In 1805 Ferdinand Ries left Vienna, after having enjoyed Beethoven's instruction for five years. He was, in fact, the only one whom Beethoven recognised as his pupil (with the exception of the Archduke Rudolph), and to him he entrusted the playing of his concertos, &c., for the first time, when no longer able to do so himself. The impressions which Ries has left in his Notices, of Beethoven as an instructor, are like his other statements, somewhat contradictory. In one place he declares that during the lessons the master was engaged in composition or some similar work at one end of the room, while he was playing at the other, and that he seldom sat down by him for half an hour at a time. Again, he says that Beethoven took extraordinary pains with him—sometimes extending the lesson over two hours, and making him repeat ten times—nay, oftener—any passage with which he was not quite satisfied. Probably the truth lies between these two extremes. Beethoven, who had no settled order in his life, could not be expected to be systematic in tuition; hence the impression of desultoriness left upon the mind of the pupil. A characteristic anecdote of this period is worth quoting.
"Beethoven," says Ries, "had given me the manuscript of his third concerto, that I might appear in public with it for the first time as his pupil; Beethoven conducted and turned over the pages for me. I had begged him to compose a cadenza for me, but he directed me to write one myself. He was satisfied with my composition, and altered little; but one brilliant and very difficult passage, which seemed to him too hazardous, I was to change. The easier one did not please me, and I could not make up my mind to play it in public. The critical moment arrived—Beethoven had seated himself quietly—but when I boldly attacked the difficult cadence, he gave his chair a violent push. The cadenza, however, succeeded, and Beethoven was so delighted that he exclaimed, 'Bravo!' which electrified the audience."
In 1805 Beethoven produced his solitary opera, "Leonora" (afterwards known as "Fidelio"), amid a series of annoyances and vexations such as probably no operatic writer, either before or since, has ever had to contend against. What between troubles arising out of the libretto, the overture, the singers, the critics, and the theatrical cabals, our poor Beethoven was well-nigh driven distracted.
The story on which the opera is founded (originally taken from the French, and so well known as to require no repetition here) is almost too slight for dramatic purposes, inasmuch as there is but one really powerful situation—that of the grave scene—in the entire piece, and the whole interest, therefore, is concentrated on the one figure, Leonora. What Beethoven has made out of these slender materials; how he has depicted, in all its intensity and tenderness, that love which he was doomed never to experience, needs no description from us.
What was Beethoven's object in choosing this theme for his labours? Was it a foreshadowing of bliss that might be his? or was it the delineation of a character which, in its earnestness and purity, should be the reverse of that "Don Juan" of Mozart, of which he once said, "The divine art ought never to be lowered to the folly of such a scandalous subject"?
The little byplay and domestic "asides" cost our soaring Beethoven infinitely more trouble than the most impassioned scenas, and he was obliged to write the little air of Marcelline, "O, wär' ich schon mit Dir vereint," no less than thrice before he could attain the requisite lightness.
The composition of the four "Leonora" overtures is without a parallel in musical annals. When Beethoven had finished No. 1, in C major, he consented to its being first tried over by a small orchestra at Prince Lichnowski's, in the presence of a select number of critics and connoisseurs, by whom it was condemned as being light and almost flimsy in structure, and as affording no clue to the contents of the opera. It was therefore withdrawn, and not published till after the composer's death.
But may not the light-heartedness which distinguishes this overture have been intentional on the part of Beethoven? may he not have wished to represent his heroine before the shadow of grief had fallen upon her, in the enjoyment of the highest wedded bliss?
Marx takes this view of "Leonora" No. 1, adducing in support of it the following extract from one of the manuscript books in which Beethoven was accustomed to hold intercourse with his friends:—
"Aristotle, when he speaks of tragedy, says that the hero ought first to be represented as living in the greatest happiness and splendour. Thus we see him in 'Egmont.' When he is in the enjoyment of felicity, Fate comes and throws a noose over his head from which he is not able to extricate himself. Courage and Defiance appear upon the scene, and boldly look Destiny—aye, and death—in the face. Clärchen's fate interests us, like that of Gretchen in 'Faust,' because she was once so happy. A tragedy which begins as well as continues gloomily, is tedious."