Karl Kaspar as a Business Manager
To the first point it is to be remarked: Besides Beethoven’s often expressed disinclination to engage personally in negotiations for the sale of his works—although when he did he showed no lack of a keen eye to profits—his physical and mental condition at this period of his life often rendered the assistance of an agent indispensable. Accounts were to be kept with half a dozen publishers; letters received upon business were numerous and often demanded prompt replies; proof-sheets were constantly arriving for revision and correction; copyists required supervision; an abundance of minor matters continually coming up and needing attention when Beethoven might be on his long rambles over hill and dale, the last man to be found in an emergency. One asks with astonishment, how could so obvious a necessity for a confidential agent have escaped notice? Who should or could this agent be but his brother Kaspar?[133] He held an honorable place in a public office, the duties of which necessarily implied the possession of those talents for, and habits of, prompt and skillful performance of business which his early receipt of salary and his regular advancement in position show that he really did possess; his duties detained him in the city at all times, occasional short vacations excepted, and yet left him ample leisure to attend to his brother’s affairs; he was a musician by education and fully competent to render valuable service in that “fearful period of arrangements”—as it is well known he did. What would have justly been said of Beethoven if he had passed by one so eminently qualified for the task—one on whom the paternal relation and his own long continued care and protection had given him so many claims—and had transferred the burden from his own shoulders to those of other friends? But if, after adequate trial, the agent proved unsatisfactory, the case would be changed and the principal might with propriety seek needed assistance in other quarters. And precisely this appears to have occurred; for after a few years Kaspar disappears almost entirely from our history in connection with his brother’s pecuniary affairs. This fact is stronger evidence than anything in Ries’s statements, that Beethoven became dissatisfied with his brother’s management, and would have still more weight had he been less fickle, inconstant and undecided in matters of business.[134]
Seyfried, whose acquaintance with Beethoven ripened just at this time into intimacy, and who in 1802-’05 had the best possible opportunities for observation, beheld the relations between the brothers with far less jaundiced eyes than Ries. He says:
Beethoven was the more glad to choose joyous Vienna for his future and permanent home since two younger brothers had followed him thither, who took off his shoulders the oppressive load of financial cares and who were compelled to act almost as guardians for the priest of art to whom the ordinary affairs of civil life were as strange as strange could be.
At that time Seyfried, like Ries, was ignorant of the circumstances detailed to Wegeler and Amenda and in the testament; but the admirable selection of words in the closing phrase will strike all who have had occasion to read Beethoven’s countless notes asking advice or aid in matters which most men would deem too trivial for even a passing word in conversation. The specifications of Ries in his charges against Kaspar will not long detain us. The story of the quarrel over the disposition of the Nägeli Sonatas may stand in all its ugliness and with no comment save the suggestion of the possibility that Kaspar’s word as Ludwig’s agent may have been pledged to the Leipsic publisher. The one really specific charge of Ries is the one on page 124 of the “Notizen”:
All trifles, and many things which he did not want to publish because he thought them unworthy of his name, were secretly given to publicity by his brother. Thus songs which he had composed years before his departure for Vienna, became known only after he had reached a high degree of fame. Thus, too, little compositions which he had written in autograph albums were filched and published.
By “trifles” Ries, of course, here refers to the “Bagatelles, Op. 33, par Louis van Beethoven, 1782,” as the manuscript is superscribed, published in the spring of 1803. The manuscript itself proves Ries to be in error. The words “par Louis van Beethoven” are in a hand unlike anything known to the present writer from Beethoven’s pen. This fact, together with a something not easily described in the appearance of the notes, suggests the idea that this copy of the “Bagatelles” was made by Kaspar, and compiled, except No. 6 and perhaps one other, from the compositions of Beethoven in his boyhood. But the corrections—the words Andante gracioso, Scherzo Allegro, Allegretto con una certa espressione parlante, etc., written with lead pencil or a different ink, are certainly from Beethoven’s own hand; also, in still another ink, the thoroughly Beethovenish “Op. 33.” No one can mistake that. This work most assuredly was never “secretly given to the public.”[135]
The only Album composition known to have been published in those years is the song with variations, “Ich denke dein”; and this Beethoven himself had offered to Hoffmeister before it was printed by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir.
The “songs” referred to by Ries can only be those of Op. 52. The original manuscript, having disappeared, neither refutes nor confirms his opinion. It is, however, exceedingly doubtful that Beethoven’s brothers would have dared give an opus number to a stolen publication. A priori Ries is more likely to be in error here than in regard to the “Bagatelles.” Now, the only contemporary criticism upon the latter which has been discovered, is a single line in Moll’s “Annalen der Literatur” (Vienna, 1804): “Deserve the title in every sense of the word.” Upon the “Song with Variations” no notice whatever has been found. But, Opus 52 was received by the “Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung” of August 28, 1805, in this style; Opera 47 and 38 having been duly praised, the writer continues:
Is it possible that No. 3 of these eight songs is from the pen of this composer, admirable even in his vagaries? It must be, since it is. At least his name is printed large on the title-page, the publisher is mentioned, the songs were published in Vienna where the composer lives, and, indeed, bear his latest opus number. Comprehend it he who can—that a thing in all respects so commonplace, poor, weak and in great part ludicrous should not only emanate from such a man but even be published.