At the time when the Archduke Rudolph was preparing for his journey to Olmütz, the Mass destined for the ceremony of his installation was scarcely one third finished; which, taking into account the time usually occupied by him in correcting each of his great works, was as much as to say that the first movement was not yet completed. And to state here at once when Beethoven gave the last finish to this his greatest work, I may add that it was not till the summer of 1822 at Baden (near Vienna), after he had been labouring more than three years at this gigantic performance. Thus the mass was finished only two years too late for its original destination.
In the winter months of 1821-22, Beethoven wrote the three piano-forte Sonatas, Op. 109, 110, and 111. The Grand Sonata in B major, Op. 106, he wrote during the suit with his sister-in-law. In the summer of 1819, just at the time when he was engaged in the composition of the Credo, he complied also with the urgent solicitations of a musical society consisting of seven members, who were then accustomed to play at the tavern balls, in the Briel, near Mödling, and composed some Waltzes for them, and even wrote out the parts. On account of the striking contrast displayed by that genius, which could move at one and the same time in the highest regions of musical poetry and in the ball-room, I made inquiry some years afterwards, when the master had once mentioned the circumstance, after this light-winged progeny; but the society in question was then broken up, and thus my search proved fruitless. Beethoven, too, had lost the score of these Waltzes. While he was engaged in the composition of the grand mass, I do not recollect his having written anything further than a few numbers of Bagatelles. Mr. P., the publisher of Leipzig, for whom they were destined, wrote to him after he had received them, intimating that he did not consider them worth the price agreed upon (ten ducats, I believe), and added the remark, that Beethoven ought to deem it beneath him to waste his time on trifles such as anybody might produce. Would that Mr. P. could have witnessed the effect of this well-meant lecture on the outrageous composer! It was, nevertheless, a salutary lecture, and came just at the right time, for the great master took pleasure in such relaxations of his powers (which at that time, it is true, he needed), and had written many more Bagatelles of the same kind. Dormitat aliquando Homerus.
From the foregoing particulars the reader may infer that the price of the four last-mentioned Sonatas and his pension constituted the whole of Beethoven's income from the year 1818 to 1822, just at a time when he had a considerable annual sum to pay for the education of his nephew, and when the preceding years of dearth had an injurious influence upon him. The state of his finances may be more clearly seen from the letters addressed to M. Ries, which, however (especially those written in 1819 and 1820), ought not to have been exposed to the public eye, but should have been suppressed by his friends Wegeler and Ries;[55] for the tenor of those letters would lead one to suppose either that Beethoven was almost starving, or that, like the modern composers, he had written notes solely for money.[56] This, however, was not the case, though it is a fact that his income during that period was far from covering his expenses. It was not until 1825 that the Mass was sold to a publisher. It was consequently in the years 1820 and 1821 that Beethoven suffered real want, as he was determined not to add any new debts to those which he had previously incurred. And yet, if the truth must be told, the privations which he suffered were voluntary; for he was in possession of some bank shares, which might have placed him above any want, if he had chosen to dispose of them. When, therefore, we hear that those four days marked in his Journal for 1820 as "bad days" were such, when, quite destitute of money, he was obliged to make his dinner of a few biscuits and a glass of beer, as I have heard from his own lips, I, for my part, am disposed to seek in that fact the origin of his subsequent parsimony, which served only to enrich an unworthy laughing heir; but more upon this subject in the proper place.
Of the year 1821 there is nothing particular to relate excepting an anecdote characteristic of his household system: it went on in its usual way. In the spring of that year, he again removed with bag and baggage to Döbling. On arranging his musical matters there, he missed the score of the first movement (Kyrie) of his grand Mass. All search for it proved vain, and Beethoven was irritated to the highest degree at the loss, which was irreparable; when lo! several days afterwards the whole Kyrie was found, but in what condition! The large sheets, which looked just like waste paper, seemed to the old housekeeper the very thing for wrapping up boots, shoes, and kitchen utensils, for which purpose she had torn most of them in half. When Beethoven saw the treatment to which this production of his genius had been subjected, he could not refrain from laughing at this droll scene, after a short gust of passion, and after the sheets had been cleaned from all the soils contracted in such unseemly company.
The 3rd of October, 1822—the name-day[57] of the Emperor Francis—was fixed for the opening of the new theatre in the Josephstadt, on which occasion the music to Die Ruinen von Athen, (The Ruins of Athens)[58] which Beethoven wrote in 1812, for the opening of the new theatre in Pesth, with a new text adapted to time and place, by Carl Meisel, several new pieces, and a new Overture, was to be performed.
