At the end of February or early in March, the charlatan Daniel Steibelt gave a concert in Prague which brought him in 1800 florins, and in April or May, “having finished his speculation, he went to Vienna, his purse filled with ducats, where he was knocked in the head by the pianist Beethoven,” says Tomaschek. Ries relates how:
When Steibelt came to Vienna with his great name, some of Beethoven’s friends grew alarmed lest he do injury to the latter’s reputation. Steibelt did not visit him; they met first time one evening at the house of Count Fries, where Beethoven produced his new Trio in B-flat major for Pianoforte, Clarinet and Violoncello (Op. 11), for the first time.[92] There is no opportunity for particular display on the part of the pianist in this Trio. Steibelt listened to it with a sort of condescension, uttered a few compliments to Beethoven and felt sure of his victory. He played a Quintet of his own composition, improvised, and made a good deal of effect with his tremolos, which were then something entirely new. Beethoven could not be induced to play again. A week later there was again a concert at Count Fries’s; Steibelt again played a quintet which had a good deal of success. He also played an improvisation (which had, obviously, been carefully prepared) and chose the same theme on which Beethoven had written variations in his Trio.[93] This incensed the admirers of Beethoven and him; he had to go to the pianoforte and improvise. He went in his usual (I might say, ill-bred) manner to the instrument as if half-pushed, picked up the violoncello part of Steibelt’s quintet in passing, placed it (intentionally?) upon the stand upside down and with one finger drummed a theme out of the first few measures. Insulted and angered he improvised in such a manner that Steibelt left the room before he finished, would never again meet him and, indeed, made it a condition that Beethoven should not be invited before accepting an offer.
It was, and still is, the custom at Vienna for all whose vocations and pecuniary circumstances render it possible, to spend all or some portion of the summer months in the country. The aristocracies of birth and wealth retire to their country-seats, live in villas for the season or join the throngs at the great watering-places; other classes find refuge in the villages and hamlets which abound in the lovely environs of the city, where many a neat cottage is built for their use and where the peasants generally have a spare room or two, cleanly kept and neatly furnished. Beethoven’s habit of escaping from town during the hot months was, therefore, nothing peculiar to him. We have reached the point whence, with little if any interruption, Beethoven can be followed from house to house, in city and country, through the rest of his life; a matter of great value in fixing the true dates of important letters and determining the chronology of his life and works—but for the first seven years the record is very incomplete.
Various Dwelling Places in Vienna
Carl Holz told Jahn: “He (Beethoven) lived at first in a little attic-room in the house of the book-binder Strauss in the Alservorstadt, where he had a miserable time.” This is one of the facts which an inquisitive young man like Holz would naturally learn of the master during the short period when he was his factotum. This attic-room must have been soon changed for the room “on the ground-floor” mentioned in a previous chapter. An undated note of van Swieten is directed to Beethoven at “No. 45 Alsergasse, at Prince Lichnowsky’s”; but in the Vienna directory for 1804 no street is so named, and the only number 45 in the “Alsergrund” is in the Lämmelgasse, property of Georg Musial; but Prince Josef Lichnowsky is named as owner of No. 125 in the Hauptstrasse of that suburb. This was the same house; it had merely changed numbers. The site is now occupied by the house No. 30 Alserstrasse. Thence Beethoven went as a guest to the house occupied by Prince Lichnowsky. In May, 1795, Beethoven, in advertising the Trios, Op. 1, gives the “residence of the author” as the “Ogylisches Haus in the Kreuzgasse behind the Minorite church, No. 35 in the first storey”; but that is no reason to think that Prince Lichnowsky then lived there. Where Beethoven was during the next few years has not been ascertained, but, as has been seen by the concert bill on a preceding page, he was during the winter of 1799-1800 in the Tiefen Graben “in a very high and narrow house,” as Czerny wrote to F. Luib.[94] For the summer of 1800, he took quarters for himself and servant in one of those houses in Unter-Döbling, an hour’s walk, perhaps, from town, to which the readiest access is by the bridge over the brook on the North side of the Döbling hospital for the insane. The wife of a distinguished Vienna advocate occupied with her children another part of the same house. One of these children was Grillparzer, afterward famous as a poet. The zeal with which Beethoven at this period labored to perfect his pianoforte playing, and his dislike to being listened to, have been already noted. Madame Grillparzer was a lady of fine taste and culture, fond of music and therefore able to appreciate the skill of her fellow-lodger, but ignorant of his aversion to listeners. Her son, in 1861, still remembered Beethoven’s incessant practice and his mother’s habit of standing outside her own door to enjoy his playing. This continued for some time; but one day Beethoven sprang from the instrument to the door, opened it, looked out to see if any one was listening, and unfortunately discovered the lady. From that moment he played no more. Madame Grillparzer, thus made aware of his sensitiveness on this point, informed him through his servant that thenceforth her door into the common passageway should be kept locked, and she and her family would solely use another. It was of no avail; Beethoven played no more.
