A Quick Reversion to Merriment
De profundis clamavit! And yet in that retirement whence came a paper of such profound sadness was wrought out the Symphony in D; a work whose grand and imposing introduction—brilliant Allegro, a Larghetto “so lovely, so pure and amiably conceived,” written in the scenes which gave inspiration to the divine “Pastorale” of which its serene tranquility seems the precursor; a Scherzo “as merry, wayward, skipping and charming as anything possible,” as even Oulibichef admits; and a Finale, the very intoxication of a spirit “intoxicated with fire”—made it, like the Quartets, an era both in the life of its author and in the history of instrumental music. In life, as in music, the more profoundly the depths of feeling are sounded in the Adagio, the more “merry to the verge of boisterousness” the Scherzo which follows. But who, reading that in October that beloved hope had been abandoned and the high courage which had often inspired him in the beautiful days of summer had disappeared, could anticipate that in November, through the wonderful elasticity of his nature, his mind would have so recovered its tone as to leave no trace visible of the so recent depression and gloom? Perhaps the mere act of giving his feelings vent in that extraordinary promemoria may have brought on the crisis, and from that moment the reaction may have begun.
The following letter to Zmeskall (to which the recipient appended the date, November, 1802) is whimsically written on both sides of a strip of very ordinary coarse writing paper fourteen and a half inches long by four and three-quarters wide:
You may, my dear Z., talk as plainly as you please to Walter in the affair of mine, first because he deserves it and then because since the belief has gone forth that I am no longer on good terms with Walter I am pestered by the whole swarm of pianoforte makers wishing to serve me—and gratis, moreover, every one wants to build a pianoforte for me just to my liking; thus Reicha was urgently begged by the man who made a pianoforte for him to persuade me to let him make me one, and he is one of the more honest at whose place I have seen good instruments—make him understand therefore that I will pay him 30 florins, whereas I might have one from all the others for nothing, but I will pay 30 florins only on condition that it be of mahogany and I also want the one string (una corda) pedal—if he does not agree to this make it plain to him that I shall choose one of the others and also introduce him to Haydn—a Frenchman, stranger, is coming to me at about 12 o’clock to-day volti
subito
Herr R(eicha) and I will have the pleasure of displaying my art on a piano by Jakesch—ad notam—if you want also to come we shall have a good time since afterward we, Reicha, our miserable Imperial Baron and the Frenchman, will dine together—you do not need to don a black coat as we shall be a party of men only.
Another letter to Zmeskall (who noted the date November 13, 1802, on it) runs as follows:
Dear Z.—Give up your music at the Prince’s, nothing else can be done. We shall rehearse at your house to-morrow morning early at half past 8 and the production will be at my house at eleven—
ad dio excellent Plenipotentiarius regni Beethovensis
The rascals have been jailed as they deserved in their own handwriting.[131]