You may believe that it was only with great reluctance that I determined to do violence to my ideas and that I should never have been willing to do so had I not feared that a refusal would cause a loss to you, as in your collection you wanted to have my compositions exclusively and that otherwise you might have had your care and expense to produce a complete work in vain.... The last two songs in your letter of December 21, pleased me very much. For this reason I composed them con amore, particularly the second one. You noted it in
but as this key seems too little natural and so little in harmony with the direction Amoroso that it might better be written Barbaresco, I have set it in a more appropriate key.
Further on in the letter he asks Thomson to tell him whether Andantino was to be understood as meaning faster or slower than Andante, “for this term, like so many in music, is of so indefinite a significance that Andantino sometimes approaches an Allegro and sometimes, on the other hand, is played like Adagio.”
A rather long note to Zmeskall of February 25, being about a servant, is not worth copying. It begins: “I have, my dear Z., been almost continuously ill since I saw you last,” and closes after the signature with the word “Miserabilis.” Omitting others of similar contents we come to this interesting letter to Varena:
Help for the Ursulines at Gratz
Dear Sir!
No doubt Rode was right in all that he said about me; my health is not of the best and without fault of my own my condition otherwise is perhaps more unfavorable than at any time in my life; but neither this nor anything else shall dissuade me from helping the equally innocent sufferers, the Convent ladies, so far as my modest talents will permit. To this end, two entirely new symphonies are at your services, an air for bass voice with chorus, several smaller single choruses—if you need the overture to Hungary’s Benefactor which you performed last year, it is at your service.
The overture to “The Ruins of Athens,” although in a smaller style, is also at your service. Amongst the choruses is a chorus of Dervishes, an attractive thing [literally: “a good signboard”] for a mixed public.
In my opinion you would do best to choose a day on which you could give the oratorio “Christus am Ölberg”; since then it has been played all over; this would then fill half of the concert; for the second half you would play a new symphony, the overture and different choruses, as also the bass air with chorus mentioned; thus the evening would not be without variety; but you would better talk this over with the musical councillors in your city and let them decide. What you say concerning remuneration for me from a third person I think I can guess who he is; if I were in my former condition I would flatly say: “Beethoven never takes pay when the benefitting of humanity is concerned,” but now, placed in a condition through my great benevolence (the cause of which can bring me no shame) and other circumstances which are to blame, which are caused by men without honesty or honor, I say frankly I would not decline such an offer from a rich third party; but there is no thought of a demand; even if there should prove to be nothing in the talk about a third person, be convinced that I am just as willing now to be of service to my friends, the reverend women, as I was last year without the least reward, and as I shall always be to suffering humanity as long as I breathe. And now farewell. Write to me soon and I will care for all that is necessary with the greatest zeal.