The arrival of the Spaniards, which is only suggested in the play, not visibly presented, might be utilized for the multitude to open the big hole of the Wiedener Theatre [the stage]—and there might be a good deal of spectacle besides and the music would not be wholly lost, and I should willingly add something new if it were asked.
Towards the end of March, Beethoven received the new text to “Fidelio.” To Treitschke he wrote: “I have read your amendments to the opera with great pleasure; they determine me to rebuild the ruins of an old castle.” A letter to the poet refers again to the chorus which he had composed for Treitschke’s Singspiel:
I beg you, dear T., to send me the score of the song so that the interpolated note may be written into all the instruments—I shall not take it at all amiss if you have it newly composed by Gyrowetz or anybody else—preferably Weinmüller—I make no pretensions in the matter, but I will not suffer that any man—no matter who he may be—change my compositions.
First Performance of the Trio in B-flat
Beethoven’s attention was now again called away from the opera by a concert in the hall of the Hotel zum Römischen Kaiser, arranged by the landlord and Schuppanzigh for a military charity. Czerny relates that a new grand trio had then for some time been a subject of conversation among Beethoven’s friends, though no one had heard it. This work, Op. 97, in B-flat major, was to open the second part of the concert and the composer had consented to play in it. Spohr was by chance in Beethoven’s rooms at one of the rehearsals and heard him play—the only time. “It was not a treat,” he writes:
for, in the first place, the pianoforte was badly out of tune, which Beethoven minded little, since he did not hear it; and secondly, there was scarcely anything left of the virtuosity of the artist which had formerly been so greatly admired. In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys till the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of tones were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate. If it is a great misfortune for any one to be deaf, how shall a musician endure it without giving way to despair? Beethoven’s continual melancholy was no longer a riddle to me.[121]
The concert took place at noon on Monday, April 11. Moscheles was present and wrote in his diary:
In the case of how many compositions is the word “new” misapplied! But never in Beethoven’s, and least of all in this, which again is full of originality. His playing, aside from its intellectual element, satisfied me less, being wanting in clarity and precision; but I observed many traces of the grand style of playing which I had long recognized in his compositions.
In those days a well-to-do music-lover, named Pettenkofer, gathered a number of young people into his house every Saturday for the performance of instrumental music. One evening a pupil of Schuppanzigh’s requested his neighbor at the music-stand, a youth of 18 years, to take a note from his teacher next day to Beethoven, proposing a rehearsal of the Trio, and requiring no answer but “yes” or “no.” “I undertook the commission with joy,” he records: