Some Errors by Schindler Corrected
No animadversion upon the venerable Carl Czerny is intended in again remarking that both in his memoirs and in the language in which he has sometimes recorded them there is occasionally a very disturbing inexactness. In the citations above the date 1815 for 1816, the loose expression “from that time I saw him almost daily,” “Beethoven was almost always present” in the Sunday music meetings, which can have been true only of the first months, and the words “he improvised many times,” must not be understood too literally. Schindler, in whose hands Jahn placed Czerny’s notes and other manuscripts for examination and remark, observes touching this improvising: “Only twice; the first time when Frau von Ertmann played one of his sonatas, the other time when Czerny performed Op. 106, which he had repeatedly gone through with him. In the year 1818, and those that followed, Beethoven never improvised outside of his own dwelling.” Schindler is certainly mistaken upon this last point, and, very possibly, upon the other. It is not a matter of much importance in any aspect, but it offers an opportunity for remarking upon errors in his dates which have long been and still are an abundant source of confusion in this part of Beethoven’s life, like those of Wegeler and Ries in his youth and early manhood. More than one recent writer speaks of his “intimate association with the composer from the year 1814 onward”; one has even learned that “he lived ten years in the same house with Beethoven, devoting all the time at his command to him.” Nothing is more common than to find circumstances accepted as undoubted facts on Schindler’s authority. The present writer[177] discussed at length Schindler’s character as a biographer with Otto Jahn, both of us having known him personally. Our opinions coincided perfectly. We held him to be honest and sincere in his statements, but afflicted with a treacherous memory and a proneness to accept impressions and later formed convictions as facts of former personal knowledge, and to publish them as such without carefully verifying them. In justice to him it must be remembered that when, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, he rewrote his book in the form in which it appeared in 1860, he had no longer the means of doing this, for the Conversation Books which would have prevented his more glaring errors had, since 1845, been in the Royal Library in Berlin. Therefore, whoever studies his life of the master and his numberless contributions to the periodical press during the long period of thirty years—all abounding in biographical matter of great value—must be continually upon his guard. When one seeks precise information upon Beethoven’s life during the years 1816-1820 in Schindler’s writings, his notices are found to be so meagre and vague, and to exhibit occasionally such inconsistencies and errors, as to awaken the suspicion that he, as to those years, did not always write from personal knowledge, and that his memory served him ill.
If he had had the Conversation Books still in his possession he could not have written: “About 1817, Oliva left the Imperial City forever,” for there he would have seen that Oliva was still in his old relation with Beethoven in 1820. Again: “Already in 1816 he [Beethoven] found himself involved in circumstances which compelled him to do a vast amount of writing. Dr. Bach, in whose office I worked several hours every day, advised him to confide everything to me; thus I became Beethoven’s private secretary—without pay.” Later we read in connection with the topic of Beethoven’s nobility, and the transfer of his suit with the mother of Karl to the Vienna magistracy: “There it was possible to achieve something advantageous to Beethoven only by dismissing his representative and pitting an entirely different person against his opponent. His choice fell upon Dr. Johann Baptist Bach, who had just entered the ranks of the court and trial advocates.” Finally: “When Dr. Bach took his case in hand he declared that thenceforward his client must present himself with the title of Chapelmaster, because the gentlemen magistrates were chiefly Bœotians, and a composer was as good as nothing in their eyes, etc.” Now, a document of the Landrecht dated November 29, 1815, contains these words: “Ludwig van Beethoven (Royal Imperial Chapelmaster and Music Composer).” Dr. Bach may have continued to use this title, but how could he have introduced it? Again: “Dr. Bach took the oath as advocate on January 21, 1817.” How then could Schindler in 1816 have “worked several hours every day” in an office not yet in existence? Still again: the decree of the Landrecht transferring Beethoven’s case to the Magistracy is dated December 18, 1818, and Schindler is correct in making this the cause of the employment of Dr. Bach in 1819; how then could he have been the composer’s “private secretary” on Bach’s recommendation during the two years preceding?
The unavoidable conclusion is this: Although there is no reason to doubt that Schindler was upon excellent terms with Beethoven, and often visited him in 1817-1819, the “intimate association” above-noted and in the sense there intended, could not have begun before 1819; and even then, for Oliva was still in Vienna, did not extend beyond aiding in correspondence and like duties. The earliest Conversation Book preserved by Schindler is from April, 1819, in which both he and Dr. Bach write; and from this time onward these books show that the association grew more intimate and of course his records become more trustworthy. Returning to the trivial matter which led to this digression, the accuracy of Schindler’s statement that Beethoven improvised but twice at Czerny’s Sunday concerts may well be doubted. Czerny’s testimony is the weightier.
