Franzensbrunn, August 12, 1812.
It has long been my duty to recall myself to your memory, but my occupations in behalf of my health in part and partly my insignificance made me hesitate. In Prague I missed Y. I. H. by just a night; for when I went in the morning to attend upon you, you had departed the night before. In Töplitz I heard Turkish[100] music 4 times a day, the only musical report which I am able to make. I was much together with Goethe. From Töplitz, however, my physician, Staudenheim, commanded me to go to Karlsbad and from there here, and presumably I shall have to go from here again to Töplitz—what excursions! and yet but little certainty touching an improvement in my condition! Till now I have had always the best of reports concerning the state of Y. I. H.’s health, also your continued favorable disposition and devotion to the musical muse. Of an academy which I gave for the benefit of the city of Baden destroyed by fire with the help of Herr Polledro, Y. I. H. is likely to have heard. The receipts were nearly 1000 florins V. S. and if I had not been embarrassed in the arrangements 2000 florins might easily have been taken in. It was, so to speak, a poor concert for the poor. I found at the publisher’s here only some of my earlier sonatas with violin, and as Polledro insisted I had to play an old one. The entire concert consisted of a trio played by Polledro, the violin sonata by me, another piece by Polledro and then an improvisation by me. Meanwhile I am glad that the poor Badensians benefited somewhat by the affair. Pray you accept my wish for your high welfare and the prayer to be graciously remembered by you.
Three days before, Beethoven had written in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel:
I must refrain from writing more, and instead splash around in the water again. Scarcely have I filled my interior with an ample quantity of it than I must have it dashed over my exterior. I will answer the rest of your letter soon. Goethe is too fond of the atmosphere of the Courts, more so than is becoming to a poet. Why laugh at the absurdities of virtuosi when poets who ought to be the first teachers of a nation, forget all else for the sake of this glitter.
Beethoven arrived in Franzensbrunn on August 8, and on September 7 returned to Karlsbad, where he remained only a few days; after the 16th of September, he was again in Teplitz.[101] His arrival in Franzensbrunn was simultaneous with that of the family Brentano from Vienna.
Rebuking the Courtier Goethe
Madame von Arnim in her letter to Pückler-Muskau gives some account of the intercourse between Goethe and Beethoven:
They got acquainted with each other in Teplitz. Goethe was with him! he played for him; seeing that Goethe appeared to be greatly moved he said: “O, Sir, I did not expect that from you; I gave a concert in Berlin several years ago, I did my best and thought that I had done really well and was counting on considerable applause, but behold! when I had given expression to my greatest enthusiasm, there was not the slightest applause, that was too much for me. I could not understand it; but the riddle was finally resolved by this: the Berlin public is extremely cultured and waved its thanks to me with handkerchiefs wet with the tears of emotion. This was all wasted on a rude enthusiast like myself; I had thought that I had merely a romantic, not an artistic audience before me. But I accept it gladly from you, Goethe; when your poems went through my brain they threw off music and I was proud to think that I could try to swing myself up to the same heights which you had reached, but I never knew it in my life and would least of all have done it in your presence, here enthusiasm would have had to have an entirely different outlet. You must know yourself how good it feels to be applauded by intelligent hands; if you do not recognize me and esteem me as a peer, who shall do so? By which pack of beggars shall I permit myself to be understood?” Thus did he push Goethe into a corner, who at first did not know how he could set matters to rights, for he felt that Beethoven was right. The Empress and the Austrian archdukes were in Teplitz and Goethe was greatly distinguished by them, and it was by no means a matter of indifference to him to disclose his devotion to the Empress; he intimated as much with much solemn modesty to Beethoven. “Nonsense,” said the latter, “that’s not the way; you’re doing no good by such methods, you must plainly make them understand what they have in having you or they will never find out; there isn’t a princess who will appreciate Tasso any longer than the shoe of vanity squeezes her foot—I treated them differently; when I was asked to give lessons to Duke Rainer,[102] he let me wait in the antechamber, and for that I gave his fingers a good twisting; when he asked me why I was so impatient I said that he had wasted my time in the anteroom and I could wait no longer with patience. After that he never let me wait again; yes, I would have showed him that that was a piece of folly which only shows their bestiality. I said to him: “You can hang an order on one, but it would not make him the least bit better; you can make a court councillor or a privy councillor, but not a Goethe or a Beethoven; for that which you cannot make and which you are far from being, therefore, you must learn to have respect, it will do you good.”” While they were walking there came towards them the whole court, the Empress and the Dukes; Beethoven said: “Keep hold of my arm, they must make room for us, not we for them.” Goethe was of a different opinion, and the situation became awkward for him; he let go of Beethoven’s arm and took a stand at the side with his hat off, while Beethoven with folded arms walked right through the dukes and only tilted his hat slightly while the dukes stepped aside to make room for him, and all greeted him pleasantly; on the other side he stopped and waited for Goethe, who had permitted the company to pass by him where he stood with bowed head. “Well,” he said, “I’ve waited for you because I honor and respect you as you deserve, but you did those yonder too much honor.”
In these passages we have the substance of a large portion of the famous third of the Beethoven-Bettina letters. Are they an abstract of that letter or is the letter an expansion of them? In other words, the question is forced upon us: Is that letter authentic? The last paragraph of the Pückler letter affords a decisive answer: “Afterward Beethoven came running to us and told us everything, and was as happy as a child at having teased Goethe so greatly, etc., etc.” Who were they to whom Beethoven came running? They are named in Herr Hiekel’s list of visitors: Ludwig (Achim) von Arnim, his young wife Bettina Brentano and Frau von Savigny, her sister! In the pseudo-letter we read: “Yesterday we met the entire imperial family.” Therefore, if the letter to Pückler be true—and it bears all the marks of being so—and if the other be authentic, Beethoven is made to relate the story one day and write a long letter containing it to the same person the next! It follows: when such a letter in Beethoven’s well-known handwriting shall be seen and accepted as authentic by competent judges, its genuineness may be conceded but, henceforth, until then, never.[103]