Another authentic and characteristic anecdote can belong only to this summer. There lived in a house hard by a peasant of no very good reputation, who had a daughter remarkably beautiful, but also not of the best fame. Beethoven was greatly captivated by her and was in the habit of stopping to gaze at her when he passed by where she was at work in farmyard or field. She, however, made no return of his evident liking and only laughed at his admiration. On one occasion the father was arrested for engaging in a brawl and imprisoned. Beethoven took the man’s part and went to the magistrates to obtain his release. Not succeeding, he became angry and abusive, and in the end would have been arrested for his impertinence but for the strong representations made by some, who knew him, of his position in society and of the high rank, influence and power of his friends.
Throughout this period of Beethoven’s life, each summer is distinguished by some noble composition, completed, or nearly so, so that on his return to the city it was ready for revision and his copyist. Free from the demands of society, his time was his own; his fancy was quickened, his inspiration strengthened, in field and forest labor was a delight. The most important work of the master bears in his own hand the date, 1800, and may reasonably be supposed to have been the labor of this summer. It is the Concerto in C minor for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 37.
Doležalek and Hoffmeister
At the approach of autumn Beethoven returned to his old quarters in the Tiefen Graben. In this year Krumpholz introduced to him Johann Emanuel (possibly Johann Nepomuk Emanuel) Doležalek, a young man of 20 years, born in Chotieborz in Bohemia, who had come to Vienna to take lessons from Albrechtsberger. He played the pianoforte and violoncello, was a capable musician, in his youth a rather popular composer of Bohemian songs and then, for half a century, one of the best teachers in the capital. Toward the close of his life he was frequently occupied with the arrangement of private concerts, chiefly quartet parties, for Prince Czartoryski and other prominent persons. As long as he lived he was an enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven, and enjoyed the friendship of the composer till his death. Among his observations are the statements concerning the hatred of Beethoven felt by the Vienna musicians already noted. Koželuch, he relates, threw the C minor Trio at his (Doležalek’s) feet when the latter played it to him. Speaking of Beethoven, Koželuch said to Haydn: “We would have done that differently, wouldn’t we, Papa?” and Haydn answered, smilingly, “Yes, we would have done that differently.” Haydn, says Doležalek, could not quite reconcile himself with Beethoven’s music. It was Doležalek who witnessed the oft-told scene in the Swan tavern when Beethoven insisted on paying without having eaten.
One of the most prolific and popular composers whom Beethoven found in Vienna was Franz Anton Hoffmeister, “Chapelmaster and R. I. licensed Music, Art and Book Seller.” He was an immigrant from the Neckar valley and (born 1754) much older than Beethoven, to whom he had extended a warm sympathy and friendship, doubly valuable from his somewhat similar experience as a young student in Vienna. This is evident from the whole tone of their correspondence. In 1800, Hoffmeister left Vienna and in Leipzig formed a copartnership with Ambrosius Kühnel, organist of the Electoral Saxon Court Chapel, and established a publishing house there, still retaining his business in Vienna. As late as December 5, 1800, his signature is as above given; but on the 1st of January, 1801, the advertisements in the public press announce the firm of “Hoffmeister and Kühnel, Bureau de Musique in Leipzig.” Since 1814 the firm name has been C. F. Peters. Knowing Beethoven personally and so intimately, it is alike creditable to the talents of the one and the taste and appreciation of the other that Hoffmeister, immediately upon organizing his new publishing house, should have asked him for manuscripts. To his letter he received an answer dated Dec. 15, 1800, in which Beethoven says: