The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

A Defense of the Older Brother

That Johann van Beethoven was fond of money is indicated in his remarks in the Conversation Books, when his advice to his brother is always dictated by financial considerations and, no doubt, by the thoughts of profits in which he hoped to share. But what would you? For what other purposes had Beethoven asked him in to his councils? Surely not to get his views on the artistic value of his work. He defers in his letters to his brother’s superior business sagacity—that is all. It does not anywhere appear that Johann ever attempted to overreach him or lead him to financial injury. No doubt Beethoven in his fits of anger said many things about him which put him in a bad light before his friends; but did he not do the same thing in their own cases? Did Schindler escape calumny? The better evidence is that offered by the letters which show that Beethoven had confidence in his brother’s honesty and judgment, invited his help, and was solicitous lest he suffer loss from his efforts. If Johann lacked appreciation of his brother’s real significance in art, he was proud of the world’s appreciation of him, and if he could not have high regard for that high moral attitude in the matter which had brought condemnation on his sister-in-law and wife, he at least showed magnanimity in not trying to do his brother injury and being always ready to help him when he could. It is very likely that he was not at all musical and that his affectation of appreciation of his brother’s works made him a fair subject for ridicule. But surely there was little moral obliquity in that. In a conversation in 1824 the nephew relates that his uncle had been present at a chamber concert. Beethoven wants to know what he was doing there, and the nephew replies: “He wants to acquire taste; he is continually crying bravo.” So also Holz relates, in 1826, that Johann had certainly heard the Quartet in E-flat major ten times, yet when it was played in that year he said he was hearing it for the first time.[57]

Beethoven needed Johann’s help; he had a good opinion of his business ability, and it is possible that he had learned something of tolerance from the trials and tribulations which his quarrels with his other sister-in-law had brought him. It is certain that after a separation of nine years from his brother he was not merely desirous but eager for a perfect reconciliation and a closer union. Johann offers his help, but it is Beethoven who expresses the wish that the two may live together, it is Beethoven who asks his brother to come to him and help him negotiate the sale of his compositions. Johann no doubt conducted some negotiations without his brother’s knowledge, but not without authority; and so far as the Mass is concerned it is put into the brother’s hands only after Johann has lent Beethoven 200 florins and the Mass has been promised not only to Peters but to Simrock before him. No doubt Johann exceeded his authority; at least, something had come to the ears of Count Moritz Lichnowsky, probably from Beethoven himself, which made him say in the conversation already cited, “You ought to forbid him doing business or carrying on correspondence without your signature. Perhaps he has already closed a contract in your name”; but would it not have been better for Beethoven’s present reputation for business honesty—if we must distinguish between the ethics of the counting-house and those of the rest of the world—if he had closed and kept the contracts which he had made when he called his brother to help him with his correspondence? Schindler accuses Johann of having persuaded Beethoven to take unfit lodgings; but Beethoven expressly exonerates him from blame. He reproaches Johann for not having provided his brother with money to pay his debts or offering his security for them; but Johann lent him 200 florins before he went to Baden and probably did not see why he should burden his own business enterprises in order to enable Beethoven to keep the bank shares intact for the nephew. He was willing to be helpful, however, and repeatedly offered his brother a house on his estate, and in 1824 tried to persuade him to take one rent free; but Beethoven’s antipathy to his sister-in-law would not let him accept.

Exactly when Beethoven went to Oberdöbling in the summer of 1822 is not known, but he was there in July, and an endorsement on the Simrock letter of May 13 would seem to indicate that he was there in that month. His lodgings were in No. 135 Alleegasse. In the spring or early summer he writes to Johann begging him, instead of driving in the Prater, to come to him with his wife and step-daughter. His whole desire is for the good which would inevitably follow a union. He had made inquiries about lodgings and found that it would not be necessary to pay much more than at Oberdöbling, and that, without sacrifice of any pleasure, much money might be saved for both. He says:

I have nothing against your wife; I only wish that she might realize how much you might benefit from being with me and that all the miserable trifles of this life ought to cause no disturbances.

Peace, peace be with us. God grant that the most natural tie between brothers be not unnaturally broken. At the best my life may not be of long duration. I say again that I have nothing against your wife, although her behavior towards me has struck me as strange several times of late; besides, I have been ailing for three and a half months and extremely sensitive and irritable. But away with everything which does not promote the object, which is, that I and my good Karl lead a regular life which is so necessary to me.

Beethoven Asks Johann’s Help

Here there is no mention of business matters and hence it may be assumed that the letter dates from an early period in the reunion of the brothers. But business considerations prompt a letter of July 26 in which he tells Johann that his physician had ordered him to go to Baden to take thirty baths and that he would make the journey on August 6 or 7. Meanwhile he would like to have his brother come to him and give him his help and then accompany him to Baden and remain there a week. He was engaged, he said, upon corrections of the Mass for which Peters was to give him 1000 florins. Peters had also agreed to take some smaller works and had sent 300 florins, but he had not yet accepted the money. Breitkopf and Härtel had also sent the Saxon Chargé d’Affaires to him to talk about new works and inquiries had come from Paris and Diabelli in Vienna. Publishers were now struggling for his works: “What an unfortunate fortunate am I!!!—this Berliner has also turned up—if my health would return I might yet feather my nest (auf einen grünen Zweig kommen).”

The Archduke-Cardinal is here. I go to him twice a week. Though there is nothing to be expected from him in the way of magnanimity or money, I am on such a good and confidential footing with him that it would be extremely painful not to show him some agreeable attention; moreover, I do not think that his apparent niggardliness is his fault.

In the same letter he says he might have had the 1000 florins from Peters in advance but did not want to take them. He did not want to “expose” himself, and he therefore asked his brother for a loan, so that his trip to Baden might not be delayed. There was no risk involved, as he would return the 200 florins in September with thanks. “As a merchant you are a good counsellor,” are some of his words. The Steiners are also crowding him into a corner and trying to force him into a written agreement to let them have all his compositions; but he had declared that he would not enter into such an arrangement until his account had been settled, and to that end he had proposed to them that they take two pieces which he had written for Hungary[58] and which might be looked upon as two little operas. They had before then taken four of the numbers. The debt to the Steiners amounted to 3000 florins, but they had in the “most abominable manner” charged interest, to which he would not consent. Part of the debt had been Karl’s mother’s[59] which he had assumed because he wanted to show himself as kindly disposed as possible, so that Karl’s interests would not be endangered. Again he urges him to come to Baden and to put pantry and cellar in the best of condition against September, for presumably he and his little son would set up headquarters with him and had formed the noble resolve to eat him out of house and home.