There is in the Artaria collection, a thick fascicle of sketches and musical fragments from Beethoven’s hand in which papers from the Bonn period down to the close of the century are stitched together in such disorder as to show that they were thus joined merely for preservation. One sheet of mere sketches bears, if correctly deciphered, this inscription: “Written and dedicated to Gr. C. G. as a souvenir of his stay in P.” On the fourth page of the sheet stands “these 4 Bagtalles by B.” with something more illegible. May not some yet unknown composition of Beethoven be still in the possession of the family Clam-Gallas? Count Christian and his two daughters are numbered by Schönfeld among the fine pianoforte players of Prague, and these few notices exhaust the information obtained upon this visit of Beethoven there. His next appearance is in Berlin. No record has been found of the proposed visit to either Dresden or Leipsic, although his journey, it would seem, must have taken him through the Saxon capital.
Incidents of a Visit to Berlin
In after years he was fond of talking about his sojourn in Berlin, and some particulars have thus been preserved. “He played,” says Ries,
several times at court (that of King Frederick William II), where he played the two grand sonatas with obbligato violoncello, Op. 5, written for Duport, first violoncellist of the King, and himself. On his departure he received a gold snuff-box filled with Louis d’ors. Beethoven declared with pride that it was not an ordinary snuff-box, but such an one as it might have been customary to give to an ambassador.
This king shared his uncle Frederick II’s love for music, while his taste was better and more cultivated. His instrument was the violoncello, and he often took part in quartets and sometimes in the rehearsals of Italian operas. He exerted a powerful and enduring influence for good upon the musical taste of Berlin. It was he who caused the operas of Gluck and Mozart to be performed there and introduced oratorios of Handel into the court concerts. His appreciation of Mozart’s genius, and his wish to attach that great master to his court, are well known; and these facts render credible a statement with which Carl Czerny closes a description of Beethoven’s extemporaneous playing contributed to Cock’s “London Musical Miscellany” (August 2nd, 1852):
His improvisation was most brilliant and striking. In whatever company he might chance to be, he knew how to produce such an effect upon every hearer that frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out into loud sobs; for there was something wonderful in his expression in addition to the beauty and originality of his ideas and his spirited style of rendering them. After ending an improvisation of this kind he would burst into loud laughter and banter his hearers on the emotion he had caused in them. “You are fools!” he would say. Sometimes he would feel himself insulted by these indications of sympathy. “Who can live among such spoiled children?” he would cry, and only on that account (as he told me) he declined to accept an invitation which the King of Prussia gave him after one of the extemporary performances above described.
Chapelmaster Reichardt had withdrawn himself from Berlin two years before, having fallen into disfavor because of his sympathy with the French Revolution. Neither Himmel nor Righini, his successors, ever showed a genius for chamber music of a high order, and, indeed, there was no composer of reputation in this sphere then living in that quarter. The young Beethoven by his two sonatas had proved his powers and the King saw in him precisely the right man to fill the vacancy—no small proof of superior taste and judgment. What the German expression was which the translator of Czerny’s letter has rendered “accept an invitation which the King gave him” there is no means of knowing; but as it stands it can only mean an invitation to enter permanently into his service. The death of the King the next year, of course, prevented its being ever renewed.
Friedrich Heinrich Himmel, five years older than Beethoven, whom the King had withdrawn from the study of theology and caused to be thoroughly educated as a musician, first under Naumann in Dresden and afterwards in Italy, had returned the year before and had assumed his duties as Royal Pianist and Composer. As a virtuoso on his instrument his only rival in Berlin was Prince Louis Ferdinand, son of Prince August and nephew of Frederick II, two years younger than Beethoven and endowed by nature with talents and genius which would have made him conspicuous had fortune not given him royal descent. He and Beethoven became well known to each other and each felt and did full justice to the other’s musical genius and attainments. Now let Ries speak again:
Meetings with Himmel, Fasch and Zelter