[84] “Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 29 et seq.
[85] Among sketches for the second movement of the Quintet, Op. 16, Beethoven wrote: “For the new sonatas very short minuets. The Scherzo remains for that in C minor.” And in another sketch he writes: “Intermezzo for the sonata in C minor.”—Nottebohm, “Zweite Beethoveniana,” 32, 479.
[86] Amenda returned to his home in Courland in the fall of 1799. The friends corresponded with each other for a time, but the majority of Beethoven’s letters are lost. While a student at the University in Leipzig, Amenda’s grandson placed some of them in the hands of a publisher at his request and did not get them back. Amenda was first a private teacher, became a preacher in Talsen in 1802, provost of the diocese of Kadau in 1820, consistorial councillor in 1830 and died on March 8, 1836. A portrait painted in 1808, is preserved in the Beethoven Museum in Bonn.
[87] Beethoven did not always follow the suggestions of these men. According to an anecdote told by Doležalek to Otto Jahn, Kraft once complained that a passage was not playable. “It’s got to be,” answered Beethoven. In a like vein K. Holz relates that “Beethoven asked an excellent artist whether or not certain things were possible”; the question of how difficult they were did not enter. Thus Friedlowsky for clarinet, Czerwensky for oboe, Hradezky and Herbst for horn. If others complained of impossibilities the answer was “They can do it and you must.” (From Thayer’s papers.)
[88] The humor to which Beethoven resorts in this note in order to show his contrition necessarily evaporates in any attempt to translate its Viennese colloquialisms. “Herzens Natzerl” is to be understood as “Dear little Ignacius of my heart,” Nazerl being an affectionate diminutive of Ignaz or Ignacius. Why it should have been applied to Hummel, whose Christian names were Johann Nepomuk, does not appear. “Mehlschöberl” is a term which has survived in the Austrian cuisine of to-day, the article itself being a sort of soup dumpling.
[89] The number of known letters and documents has grown greatly since Thayer wrote these words. Kalischer’s Collection numbers over 1200 and Emerich Kastner gives the first lines of 1380 in Frimmel’s second “Beethoven Jahrbuch” published in 1909.
[90] Opportunities for studying Beethoven’s sketchbooks have greatly increased since Mr. Thayer wrote these words. Nottebohm who rendered an incalculable service to all students of the great composer after the book from which our author quotes, published a volume entitled “Beethoveniana” in 1872, and a second entitled “Zweite Beethoveniana” in 1887. To these the revisors of this biography have repeatedly referred in tracing the history of Beethoven’s compositions. A collection of sketches formerly owned by J. N. Kafka and now in the British Museum was described by Mr. J. S. Shedlock in “The Musical Times” (July to December, 1892). A volume containing sketches for the last quartets is at the present writing in the possession of Mr. Cecilio de Roda of Madrid and was described by the “Rivista Italiana” (Nos. XI-XIV, 1907) and also published in pamphlet form under the title “Un Quadrena di autografi di Beethoven del 1825.”
[91] “He could not endure his Septet and grew angry because of the universal applause with which it was received.” (Czerny to Jahn.) “The theme of the variations is said to be a Rhenish folksong.” (Ibid.)
[92] This is, of course, an error, as the Trio had been before the public since October 3rd, 1798.
[93] From Weigl’s “Corsair aus Liebe.”