Chapter V
Beethoven’s Friends and Patrons in the First Lustrum of the Nineteenth Century—An Imperial Pupil, Archduke Rudolph—Count Rasoumowsky—Countess Erdödy—Baroness Ertmann—Marie Bigot—Therese Malfatti—Nanette Streicher—Zizius—Anecdotes.
He who dwells with wife and children in a fixed abode, usually finds himself, as age draws on, one of a small circle of old friends; and hoary heads, surrounded by their descendants, the inheritors of parental friendships, sit at the same tables and make merry where they had gathered in the prime of life. The unmarried man, who can call no spot on earth’s surface his own, who spends his life in hired lodgings, here to-day and there to-morrow, has, as a rule, few friendships of long standing. By divergency in tastes, opinions, habits, increasing with the years, often by the mere interruption of social intercourse, or by a thousand equally insignificant causes, the old ties are sundered. In the memoranda and correspondence of such a man familiar names disappear, even when not removed by death, and strange ones take their places. The mere passing acquaintance of one period becomes the chosen friend of another; while the former friend sinks into the mere acquaintance, or is forgotten. Frequently no cause for the change can be assigned. One can only say—it happened so.
Thus it was with Beethoven, even to a remarkable degree; in part because of his increasing infirmity, in part owing to peculiarities of his character. It was his misfortune, also, that—having no pecuniary resource but the exercise of his talents for musical composition, and being at the same time too proud and too loyal to his ideas of art to write for popular applause—he was all his life long thrown more or less upon the generosity of patrons. But death, misfortune or other causes deprived him of old patrons, as of old friends, and compelled him to seek, or at least accept, the kindness of new ones. A part of this chapter must be devoted to certain new names in both categories, which become prominent in his history in the years immediately before us.
A Talented Archduke
Archduke Rudolph Johann Joseph Rainer, youngest son of Emperor Leopold II, and half-brother of Emperor Franz, was born January 8, 1788, and therefore was, at the end of 1805, just closing his seventeenth year. Like his unfortunate uncle, Elector Maximilian, he was destined to the church, and like him, too, he had much musical taste and capacity. His private tutors were all men of fine culture, and one of them, Joseph Edler von Baumeister, Doctor of Laws, remained in later years in his service and will be met with hereafter. In music he, with the children of the imperial family, was instructed by the R. I. Court Composer, Anton Tayber, and made such good progress that, if tradition may be trusted, he, while still but a boy, played to general satisfaction in the salons of Lobkowitz and others. But an archduke has not much to fear from hostile criticism; a better proof that he really possessed musical talent and taste is afforded by the fact that, so soon as he could emancipate himself from Tayber, and have a voice in the selection of a teacher, he became a pupil of Beethoven. It is largely possible that the old relation of the composer to Maximilian may have had some influence upon the determination of his nephew; and it is very probable that Rudolph’s decision was based upon the great reputation of Beethoven and the respect in which, as he saw, the artist was held by the Schwarzenbergs, Liechtensteins, Kinskys, and their compeers. But whatever weight be allowed to these and like considerations, it must have been something more than a capricious desire to call the great pianist “master,” which made him his pupil, friend and patron until death parted them. One necessarily thinks better of his musical talents for this, just as Maximilian’s musical taste and insight stand higher in our estimation because of his early appreciation of Mozart’s genius.
The precise date of Beethoven’s engagement has eluded the research of even the accurate and indefatigable Köchel. There is so little doubt, however, that he was the immediate successor of Tayber, as to render reasonably certain that it occurred at the end of the young Archduke’s fifteenth year—that is, in the winter of 1803-4. It is perhaps worth remarking, that the “Staats-Schematismus” for 1803 first gives, in the R. I. Household, a separate chamber to the boys, Rainer and Rudolph; three years later “Archduke Rudolph, coadjutor of the Archbishopric of Olmütz,” is given one alone; but before 1806 he certainly was the pupil of Beethoven.
In Fräulein Giannatasio’s notices from the years 1816-18,[39] she relates: