The original of this letter—in possession of the heirs of Mr. Thomson—is in French, the signature only being in Beethoven’s hand. Of its various propositions, that in the postscript alone led to any results.
Compositions of 1806
And now to the compositions of the year. A song translated by Breuning from a French opera, “Le Secret,” was probably the first fruits of the newly awakened “desire and love for work,” which proved so nobly productive during his summer absence from Vienna; it is the one published at different times under the titles “Empfindungen bei Lydiens Untreue,” and “Als die Geliebte sich trennen wollte.” A slight token of gratitude for the recent zealous kindness of Breuning in the matter of the opera, such as this song, would not long be delayed even by Beethoven. But, whether or not this was the first composition after the withdrawal of “Fidelio,” it is certain that, just one week before the date of Breuning’s letter, Beethoven had set himself resolutely to work upon grander themes than Empfindungen bei Lydiens or any other Mädchens Untreue. These are now to be considered. He began the quartets, Op. 59, on May 26. Certain studies to “Fidelio,” not previously mentioned, are contained in a sketchbook of the Landsberger Collection of Autographs, the principal contents of which are sketches for the second, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth Symphonies, and for “Fidelio.” This, at first view, seems to confirm an assertion of Czerny’s—not accepted by Schindler, who in this case is the better authority—namely, that the Ninth Symphony, except its choral Finale, was projected many years before its composition; but the book itself affords a strong argument against it; it being, as the present writer is convinced, not a manuscript in its original form, but one made up of parts of several different books, stitched together subsequently for the better preservation of these various symphonic studies. In it, however, the sketches for the Fourth Symphony are in immediate connection with those for “Fidelio.” The list, then, of important works sketched during the progress of the opera, is this: Triple Concerto, Op. 56; Sonata in F minor, Op. 57; Pf. Concerto in G, Op. 58; Rasoumowsky Quartets, Op. 59; Fourth Symphony, B-flat, Op. 60; Fifth Symphony, C minor, Op. 67; Sixth Symphony, “Pastorale,” Op. 68. Omitting the first as belonging to 1805, and the last two as belonging to 1807-1808, the other four, we conceive, may be dated 1806. They afford a striking example of Beethoven’s habit of working on several compositions at the same time, and, moreover, as we believe, of his practice in such cases of giving the works opus numbers in the order of their completion. In this order we will take them up. “The first work which followed the exertions caused by the opera,” writes Schindler, “was the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57.... The master composed it straightway from beginning to end, during a short period of rest at the house of his friend Count Brunswick, to whom, as is known, the sonata is dedicated.”
Beethoven, journeying into Silesia after his visit to Brunswick, took the manuscript and had it also with him on his return to Vienna per extra post from Troppau after the explosion at Lichnowsky’s. “During his journey,” wrote M. Bigot half a century afterwards on a printed copy belonging to the pianist Mortier de Fontaine,
he encountered a storm and pouring rain which penetrated the trunk into which he had put the Sonata in F minor which he had just composed. After reaching Vienna he came to see us and laughingly showed the work, which was still wet, to my wife, who at once began to look carefully at it. Impelled by the striking beginning she sat down at the pianoforte and began playing it. Beethoven had not expected this and was surprised to note that Madame Bigot did not hesitate at all because of the many erasures and alterations which he had made. It was the original manuscript which he was carrying to his publisher for printing. When Mme. Bigot had finished playing she begged him to give it to her; he consented, and faithfully brought it to her after it had been printed.
Czerny says, very justly, of the unauthorized change afterwards made in the title: “In a new edition of the Sonata in F minor, Op. 57, which Beethoven himself considered his greatest, the title ‘Appassionata,’ for which it is too great, was added to it. This title would be more fitly applied to the E-flat Sonata, Op. 7, which he composed in a very impassioned mood.”
The Pf. Concerto in G, Op. 58, is dated by Schindler 1804, “according to information given by F. Ries”; the new edition of Breitkopf and Härtel’s thematic catalogue says (p. 197): “The Concerto was finished in the year 1805,” without mentioning its authority. If it had nothing better than Ries’s anecdote to offer in proof, the opinion may still be entertained confidently, that this work remained still unfinished until the approach of the concert season, towards the end of the year 1806.[38]
The Rasoumowsky Quartets
The Quartets, Op. 59, certainly belong to this year. “Quartetto 1mo.... Begun on May 26, 1806,” are Beethoven’s own words; and the opus number, the reports of their production during the next winter, and, especially, the date of their publication, making allowance for Rasoumowsky’s right to them for a year, all point to November or December as the latest possible date for their completion. The idea of employing popular airs as themes was by no means new to Beethoven. Without referring to the example set by Haydn, Pleyel, Koželuch, it had been proposed to him by Thomson; and as to Russian melodies, he must have read the “Allg. Musik-Zeitung” very carelessly not to have had his curiosity aroused by the articles on Russian music published in that journal in 1802—a curiosity which, in the constant intercourse between Vienna, Moscow and St. Petersburg, there would be no difficulty in gratifying. Czerny writes, however, “He had pledged himself to weave a Russian melody into every quartet.” But Lenz, himself a Russian and a musician, says: “The Russian themes are confined to the Finale of No. 1 and the third movement of the second Quartet.” This is a case in which Czerny’s authority can scarcely be gainsaid; otherwise, it might be supposed that the composer of his own motion introduced these two themes in compliment to Rasoumowsky. “The Adagio, E major, in the second Rasoumowsky Quartet, occurred to him when contemplating the starry sky and thinking of the music of the spheres,” writes Czerny in Jahn’s notes.
Perhaps no work of Beethoven’s met a more discouraging reception from musicians, than these now famous Quartets. One friendly contemporary voice alone is heard—that of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” Czerny told Jahn, that “when Schuppanzigh first played the Rasoumowsky Quartet in F, they laughed and were convinced that Beethoven was playing a joke and that it was not the quartet which had been promised.” And when Gyrowetz bought these Quartets he said: “Pity to waste the money!” The Allegretto vivace of the first of these quartets was long a rock of offence. “When at the beginning of the year 1812,” says Lenz, “the movement was to be played for the first time in the musical circle of Field Marshal Count Soltikoff in Moscow, Bernhard Romberg trampled under foot as a contemptible mystification the bass part which he was to play. The Quartet was laid aside. When, a few years later, it was played at the house of Privy Councillor Lwoff, father of the famous violinist, in St. Petersburg, the company broke out in laughter when the bass played his solo on one note.—The Quartet was again laid aside.”