Life of Beethoven

by Ludwig Nohl

It was otherwise with the magnanimous, noble lover of art, Prince Lobkowitz, one of the principal grandees of Bohemia, and one of the principal patrons of the theater. To him Beethoven was indebted for the suggestion that the Fidelio should be performed in Prague. For the occasion, Beethoven wrote, in this year, 1807, the overture, op. 138, which is, therefore, to be accounted not the second, but the third Leonore overture. The performance of the Fidelio, however, did not take place until 1814, the same year in which it was performed in Vienna. In the following summer (1808), it was publicly announced that “the gifted Beethoven had conceived the idea to put Goethe’s Faust to music, as soon as he could find any one to prepare it for the stage.” The first part of Faust had appeared in 1807, as a “tragedy;” and, as we shall see, the poem made a deep impression on our artist. Long after, and even on his death-bed, it occupied his thoughts. But he had, even now, written some Faust music—the symphony in C minor. To it we now turn, for it is one of the greatest of Beethoven’s creations.

We have seen how Beethoven himself once said: “Power is the moral code of men who distinguish themselves above others.” And so we hear how one person described him as “power personified;” how another said of him that “a Jupiter occasionally looked out through his eyes:” and a third, that “his magnificent forehead was the seat of majestic, creative power.” Spurred on by the opposition of “fate,” that is, by what nature had denied him, we see this power appear in all its concentration and sublimity. The power which has created, and which preserves all things, has been called “will,” and music, one of its immediate phenomena, while the other arts are only reflections of that will, and reflect only the things of the world. In the first movement of the symphony in C minor, we feel the presence of this power or personal will, to an extent greater than in any other work of art. It there appears in fullest action, in all its nobility. The symphony might not inappropriately have been called the Jupiter-symphony; for it is a veritable head of Jove, such as only a Phidias could have imagined. Melody has been described as the history of the will illuminated by reason, and the sonata-form of the symphony is just such kind of melody. And it is this fifth symphony of Beethoven’s, which, more than any other, tells us the most secret history of that personal will, of all its strivings and motions. No type in any art, could have suggested a Siegfried to Richard Wagner. Here Beethoven’s genius acts as force, as will, and as the conscious intelligence of the prototype of the Great Spirit. Yet when the work was performed in Paris, Hector Berlioz heard his teacher, Lessieur, say of it—and this, although he was deeply moved by it—“but such music should not be heard.” “Don’t be afraid,” was the reply, “there will be little of that kind of music written.” How correct was the insight of the gifted Frenchman! Siegfried’s Rheinfahrt, in the Goetterdaemmerung, is music of “that kind.”

But it is only the night of sorrow that gives birth to the concentration of power. It is only by great effort that this energy can be maintained. And as Coriolanus finely presses all the darts aimed at him by his mother into her own heart, in defying sacrifice, so we find, in the background of this holiest and most manly will, the consciousness of the variety and transitory character of all things. In his heart of hearts, Beethoven feels that fate has knocked at his door, only because in his following the dictates of force and action, he has sinned against nature, and that all will is only transitoriness and self-deception. The adagio expresses subjection to a higher will. The consciousness of this highest act of the will, to sacrifice one’s self and yet to preserve one’s freedom, gave birth to the song of jubilation in the finale which tells not of the joy and sorrow of one heart only; it lifts the freedom which has been praised and sought for into the higher region of moral will. Thus the symphony in C minor has a significance greater than any mere “work of art.” Like the production of religious art, it is a representation of those secret forces which hold the world together.

The consciousness of this deeper, intimate dependence of all things on one another, is henceforth seen like a glimmer of light in the darkness which gathered around him, and it continues to beautify and transfigure his creations.

The Pastorale immediately followed the symphony in C minor. It gives expression to the peace of nature and to the fulfillment of the saying: “Look out on the beauties of nature and calm your soul by the contemplation of what must be.” While the fourth symphony compared with the fifth, is a symphony and nothing more—even if it be Beethoven’s—we plainly discover in this sixth, the poetic spirit, the pure feeling of God. The idea and character it illustrates constitutes in Beethoven’s life the transition from the external beauty of nature to the comprehension of the eternal. Over it is written: “Recollections of country life,” but also, “More an expression of feeling than a painting.” “The Beethovens loved the Rhine,” the young playmates of the boy Ludwig were wont to say, and he wrote himself to Wegeler: “Before me is the beautiful region in which I first saw the light as plainly and as beautiful as the moment I left you.” On a leaf, written in his own hand, we find the words: “O the charm of the woods—who can express it?” But now that he was compelled to live a solitary life, nature became to him a mother, sister and sweetheart. He looked upon the wonders of nature as into living eyes; she calmed him who was naturally of such a stormy temperament, and to whom life had been unkind in so many ways. In the Scene am Bach (Scene by the Brook), the waters murmur peace to his soul; and the birds by the brooklet, in Heiligenstadt, where these two symphonies were finished, whisper joy. His Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute, infuses new courage into the heart, and when his Gewitter und Sturm, tells of the might of the Eternal, the shepherds express their joyful and grateful feelings in the words: Herr wir danken dir. The finale, like the Chorphantasie (op. 80), planned in 1800 but not finished until 1808, was intended to contain a chorus expressing in words the joyful and thankful feeling of the people. Beethoven’s own personal experience is always expressed in his music. A more intimate acquaintance with nature gave it to him to find yet deeper expression for the feelings which it excites in our hearts, as its everlasting change enabled him to conceive the eternal and imperishable.

We now turn to a whole series of new and brilliant creations of our hero. It would seem as if his intercourse with the eternal in nature had given him new life.

During these years, Beethoven’s intimacy with the Malfattis and their two charming daughters, was a great source of pleasure to him. His feelings towards them may be inferred from the following passages in his notes to his friend Gleichenstein. He writes: “I feel so well when I am with them that they seem able to heal the wounds which bad men have inflicted on my heart.”... “I expect to find there in the Wilden Mann in the park, no wild men, but beautiful graces.” And again: “My greetings, to all who are dear to you and to me. How gladly would I add—and to whom we are dear???? These points of interrogation are becoming, at least in me.” Gleichenstein married the second daughter, Anna Malfatti, in 1811. To the young dark-eyed Theresa, who made her debut in society about this time, and whom he writes of as “volatile, taking everything in life lightly” but “with so much feeling for all that is beautiful and good, and a great talent for music,” he sends a sonata, and recommends Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister and Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare. We thus see that his intercourse with the family had that intellectual foundation which Beethoven could not dispense with, on anything. It would even seem as if, in his enthusiasm to put his strength to the test of new deeds, even his “eternal loved one” should fade from his view.

The cello sonata (op. 69) dedicated to his friend Gleichenstein immediately followed the Pastorale. The two magnificent trios dedicated to Countess Erdoedy, with whom he resided at this time, follow as op. 70. The first movement of the trio in D major is a brilliantly free play of mind and force, while the adagio suggests Faust lost in the deep contemplation of nature and its mysteries. The whole, on account of the mysterious awe expressed by this movement has been called by musicians the Fledermaustrio, i. e., the bat-trio. The Leonore is numbered op. 72. It was published in 1810. Op. 73, the most beautiful of all concertos, was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolph. We have further, op. 74, the harp-quartet, dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, and the fantasia for the piano, op. 77, to his friend Brunswick; lastly, the sonata in F sharp major, op. 78, very highly valued by Beethoven himself, dedicated to his sister Theresa. Verily “new acts” enough, and what glorious deeds!

This brings us to the year 1809, which witnessed a change for the better in Beethoven’s pecuniary circumstances. He now received a permanent salary. On the 1st of November, 1808, he wrote to the Silesian Count, Oppersdorf,—whom he had visited in the fall of 1806, in company with Lichnowsky, and who gave him a commission to write a symphony, which the count, however, never received—as follows: “My circumstances are improving without the assistance of people who entertain their friends with blows. I have also been called to act as capellmeister to the King of Westphalia, and perhaps I may obey the call.” The following December, Beethoven gave a great concert, the programme of which embraced the two new symphonies, parts of his Mass, the concerto in G minor, and the Chorphantasie. He himself improvised at the piano. The attention of people far and near was called anew to this great and grave master in music, whom the sensualist Jerome Bonaparte endeavored to attract to his Capua in Cassel, and they became anxious lest he might leave Vienna. Beethoven’s friends bestirred themselves to keep him in Vienna, as did Beethoven himself to stay. This is very evident from the letters to Gleichenstein and Erdoedy. Three friends of his, to whom it was largely due that he wrote one of his greatest works, were instrumental in keeping him in Vienna. They were the Archduke Rudolph, Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky, to whose wife the six songs, op. 75, are dedicated. The sum guaranteed amounted to eight thousand marks. “You see, my dear good Gleichenstein,” he writes, on the 18th of March, 1809, a propos of the “decree” which he had received on the 26th of February, from the hands of the archduke, and which imposed on him no duty but to remain in Vienna and Austria, “how honorable to me my stay here has become.” He could not, however, have meant seriously what he added immediately after: “The title of imperial capellmeister will come to me also;” for what use had a man like the Emperor Franz for such an “innovator” at his court? The dedications of his works mentioned above were simply testimonials of gratitude for the friendship thus shown him.

He now planned an extensive journey, which was to embrace England, and even Spain. He writes to Gleichenstein: “Now you can help me get a wife. If you find a pretty one—one who may perhaps lend a sigh to my harmonies, do the courting for me. But she must be beautiful; I cannot love anything that is not beautiful; if I could I should fall in love with myself.” The coming war interrupted all his plans. But, at the same time, it suggested to the imagination of our artist, that wonderful picture of the battle of forces, the seventh (A major) symphony (op. 92), which Richard Wagner has called the “apotheosis of the dance.” Germany now first saw the picture of a genuinely national war. Napoleon appeared as Germany’s hereditary foe, and the whole people, from the highest noble to the meanest peasant rose up, as one man, to fight the battle of freedom. The march is, after all, only the dance of war, and Beethoven gathered into one picture of instrumentation, the glad tramp of warlike hosts, the rhythm of trampling steeds, the waving of standards and the sound of trumpets, with a luminousness such as the world had never witnessed before. The poet needs only see the eddy created by a mill-wheel to paint the vapor and foam of Charybdis. In the case of Beethoven, this joy in the game of war was, as the character of Bonaparte, on another occasion, a stimulant to his imagination, which now painted a picture of the free play of force and of human existence from the material of recent historical events. And even in after years the timeliness of this work and the spirit which called it into existence were evident. And, as we shall soon see, it constituted the principal part in the musical celebration, when, in 1813, the real war of emancipation occurred and led to a most decided victory. Personally, Beethoven felt himself not inferior to the mighty conqueror in natural power, and, like Schiller, he clearly foresaw the awakening of the national genius which overthrew Napoleon. To this second-sight of the prophet, possessed by every genuine poet—to this sure presentiment of ultimate triumph—our artist owed it, that, even in the days of Germany’s greatest ignominy and subjection he sang of the disenthrallment of the mind and of the jubilation of victory. Napoleon defeated the Austrians again. But as Beethoven first felt the weight and the power of resistance of Germany after the battles of Aspern and Wagram, he now depicted (after Napoleon had taken the Emperor’s daughter to wife and seemed predestined to become the despot of all Europe), in the scherzo and finale of the seventh symphony, better than ever before, the jubilation of the victorious nation, with all its popular feasts and games. Yet, in the melancholy second part, with its monotonous beats on the dominante, we think we hear the gloomy rhythm of a funeral march. This exceedingly characteristic theme is found at the very beginning of a sketch-book of the year 1809.