It may be asked what object Maelzel could have to carry his dishonesty to such a length? He had projected a journey to England, and meant to make money there, and likewise on the road thither, with Beethoven's Battle-Symphony. By way of excusing his conduct in Vienna, he scrupled not to declare loudly that Beethoven owed him four hundred ducats, and that he had been obliged to take that work in payment.
These scandalous proceedings were for a considerable time a subject of general reprobation, and afterwards forgotten. In a few months, however, Maelzel set out for England, and Beethoven presently received intelligence from Munich that he had had the Battle-Symphony performed in that city, but in a mutilated shape, and that he had given out that the work was his property. It was now high time for Beethoven to take legal steps against Maelzel. From the deposition relative to that fact, which he delivered to his advocate, and which I possess in his own handwriting, I shall merely quote the following passage:—"We agreed to give this work (the Battle-Symphony), and several others of mine, in a concert for the benefit of the soldiers. While this matter was in progress I was involved in the greatest embarrassment for want of money. Abandoned by everybody here in Vienna, in expectation of a bill, &c., Maelzel offered to lend me fifty ducats in gold. I took them, and told him that I would return them to him here, or that he should have the work to take with him to London, if I should not accompany him; and that, in this latter case, I would give him an order upon it to an English publisher, who should pay him those fifty ducats." I must further mention a declaration made in this matter by Baron Pasqualati, and Dr. von Adlersburg, advocate to the court, and an address of Beethoven's to the performers of London. From that declaration, dated October 20th, 1814, it appears that Beethoven had in no wise relinquished to Maelzel the copyright of that work; and in the address to the performers of London, of the 25th of July, 1814, Beethoven adverts to the circumstance at Munich, and expressly says—"The performance of these works (the Battle-Symphony, and Wellington's Battle of Vittoria) by M. Maelzel is an imposition upon the public, and a wrong done to me, inasmuch as he has obtained possession of them in a surreptitious manner." He further warns them against that "mutilated" work; for it was ascertained that Maelzel had not been able to get at all the orchestral parts, and had therefore employed some one to compose what was deficient.[45]
This disgraceful proceeding I have deemed it my duty to state here without reserve, as its effect, both on Beethoven's temper, and on his professional activity, was extremely injurious. It served also to increase his mistrust of those about him to such a degree that for a considerable time it was impossible to hold intercourse with him. It was, moreover, owing to this cause that from this time forward Beethoven had most of his compositions copied at home, or, as this was not always practicable, that he was incessantly overlooking his copyists, or setting others to overlook them, for he considered them all as dishonest and open to bribery, of which indeed he had sufficient proofs. By that circumstance, of course, his suspicion on this point was kept continually awake; and, after such an encroachment upon his property, who would imagine that Beethoven could ever allow this pseudo-friend to hold intercourse with him, though indeed only by letter? This, nevertheless, was the case. When M. Maelzel was striving to bring his metronome into vogue, he applied, in preference, to Beethoven, at the same time intimating that he had then in hand an acoustic machine, by means of which the Composer would be enabled to conduct his Orchestra. Maelzel's letter on this subject, dated Paris, April 19th, 1818, lies before me, and communicates this intelligence. Nay, he even proposes in it that Beethoven should accompany him in a journey to England. Beethoven expressed his approbation of the metronome in a letter to Maelzel, but of the promised machine he never heard another syllable.
I shall here take leave to state that it was in the year 1814 that I first made Beethoven's personal acquaintance, which I had long been particularly desirous to do.[46] He was the man whom I worshipped like an idol, the composer all of whose works I heard and even practised during my studies at the Gymnasium of Olmütz, and all the public performances of which I now, as a member of the University of Vienna, made a point of attending. It was in the first months of 1814 that I found an opportunity to deliver, instead of another person, to Beethoven, who was then lodging in the house of Baron von Pasqualati, a note to which an immediate answer was required. He wrote an answer, asking meanwhile several questions, and, short as was this conversation, and though Beethoven took no farther notice of the bearer of the note, who had scarcely arrived at manhood, my longing merely to hear the voice of the man for whom I felt infinitely more esteem than for Kant and the whole corpus juris put together, was gratified, and the acquaintance, subsequently so important and eventful to me, was made. It was, however, not till the beginning of the year 1816 that I met him almost daily at a particular hour at the Flowerpot Tavern, and thus came into closer contact with him. But if I followed him with my veneration before my personal acquaintance with him, after that I was bound to him as though by a spell. Nothing that concerned him now escaped me, and, wherever I merely conjectured him to be, there I insinuated myself, and always accosted him frankly: a hearty shake of the hand invariably told me that I was not troublesome to him. The principal object for meeting at the above-mentioned place, where M. Pinterics, a friend of Beethoven's, a man universally respected, and a Captain in the Emperor's German Guard, were our never-failing companions, was the reading of the newspapers, a daily necessity to Beethoven. From that place he frequently permitted me to attend him in his walks, a privilege which I accounted one of the greatest felicities of my life, and for which, though overloaded with studies, I always contrived to find plenty of time. To render him service, whenever and wherever he needed it, became from that moment, till his decease, my bounden duty; and any commission that he gave me took precedence of every other engagement.
In the year 1814, Beethoven lost his old patron, Prince Carl von Lichnowsky, who died on the 15th of April.
The remarkable political epoch, when, in the autumn of 1814, the allied sovereigns and many other distinguished personages from the confederated states of Europe met in congress at Vienna, was likewise of importance and of pecuniary benefit to Beethoven. He was requested by the magistracy of the city of Vienna to set to music, as a Cantata, a poem by Dr. Weissenbach, of Salzburg, the purport of which was to welcome the illustrious visitors on their arrival within the walls of ancient Vindobona. It is the Cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick (The Glorious Moment), which has but very recently been published, with a different text, by the title of "Preis der Tonkunst" (Praise of Music). That this is one of the least meritorious of Beethoven's works every one must admit: he himself attached no value to it, though it procured him the diploma of citizenship of Vienna. As reasons for the inferiority of this composition may be assigned the very short time allowed him for the work, and the "barbarous text," from which his imagination could not derive a single spark of inspiration.[47] With respect to the latter, several curious scenes took place with the author, who was so hampered by the composer, that at last he was glad to relinquish the task of polishing to another. This Cantata was performed, together with the Battle of Vittoria and the A major Symphony, on the 29th of November, in the presence of the foreign sovereigns, some of whom made handsome presents to the composer.
Those memorable winter months at the end of 1814, and the commencement of 1815, were important to Beethoven in another respect. Numbers of the distinguished foreign visitors thronged to him to pay him their homage, and it was more especially at the parties of the Russian ambassador, Prince Rasumowsky, that the sovereign of the realm of harmony was accustomed to receive this. It is well known that the testimonies of warm esteem paid to Beethoven in the apartments of the Archduke Rudolph, by the highest personages who sought him there, were equally cordial and affecting. An interview of this kind with the Empress of Russia was particularly interesting, and Beethoven could not call it to mind without emotion. He used afterwards to relate, jocosely, how he had suffered the crowned heads to pay court to him, and what an air of importance he had at such times assumed. How differently, alas! did he fare ten years later! It was a new world, as it were, in which we all lived ten years afterwards in Vienna, where but one name—the name of Rossini—was destined to be thought of any value.
These extraordinary tokens of favour, conferred about that time on our Beethoven, made no change whatever in him: he continued to be just what he was before—Beethoven. In the spring of 1815 he gave several public performances of his A major Symphony, which had puzzled certain reviewers abroad as well as at home, to such a degree, that some of them went so far as to declare that "the extravagances of his genius had reached the ne plus ultra, and that Beethoven was now quite ripe for the mad-house." Oh! the pitiful creatures! It is much to be regretted that there should have been among them professional men, who sought in every possible way to mortify Beethoven, who themselves would fain have scaled Parnassus by force, and had scarcely ascended a few steps before they were seized with dizziness and tumbled backward to the bottom. One of these egotists, after a fall of this kind, cringed and bowed down to the very dust before Beethoven, beseeching that he would assist him to rise again, but it was too late.[48]
From this brief intimation, the reader may infer that, notwithstanding the gigantic greatness to which Beethoven had then attained, he was pursued by envy and hatred, though he turned out of every one's way, and ceased to hold intercourse with any of his professional brethren. He perceived but too clearly that all these gentry felt humbled and uncomfortable in his presence. Even M. Kanne, with whom he had most associated in early years, and to whose eminent talents he always paid the highest respect, was not oftener than twice or three times a-year in his company.
In the summer of 1815, Beethoven occupied himself exclusively with the composition, or instrumentation, of the "Scotch Songs," for Mr. George Thompson, of Edinburgh, the collector of national songs, who paid him a considerable sum for the work, as is evident from the correspondence. How many of these Scotch songs Beethoven set to music it was not possible for me to ascertain; but I believe that not near all of them have been published.