XIV. Two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102. According to a letter of Zmeskall’s dated January 20, 1817, these sonatas were not published later than the works last mentioned, that is, December, 1816. They were published by Simrock without dedication. In the later edition published by Artaria in 1819, they are dedicated to Countess Erdödy.
Chapter XVII
The Year 1817—Beethoven and the Public Journals of Vienna—Fanny Giannatasio’s Diary—The Philharmonic Society of London—Cipriani Potter—Marschner—Marie Pachler-Koschak—Beethoven’s Opinion of Mälzel’s Metronome.
Beethoven’s splenetic remarks to strangers in his last years upon the music, musicians and public of Vienna have given rise to widely diffused but utterly false conceptions as to the facts. Thus William Henry Fry, a leading American writer on music in the middle of the nineteenth century,[172] did but express a common opinion in the following:
That composer [Beethoven] worked hard for thirty years. At his death, after the cup of glory had overflowed, his name resounding through Christendom, he left in all a beggarly sum of two or three thousand dollars, having lived as any one acquainted with his career knows, a penurious life, fitted to his poverty and servile position in Vienna.
Beethoven and the Viennese Journalists
The popular want of appreciation of his merits “doomed Beethoven to a garret, which no Irish emigrant would live in.” It is altogether unnecessary to argue against such statements, as the whole tenor of this biography refutes them; but the public press of Vienna deserves a vindication, and the appearance of a new “Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung” on January 2nd, 1817, affords a suitable opportunity for the little that need be said on the subject. This journal, conducted “with particular reference to the Austrian Empire,” and published by Steiner and Co., was, during the first two years, without the name of any responsible editor; the volumes for 1819 and 1820 announce Ignaz von Seyfried as holding that position; the others, from 1821 to 1824, bear the name of Friedrich August Kanne. A leading writer in the earlier volumes was Hofrath Ignaz von Mosel, who already had some local celebrity for his articles on musical topics in the “Vaterländische Blätter” and other periodicals, and who continued a prolific contributor to musical journals to the end of his life in 1844. Beethoven valued him as a writer; but Mosel had the temerity to undertake, like Mozart, the task of revising and modernizing Handel. Of his eight mutilations of that great man’s works, two, “Samson” and “Belshazzar,” were printed and, for some fifty years, adopted for performance throughout Austria and Germany—a remarkable proof of the general ignorance which prevailed concerning the works of the greatest oratorio composer; for two such monuments of arrogant presumption, of incompetency to comprehend his author and of a false and perverted taste, probably do not exist unless, perhaps, among the other six works which were not printed. One of Beethoven’s sarcasms, remembered by Carl Czerny, indicates his opinion of Mosel’s dilettantism. Reading a newspaper once at Artaria’s, he saw that Mosel “had been ennobled, particularly because of his services in behalf of music.” “The Mosel is muddy where it flows into the Rhine” (Der Mosel fliesst trüb in den Rhein!), said Beethoven, laughingly. Kanne ranked with the best musical journalists of the day, and, to use the words of Hanslick, his labors and influence as a critic were considerable, especially because of his enthusiasm for Beethoven, is certain.
Taking 1821-1822 as a medium date, the leading political and literary journals in Vienna in those years were the “Wiener Zeitung,” Joseph Carl Bernard, editor; the “Beobachter,” Joseph Pilat, editor; the “Sammler,” Portenschlag and Ledermeyer, editors; the “Wiener Zeitschrift” (fashion journal), Johann Schickh, editor; and the “Theater-Zeitung,” Adolph Bäuerle, editor. Most of these editors were personal friends of Beethoven; and whoever performs the weary task of looking through their myriads of pages sees that all were his admirers and let no opportunity pass unimproved of adding a leaf to his laurels. Still, disappointment at the comparative paucity of matter relating to him follows such an examination. The cause, however, lay in himself; in the small number of his new compositions of high importance, and in the rarity of his appearance before the public. True, there were newspapers, and in divers languages, that took no note of Beethoven and his works because music and musicians were not within their scope; but not one of them was hostile. In short, whether the periodical press be considered as the exponent or the guide of public opinion, in either case its tone at Vienna during the ten years which remained of Beethoven’s life is ample refutation of the so oft asserted disregard for and contemptuous neglect of their great composer on the part of the Viennese. The correspondence of this and the next two or three years is very voluminous. Schindler says most pertinently of it:
During these years our composer, instead of writing many notes, as had been his wont, wrote many letters, referring in part to his domestic affairs, in part to the litigation and in part to the education of his nephew. These letters are, in general, among the least encouraging and most deplorable testimonials to the excitement which attended his passionate prosecution of these objects. Those of his friends and nearer acquaintances who permitted themselves to be drawn into these three matters were so overwhelmed with documents and communications that they blessed the hour in which the lawsuit was brought to a conclusion.