The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

It was originally intended that the programme should consist of the new Overture (Op. 124), the Mass in D and the new Symphony; but realizing that this would make the concert unduly long Beethoven first decided to omit the Gloria of the mass, and after the rehearsals had already begun he curtailed the list still more by eliding the Sanctus. The large amount of copying involved was done by a staff of men some of whom worked, apparently, under the supervision of the widow of Schlemmer, Beethoven’s favorite copyist who had died the year before. The composer angrily rejected Haslinger’s suggestion that the chorus parts be engraved, but consented to have them duplicated by lithographic process. The church authorities were opposed to the performance of missal music in a theatre and the censor therefore withheld his approval of the programme. So, in April, at the suggestion of Schindler, Beethoven wrote a letter to the censor, Sartorius, in which he pleaded for his consent to the performance on the ground that he was giving the concert by request, had involved himself in costs by reason of the copying, there was no time in which to produce other novelties, and if consent were refused he would be compelled to abandon the concert and all his expenditures would have been in vain. The three ecclesiastical pieces which were to be performed were to be listed on the programme as hymns. The letter failed of its mission; not until an appeal was made to Count Sedlnitzky, the Police President, through the agency of Count Lichnowsky, was the performance sanctioned.

The Composer and Honorary Titles

One further detail of the preparations, as disclosed by a discussion in Beethoven’s ministerial cabinet, is too interesting to be omitted. The time is come when bills must be posted in front of the theatre. Schindler is the first speaker:

Master! Listen! I have something to say, so follow me: How shall the placard be worded (it must be printed to-day); shall I put in Member of the Royal Academy at Stockholm and Amsterdam? Tell me briefly. What a tremendous title!!

Schuppanzigh: I am not in favor of it. Beethoven is dictator and president of all the academies in the world and sensible people will look upon this title as vanity on his part.

Schindler: My lord is not wrong. At any rate it will be made public by the last notices in the newspapers. The name of Beethoven shines brightest without affix of any kind and when most unassuming; all the world knows who and what you are. It will do your posterity no good.—Who knows what a later time will bring forth.... I must go now to get the bill ready for to-morrow. It is half-past 5.

This was, no doubt, another case in which it was thought judicious to get Beethoven’s consent beyond equivocation. There is record of another conversation on the subject. Schindler speaks again:

Well then, it shall appear on the bill to-morrow, Member of the Royal Academies of Stockholm and Amsterdam. Nothing more; that sounds best.—Then it ought to read of Arts and Sciences.—But when one says Roy. Acad. the epitheton Arts and Sciences is understood.

In neither of these consultations, which took place two days before the concert, is there any indication that Beethoven objected to the use of the title; on the contrary, he seems to have desired to make it more explicit by the inclusion of the words “Arts and Sciences.” But Schindler relates that when Bernard, in preparing an announcement for the public press, added to Beethoven’s name: “Honorary Member of the Academies of Arts and Sciences at Stockholm and Amsterdam and also Honorary Citizen of the R. I. Capital and Residential City Vienna,” he rebuked the editor severely, not wanting to have such “silly and ridiculous playthings” figure in the announcement. As a matter of fact, all titles were omitted in the affiches of the two concerts, though Otto Jahn found one for the second meeting in the Fuchs Collection which contained them. It would seem that after one had been thus printed it was after all rejected by Beethoven.

The rehearsals were now in progress. Dirzka was making good headway with the choruses and was satisfied; Schuppanzigh was holding rehearsals for the strings in the rehearsal-room of the Ridotto; the solo singers were studying under the supervision of Beethoven, sometimes in his lodgings, Umlauf assisting. Accustomed to Rossini’s music, the principal singers found it difficult to assimilate the Beethovenian manner, especially as it is exemplified in the concluding movement of the symphony. They pleaded with the composer for changes which would lighten their labors, but he was adamant. Unger called him a “tyrant over all the vocal organs” to his face, but when he still refused to grant her petitions she turned to Sontag and said: “Well, then we must go on torturing ourselves in the name of God!” The choirmaster requested that the passage in the fugue of the Credo where the sopranos enter on B-flat in alt be altered, because none of the singers could reach the note; but though Umlauf reinforced that argument, a refusal was the only reply. In only one alteration did Beethoven acquiesce;—he changed the concluding passage of the bass recitative, because Preisinger could not sing the high F-sharp; but Preisinger did not sing at all at the concert. The consequences of his obduracy were not realized by Beethoven at the concert, for though he stood among the performers and indicated the tempo at the beginning of each movement he could not hear the music except with his mental ear. The obvious thing happened;—the singers who could not reach the high tones simply omitted them. Duport had allowed two full rehearsals. There was to have been a third, but it was prevented by a rehearsal for a ballet. At the final meeting on May 6, Beethoven was “dissolved in devotion and emotion” at the performance of the Kyrie, and after the Symphony stationed himself at the door and embraced all the amateurs who had taken part.[113] The official announcement of the concert read as follows: