Famous composers and their works, Vol. 2

by Unknown

In 1801 he was feeling well and he worked hard. His ballet "Prometheus" was given March 28 with success. He changed his lodgings and dwelt in the Sailer-Staette, where he could look over the town-ramparts. When the days lengthened, he went to Hetzendorf, near the shaded gardens of Schönbrunn, modelled after Versailles. "I live only in my music," he wrote Wegeler, "and no sooner is one thing done than the next is begun; I often work at three and four things at once." "The Mount of Olives"; the violin sonatas in A minor and F; the string quintet in C; the pianoforte sonatas, Op. 26, 27, 28, were completed in this year, and other works were sketched. The so-called "Moonlight Sonata" brings before us Giuletta Guicciardi, to whom it was dedicated, and the romance connected with her.

BEETHOVEN LEADING THE PERFORMANCE OF ONE OF HIS QUARTETS.

Reproduced from a photograph of a painting in which the scene is idealized.

The noble women of Vienna were fond of Beethoven; to say they adored him would not be extravagant. They went to his lodgings or they received him at their palaces. Even his rudeness fascinated them; they forgave him if he roared angrily at a lesson, or tore the music in pieces; they were not offended if he used the snuffers as a tooth-pick. He, too, was constantly in love, but there is no reason to doubt that his attachments were honorable. "Oh God! let me at last find her who is destined to be mine, and who shall strengthen me in virtue," was his prayer. Yet Wegeler says, that he fancied himself a Lovelace and irresistible. He paraded his attachments in dedications. There was the beautiful Hungarian Countess, Babette de Keglevics; the Countess Therese of Brunswick; Baroness Ertmann, the Countess Erdödy; and there were many others. In lesser station was Christine Gherardi, and there was Madeleine Willman, the singer, who, it is said, refused Beethoven's hand because he was "ugly and half-mad." But his passion for the woman Giuletta Guicciardi was deep-rooted, and it deserves more than passing notice. Her family came originally from the Duchy of Modena, and in 1800 her father went to Vienna, an Imperial Counsellor. She was in her seventeenth year, with dark blue eyes, waving brown hair, classic features, and a stately carriage. She was then as good as betrothed to Count Gallenberg, an impressario and a composer of ballets, whom she married in 1803. After Beethoven's death letters of an incoherent and a fiery nature were found in a secret drawer, and it was supposed that they were addressed to the Guicciardi until the ruthless examination of them by Thayer. She herself made light of the dedication by telling Jahn in later years that Beethoven gave her the Rondo in G, but wishing to dedicate something to Princess Lichnowsky, he gave her the sonata instead. Beethoven, when he was very deaf, wrote in bad French to his friend Schindler (for his conversation was necessarily at the time in writing) that he was loved by her; that he raised money for her husband; and that when she returned to Vienna from Italy, she looked Beethoven up and wept; but he despised her. The reader who wishes to investigate the subject and read of her strange adventures with Prince Hermann Pückler-Muskau, even though illusions be thereby dispelled, is referred to the chapter "Julia Guicciardi" in "Neue Musikalische Charakterbilder" by Otto Gumprecht (Leipsic, 1876).

And in this year, 1801, the deafness, which began with violent noise in his ears, grew on him. In a letter to Wegeler, in which he speaks of a pension of about $240, from Lichnowsky, he tells of his infirmities. He connected the deafness with abdominal troubles, with "frightful colic." He went from doctor to doctor. He tried oil of almonds and cold and warm baths. Pills and herbs and blisters were of little avail. He inquired into galvanic remedies. Zmeskall persuaded him to visit Father Weiss, monk and quack. Discouraged, he still had the bravery to write, "I will as far as possible defy my fate, though there must be moments when I shall be the most miserable of God's creatures... I will grapple with fate; it shall never drag me down." At the same time in telling his sorrow to Carl Amenda he swore him solemnly to secrecy.

Dr. Schmidt sent him in 1802 to Heiligenstadt, a lonely village, and there he wrote the famous letter known as "Beethoven's Will," addressed to his brothers, to be opened after his death (see page 331). It is possible that this letter full of gloom and distress was only the expression of momentary depression. The music of this same year is cheerful, if not absolutely joyous—the Symphony in D, for example—and on his return to Vienna he wrote letters of mad humor. He changed his lodgings to the Peters-Platz, in the heart of the city, where he was between the bells of two churches. He corrected publishers' proofs, and was "hoarse with stamping and swearing" on account of the errors, "swarming like fish in the sea." He quarreled with his brother Caspar, who interfered in his dealings with publishers and brought to light compositions of boyhood.

In April, 1803, a concert was given, the program of which included "The Mount of Olives," the Symphony in D, and the pianoforte concerto in C minor, with the composer as pianist. The so-called "Kreutzer Sonata" for violin and pianoforte, written for the half-breed Bridgetower, was heard this year; there was a quarrel, and the now famous work was dedicated to R. Kreutzer, who was in the train of Bernadotte. In the summer, Beethoven went to Baden near Vienna, and to Oberdöbling, but before he left the city he talked with Schikaneder about an opera for the theatre "An der Wien." He had also changed his lodgings again and moved to the said theatre with Caspar. The rest of the year, however, was chiefly given to the composition of the "Heroic" symphony, which was suggested to him in 1798 by Bernadotte. It is true that he went much in society, associating with painters and officials, and with the Abbé Vogler; he also began correspondence with Thomson, the music publisher of Edinburg, concerning sonatas on Scotch themes. At the beginning of 1804, he was obliged to seek new quarters, and he roomed with his old friend Stephen Breuning in the Rothe Haus. At first they had separate sets of rooms; they then thought it would be cheaper to live together. Beethoven neglected to notify the landlord, and he was liable for the two suites. Hence hot words and a rupture. The breach was afterwards healed, but Breuning, who apparently behaved admirably, wrote in a letter to Wegeler of Beethoven's "excitable temperament, his habit of distrusting his best friends, and his frequent indecision. Rarely indeed, does his old true nature now allow itself to be seen." At Döbling he worked at the Waldstein Sonata and the Op. 54. The "Bonaparte" Symphony was finished, and, according to Lichnowsky, the title-page bore simply the inscription "Buonaparte," and the name "Luigi van Beethoven." Beethoven had unbounded admiration for Napoleon as long as he was First Consul, and he compared him often with illustrious Romans, but when the Corsican made himself Emperor of the French, the composer burst into violent reproaches and tore in pieces the title page of the Symphony. When the work was published in 1806, the title announced the fact that it was written "to celebrate the memory of a great man"; and when Napoleon was at St. Helena, Beethoven once cried out, "Did I not foresee the catastrophe when I wrote the funeral march in the Symphony?" When he went back to Vienna for the winter, he lodged in a house of Baron Pasqualati on the Mölker-Bastion; these rooms were kept for him, even when he occasionally moved for a season.

In 1805 Baron von Braun took Schikaneder as manager of the "An der Wien," and they made Beethoven an offer for an opera. The story of Leonora suited the composer, although Bouilly's text had been already set by Gaveaux and Paer; he worked diligently at his rooms in the theatre, and later in the fields of Hetzendorf. In the summer he went to Vienna to see Cherubini. In the fall the operatic rehearsal began. The singers and the orchestra rebelled at difficulties. The composer was vexed and angry. For the first time he welcomed deafness. He did not wish to hear his music "bungled." "The whole business of the opera is the most distressing thing in the world." The first performance was November 20th, 1805. Anna Milder, to whom Haydn said, "You have a voice like a house," was the heroine. Louise Müller was Marcelline; Demmer, Florestan; Meyer, Pizarro; Weinkopf, Don Fernando; Caché, Jaquino; Rothe, Rocco. The opera was then in three acts, and the overture seems to have been "Leonora No. II." The time was unfavorable. The French entered Vienna the 13th of November; Napoleon was at Schönbrunn; nearly all of the wealthy and noble patrons of Beethoven had fled the town. The opera was played three nights and then withdrawn—a failure. It was revised, shortened, and with the overture "Leonora No. III.," it was again performed March 29, 1806, and the reception was warmer. It was played April 10th. Beethoven and Braun quarreled, and Vienna did not hear "Fidelio" for seven or eight years. Parts of the pianoforte concerto in G and of the C-minor symphony, as well as the two last of the Rasoumoffsky string quartets Op. 59 were composed at this time.