Ludwig.”
But, on the same dainty little piece of note paper, he continues, for the mail had already left:
“You suffer, dearest creature. Wherever I am, you are with me. I must try to so arrange it that our life may be one. But what, what a life to be thus without you! I am pursued by the kindness of men which I do not intend to earn, and yet, which I really do earn. That a man should humble himself before his fellow man, pains me; and when I consider myself as a part of the universe, what am I, and who is He they call the Most High? And yet here, again, we find the divine in that which is human.... No matter how great your love for me, my love for you is greater still. Never hide yourself from me. Good night! Being an invalid, I must go to sleep. Alas, that I should be so near and yet so far from you. Is not our love a real firmament of heaven? And is it not as firm as the foundation of the heavens?”
He takes up the same piece of paper once more:
“Good morning, this 7th of July! Even before I rise my thoughts fly to you, dear—to you, immortal love, now joyfully, now sadly, waiting to see whether the fates will hear our prayer. If I shall live at all, it must be with you. I am resolved to wander about far away from you, until the time comes when I may fly into your arms, and say that I belong to you; until I may send my soul absolved by you, dear, into the land of spirits. Yes, unfortunately it must be so. You will be all the more composed, since you know how faithful I am to you. Another can never possess my heart—never! Why, O God, must a man be so widely separated from the object of his love? And yet the life I now live in Vienna is so wretched! Your love makes me, at once, the happiest and the most unfortunate of men. At my present age, there should be some uniformity in my life; but is such a thing possible in my present circumstances? Be patient. Only by the patient contemplation of our existence can we gain our object and live united. Be patient! love me! How I longed and wept for you to-day and yesterday; you, my life, my all! Farewell; love me ever, never forget the most faithful heart of thy beloved Ludwig. I am ever thine and thou forever mine.”
How completely like Beethoven! It was during this very summer that he completed the Apassionata, which he always considered the greatest of his sonatas, at the home of the Brunswicks. Can it be said that its language is in anything greater than the language of this letter? He seems at this time to be nearly always possessed by a feeling of melancholy. But for this very reason he took refuge more than ever in music. It was, indeed, a real sanctuary to him, and he refused to open that sanctuary to the eyes of strangers, and, least of all, to the eyes of enemies. This he very plainly proved to Prince Lichnowsky during the fall. Beethoven had left Hungary and was spending some time in Silesia with the prince. The latter desired him to play for some French officers who were quartered in his castle. A violent scene immediately ensued. After it was over, Beethoven left the castle. He refused to go back with the prince who had followed him, but repaired, post haste, back to Vienna, in which city the prince’s bust was broken to pieces as an expiatory sacrifice. It was not long, however, before the old friendship of the two was re-established.
In the quartet sketches of this year, we find the words: “Just as you can cast yourself here into the whirl of society, it is possible to write operas spite of all social impediments. Let the fact that you do not hear be a mystery no longer, even in your music.” This “whirl of society” introduces us to some new acquaintances. Count Rasumowsky held very brilliant soirées, at which the amiable and charming wife of his librarian, Marie Bigot, performed some of Beethoven’s works in an exquisite manner. The playing of the elegant and handsome Countess Marie Erdoedy, whom Beethoven himself called his “father confessor,” was not inferior to that of Madame Bigot. Other patrons of the musical art were Madame Dorothea von Ertmann, a charming Frankfort lady, and the Malfattis, one of whom was Beethoven’s physician. The home of Streicher, who had married Nanette Stein, daughter of the Augsburg piano-maker, described in Mozart’s letter of 1777 in so droll a manner, was the rendezvous of lovers of music. Nor must we forget to mention Prince Lobkowitz and the Emperor’s youngest brother, the Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven’s distinguished pupil, who, as our artist himself admitted, understood music thoroughly.
The chief value, however, of the works quoted above, is that they inform us how Beethoven, spite of his experience with the Fidelio, was thinking very seriously of the writing of “operas.” If successful here, his fortune was made, and there was nothing then to hinder the crowning of his love by marriage. There now seemed to be a very good prospect of that success, for, in the year 1807, the two court-theaters passed into the hands of a company of noblemen, with Lobkowitz at their head. Lobkowitz immediately called upon Beethoven to act as composer for the Court-theater. Our artist accepted the position, and bound himself to write at least one great opera and operetta each year, and to supply whatever other music might be needed. A feeling of inexhaustible power must have inspired him at this time, when he was actuated by the tenderest love, with the utmost confidence in self. A forcible proof of this is the overture which he then wrote to Collins’s Coriolanus. But the gentlemen did not accede to his wishes; they did not want to trust him as composer of instrumental music in this point; and thus Beethoven, although not particularly pleased by the action of his princely friends, was, fortunately for himself and for us, retained in the field of labor most in harmony with his disposition.
“If it be true that genuine strength and a fullness of deep feeling characterize the Germans, we must say that Beethoven was, above all, a German artist. In this, his most recent work, we cannot but admire the expressiveness and depth of his music, which so grandly painted the wild, perturbed mind of Coriolanus, and the sudden and terrible change in his fate, while it elicited the sublimest emotion.” These lines are from an account of a concert given in the Augarten by Lichnowsky in the spring of 1807. But we have very reliable information that Beethoven was now engaged on the symphony in C minor and on the Pastorale. Thanks to Clementi, who was doing a large and thriving music business in London, and to his old friend Simrock, in Bonn, which was French at the time, he felt at his ease so far as money matters were concerned. He writes to Brunswick on the 11th of May, 1807: “I can now hope to be able, in a few years, to maintain the dignity of a real artist.” And when, in the same letter, we read the farther passage, “Kiss your sister Theresa. Tell her that I fear that I shall become great without a monument, to which she has contributed,” we can understand how love, fame and lofty intuition conspired to fit him for new and mighty exploits in art.
The next work published by Beethoven was the Mass in C, op. 86, which Esterhazy gave him a commission to write. But here Beethoven, even more than in opera, missed the spirit of his subject. The Mass bears witness to his intellect, and has all the charms of sound; but it is not a religious composition. When Beethoven himself wrote to Esterhazy, as he did at this time: “Shall I tell you that it is not without many misgivings that I shall send you the Mass, for I know you are accustomed to have the inimitable works of the great Haydn performed for you,” he proves that he did not understand the real spirit of church music; for Haydn had, just as little as Beethoven, a true conception of what church music is. Haydn was now seventy-six years old, and Beethoven attended a performance of his Creation the following year, and, with a number of the distinguished nobility, received the celebrated guest at the door. The fame of the man whom he was thus called upon to honor, was a type of what his own was destined one day to be. And what his own fame would be, the production of the great works he had recently finished, must have enabled him to foresee. When the Mass was performed, in September, 1807, in Eisenstadt, our composer had a personal falling out—the result of a misunderstanding—with Mozart’s pupil, Hummel; and one which was not made up for for some years. The prince had criticised Beethoven’s Mass by asking the strange question: “But, my dear Beethoven, what have you been doing now?” Hummel could not help laughing at this strange mode of criticism. Beethoven supposed he was laughing at his work; and after this would have nothing more to do with the prince.