Ferdinand Hiller’s Last Visit
In a letter which Schindler wrote to Moscheles, forwarding Beethoven’s, he said: “Hummel and his wife are here; he came in haste to see Beethoven once again alive, for it is generally reported in Germany that he is on his deathbed. It was a most touching sight last Thursday to see these two friends meet again.” The letter was written on March 14 and the “last Thursday” was March 8th. We have an account of this meeting in Ferdinand Hiller’s “Aus dem Tonleben unserer Zeit.”[177] Hiller was then fifteen years old and had come to the Austrian Capital with Hummel, who was his teacher. Hummel had heard in Weimar that Beethoven was hopelessly ill and had reached Vienna on March 6; two days later he visited his dying friend. Hiller writes:
Through a spacious anteroom in which high cabinets were piled with thick, tied-up parcels of music we reached—how my heart beat!—Beethoven’s living-room, and were not a little astonished to find the master sitting in apparent comfort at the window. He wore a long, gray sleeping-robe, open at the time, and high boots reaching to his knees. Emaciated by long and severe illness he seemed to me, when he arose, of tall stature; he was unshaven, his thick, half-gray hair fell in disorder over his temples. The expression of his features heightened when he caught sight of Hummel, and he seemed to be extraordinarily glad to meet him. The two men embraced each other most cordially. Hummel introduced me. Beethoven showed himself extremely kind and I was permitted to sit opposite him at the window. It is known that conversation with Beethoven was carried on in part in writing; he spoke, but those with whom he conversed had to write their questions and answers. For this purpose thick sheets of ordinary writing-paper in quarto form and lead-pencils always lay near him. How painful it must have been for the animated, easily impatient man to be obliged to wait for every answer, to make a pause in every moment of conversation, during which, as it were, thought was condemned to come to a standstill! He always followed the hand of the writer with hungry eyes and comprehended what was written at a glance instead of reading it. The liveliness of the conversation naturally interfered with the continual writing of the visitor. I can scarcely blame myself, much as I regret it, for not taking down more extended notes than I did; indeed, I rejoice that a lad of fifteen years who found himself in a great city for the first time, was self-possessed enough to regard any details. I can vouch with the best conscience for the perfect accuracy of all that I am able to repeat.
The conversation at first turned, as is usual, on domestic affair,—the journey and sojourn, my relations with Hummel and matters of that kind. Beethoven asked about Goethe’s health with extraordinary solicitude and we were able to make the best of reports, since only a few days before the great poet had written in my album. Concerning his own state, poor Beethoven complained much. “Here I have been lying for four months,” he cried out, “one must at last lose patience!” Other things in Vienna did not seem to be to his liking and he spoke with the utmost severity of “the present taste in art,” and “the dilettantism which is ruining everything.” Nor did he spare the government, up to the most exalted regions. “Write a volume of penitential hymns and dedicate it to the Empress,” he remarked with a gloomy smile to Hummel, who, however, made no use of the well-meant advice. Hummel, who was a practical man, took advantage of Beethoven’s condition to ask his attention to a matter which occupied a long time. It was about the theft of one of Hummel’s concertos, which had been printed illicitly before it had been brought out by the lawful publisher. Hummel wanted to appeal to the Bundestag against this wretched business, and to this end desired to have Beethoven’s signature, which seemed to him of great value. He sat down to explain the matter in writing and meanwhile I was permitted to carry on the conversation with Beethoven. I did my best, and the master continued to give free rein to his moody and passionate utterances in the most confidential manner. In part they referred to his nephew, whom he had loved greatly, who, as is known, caused him much trouble and at that time, because of a few trifles (thus Beethoven at least seemed to consider them), had gotten into trouble with the officials. “Little thieves are hanged, but big ones are allowed to go free!” he exclaimed ill-humoredly. He asked about my studies and, encouraging me, said: “Art must be propagated ceaselessly,” and when I spoke of the exclusive interest in Italian opera which then prevailed in Vienna, he gave utterance to the memorable words: “It is said vox populi, vox dei. I never believed it.”
On March 13 Hummel took me with him a second time to Beethoven. We found his condition to be materially worse. He lay in bed, seemed to suffer great pains, and at intervals groaned deeply despite the fact that he spoke much and animatedly. Now he seemed to take it much to heart that he had not married. Already at our first visit he had joked about it with Hummel, whose wife he had known as a young and beautiful maiden. “You are a lucky man,” he said to him now smilingly, “you have a wife who takes care of you, who is in love with you—but poor me!” and he sighed heavily. He also begged of Hummel to bring his wife to see him, she not having been able to persuade herself to see in his present state the man whom she had known at the zenith of his powers. A short time before he had received a present of a picture of the house in which Haydn was born. He kept it close at hand and showed it to us. “It gave me a childish pleasure,” he said, “the cradle of so great a man!” Then he appealed to Hummel in behalf of Schindler, of whom so much was spoken afterwards. “He is a good man,” he said, “who has taken a great deal of trouble on my account. He is to give a concert soon at which I promised my coöperation. But now nothing is likely to come of that. Now I should like to have you do me the favor of playing. We must always help poor artists.” As a matter of course, Hummel consented. The concert took place—ten days after Beethoven’s death—in the Josephstadt-Theater. Hummel improvised in an obviously exalted mood on the Allegretto of the A major Symphony; the public knew why he participated and the performance and its reception formed a truly inspiring incident.
Shortly after our second visit the report spread throughout Vienna that the Philharmonic Society of London had sent Beethoven £100 in order to ease his sick-bed. It was added that this surprise had made so great an impression on the great poor man that it had also brought physical relief. When we stood again at his bedside, on the 20th, we could educe from his utterances how greatly he had been rejoiced by this altruism; but he was very weak and spoke only in faint and disconnected phrases. “I shall, no doubt, soon be going above,” he whispered after our first greeting. Similar remarks recurred frequently. In the intervals, however, he spoke of projects and hopes which were destined not to be realized. Speaking of the noble conduct of the Philharmonic Society and in praise of the English people, he expressed the intention, as soon as matters were better with him, to undertake the journey to London. “I will compose a grand overture for them and a grand symphony.” Then, too, he would visit Madame Hummel (she had come along with her husband) and go to I do not know how many places. It did not occur to us to write anything for him. His eyes, which were still lively when we saw him last, dropped and closed to-day and it was difficult from time to time for him to raise himself. It was no longer possible to deceive one’s self—the worst was to be feared.
Hopeless was the picture presented by the extraordinary man when we sought him again on March 23rd. It was to be the last time. He lay, weak and miserable, sighing deeply at intervals. Not a word fell from his lips; sweat stood upon his forehead. His handkerchief not being conveniently at hand, Hummel’s wife took her fine cambric handkerchief and dried his face several times. Never shall I forget the grateful glance with which his broken eye looked upon her. On March 26, while we were with a merry company in the art-loving house of Herr von Liebenberg (who had formerly been a pupil of Hummel’s), we were surprised by a severe storm between five and six o’clock. A thick snow-flurry was accompanied by loud peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, which lighted up the room. A few hours later guests arrived with the intelligence that Ludwig van Beethoven was no more;—he had died at 4:45 o’clock.
The Signing of the Will
The consultations between Beethoven and his legal advisers, Bach, Breuning and others, concerning the proper disposition of his estate by will, which had begun soon after Karl’s departure for Iglau, had not been brought to a conclusion when it became apparent to all that it was high time that the document formally be executed. Dr. Bach does not seem to have been consulted at this crisis; haste was necessary, and on March 23 von Breuning made a draft of a will which, free from unnecessary verbiage, set forth the wishes of the testator in three lines of writing. Beethoven had protested against the proposition of his friends that provision be made that Karl should not be able to dissipate the capital or surrender any portion of it to his mother. To this end a trust was to be created and he was to have the income during life, the reversion being to his legitimate heirs. With this Beethoven at length declared himself satisfied; but when Breuning placed the draft before the dying man, who had yielded unwillingly, he copied it laboriously but substituted the word “natural” for “legitimate.” Schindler says the copying was a labor, and when Beethoven finished it and appended his signature he said: “There; now I’ll write no more.” Breuning called his attention to the fact that controversy would ensue from his change in the text, but Beethoven insisted that the words meant the same thing and there should be no change. “This,” says Schindler, “was his last contradiction.” Hiller’s description of the last visit of Hummel, pictures the condition of the dying man on this day, and Schindler’s statement that it was laborious for Beethoven to copy even the few words of the will is pathetically verified by the orthography of the document which, verb. et lit., is as follows: