FIRST NOTICE.
Beethoven died March 26, 1827, and thirty years passed away without any satisfactory biography of him. The notices and anecdotes of Seyfried, (1832,) Wegeler, and Ries, (1838,) the somewhat more extended sketch by Schindler, (1840, second edition 1845,) and what in various forms, often of very doubtful veracity, appeared from time to time in periodical publications, musical and other, remained the only sources of information respecting the great master, and the history of his works, available to the public, even the German public. Wegeler's "Notizen" are indispensable for the early history of the composer; Schindler's "Biographie," for that of his later years. Careful scrutiny has failed to detect any important error in the statements of the former, or in those of the latter, where he professedly speaks from personal knowledge. Schindler is one of the best-abused men in Germany,—perhaps has given sufficient occasion for it,—but we must bear this testimony to the value of his work, unsatisfactory as it is. Seyfried and Ries give little more than personal reminiscences of a period ending some twenty-five or thirty years before they wrote. The one is always careless; the other died too suddenly to give his hastily written anecdotes revision. Both must be corrected (as they may easily be, but have not yet been) by contemporaneous authorities. Their errors are constantly repeated in the biographical articles upon Beethoven which we find in the Encyclopaedias, with one exception, the article in the "New American," published by the Appletons.
A life of Beethoven, founded upon a careful digest of these writers, combined with the materials scattered through other publications,—even though no original researches were made,—was still a desideratum, when the very remarkable work upon Mozart, by the Russian, Alexander Oulibichef, appeared, and aroused a singular excitement in the German musical circles through the real or supposed injustice towards Beethoven into which the hero-worship of the author had led him. We had hopes that now some one of the great master's countrymen would give us something worthy of him; but the excitement expended itself in pamphlets and articles in periodicals, in which as little was done for Beethoven's history as was effected against the views of Oulibichef.
Another Russian, however, Wilhelm von Lenz, came to the rescue in two works,—"Beethoven et ses trois Styles," (2 vols. 8vo, St. Petersburg, 1862,) and "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" (2 vols. l2mo, Cassel, 1855). A very feeble champion, this Herr von Lenz. The first of his two works—in French, rather of the Strat-ford-at-Bow order,—consists principally of an "Analyse des Sonates de Piano" of Beethoven, in which these works are indeed much talked about, but not analyzed. The author, an amateur, has plenty of zeal, but, unluckily, neither the musical knowledge nor the critical skill for his self-imposed task. We mention this took only because the second volume closes with a "Catalogue critique, chronologique et anecdotique," in which the author has, with great industry and care, and for the first time, brought together the principal historical notices of Beethoven's works, scattered through the pages of the books above noticed and the fifty quarto volumes of the "Leipziger Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung."
The first volume of "Beethoven, eine Kunststudie" is a "Leben des Meisters," a mere sketch, made up from the same works as the "Catalogue," with a very few additions from other sources. As a biographer, Lenz fails as signally as in his capacity of critic. Much original matter, from one living so far away, was not to be expected; but he has made no commendable use of the printed authorities which he had at hand. His style is bombastic and feeble; there is neither a logical nor a chronological progress to his narrative; moreover, he is not always trustworthy, even in matters personal to himself;—at all events, a very interesting account of a meeting between him and Mendelssohn, at the house of Moscheles in London,—apropos of nothing,—has called—out a letter from the latter in a Leipzig musical journal, in which the whole story is declared to be without foundation. In our references to Lenz, we shall consider his "Catalogue" and his "Leben des Meisters" as complements to each other, and forming a single work.
Lenz's "Beethoven et ses trois Styles" was avowedly directed against Oulibichef, and called out a reply from that gentleman, with the title, "Beethoven, ses Critiques et ses Glossateurs," (8vo. Paris and Leipzig, 1857,) in which poor Lenz is annihilated, but which makes no pretensions to biographical value. It contains, indeed, a sketch of the master's life; it is but a sketch, so highly colored, such a mere painting of Beethoven as lie existed in the author's fancy,—not in real life,—as to convey a most false idea of him and of his fortunes. The introduction is an admirable sketch of the progress of music during the first twenty-five years of the present century,—a supplement to his famous view of modern music in his work upon Mozart. His analyses of such of Beethoven's works as met his approbation are masterly and unrivalled, save by certain articles from the pens of Hoffmann and our own writer Dwight. With the later works of the composer Oulibichef had no sympathy. Haydn and Mozart had given him his standards of perfection. We can forgive Beethoven, when at times he rises above all forms and rules in seeking new means of expression; Oulibichef could not.
But it is not endless discussions of Beethoven's works which the public—at all events, our public—demands. We wish his biography,—the history of his life. What has been given us does but whet the appetite. We wish to have the many original sources, still sealed to us, explored, and the results of this labor honestly given us. None of the writers above-mentioned have been in a position to do this, and their publications are but materials for the use of the true biographer, when he shall appear.
It was therefore with a pleasure as great as it was unexpected, that we saw, some months since, the announcement of the volumes named at the head of this article. They now lie before us. We have given thorn a very careful examination, and shall now endeavor to do them full justice, granting them much more space than has yet been accorded to them in any German publication which has come under our notice, because out of Germany the reputation of the author is far greater than at home,—whether upon the old principle, that the "prophet is not without honor," etc., we hope hereafter to make clear.
Some particulars respecting Dr. Marx may find place here, as proving that from no man, perhaps, have we the right to expect so much, in a biography of Beethoven, as from him. We draw them mostly from Schilling's "Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaft," Vol. IV., Stuttgart, 1841,—a work which deserves to be better known in our country. It is worthy of note, that in this work, of which Mozart fills eight pages, Handel, Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven seven to seven and a half each, Gluck six and a quarter, Meyerbeer four, and Weber four and a half, Marx, eighteen years since, occupied five.
Adolph Bernhard Marx was born at Halle, Nov. 17, 1799, and, like so many of the distinguished musicians of recent times, is of Jewish descent. He studied at the University of his native city, choosing the law for his profession, but making music the occupation of his leisure hours,—the well-known contrapuntist, Türk, being his instructor in musical theory and composition. "He [Türk] soon saw whom he had before him, and told Marx at once that he was born to be a musician."[1]