In the year 1796, Beethoven, on a hot summer day, came greatly overheated to his home, threw 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 averment are irreconcilable with the letters to Wegeler.
Dr. Weissenbach, in his “Reise zum 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 the, to him, great misfortune of the loss of hearing.” Neither a typhus nor a 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 melancholy condition of health at the time of his mother’s death, and of the chronic diarrhœa with which he was so long troubled. True, there is no record of such an illness; but that proves nothing. There is no record that he passed through an attack of small-pox, 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 Neate, in 1815. Mr. Neate was once urging Beethoven to visit England and mentioned as a farther 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 substance as follows: “No; I have 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—
Neate: “Fidelio?”
Beethoven: “No. It was not ‘Fidelio.’ I had a very ill-tempered, troublesome primo tenore to deal with. I had already written two grand airs to the same text, with which he was dissatisfied, and now a third which, upon trial, he seemed to approve and took away with him. I thanked the stars that I was at length rid of him and sat down immediately to a work which I had laid aside for those airs and which I was anxious to finish. I had not been half an hour at work, when I heard a knock at my door, which I at once recognized as that of my primo tenore. I sprang up from my table 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 B. spread out his arms and made a gesture of illustration), coming down upon my hands. When I arose I found myself deaf and have been so ever since. The physicians say, the nerve is injured.”
That Beethoven really related this strange story cannot be questioned; the word of the venerable Charles Neate 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.
Chapter XVIII
Beethoven’s Brothers—His First Concert on His Own Account—Punto and the Sonata for Horn—Steibelt Confounded—E. A. Förster and the First Quartets—The Septet and First Symphony—Beethoven’s Homes—Hoffmeister—Compositions and Publications of 1800.