We resume an account of the events of the year. In August and September the after-effects of the attack of catarrh and the state of Beethoven’s health generally are so distressing and so depressing upon his spirits that he seems to be on the verge of despair. A letter which Zmeskall notes as received by him on August 21, says: “God have pity on me! I look upon myself as good as lost. This servant steals. My health calls for meals at home. If my condition does not improve I shall not be in London next year—perhaps in my grave. Thank God, the part is nearly played.” On September 9, he writes to the same friend: “I am trying every day to near my grave, without music.” Only two days later he is able to report to Zmeskall that the reply to his letter had been received from the London Philharmonic Society (on September 10). There is no tone of elation in his note; it merely mentions the arrival of the letter and a request for the name of some one who could translate it for him, it being in English. As might have been expected the Philharmonic Society rejected the new terms demanded by him, but, as the Society’s records show, repeated the old. These were now at once accepted by Beethoven.
And did he now sit himself down zealously and perseveringly to work on a ninth and tenth symphony? Not at all. His thoughts had become engaged upon a new pianoforte sonata (in B-flat, Op. 106), and so far as is yet discovered, he did not even resume his work on the Ninth Symphony, some parts of which were already sketched. That “indecision in many things,” noted by Breuning a dozen years before, was only aggravated by the lapse of time; and this now was his bane. There was really nothing to prevent his departing at once except that the new symphonies were still to be written. If his nephew must remain in or near Vienna, he could nowhere be so well placed as in the school and family of the excellent Giannatasios, who had all the necessary legal power to save the boy from the bad influence of his mother. The effects of such a journey; of a stay of some months in England; of the intercourse of cultivated people; of the enthusiastic admiration which awaited him there, and of the great pecuniary rewards for his labors which were certain, could only have been propitious in the highest degree to both his physical and mental health. There was, too, just now a new and powerful motive for accepting and fulfilling this engagement.
What Might Have Come from a London Visit
Though the depreciation of the redemption certificates never quite touched the point feared by him in his letter to Ries in 1815, it did once amount to 4 for 1; and the Government was again forced to repudiate its obligations in part. It founded that National Bank (seven shares in which Beethoven soon afterwards purchased), and made a contract with a new institution by which the bank assumed the obligation of redeeming the redemption certificates at the rate of 2½ for 1. It went into full operation July 15, 1817, and thenceforth Beethoven’s annuity remained instead of 3,400 florins in that paper, 1,360 florins in silver. But this fatal indecision! Could he have but resolutely taken up any two of the many new symphonies which he had planned, as the sketchbooks show, and once fairly engaged himself upon them, he could not have rested until they were finished; he could, and doubtless would, then have redeemed his promises; and like Handel, Haydn and many other German musicians of far less note, have secured from an admiring and generous London public an ample sufficiency for the future. The standard of excellence was high and catholic in London and musical taste pure and exalted. True, at the first trial of the C minor Symphony by the Philharmonic Society a part of it only was played, for the leader of the violins—really the conductor, as the orchestras were then constituted—declared it “rubbish.” But this leader was a German—our old Bonn acquaintance J. P. Salomon. He, however, repented and made amends. At another trial of it, two or three years afterwards, after the first movement, Salomon laid his violin upon the pianoforte, walked to the front and, turning to the orchestra said (through his nose): “Gentlemen, some years ago I called this symphony rubbish; I wish to retract every word I then said, as I now consider it one of the greatest compositions I ever heard!”
Cipriani Potter and Beethoven
We have had occasion heretofore to refer to several young British Beethoven enthusiasts; another is now added to the list—Cipriani Potter—who came just at this time to Vienna, bringing letters to the composer from Neate, Ries, Rode, Dragonetti and others. He heard so much of Beethoven’s rudeness of manners and moroseness of disposition, and so often noticed how people shook their heads when he or his music was mentioned, that he hesitated to visit him. Two weeks had thus passed when one day, at Streicher’s, he was asked if he had seen Beethoven and if he had letters to him. He therefore explained why he had not seen him. He was told this was all nonsense; Beethoven would receive him kindly. He exclaimed: “I will go out at once!” which he did, namely, to Mödling.[178] He presented a letter or two, one of the first being that of Dragonetti. Upon opening that Beethoven also opened his heart to his visitor and demanded immediately to see some of his compositions. Potter showed him an overture—probably one that had been commissioned and played by the London Philharmonic Society in 1816. Beethoven looked through it so hurriedly that Potter thought he had only glanced at it out of politeness and was greatly astonished when Beethoven pointed to a deep F-sharp in the bassoon part and said it was not practicable. He made other observations of a similar nature and advised him to go to a teacher; he himself gave no lessons but would look through all his compositions. In answer to Potter’s question as to whom he would recommend, Beethoven replied: “I have lost my Albrechtsberger and have no confidence in anybody else”; nevertheless, on Beethoven’s recommendation Potter became a pupil of Aloys Förster, with whom he studied a long time until one day the teacher said to him that he had now studied sufficiently and needed only to practise himself in composition. This brought out the remark from Beethoven that no one ought ever to stop studying; he himself had not studied enough: “Tell Förster that he is an old flatterer!” Potter did so, but Förster only laughed. Beethoven never complimented Potter to his face; he would say: “Very good, very good,” but never give unequivocal praise. Yet at Streicher’s he praised him and expressed his surprise that Potter did not visit him at Mödling.[179] Once Beethoven advised him never to compose sitting in a room in which there was a pianoforte, in order not to be tempted to consult the instrument; after a work was finished he might try it over on the instrument, because an orchestra was not always to be had.