In the month of July, Beethoven set about this new work; but that summer, which he passed in Baden, was remarkably hot, and therefore, he liked to seek the shade of the neighbouring woods, rather than to swelter in the house. It was not till the hottest part of the season was over, and then the day fixed for the opening was not far distant, that he fell to work in good earnest; and I recollect well, that the ballet-master was put to a pinch about a new composed chorus with a dance. He was in urgent want of the music for rehearsal, but Beethoven would not part with it, because he had not done filing and polishing. Thus it was not till the afternoon of the day when the first performance was to take place, that the orchestra, collected at random from all quarters, received the extremely difficult Overture in C major, with the double fugue, and that, moreover, with a thousand metrical errors. On the evening of the solemn opening, when, for want of the necessary rehearsals, not a single member of the orchestra was acquainted with his part, Beethoven was seated at the piano, having at his side the music-director Franz Gläser, as assistant-conductor, and I, escaping from my office, led the orchestra. This, as it were, ex-tempore solemnization, might justly be pronounced a total failure, as far as the music was concerned; and it was not till the next day that all the orchestral parts were corrected and studied. Beethoven, indeed, perceived the vacillation on the stage and in the orchestra, but was not sensible that he was the principal cause of it, through his intent listening and retarding the time.
On New-Year's day, 1823, Beethoven, his nephew, and myself were seated at dinner, when a New-Year's card was brought from his brother, who lived in the next house, signed "Johann van Beethoven, landowner" (Gutsbesitzer); Beethoven immediately wrote on the back of it, "Ludwig van Beethoven, brainowner" (Hirnbesitzer), and sent it back forthwith to the landowner. It was only a few days before this whimsical circumstance, that this brother braggingly told our master, that he would never be worth so much as he (Johann van Beethoven) was.[59] It may easily be conceived that our Beethoven was mightily amused by this boast.
During this winter (1823), Beethoven carried into effect the resolution which he had long before formed, of offering the new Mass, in manuscript, to the European courts, great and small, for the sum of fifty ducats—a business which he left entirely to my management, which was attended with innumerable formalities and difficulties, and required great patience. In his invitation to the subscription, Beethoven declared this work to be his "greatest" and his "best." And, in that addressed to the King of France, he called it "œuvre le plus accompli." Only four sovereigns, namely, the Emperor of Russia, and the Kings of Prussia, Saxony, and France, accepted the offer.[60] Prince Anton von Radziwill, governor of Posen, subscribed for the fifth copy, and M. Schelble, on behalf of his Cecilia club, at Frankfort on the Mayn, for the sixth and last.[61] The first of the sovereigns who subscribed was his majesty the King of Prussia.
A characteristic anecdote is connected with the notification made on this subject, through his majesty's ambassador. Whether the Prussian ambassador, the Prince von Hatzfeld, had instructions from Berlin, or whether he wished, from his own impulse, to see Beethoven decorated with a Prussian order, I never knew; but it is a fact, that the Prince commissioned the director of chancery, Hofrath W., to ask Beethoven whether he might not be disposed to prefer a royal order to the fifty ducats; in which case he would transmit his wish to Berlin. Beethoven, without a moment's consideration, replied with great emphasis—"Fifty ducats!" A striking proof how lightly he prized insignia of honour or distinctions in general. Offers of this sort he would have invariably declined, proceed from what quarter soever they might. Without despising the well-merited decoration of an order on the breast of this or that artist of his time, he never envied any man that distinction, but frequently lashed unmercifully one or the other of his contemporaries for their "longing and snapping after ribands," which, according to his notions, were gained only at the expense of the truth and the sacredness of art.
This is the proper place to state that Beethoven applied among others to Göthe, relative to the affair of the subscription to the Mass, soliciting his recommendation of it to the Grand-Duke of Weimar; but Göthe had already forgotten our Beethoven, for he did not even deign to answer him, and Beethoven felt extremely mortified. This was the first and the last time that Beethoven ever asked a favour of Göthe. In like manner, his letter on the same subject, in his own hand-writing, to the King of Sweden, remained unanswered. This correspondence, however, carried back Beethoven's remembrance to the time when the King of Sweden, as General Bernadotte, was ambassador of the French republic at Vienna; and he distinctly recollected that it was really Bernadotte who awakened in him the first idea of the Sinfonia eroica.