The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

There are three more operettas which evidently belong to the succeeding winter when the Bonn company had the aid of two singers from the electoral court of Trèves. Their titles are “L’Improvvisata, o sia la Galanteria disturbata,” by Lucchesi, “Li tre Amanti ridicoli,” by Galuppi, and “La Moda,” by Baroni. Ludwig van Beethoven did not sing in them. The means are still wanting to fill up the many gaps in the annals of this period or to carry them on during the next three years. Perhaps, however, the loss is not of much importance, for the materials collected are sufficient to warrant certain conclusions in regard to the general character of the court music. The musicians, both vocal and instrumental, were employed in the church, concert-room and theatre; their number remained without material change from the days of Christopher Petz to the close of Chapelmaster van Beethoven’s life; places in this service were held to be a sort of heritage, and of right due to the children of old incumbents, when possessed of sufficient musical talent and knowledge; few if any names of distinguished virtuosos are found in the lists of the members, and, in all probability, the performances never rose above the respectable mediocrity of a small band used to playing together in the light and pleasing music of the day.

The dramatic performances appear to have been confined to the operetta; and the vocalists, who sang the Latin of the mass, seem to have been required to be equally at home in German, Italian and French in the theatre. Two visits of the Angelo Mingotti troupe are noted; and one attempt, at least, to place the opera upon a higher basis by the engagement of Italian songstresses, was evidently made in the time of Clemens August.; it may be concluded that no great improvement was made—it is certain that no permanent one was; for in the other case the Bonn theatrical revolution of 1778 had not been needed. This must be noticed in detail.

Chronologically the following sketch belongs to the biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, as it embraces a period which happens in his case to be of special interest, young as he was;—the period from his 8th to his 14th year. But the details given, though of great importance for the light which they throw upon the musical life in which he moved and acted, would hardly be of so much interest to most readers as to justify breaking with them the course of the future narrative.

It was a period of great awakening in theatrical matters. Princes and courts were beginning everywhere in Germany to patronize the drama of their mother tongue and the labors of Lessing, Gotter and other well-known names, in the original production of German, or in the translation of the best English, Italian and French plays, were justifying and giving ever new impulse to the change in taste. From the many itinerant troupes of players performing in booths, or, in the larger cities, in the play-houses, the better class of actors were slowly finding their way into permanent companies engaged and supported by the governments. True, many of the newly established court theatres had but a short and not always a very merry life; true, also, that the more common plan was merely to afford aid and protection to some itinerant troupe; still the idea of a permanent national theatre on the footing of the already long-existing court musical establishments had made way, and had already been carried out in various places before it was taken up by the elector at Bonn. It can hardly be supposed that the example of the imperial court at Vienna, with the immense means at its disposal, could exert any direct influence upon the small court at Bonn at the other extremity of Germany; but what the Duke of Gotha and the elector at Mannheim had undertaken in this direction, Max Friedrich may well have ventured and determined to imitate. But there was an example nearer home—in fact in his own capital of Münster, where he, the prince primate, usually spent the summer. In 1775, Dobbler’s troupe, which had been for some time playing in that city, was broken up.

The Westhus brothers in Münster built up their own out of the ruins; but it endured only a short time. Thereupon, under the care of the minister, H. von Fürstenberg (one of those rare men whom heaven elects and equips with all necessary gifts to cultivate what is good and beautiful in the arts), a meeting of the lovers of the stage was arranged in May and a few gentlemen of the nobility and a few from the parterre formed a council which assumed the direction. The Elector makes a considerable contribution. The money otherwise received is to be applied to the improvement of the wardrobe and the theatre. The actors receive their honoraria every month.[3]

Opera and Drama at Bonn in 1779

At Easter, 1777, Seyler, a manager famous in German theatrical annals, and then at Dresden, finding himself unable to compete with his rival, Bondini, left that city with his company to try his fortunes in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mayence, and other cities in that quarter. The company was very large—the Theatre Lexicon (Article “Mainz”) makes it, including its orchestra, amount to 230 individuals!—much too large, it seems, in spite of the assertion of the Theatre Lexicon, to be profitable. Be that as it may, after an experience of a year or more, two of the leading members, Grossmann and Helmuth, accepted an engagement from Max Friedrich to form and manage a company at Bonn in order that “the German art of acting might be raised to a school of morals and manners for his people.” Taking with them a pretty large portion of Seyler’s company, including several of the best members, the managers reached Bonn and were ready upon the Elector’s return from Münster to open a season. “The opening of the theatre took place,” says the Bonn “Dramaturgische Nachrichten,” “on the 26th of November, 1778, with a prologue spoken by Madame Grossmann, ‘Wilhelmine Blondheim,’ tragedy in three acts by Grossmann, and ‘Die grosse Batterie,’ comedy in one act by Ayrenhofer.” The same authority gives a list of all the performances of the season, which extended to the 30th of May, 1779, together with débuts, the dismissals and other matters pertaining to the actors. The number of the evenings on which the theatre was open was 50. A five-act play, as a rule, occupied the whole performance, but of shorter pieces usually two were given; and thus an opening was found occasionally for an operetta. Of musical dramas only seven came upon the stage and these somewhat of the lightest order except the first—the melodrama “Ariadne auf Naxos,” music by Benda. The others were:

1779.

February 21. “Julie,” translated from the French by Grossmann, music by Desaides. February 28. “Die Jäger und das Waldmädchen,” operetta in one act, music by Duni. March 21. “Der Hofschmied,” in two acts, music by Philidor. April 9. “Röschen und Colas,” in one act, music by Monsigny. May 5. “Der Fassbinder,” in one act, music by Oudinot. May 14. A prologue “Dedicated to the Birthday Festivities of His Electoral Grace of Cologne, May 13, 1779, by J. A. Freyherrn vom Hagen.”

The selection of dramas was, on the whole, very creditable to the taste of the managers. Five of Lessing’s works, among them “Minna von Barnhelm” and “Emilia Galotti,” are in the list and some of the best productions of Bock, Gotter, Engel and their contemporaries; of translations there were Colman’s “Clandestine Marriage” and “Jealous Wife,” Garrick’s “Miss in her Teens,” Cumberland’s “West Indian,” Hoadly’s “Suspicious Husband,” Voltaire’s “Zaire” and “Jeannette,” Beaumarchais’s “Eugénie,” two or three of the works of Molière, and Goldoni, etc.;—in short, the list presents much variety and excellence.