For the rest I hope that your life will grow continually in happiness and to that end I hope to contribute something. Farewell, dear brother, and think occasionally of
Your true, faithful brother
L. Beethoven.
Greetings to Brother Caspar.
My address is The Golden Unicorn
on the Kleinseite.
A debt of gratitude is certainly due Johann van Beethoven for having carefully preserved this letter for full half a century and leaving it to his heirs, notwithstanding all the troubles which afterwards arose between the brothers, since it is hardly more valuable and interesting for the facts which it states directly than for what it indicates and suggests more or less clearly.
A Sojourn in Prague and its Fruits
It, with other considerations, render it well nigh certain that Beethoven had now come to Prague with Prince Lichnowsky as Mozart had done, seven years before, and that upon leaving Vienna he had had no intention of pursuing his journey farther; but encouraged by the success thus reported to his brother, he suddenly determined to seek instruction and experience, pleasure, profit and fame in an extended tour. Had he projected this journey already in Vienna, how could all recollection of it have been lost by Wegeler? How could von Breuning in the letter cited above have omitted all mention of it? Nor is it possible to think that Beethoven, still so young and still so unknown outside the Austrian and Bohemian capitals, having so many powerful and influential friends there, and there only, could at this time have gone forth to seek elsewhere some permanent position with a fixed salary. The remarks which have been preserved, made by him in writing or conversation, expressing a desire for such an appointment, all belong to a later period, and cannot by any torture of language be made to refer to this, when he was looking into the future with well-grounded hopes and serene confidence of advancement in his new home. Vienna seemed to offer him all his ambition could crave; why should he seek his fortune beyond her walls?
It is pleasant to note his care for the welfare of his brother Johann, which care, doubtless, the other brother did not need. But how could Prince Lichnowsky have been indebted to Ludwig?
The musical public of Prague was the same that had so recently honored itself by its instant and noble appreciation of Mozart, and had given so glorious a welcome to “Figaro,” “Don Giovanni” and “Titus.” There being no royal or imperial court there, and the public amusements being less numerous than in Vienna, the nobility were thrown more on their own resources for recreation; and hence, besides the traditional taste of the Bohemians for instrumental music, their capital was, perhaps, a better field for the virtuoso than Vienna. No notice of any public concert given by Beethoven on this visit has been discovered, either in the newspapers of the time or in the reminiscences of Thomaschek and others; and “the considerable money” earned “this time” must have been the presents of the nobility for his performances in their salons, and, perhaps, for compositions.
The conception of the aria “Ah, perfido! spergiuro” is generally associated with Beethoven’s sojourn in Prague. The belief rests upon the fact that upon the cover of a copy which he revised Beethoven wrote the words “Une grande Scène mise en musique par L. v. Beethoven à Prague, 1796.” On the first page is written: Recitativo e Aria composta e dedicata alla Signora Contessa di Clari da L. v. Beethoven. The opus number, 46, in this title is in the handwriting of Al. Fuchs, who owned a copy. Now, on November 21st, 1796, Madame Duschek, the well known friend of Mozart, at a concert in Leipsic sang “An Italian Scena composed for Madame Duschek by Beethoven,” and it was easy to conclude that the aria was really written by Beethoven for Madame Duschek. On a page of sketches preserved in Berlin among others there are sketches belonging to “Ah, perfido!” which do not agree with the printed page. On the lower margin of the first page is the remark: pour Mademoiselle la Comtesse de Clari. Nottebohm is led by these things to surmise that the aria was written in Vienna in 1795, before the visit to Prague. In any case, we are permitted to associate the date 1796 only with the completion of the work in Prague; and the purpose may well have been to have it sung by Madame Duschek, who is thus proved to have belonged to the circle of Beethoven’s friends in Prague. Nevertheless, the aria was originally intended for the Countess Josephine Clari, a well known amateur singer who married Count Christian Clam-Gallas in 1797. The scena first appeared in print in the fall of 1805, when it was published in a collection made by Hoffmeister and Kühnel. Beethoven placed it upon the programme of his concert in 1808.
Another family in which Beethoven was received on the footing of a friend was that of Appellate Councillor Kanka. Both father and son were dilettante composers and instrumental players—the father on the violoncello, the son on the pianoforte. Gerber gives them a place in his Lexicon. “Miss Jeanette” (the daughter), says the eulogistic Schönfeld, “played the pianoforte with great expression and skill.” The son adopted his father’s profession, became a distinguished writer on Bohemian law, and in later years did Beethoven good service as legal adviser.