When monarchs play chess with armies, “check to the king” means the shock of contending foes and all the horrors of war; but in perusing the history of Bonaparte’s campaigns, we become so interested in the “game” as to forget the attendant ruin, devastation and destruction, the blood, carnage and death, that made all central Europe for twenty long years one vast charnel-house. But only in proportion as the imagination is able to form a vivid picture of the horrors of those years, can it conceive that inexpressible sense of relief, the universal joy and jubilee, which outside of France pervaded all classes of society, from prince to peasant, at the fall of the usurper, conqueror and tyrant. And this not more because of that event, than because of the all-prevailing trust, that men’s rights, political and religious—now doubly theirs by nature and by purchase at such infinite cost—would be gladly and gratefully accorded to them. For sovereign and subject had shared danger and suffering and every evil fortune together, and been brought into new and kindlier relations by common calamities; thus the sentiment of loyalty—the affectionate veneration of subject for sovereign—had been developed to a degree wholly unprecedented. Nothing presaged or foreboded the near advent and thirty years’ sway of Metternichism. No one dreamed, that within six years the “rulers” at this moment “of happy states” would solemnly declare, “all popular and constitutional rights to be holden no otherwise than as grants and indulgences from crowned heads”;[139] that they would snuff treason in every effort of the people to hold princes to their pledged words; and that their vigilance would effectually prevent the access of any Leonore to the Pellicos, Liebers and Reuters languishing for such treasons in their state prisons. At that time all this was hidden in the future; the very intoxication of joy and extravagant loyalty then ruled the hour. It was, as we believe, to give these sentiments musical expression, that Beethoven now took up and wrought out certain themes and motives, noted by him five years before in connection with the memorandum: “Freude schöner Götterfunken Tochter—Ouverture ausarbeiten.”[140] The poetic idea of the work was not essentially changed—the joy of liberated Europe simply taking the place of the joy of Schiller’s poem. But the composer’s particular purpose was to produce it as the graceful homage of a loyal subject on the Emperor’s name-day. How else can the autograph inscription upon the original manuscript be understood: “Overture by L. v. Beethoven, on the first of Wine-month, 1814—Evening to the name-day of our Emperor”? In the arts, as in literature, there is no necessary connection between that which gives rise to the ideas of a work, and the occasion of its composition; the occasion of this overture was clearly the name-day festival of Emperor Franz; why then may it not in the future, as in the past, be known as the “Namensfeier” Overture?
Assuming the “first of the Wine-month” (October 1) to date the completion of the work, there remained three days for copying and rehearsal. The theatre had been closed on the 29th and 30th of September, to prepare for a grand festival production of Spontini’s “La Vestale” on Saturday evening, October 1st; but for the evening of the name-day, Tuesday the 4th, “Fidelio” (its 15th performance) was selected. It was obviously the intention of Beethoven to do homage to Emperor Franz, by producing his new overture as a prelude on this occasion. What, then, prevented? Seyfried answers this question. He writes: “For this year’s celebration of the name-day of His Majesty, the Emperor, Kotzebue’s allegorical festival play ‘Die hundertjährigen Eichen’ had been ordered. Now, as generally happens, this decision was reached so late that I, as the composer, was allowed only three days, and two more for studying and rehearsing all the choruses, dances, marches, groupings, etc.” This festival play was on the 3d and rendered the necessary rehearsals of Beethoven’s overture impossible.[141]
“Fidelio” was sung the sixteenth time on the 9th. Tomaschek, one of the auditors on that evening, gave to the public in 1846 notes of the impression made upon him, in a criticism which, by its harshness, forms a curious contrast to Weissenbach’s eulogy. Having exhausted that topic, however, Tomaschek describes his meetings in an account which has a peculiar interest not only because, though general descriptions of Beethoven’s style of conversation are numerous, attempts to report him in detail are very rare. The description is also valuable because of its vivid display of Beethoven’s manner of judging his contemporaries, which was so offensive to them and begat their lasting enmity. A dramatic poem, “Moses,” words by Klingemann, music (overture, choruses and marches) by von Seyfried, was to be given on the evening of Tomaschek’s first call. Tomaschek says he has no desire “to hear music of this kind” and the dialogue proceeds as follows:
Beethoven’s Opinion of Meyerbeer
B.—My God! There must also be such composers, otherwise what would the vulgar crowd do?
T.—I am told that there is a young foreign artist here who is said to be an extraordinary pianoforte player.[142]
B.—Yes, I, too, have heard of him, but have not heard him. My God! let him stay here only a quarter of a year and we shall hear what the Viennese think of his playing. I know how everything new pleases here.
T.—You have probably never met him?
B.—I got acquainted with him at the performance of my Battle, on which occasion a number of local composers played some instrument. The big drum fell to the lot of that young man. Ha! ha! ha!—I was not at all satisfied with him; he struck the drum badly and was always behind-hand, so that I had to give him a good dressing-down. Ha! Ha! Ha!—That may have angered him. There is nothing in him; he hasn’t the courage to hit a blow at the right time.
Before Tomaschek visited Beethoven again, Meyerbeer’s opera “Die beiden Caliphen” had been produced at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre. Tomaschek comes to take his farewell. Beethoven is in the midst of preparations for his concert and insists upon giving him a ticket. Then the conversation goes on: