Say to His Serene Highness Prince Friedrich, that I can never be with Beethoven without wishing that it were in the goldenen Strauss. A more self-contained, energetic, sincere artist I never saw. I can understand right well how singular must be his attitude towards the world.
Already on the next day Beethoven made a pleasure trip with Goethe to Bilin, and on the 21st and 23rd Goethe spent the evening with Beethoven. Hence the note on the 21st, “He played delightfully.” As Arnim and Bettina are mentioned in the list of arrivals, it is easily possible that this was the evening concerning which Bettina reported to Pückler-Muskau. On the 27th of July, Beethoven went to Karlsbad on the advice of his physician, Dr. Staudenheimer, and he did not return to Teplitz till after September 8th, Goethe having already journeyed to Karlsbad on August 11th. That there was no estrangement between them is proved by the letter of Goethe to Christiane advising him to give Beethoven a letter addressed to him; he therefore expected Beethoven to return, which he did not do, because Staudenheimer sent him further on to Franzensbrunn. Goethe’s letter says: “Herr van Beethoven went from here to Karlsbad a few days ago; if you can find him, he would bring me a letter in the shortest time.” On August 2nd, Beethoven is still looked upon as the possible courier: “If I receive the consignment through Beethoven I will write again, then nothing more will be necessary” (because Goethe himself went to Karlsbad). In Karlsbad Goethe and Beethoven may have met each other only between September 8 and 11. On September 12, Goethe departed; but on the 8th he had written in his journal: “Beethoven’s arrival.”
In view of these things, Beethoven’s report to Archduke Rudolph from Franzensbrunn on August 12th, which will appear presently, will be read with greater interest, and the only known utterance of Goethe touching Beethoven in the letter to Zelter be viewed with different eyes:
I made Beethoven’s acquaintance in Teplitz. His talent amazed me; unfortunately he is an utterly untamed personality, not altogether in the wrong in holding the world to be detestable, but who does not make it any the more enjoyable either for himself or others by his attitude. He is very excusable, on the other hand, and much to be pitied, as his hearing is leaving him, which, perhaps, mars the musical part of his nature less than the social. He is of a laconic nature and will become doubly so because of this lack.
Many things which have been reported and had so much of a legendary sound as to cause them to be received with doubt, may, under the circumstances, serve to complete the story of the relations between Goethe and Beethoven; such, for instance, as the familiar anecdote according to which, when Goethe expressed his vexation at the incessant greetings from passers-by, Beethoven is said to have replied: “Do not let that trouble your Excellency, perhaps the greetings are intended for me.” This is variously related to have occurred in a carriage at Karlsbad and in the Prater, and during a walk together on the old walls at Vienna; while the late Joseph Türk, the Vienna jeweler, who was in Teplitz in the summer of 1812, makes that place the scene of the story. It may, therefore, possibly have some foundation in truth.
Rochlitz, in 1822, reporting a conversation with Beethoven, has him say: “In Karlsbad I got acquainted with him (Goethe)”; but he makes him also say: “at that time, while I was veritably burning with enthusiasm (so recht im Feuer sass), I also conceived my music for his Egmont.” But this music was composed two years before. Beethoven’s allusion here to the “Egmont” music certainly, and to meeting with Goethe in Karlsbad probably, if correctly reported, prove nothing but the truth of Schindler’s observation: “Beethoven’s memory of the past always proved to be very weak.” Dr. Eduard Knoll, of Karlsbad, in a detailed investigation of the dates of the visit of Goethe and Beethoven to Teplitz and Karlsbad—which also fixes August 6th as the date of the Beethoven-Polledro concert—comes to the same conclusion as the present writer, namely: “In all probability Beethoven came in contact with Goethe only in Teplitz, for during Beethoven’s presence in Karlsbad, it can be proved Goethe was not there. But even in Teplitz the period of their mutual presence was a rather limited one.”
Help for Sufferers at Baden
On July 26th, a large portion of the town of Baden, near Vienna, including the palace of Archduke Anton, the cloister of the Augustines, the theatre and casino, the parochial church and the palace of Count Esterhazy, was destroyed by a conflagration which broke out between noon and 1 o’clock. In all, 117 houses were burned. “From Karlsbad under date of August 7, it is reported,” writes the “Wiener Zeitung” of August 29th, that “scarcely had the misfortune which recently befel the inhabitants of Baden become known here before the well-known musicians Herr van Beethoven and Herr Polledro[99] formed the benevolent purpose to give a concert for the benefit of the sufferers. As many of the guests of high station were already prepared to depart and it became necessary to seize the favorable moment, and in the conviction that he who helps quickly helps twofold, this purpose was carried out within twelve hours.... Universal and rousing applause and receipts amounting to 954 florins, Vienna Standard, rewarded the philanthropic efforts” of the concert-givers. Beethoven himself gives a very different aspect to this concert in a letter to Archduke Rudolph: