Meanwhile the controversy with the Kinsky heirs had entered upon a new phase. Dr. Johann Kanka, a lawyer in Prague, in a communication to the author,[137] wrote:
The information (concerning Beethoven) which I am able to give, refers for the greater part to business relations out of which, because of my personal and official position, grew the friendly intercourse with Beethoven which was cultivated for several years.
Then, after a rather protracted history of the annuity and the effect produced upon it by the Finanz-Patent of 1811, “whereby Beethoven’s means of subsistence were materially reduced and his longer residence in Vienna rendered impossible,” he continues:
In this fateful crisis, I, as the judicially appointed curator of the estate of Prince Kinsky and later of that of Prince Lobkowitz, was enabled to bring about a more temperate presentation of the case already presented to the authorities charged with testamentary and guardianship affairs, touching the contractual annuities to be paid to Beethoven—a presentation which reconciled a severely literal interpretation of the law with the righteous demands of equity, and by paving the way for mutual concessions to secure a satisfactory judicial decision which Beethoven, actuated throughout his life by the noblest of feelings, bore in faithful remembrance and described to his few trusted friends as the firm cement of the friendly relations which we bore towards each other, and the reason of his continued residence in Vienna.
Dr. Kanka closed with the promise to grant for use in this work, such letters of Beethoven—“precious relics”—as remained in his possession—a promise fulfilled a few days afterwards. Thus, in half a dozen lines—indeed, by the single statement that he was the curator of the Kinsky estate and as such effected a compromise between the parties—the venerable doctor exposes the mistakes and destroys the hypotheses of all who treated the topic at length from Schindler onward. Beethoven’s lawyer in Vienna was Dr. Adlersburg, and his “legal friend” in Prague, Dr. Wolf, who must have already become heartily weary of his client, for Beethoven himself writes in a letter to the court at Prague:
My continual urging of him to take an interest in the matter, also, I must confess, the reproaches made against him that he had not pursued the matter zealously enough because the steps which he took against the guardians remained without fruit, may have misled him into beginning the litigation.
That, as is here insinuated, Wolf instituted the suit against the Kinsky heirs without explicit instructions from his client, is doubtful; but at all events that proceeding brought matters to a crisis, and led to an interview in the course of the summer between Beethoven and the Verlassenschafts-Curator, with the object, on the part of the latter, of effecting a settlement of the affair by compromise. Kanka, a fine musician and composer, an old friend, or rather acquaintance of Beethoven’s, and of the same age, was a man also whose legal talents and knowledge must have no less deeply than favorably impressed him. The letters written during the next six months to his new friend, show us how Beethoven first relinquished the notion of a legal claim to the 1800 florins in notes of redemption, then abandoned the claim in equity, and at length came into a rational view of the matter, saw the necessity of compromising, and sought no more than to effect this on the best terms possible.[138]
There is a letter to Thomson dated September 15, and another in October, the day not specified. Both are in Italian and only signed by Beethoven. In the first, the demand of “4 zecchini” per melody is renewed and “mille ringraziamente” sent to the author of a sonnet printed in the “Edinburgh Magazine” which Thomson had enclosed to the composer. The occasion of the poem was the performance of selections of Beethoven’s music at a rural festival of artists in England. The hour was advanced to near midnight, when Grahame, the Scotch poet, who was present, inspired by the music and by the beauty of the bright moonlit night, improvised the lines:
Hark! from Germania’s shore how wildly floats
That strain divine upon the dying gale;
O’er Ocean’s bosom swell the liquid notes
And soar in triumph to yon crescent pale.
It changes now! and tells of woe and death;
Of deep romantic horror murmurs low;
Now rises with majestic, solemn flow,
While shadowy silence soothes the wind’s rude breath.
What magic hand awakes the noon of night
With such unearthly melody, that bears
The raptured soul beyond the tuneful spheres
To stray amid high visions of delight?
Enchanter Beethoven! I feel thy power
Thrill every trembling nerve in this lone witching hour.