Johann Vanhall, whose name was so well known in Paris and London that Burney, twenty years before, sought him out in his garret in a suburb of Vienna, was as indefatigable as ever in production. Gerber says in his first Lexicon (1792) that Breitkopf and Härtel had then fifty of his symphonies in manuscript. His fecundity was equal to that of Haydn; his genius such that all his works are now forgotten. It is needless to continue this list.
One other fact illustrating the musical tastes and accomplishments of the higher classes of the capital may be added. There were, during the winter 1792-93, ten private theatres with amateur companies in activity, of which the more important were in the residences of the nobles Stockhammer, Kinsky, Sinsendorf and Strassaldo, and of the bookseller Schrambl. Most of these companies produced operas and operettas.
Chapter XIII
Beethoven in Society—Concerts—Wegeler’s Recollections—Compositions—The First Trios—Sonatas Dedicated to Haydn—Variations—Dances for the Ridotto Rooms—Plays at Haydn’s Concert.
However quiet and “without observation” Beethoven’s advent in Vienna may have been at that time when men’s minds were occupied by movements of armies and ideas of revolution, he could hardly have gone thither under better auspices. He was Court Organist and Pianist to the Emperor’s uncle; his talents in that field were well known to the many Austrians of rank who had heard him in Bonn when visiting there or when paying their respects to the Elector in passing to and from the Austrian Netherlands; he was a pupil of Joseph Haydn—a circumstance in itself sufficient to secure him a hearing; and he was protected by Count Waldstein, whose family connections were such that he could introduce his favorite into the highest circles, the imperial house only excepted. Waldstein’s mother was a Liechtenstein; his grandmother a Trautmannsdorf; three of his sisters had married respectively into the families Dietrichstein, Crugenburg and Wallis; and by the marriages of uncles and aunts he was connected with the great houses Oettingen-Spielberg, Khevenhüller-Melisch, Kinsky, Palfy von Erdöd and Ulfeld—not to mention others less known. If the circle be extended by a degree or two it embraces the names Kaunitz, Lobkowitz, Kohary, Fünfkirchen, Keglevics and Colloredo-Mansfeld.
Dr. Burney, in closing his “Present State of Music in Germany,” notes the distinction in the styles of composition and performance in some of the principal cities of that country, “Vienna being most remarkable for fire and animation; Mannheim for neat and brilliant execution; Berlin for counterpoint and Brunswick for taste.” Since Burney’s tour (1772) Vienna had the highest example of all these qualities united in Mozart. But he had passed away, and no great pianist of the first rank remained; there were extraordinary dilettanti and professional pianists “of very neat and brilliant execution,” but none who possessed great “fire, animation and invention,” qualities still most valued in Vienna and in which the young Beethoven, with all the hardness and heaviness of manipulation caused by his devotion to the organ, was wholly unrivalled. With all the salons in the metropolis open to him, his success as a virtuoso was, therefore, certain. All the contemporary authorities, and all the traditions of those years, agree in the fact of that success, and that his playing of Bach’s preludes and fugues especially, his reading of the most difficult scores at sight and his extemporaneous performances excited ever new wonder and delight. Schindler records that van Swieten, after musical performances at his house, “detained Beethoven and persuaded him to add a few fugues by Sebastian Bach as an evening blessing,” and he preserves a note without date, though evidently belonging to Beethoven’s first years in Vienna, which proves how high a place the young man had then won in the old gentleman’s favor:
To Mr. Beethoven in Alstergasse, No. 45, with the Prince Lichnowsky: If there is nothing to hinder next Wednesday I should be glad to see you at my home at half past 8 with your nightcap in your bag. Give me an immediate answer.
Swieten.
There is also an entry in the oft-cited memorandum book belonging in date to October or November, 1793, which may be given in this connection: “Supped in the evening at Swieten’s, 17 pourboire. To the janitor 4 x for opening the door.”