Beethoven and His Forerunners

by Daniel Gregory Mason

There was something almost diabolically sinister in the fate that placed Beethoven, so sensitive to personalities, so peculiarly in need of tranquillity for the pursuit of his ideas, in the midst of such a pack of rascally kindred. The great canker of his life was his nephew, Carl, left his ward, in 1815, by the death of his brother. A loafer in billiard-rooms, a devotee of cheap amours, a dissipated, frivolous, and wholly irreverent weakling, this young man looked upon his uncle simply as a source of florins, having apparently no respect for his age, his sufferings, or his genius. To make matters worse, Beethoven found it necessary, in order to secure the boy’s custody, to go to law against his mother, whom he picturesquely and significantly named “The Queen of the Night.” He was involved in endless lawsuits to gain the very responsibilities which proved so heavy and so fruitless. Carl rewarded all this care and love by holding clandestine meetings with his mother, by squandering his uncle’s hard-earned money, by neglecting the commissions which the composer, deaf and ill, was obliged to entrust to him; and finally, brought to the verge of despair by his own weakness, he attempted suicide, was locked up in an asylum, and was eventually packed off to the army. In all Beethoven’s struggles with his nephew he got no help from the boy’s other uncle, the “land-owner” of the anecdote, Johann van Beethoven, whom the composer bitterly called his “pseudo-brother.” This complacent apothecary saw no need of helping a brother who was one of the greatest artists living, and whose life was being slowly sapped by sordid anxieties. Doubtless Beethoven was a man difficult to help—a man of high temper, perverse whims, uncompromising speech. But the story, nevertheless, is an unpleasant one, in which young Carl and old Johann Beethoven play unenviable rôles.

In his contact with these wretched relatives Beethoven was not supported by a comfortable, congenial home. A bachelor, poor, absent-minded, and engrossed in abstract pursuits, he was at the mercy of rapacious landlords and self-seeking or incompetent servants. After 1816, when, largely for his nephew’s sake, he began keeping house, he was given hardly a moment of ease by what he called his “domestic rabble.” His letters are full of indignant protests or half-humorous jibes against the old “witch,” or “Satanas,” as he called his housekeeper—a half-crazy beldame who not only neglected his table and let the dust thicken on his books, but on one occasion actually used the manuscript of a part of his great Mass to wrap around old boots. “My dear Son,” he writes (it was thus that he habitually addressed his nephew), “It is impossible to permit this to continue any longer; no soup to-day, no beef, no eggs, and at last broiled meat from the inn! Little as I require what nourishes the body, as you know, still the present state of things is really too bad, besides being every moment in danger of being poisoned.” Another time he exclaims: “Here comes Satanas.... What a reproach to our civilization to stand in need of a class like this, and to have those whom we despise constantly near us.” How must Beethoven have felt when the nephew whom he had trusted as a son descended so low as to borrow money surreptitiously from, this very “Satanas”? “Last Sunday,” he writes, “you again borrowed 1 florin 15 kreutzers from the housekeeper, from a mean old kitchen wench,—this was already forbidden,—and it is the same in all things. What avail even the most gentle reproofs? They merely serve to embitter you. But do not be uneasy; I shall continue to care for you as much as ever.”

Another constant harassment of Beethoven in his later years was poverty. The annuity settled upon him by his patrons was so seriously decreased by a depreciation in the value of paper money and by the deaths of some of the donors that it eventually amounted to only four hundred dollars a year. “If my salary,” he wrote in 1822, “were not so far reduced as to be no salary at all, I would write nothing but symphonies for a full orchestra, and church music, or at most quartets.” As it was, he had to devote a part of his time to writing for money, a servitude intensely distasteful to one so devoted to high artistic ideals, so constitutionally incapable of compromise. He puts the best face on the matter, jokes about it as he does about everything; but it is obvious that he suffered much to gather the florins his nephew so easily spent. “I wander about here with music paper, among the hills and dales and valleys, and scribble a great deal to get my daily bread; for I have brought things to such a pass ... that in order to gain time for a great composition, I must always previously scrawl away a good deal for the sake of money.” But his attitude towards publishers remained dignified, considerate; he knew how to respect his own work and rights without falling into the petty egotism of the so-called “artistic temperament.” “I must apprise you,” he writes Herr Peters of the well-known Leipzig publishing house, “that I cannot accept less than 50 ducats for a string quartet, and 70 for a pianoforte one, without incurring loss; indeed, I have repeatedly been offered more than 50 ducats for a violin quartet. I am, however, always unwilling to ask more than necessary, so I adhere to the sum of 50 ducats, which is, in fact, nowadays the usual price. I feel positively ashamed when I have to ask a price for a really great work. Still, such is my position that it obliges me to secure every possible advantage. It is very different, however, with the work itself; when I never, thank God, think of profit, but solely of how I write it.” It is a similar dignified sense of his responsibilities, far removed from vanity, that prompts him to request of an editor notice of his nomination as an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Musical Academy. “Although neither vain nor ambitious,” he says, “still I consider it advisable not wholly to pass over such an occurrence, as in practical life we must live and work for others, who may often eventually benefit by it.” The sincerity of these convictions is proved by the fact that after Beethoven’s death in poverty, eight bank-shares were found among his papers, carefully preserved by him for the legacy of his nephew.

Beethoven’s deafness went on steadily increasing. That is a pathetic picture his friend Schindler gives of him, improvising with all the enthusiasm of his inner inspiration on the violin or the viola, which, because of his inability to tune them, gave out the most distressing, discordant sounds. On the piano it was but little better; he had to guide himself largely by sight, and his touch became harsh and heavy. The effect of this malady on his character, already mentioned in Chapter VII, and recognized by himself in his “Will,”[47] grew as time went on more profound. He became morbidly suspicious, withdrew himself entirely from casual social intercourse, and distrusted even his best friends. Friendly consultations in his behalf he interpreted as collusions against him, and resented with all the violent anger of his intense, willful, and frank nature. When Lichnowsky, Schuppanzigh, and Schindler met at his room, as if by chance, to discuss a concert they were planning for the presentation of the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony, his suspicions were so aroused that he wrote the three faithful disciples as follows:

To Lichnowsky:

“Insincerity I despise; visit me no more; my concert is not to take place.

“Beethoven.”

To Schuppanzigh:

“Come no more to see me. I give no concert.

“Beethoven.”