Artaria, which would seem to place their origin in 1798. The program of a concert given by Madame Duschek on March 29, 1798, preserved in the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, announces a sonata with accompaniment to be played by Beethoven. The accompanying (obbligato) instrument is not mentioned, but the work may well have been one of these Sonatas. Nottebohm discusses the juxtaposition of sketches for the second Sonata with sketches for the Pianoforte Concerto in B-flat and the sonata in E, Op. 14, No. 1, and is inclined to fix 1795 as the year of the sonata’s origin. But we are in the dark as to whether the sketches for the Pianoforte Concerto were for its original or its revised form.

Among the instrumental compositions of this year belong the Variations for Pianoforte and Violoncello on “Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen” from Mozart’s “Zauberflöte,” of which nothing more is known than that Traeg announced their publication on September 12, 1798. They were afterward taken over by Artaria. The Variation for Pianoforte on a theme from Grétry’s “Richard, Cœur de Lion” (“Une fièvre brûlante”) were announced as newly published on November 7, 1798, by Traeg; Cappi and Diabelli acquired them later. Sketches for them are found by the side of sketches for the first movement of the Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1, which circumstance indicates that 1796 was the year of their origin. According to Sonnleithner, “Richard, Cœur de Lion” was first performed at the Hoftheater, Vienna, on January 7, 1788; then again on June 13, 1799 in the Theater auf den Wieden; but a ballet, “Richard Löwenherz,” by Vigano, music by Weigl, in which Grétry’s romance, “Une fièvre brûlante,” was interpolated, was brought forward on July 2, 1795, in the Hof- und Nationaltheater and repeated often in that year, and it was thence, no doubt, that the suggestion for the variations came to Beethoven. The six little Variations on a Swiss air were published, according to Nottebohm, by Simrock in Bonn in 1798. The ten Variations on “La stessa, la stessissima” from Salieri’s “Falstaff, ossia le tre Burle,” were announced as just published in the “Wiener Zeitung” of March 2, 1799. Salieri’s opera was performed on January 3 (Wlassak says January 6), 1799, in the Hoftheater; Beethoven’s, therefore, was an occasional composition conceived and produced in a very short time. Sketches are found among some for the first Quartet, Op. 18, and others. The Variations are dedicated to the Countess Babette Keglevich. Twice more in the same year operatic productions induced similar works. The publication of the Variations on “Kind, willst du ruhig schlafen?” from Winter’s “Unterbrochenes Opferfest,” was announced in the “Wiener Zeitung” of December 21, 1799, by Mollo and Co.; the opera had its first performance in Vienna on June 15, 1796, and was repeated frequently within the years immediately following—six times in 1799. In this case also it may be assumed that publication followed hard on the heels of composition. Sketches are found in companionship with others belonging to the Quartet, Op. 18, No. 5, and the Septet. The Variations on “Tändeln und Scherzen,” from Süssmayr’s opera “Soliman II, oder die drei Sultaninnen,” belong to the same time. The opera was performed on October 1, 1799, in the Hoftheater; the publication of the variations by Hoffmeister was announced in the “Wiener Zeitung” on December 18, 1799. They may have been printed previously by Eder. They were dedicated to Countess Browne, née von Bietinghoff. It is interesting to learn from Czerny that these Variations were the first of Beethoven’s compositions which the master gave him to study when he became his pupil. Before them he had pieces by C. P. E. Bach and after them the “Sonate pathéthique.”