These unfortunate first-fruits of Beethoven’s error in undertaking personal and sole care of his nephew will call for more attention before the history of the year 1818 is closed, and may be dismissed for the present for more cheerful topics. Towards the end of the year 1815, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde had instituted inquiries through Zmeskall touching Beethoven’s willingness to compose a work of magnitude for the Society. Beethoven signified his assent to the project and in turn asked Zmeskall whether or not the Society would allow him 400 ducats as an honorarium. There the matter seems to have rested until May, 1818, on the 17th of which month Vincenz Hauschka, a violoncello player and member of the governing committee of the Society, was authorized by his associates to offer Beethoven from 200 to 300 “pieces of gold” for the music to a “heroic oratorio” to be the exclusive property of the Society for one year after the date of its first performance. Hauschka wrote to Beethoven at Mödling and received a droll letter in reply. It bears no date. In it Beethoven addresses his friend as “Chief Member of the Society of Enemies of Music [the play on the words Freunde and Feinde is impossible in English], in the Austrian Empire” and “Grand Cross of the Order of the Violoncello.” He signifies his willingness to accept the commission in the words: “I am agreed” (Ich bin bereit) set to a fugue-theme:
I am agreed! etc.
Tenore
adding that he had no subject on hand except a sacred one, while the Society had expressed a desire for a heroic work. This was satisfactory to him, but he suggested that as the choir was a large one something sacred be “mixed in”:
Amen!
etc.
Mr. v. Bernard would suit him as poet, but the Society, since it claimed to be friendly to music, ought to pay him. He said nothing of his own compensation, but concluded with:
I wish you open bowels and the handsomest of close-stools. As for me, I am wandering about here amongst mountains, clefts and valleys, with a piece of music-paper smearing down many a thing for the sake of bread and money—for to such a pitch have I brought it in this all powerful land of the Phæacians that to gain a little time for a work of magnitude I must always first smear a great deal for money so that I may hold out for a large work. For the rest, my health is much better and if haste is necessary I can still serve you well.
I am agreed! I am agreed!
Amen!