The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

The Ninth Symphony at Aix-la-Chapelle

The absence of Ries’s name in these negotiations is explained by the fact that he was no longer in London. He had purchased an estate in Godesberg, near Bonn, and removed thither in 1824. He had invited Beethoven to be his guest there and it would seem that he was advised about the English situation. At least in a letter, presumably written early in 1825, Beethoven deems it incumbent to inform Ries that the present efforts to dispose of the Ninth Symphony were tentative and that the period during which the Philharmonic Society was to hold the work would be scrupulously respected. It had never been sent to Bremen or to Paris as had been reported. The occasion for this letter was one from Ries requesting metronome marks for “Christus am Ölberg,” and for the score of the Ninth Symphony for the approaching Lower Rhenish Music Festival, which he had been engaged to conduct. These Niederrheinische Musikfeste had come into existence in 1817. The seventh meeting was to be held at Aix-la-Chapelle. Reports of the Vienna performance had been spread and it was desired to make the Symphony a feature of the festival scheme. In January, Schott and Sons were asked if the score would be in print by May and replied in the negative. Thereupon Ries was asked to write to Beethoven for a manuscript copy. Ries did not favor the production of the Symphony[122] but wrote for the music nevertheless, and Beethoven sent him the score of the purely instrumental movements and the parts of the finale. This was about March 12; a week later, on March 19 (two days, by the way, before the first performance in London), he sent the chorusmaster’s score of the finale and suggested that the instrumental score might be written out and appended. In the earlier letter in which Beethoven had promised to send the Symphony and in which he enclosed the metronome marks for the “Christus am Ölberg,” Beethoven offered to send also the Mass in D, an overture which he had written “for the Philharmonic Society,” and some smaller things for orchestra and chorus, which would enable the festival managers to give two or three concerts instead of one. He suggested that 40 Carolines would, perhaps, not be too much as a fee. Beethoven explained to Ries that he had only one copy of the score of the Ninth Symphony, and as there was a concert in prospect he could not send it; so Ries had a score made of the finale for the festival performance. Beethoven had also sent the “Opferlied,” the Overture in C (Op. 115, of course), the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass and an Italian duet. He was still to send a grand march and chorus (from “The Ruins of Athens”), and might add an overture which was as yet unknown outside of Vienna, but thought he had sent enough. The Symphony and “Christus am Ölberg” were performed on the second day of the festival. The time was too short for the difficult music thoroughly to be learned and at the performance portions of the slow movement and Scherzo of the Symphony were “regretfully” omitted. There were 422 performers in chorus and orchestra, and the popular reception of the music was enthusiastic enough to enable Ries to report to Beethoven that the performance had been a success; and he sent him 40 Louis d’ors as a fee. Ries recognized the symphony as a work without a fellow and told Beethoven that had he written nothing else it would have made him immortal. “Whither will you yet lead us?” he asked. Very naturally, Beethoven had reported the negotiations touching a visit to England to Ries, who expressed his satisfaction that he had not accepted the engagement and added: “If you want to go there you must make thorough preparations. Rossini got £2500 from the Opera alone. If Englishmen want to do an extraordinary thing, they must all get together so as to make it worth while. There will be no lack of applause and marks of honor, but you have probably had enough of these all your life.”

Mass and symphony had been delivered to Fries, the banker, on January 16, to be forwarded to Schott and Sons. Beethoven informed the firm by letter and took occasion to deny the report that it had been printed elsewhere. However, he does not seem to be entirely at ease in the matter. “Schlesinger is not to be trusted, for he takes where he can; both Père et fils bombarded me for the Mass, etc., but I did not deign to answer either of them, since after thinking them over I had cast them out long before.”[123] He asks their attention to his plan for a complete edition of his works, which he would like to prepare and take a lump sum as an honorarium. He sends two canons for publication in the journal “Cäcilia,” and attempted a joke on his friend Haslinger which exercised his mind not a little during the next month or two. This was a skit purporting to be an outline or draft for an article on Haslinger’s career. The Schotts, either not understanding the joke or desiring to injure a rival who had spoken ill of them to Beethoven, printed the communication together with the two canons as if they belonged together. Beethoven either felt or affected to feel great anger at the proceeding; he sent a letter to the publishers and demanded its publication without change or curtailment. In this he rebuked them for printing what was intended as a pleasantry but might easily be construed as an intentional insult. He had not destined it for publication, and it was contrary to his nature intentionally to give offence to anybody. He had never resented anything that had been said about him as an artist, but he felt differently about things which affected him as a man. Haslinger was a respected old friend and he had thought to heighten the effect of the joke by suggesting that his consent to the publication be obtained. The printing was an abuse of the privileges of private correspondence, especially as the canons printed,[124] being set forth as a supplement to the skit, thereby became inexplicably incongruous. He would have a care that such a thing should not occur again. Whether or not the communication was ever printed does not appear; neither does it appear that Beethoven took the matter so greatly to heart as his letter was calculated to make the public believe, had it been printed. In August he wrote to his new friend Karl Holz: “I hear with amazement that the Mayence street-boys really abused a joke! It is contemptible; I assure you it was not at all my intention. What I meant was to have Castelli write a poem on these lines under the name of the musical Tobias, which I would set to music. But since it has so happened, it must be accepted as a dispensation from heaven. It will form a companion-piece to Goethe’s Bardt sans comparaison with all other authors. But I believe Tobias has wronged you a little, etc.,—Voila it is better to be revenged than to fall into the maw of a monster.[125] I can’t shed tears over it but must laugh like—.” To his nephew he wrote: “It was not right for Mayence to do a thing like that, but as it is done it will do no harm. The times demand strong men to castigate these petty, tricky, miserable little fellows”; and then, as if repenting him of the sounding phrase, he wrote in the margin: “much as my heart rebels against doing a man harm; besides it was only a joke and I never thought of having it printed.” A Joke on Haslinger Miscarries It would seem that Haslinger must have known of the skit before it was sent to Schott, for in a letter of February 5, Beethoven suggested to the firm, as a joke, to ask Haslinger for the “romantic biography” which Beethoven had written of him, and added: “That is the way to handle this fellow, a heartless Viennese, who is the one who advised me not to deal with you. Silentium!” And he describes Steiner as a “rascally fellow and skinflint,” and Haslinger as a “weakling” whom he made useful to himself in some things. Haslinger may have felt incensed at the publication, but he eventually accepted it in an amiable spirit and it did not lead to any rupture of friendship between the men.

An amusing illustration of how Beethoven could work himself into a rage even when alone is preserved at the Beethoven Museum in Bonn, in the shape of some extraordinary glosses on a letter from a copyist named Wolanek, who was in his employ in the spring of the year. Wolanek was a Bohemian. Beethoven had railed against him whenever sending corrections to a publisher or apologizing for delays, and it is not difficult to imagine what the poor fellow had to endure from the composer’s voluble tongue and fecund imagination in the invention and application of epithets. In delivering some manuscripts by messenger some time before Easter, Wolanek ventured a defense of his dignity in a letter which, though couched in polite phrase, was nevertheless decidedly ironical and cutting. He said that he was inclined to overlook Beethoven’s conduct towards him with a smile; since there were so many dissonances in the ideal world of tones, why not also in the world of reality? For him there was comfort in the reflection that if Beethoven had been copyist to “those celebrated artists, Mozart and Haydn,” he would have received similar treatment. He requested that he be not associated with those wretches of copyists who were willing to be treated as slaves simply for the sake of a livelihood, and concluded by saying that nothing that he had done would cause him to blush in the slightest degree in the presence of Beethoven. It did not suffice Beethoven to dismiss the man from his employ; such an outcome seemed anticipated in the letter. He must make him feel that his incompetency was wholly to blame and realize how contemptible he looked in the eyes of the composer. The reference to Mozart and Haydn was particularly galling. Beethoven read the letter and drew lines across its face from corner to corner. Then in letters two inches long he scrawled over the writing the words: “Dummer,Eingebildeter, Eselhafter Kerl” (“Stupid, Conceited, Asinine Fellow”). That was not enough. There was a wide margin at the bottom of the sheet, just large enough to hold Beethoven’s next ebullition: “Compliments for such a good-for-nothing, who pilfers one’s money?—better to pull his asinine ears!” Then he turned the sheet over. A whole page invited him—and he filled it, margins and all. “Dirty Scribbler! Stupid Fellow! Correct the blunders which you have made in your ignorance, insolence, conceit and stupidity—this would be more to the purpose than to try to teach me, which is as if a Sow were to try to give lessons to Minerva!” “Do YOU do honor to Mozart and Haidn by never mentioning their names.” “It was decided yesterday and even before then not to have you write any more for me.”

First Performances of the E-flat Quartet

The E-flat Quartet was now finished and about to be performed by Schuppanzigh and his companions. Beethoven was greatly concerned about the outcome and, as if at once to encourage and admonish them, he drafted a document in which all pledged themselves to do their best and sent it to them for signature. They obeyed, Linke adding to his name the words: “The Grand Master’s accursed violoncello.” and Holz: “The last—but only in signing.” The performance took place on March 6, and the result was disappointing. The music was not understood either by the players or the public and was all but ineffective. Schuppanzigh was held responsible and his patience must have been severely taxed by Beethoven’s upbraidings and his determination to have an immediate repetition by other players. Schuppanzigh defended himself as vigorously as possible and was particularly vexed because Beethoven cited his brother’s opinion of the performance—that of a musical ignoramus. He wanted to play the Quartet a second time, but told Beethoven that he had no objections to the work being handed over to Böhm; yet he protested with no little energy, that the fault of the fiasco was not his individually, as Beethoven had been told. He could easily master the technical difficulties, but it was hard to arrive at the spirit of the work: the ensemble was faulty, because of this fact and too few rehearsals. Beethoven decided that the next hearing should be had from Böhm, and though Schuppanzigh had acquiesced, he harbored a grievance against the composer for some time. Böhm had been leader of the quartet concerts in Vienna during Schuppanzigh’s long absence. He has left an account of the incident, in which he plainly says that Schuppanzigh’s attitude toward the work was not sympathetic and that he had wearied of the rehearsals, wherefore at the performance it made but a succès d’estime. Beethoven sent for him (Böhm) and curtly said: “You must play my Quartet”—and the business was settled; objections, questionings, doubts were of no avail against Beethoven’s will. The Quartet was newly studied under Beethoven’s own eyes, a circumstance which added to the severity of the rehearsals, for, though he could not hear a tone, Beethoven watched the players keenly and detected even the slightest variation in tempo or rhythm from the movement of the bows. Böhm tells a story in illustration of this:

At the close of the last movement of the quartet there occurred a meno vivace,[126] which seemed to me to weaken the general effect. At the rehearsal, therefore, I advised that the original tempo be maintained, which was done, to the betterment of the effect. Beethoven, crouched in a corner, heard nothing, but watched with strained attention. After the last stroke of the bows he said, laconically “Let it remain so,” went to the desks and crossed out the meno vivace in the four parts.

The Quartet was played twice by Böhm and his fellows at a morning concert in a coffee-house in the Prater, late in March or early in April, and was enthusiastically received. Steiner, who had attended one or more of the rehearsals, was particularly enraptured by it and at once offered to buy it for publication for 60 ducats—a fact which Beethoven did not fail to report to Schott and Sons when he sent the manuscript to them. Subsequently Mayseder also played it at a private concert in the house of Dembscher, an official or agent of the war department of the Austrian Government, and this performance Holz described as a réparation d’honneur. Beethoven was now completely satisfied and, no doubt, went to work on its successor with a contented mind.

Karl Holz Supplants Schindler

It is now become necessary to pay attention to the new friend of Beethoven whose name has been mentioned—the successor of Schindler, as he had been of Oliva, in the office of factotum in ordinary. This was Karl Holz, a young man (he was born in 1798) who occupied a post in the States’ Chancellary of Lower Austria. He had studied music with Glöggl in Linz and was so capable a violinist that, on Schuppanzigh’s return from Russia in 1823, he became second in the latter’s quartet. He seems to have come into closer contact with Beethoven early in the spring of 1825, probably when, having to conduct a performance of the B-flat Symphony at a concert in the Ridotto Room, he asked an audience of the composer in order that he might get the tempi for that work. Though not a professional musician, he gave music lessons, later occasionally conducted the Concerts spirituels and eventually became the regular director of these affairs. Emboldened by the kindness with which he was first received he gradually drew nearer to the composer and in August, 1825, an intimate friendship seems imminent, as is indicated by Beethoven’s remark in a letter to his nephew: “It seems as if Holz might become a friend.” He was good at figures, a quality which made him particularly serviceable to Beethoven (who was woefully deficient in arithmetic)[127] at a time when he was dealing with foreign publishers and there was great confusion in money values and rates of exchange. He was also a well-read man, a clever talker, musically cultured, a cheery companion, and altogether an engaging person. All these qualities, no less than the fact that he was strong and independent in his convictions and fearless in his proclamation of them, recommended him to Beethoven, and he does not seem to have hesitated to take advantage of the fact that he entered the inner circle of Beethoven’s companions at a time when the composer had begun to feel a growing antipathy to Schindler. He promptly embraced the opportunity which his willing usefulness brought him, to draw close to the great man, to learn of him and also to exhibit himself to the world as his confidential friend. He was not obsequious, and this pleased Beethoven despite the fact that he himself was not indisposed to play upon his friends for his own purposes “like instruments,” as he himself once confessed. In a short time Holz made himself indispensable and acquired great influence over the composer. He aided him in the copying of his works, looked into the affairs of Nephew Karl and reported upon them, advised him in his correspondence, and directed his finances at a time when he was more than ordinarily desirous to acquire money so that he might leave a competency on his death to his foster-son. In time Beethoven came to entrust weighty matters to his decision, even the choice of publishers and his dealings with them. His prepossessing address, heightened by his independence of speech, made it less easy to contradict him than Schindler. Moreover, the recorded conversations show that he was witty, that he had a wider outlook on affairs than Beethoven’s other musical advisers, that his judgments were quickly reached and unhesitatingly pronounced. His speeches are not free from frivolity nor always from flattery, but he lived at a time and among a people accustomed to extravagant compliments and there can be no doubt of his reverence for Beethoven’s genius. Beethoven could endure a monstrous deal of lip-service, as all his friends knew, and surely took no offence when Holz said to him: “I am no flatterer, but I assure you that the mere thought of Beethovenian music makes me glad, first of all, that I am alive!”