Chapter 3

[PG Editor’s Note: #79 was skipped in the 1905 edition--error?]

ON HIS OWN WORKS

80. “I haven’t a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music,--it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them.”

(To Bettina von Arnim. [Bettina’s letter to Goethe, May 28, 1810.])

81. “The variations will prove a little difficult to play, particularly the trills in the coda; but let that not frighten you. It is so disposed that you need play only the trills, omitting the other notes because they are also in the violin part. I would never have written a thing of this kind had I not often noticed here and there in Vienna a man who after I had improvised of an evening would write down some of my peculiarities and make boast of them next day. Foreseeing that these things would soon appear in print I made up my mind to anticipate them. Another purpose which I had was to embarrass the local pianoforte masters. Many of them are my mortal enemies, and I wanted to have my revenge in this way, for I knew in advance that the variations would be put before them, and that they would make exhibitions of themselves.”

(Vienna, November 2, 1793, to Eleonore von Breuning, in dedicating to her the variations in F major, “Se vuol ballare.” [The pianist whom Beethoven accuses of stealing his thunder was Abbe Gelinek.])

82. “The time in which I wrote my sonatas (the first ones of the second period) was more poetical than the present (1823); such hints were therefore unnecessary. Every one at that time felt in the Largo of the third sonata in D (op. 10) the pictured soulstate of a melancholy being, with all the nuances of light and shade which occur in a delineation of melancholy and its phases, without requiring a key in the shape of a superscription; and everybody then saw in the two sonatas (op. 14) the picture of a contest between two principles, or a dialogue between two persons, because it was so obvious.”

(In answer to Schindler’s question why he had not indicated the poetical conceits underlying his sonatas by superscriptions or titles.)

83. “This sonata has a clean face (literally: ‘has washed itself’), my dear brother!”

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, publisher in Leipzig to whom he offers the sonata, op. 22, for 20 ducats.)

84. “They are incessantly talking about the C-sharp minor sonata (op. 27, No. 2); on my word I have written better ones. The F-sharp major sonata (op. 78) is a different thing!”

(A remark to Czerny.)

[The C-sharp minor sonata is that popularly known as the “Moonlight Sonata,” a title which is wholly without warrant. Its origin is due to Rellstab, who, in describing the first movement, drew a picture of a small boat in the moonlight on Lake Lucerne. In Vienna a tradition that Beethoven had composed it in an arbor gave rise to the title “Arbor sonata.” Titles of this character work much mischief in the amateur mind by giving rise to fantastic conceptions of the contents of the music. H. E. K.]

85. “The thing which my brother can have from me is 1, a Septett per il Violino, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabasso, Clarinetto, Cornto, Fagotto, tutti obligati; for I can not write anything that is not obligato, having come into the world with obligato accompaniment.”

(December 15, 1800, to Hofmeister, publisher, in Leipzig.)

86. “I am but little satisfied with my works thus far; from today I shall adopt a new course.”

(Reported by Carl Czerny in his autobiography in 1842. Concerning the time at which the remark was made, Czerny says: “It was said about 1803, when B. had composed op. 28 (the pianoforte sonata in D) to his friend Krumpholz (a violinist). Shortly afterward there appeared the sonatas (now op. 31) in which a partial fulfillment of his resolution may be observed.”)

87. “Read Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest.’”

(An answer to Schindler’s question as to what poetical conceit underlay the sonatas in F minor. Beethoven used playfully to call the little son of Breuning, the friend of his youth, A&Z, because he employed him often as a messenger.)

[“Schindler relates that when once he asked Beethoven to tell him what the F minor and D minor (op. 31, No. 2) meant, he received for an answer only the enigmatical remark: ‘Read Shakespeare’s “Tempest.”’ Many a student and commentator has since read the ‘Tempest’ in the hope of finding a clew to the emotional contents which Beethoven believed to be in the two works, so singularly associated, only to find himself baffled. It is a fancy, which rests, perhaps, too much on outward things, but still one full of suggestion, that had Beethoven said: ‘Hear my C minor symphony,’ he would have given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven himself said, indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the third, is interrupted by a period of calm, reassuring, soul-fortifying aspiration, which, in the symphony as well as in the sonata, takes the form of a theme with variations.”--“How to Listen to Music,” page 29. H. E. K.]

88. “Sinfonia Pastorella. He who has ever had a notion of country life can imagine for himself without many superscriptions what the composer is after. Even without a description the whole, which is more sentiment than tone painting, will be recognized.”

(A note among the sketches for the “Pastoral” symphony preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin.)

[There are other notes of similar import among the sketches referred to which can profitably be introduced here:

“The hearer should be allowed to discover the situations;”

“Sinfonia caracteristica, or a recollection of country life;”

“Pastoral Symphony: No picture, but something in which the emotions are expressed which are aroused in men by the pleasure of the country (or) in which some feelings of country life are set forth.”

When, finally, the work was given to the publisher, Beethoven included in the title an admonitory explanation which should have everlasting validity: “Pastoral Symphony: more expression of feeling than painting.” H. E. K.]

89. “My ‘Fidelio’ was not understood by the public, but I know that it will yet be appreciated; for though I am well aware of the value of my ‘Fidelio’ I know just as well that the symphony is my real element. When sounds ring in me I always hear the full orchestra; I can ask anything of instrumentalists, but when writing for the voice I must continually ask myself: ‘Can that be sung?’

(A remark made in 1823 or 1824 to Griesinger.)

90. “Thus Fate knocks at the portals!”

(Reported by Schindler as Beethoven’s explanation of the opening of the symphony in C minor.)

[“Hofrath Kueffner told him (Krenn) that he once lived with Beethoven in Heiligenstadt, and that they were in the habit evenings of going down to Nussdorf to eat a fish supper in the Gasthaus ‘Zur Rose.’ One evening when B. was in a good humor, Kueffner began: `Tell me frankly which is your favorite among your symphonies?’ B. (in good humor) ‘Eh! Eh! The Eroica.’ K. ‘I should have guessed the C minor.’ B. ‘No; the Eroica.’” From Thayer’s notebook. See “Music and Manners in the Classical Period.” H.E.K.]

91. “The solo sonatas (op. 109-ll?) are perhaps the best, but also the last, music that I composed for the pianoforte. It is and always will be an unsatisfactory instrument. I shall hereafter follow the example of my grandmaster Handel, and every year write only an oratorio and a concerto for some string or wind instrument, provided I shall have finished my tenth symphony (C minor) and Requiem.”

(Reported by Holz. As to the tenth symphony see note to No. 95.)

92. “God knows why it is that my pianoforte music always makes the worst impression on me, especially when it is played badly.”

(June 2, 1804. A note among the sketches for the “Leonore” overture.)

93. “Never did my own music produce such an effect upon me; even now when I recall this work it still costs me a tear.”

(Reported by Holz. The reference is to the Cavatina from the quartet in B-flat, op. 130, which Beethoven thought the crown of all quartet movements and his favorite composition. When alone and undisturbed he was fond of playing his favorite pianoforte Andante--that from the sonata op. 28.)

94. “I do not write what I most desire to, but that which I need to because of money. But this is not saying that I write only for money. When the present period is past, I hope at last to write that which is the highest thing for me as well as art,--‘Faust.’”

(From a conversation-book used in 1823. To Buhler, tutor in the house of a merchant, who was seeking information about an oratorio which Beethoven had been commissioned to write by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston.)

95. “Ha! ‘Faust;’ that would be a piece of work! Something might come out of that! But for some time I have been big with three other large works. Much is already sketched out, that is, in my head. I must be rid of them first:--two large symphonies differing from each other, and each differing from all the others, and an oratorio. And this will take a long time, you see, for a considerable time I have had trouble to get myself to write. I sit and think, and think I’ve long had the thing, but it will not on the paper. I dread the beginning of these large works. Once into the work, and it goes.”

(In the summer of 1822, to Rochlitz, at Baden. The symphonies referred to are the ninth and tenth. They existed only in Beethoven’s mind and a few sketches. In it he intended to combine antique and modern views of life.)

[“In the text Greek mythology, cantique ecclesiastique; in the Allegro, a Bacchic festival.” (Sketchbook of 1818)]

[The oratorio was to have been called “The Victory of the Cross.” It was not written. Schindler wrote to Moscheles in London about Beethoven in the last weeks of his life: “He said much about the plan of the tenth symphony. As the work had shaped itself in his imagination it might have become a musical monstrosity, compared with which his other symphonies would have been mere opuscula.”]

ON ART AND ARTISTS

96. “How eagerly mankind withdraws from the poor artist what it has once given him;--and Zeus, from whom one might ask an invitation to sup on ambrosia, lives no longer.”

(In the summer of 1814, to Kauka, an advocate who represented him in the lawsuit against the heirs of Kinsky.)

97. “I love straightforwardness and uprightness, and believe that the artist ought not to be belittled; for, alas! brilliant as fame is externally, it is not always the privilege of the artist to be Jupiter’s guest on Olympus all the time. Unfortunately vulgar humanity drags him down only too often and too rudely from the pure upper ether.”

(June 5, 1852, to C. F. Peters, music publisher, in Leipzig when treating with him touching a complete edition of his works.)

98. “The true artist has no pride; unhappily he realizes that art has no limitations, he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and while, perhaps he is admired by others, he grieves that he has not yet reached the point where the better genius shall shine before him like a distant sun.”

(Teplitz, July 17, to an admirer ten years old.)

99. “You yourself know what a change is wrought by a few years in the case of an artist who is continually pushing forward. The greater the progress which one makes in art, the less is one satisfied with one’s old works.”

(Vienna, August 4, 1800, to Mathisson, in the dedication of his setting of “Adelaide.” “My most ardent wish will be fulfilled if you are not displeased with the musical composition of your heavenly ‘Adelaide.’”)

100. “Those composers are exemplars who unite nature and art in their works.”

(Baden, in 1824, to Freudenberg, organist from Breslau.)

101. “What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lauded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and, more’s the pity, the fashions of time, only that which is good and true, will endure like a rock, and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might toward the goal which can never be attained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which a gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn; for ‘Life is short, art eternal!’”

(From the notes in the instruction book of Archduke Rudolph.)

102. “Famous artists always labor under an embarrassment;--therefore first works are the best, though they may have sprung out of dark ground.”

(Conversation-book of 1840.)

103. “A musician is also a poet; he also can feel himself transported by a pair of eyes into another and more beautiful world where greater souls make sport of him and set him right difficult tasks.”

(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)

104. “I told Goethe my opinion as to how applause affects men like us, and that we want our equals to hear us understandingly! Emotion suits women only; music ought to strike fire from the soul of a man.”

(August 15, 1810, to Bettina von Arnim.)

105. “Most people are touched by anything good; but they do not partake of the artist’s nature; artists are ardent, they do not weep.”

(Reported to Goethe by Bettina von Arnim, May 28, 1810.)

106. “L’art unit tout le monde,--how much more the true artist!”

(March 15, 1823, to Cherubini, in Paris.)

107. “Only the artist, or the free scholar, carries his happiness within him.”

(Reported by Karl von Bursy as part of a conversation in 1816.)

108. “There ought to be only one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is one must be half a tradesman.”

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)

BEETHOVEN AS CRITIC

The opinion of artist on artists is a dubious quantity. Recall the startling criticisms of Bocklin on his associates in art made public by the memoirs of his friends after his death. Such judgments are often one-sided, not without prejudice, and mostly the expression of impulse. It is a different matter when the artist speaks about the disciples of another art than his own, even if the opinions which Bocklin and Wagner held of each other are not a favorable example. Where Beethoven speaks of other composers we must read with clear and open eyes; but even here there will be much with which we can be in accord, especially his judgment on Rossini, whom he hated so intensely, and whose airy, sense-bewitching art seduced the Viennese from Beethoven. Interesting and also characteristic of the man is the attitude which he adopted towards the poets of his time. In general he estimated his contemporaries as highly as they deserved.

109. “Do not tear the laurel wreaths from the heads of Handel, Haydn and Mozart; they belong to them,--not yet to me.”

(Teplitz, July 17, 1852, to his ten-year-old admirer, Emilie M., who had given him a portfolio made by herself.)

110. “Pure church music ought to be performed by voices only, except a ‘Gloria,’ or some similar text. For this reason I prefer Palestrina; but it is folly to imitate him without having his genius and religious views; it would be difficult, if not impossible, too, for the singers of today to sing his long notes in a sustained and pure manner.”

(To Freudenberg, in 1824.)

111. “Handel is the unattained master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means.”

(Reported by Seyfried. On his death-bed, about the middle of February, 1827, he said to young Gerhard von Breuning, on receiving Handel’s works: “Handel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I can still learn. Bring me the books!”)

112. “Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel on his grave.”

(Fall of 1823, to J. A. Stumpff, harp maker of London, who acted very nobly toward Beethoven in his last days. It was he who rejoiced the dying composer by sending him the forty volumes of Handel’s works (see 111).)

[“Cipriani Potter, to A. W. T., February 27, 1861. Beethoven used to walk across the fields to Vienna very often. B. would stop, look about and express his love for nature. One day Potter asked: ‘Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?’ Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed: ‘Cherubini!’ Potter went on: ‘And of dead authors?’ B.--He had always considered Mozart as such, but since he had been made acquainted with Handel he put him at the head.” From A. W. Thayer’s notebook, reprinted in “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” page 208. H.E.K.]

113. “Heaven forbid that I should take a journal in which sport is made of the manes of such a revered one.”

(Conversation-book of 1825, in reference to a criticism of Handel.)

114. “That you are going to publish Sebastian Bach’s works is something which does good to my heart, which beats in love of the great and lofty art of this ancestral father of harmony; I want to see them soon.”

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)

115. “Of Emanuel Bach’s clavier works I have only a few, yet they must be not only a real delight to every true artist, but also serve him for study purposes; and it is for me a great pleasure to play works that I have never seen, or seldom see, for real art lovers.”

(July 26, 1809, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig in ordering all the scores of Haydn, Mozart and the two Bachs.)

116. “See, my dear Hummel, the birthplace of Haydn. I received it as a gift today, and it gives me great pleasure. A mean peasant hut, in which so great a man was born!”

(Remarked on his death-bed to his friend Hummel.)

117. “I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death.”

(February 6, 1886, to Abbe Maximilian Stadler, who had sent him his essay on Mozart’s “Requiem.”)

118. “Cramer, Cramer! We shall never be able to compose anything like that!”

(To Cramer, after the two had heard Mozart’s concerto in C-minor at a concert in the Augarten.)

119. “‘Die Zauberflote’ will always remain Mozart’s greatest work, for in it he for the first time showed himself to be a German musician. ‘Don Juan’ still has the complete Italian cut; besides our sacred art ought never permit itself to be degraded to the level of a foil for so scandalous a subject.”

(A remark reported by Seyfried.)

[“Hozalka says that in 1820-21, as near as he can recollect, the wife of a Major Baumgarten took boy boarders in the house then standing where the Musikverein’s Saal now is, and that Beethoven’s nephew was placed with her. Her sister, Baronin Born, lived with her. One evening Hozalka, then a young man, called there and found only Baronin Born at home. Soon another caller came and stayed to tea. It was Beethoven. Among other topics Mozart came on the tapis, and the Born asked Beethoven (in writing, of course) which of Mozart’s operas he thought most of. ‘Die Zauberflote’ said Beethoven, and, suddenly clasping his hands and throwing up his eyes, exclaimed: ‘Oh, Mozart!’” From A. W. Thayer’s notebooks, reprinted in “Music and Manners in the Classical Period,” page 198. H. E. K.]

120. “Say all conceivable pretty things to Cherubini,--that there is nothing I so ardently desire as that we should soon get another opera from him, and that of all our contemporaries I have the highest regard for him.”

(May 6, 1823, to Louis Schlasser, afterward chapel master in Darmstadt, who was about to undertake a journey to Paris. See note to No. 112.)

121. “Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the ‘Requiem,’ and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things.”

(Remark reported by Seyfried. See No. 112.)

122. “Whoever studies Clementi thoroughly has simultaneously also learned Mozart and other authors; inversely, however, this is not the case.”

(Reported by Schindler.)

123. “There is much good in Spontini; he understands theatrical effect and martial noises admirably.

“Spohr is so rich in dissonances; pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody.

“His name ought not to be Bach (brook), but Ocean, because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of tonal combinations and harmonies. Bach is the ideal of an organist.”

(In Baden, 1824, to Freudenberg.)

124. “The little man, otherwise so gentle,--I never would have credited him with such a thing. Now Weber must write operas in earnest, one after the other, without caring too much for refinement! Kaspar, the monster, looms up like a house; wherever the devil sticks in his claw we feel it.”

(To Rochlitz, at Baden, in the summer of 1823.)

125. “There you are, you rascal; you’re a devil of a fellow, God bless you!... Weber, you always were a fine fellow.”

(Beethoven’s hearty greeting to Karl Maria von Weber, in October, 1823.)

126. “K. M. Weber began too learn too late; art did not have a chance to develop naturally in him, and his single and obvious striving is to appear brilliant.”

(A remark reported by Seyfried.)

127. “‘Euryanthe’ is an accumulation of diminished seventh chords--all little backdoors!”

(Remarked to Schindler about Weber’s opera.)

128. “Truly, a divine spark dwells in Schubert!”

(Said to Schindler when the latter made him acquainted with the “Songs of Ossian,” “Die Junge Nonne,” “Die Burgschaft,” of Schubert’s “Grenzen der Menschheit,” and other songs.)

129. “There is nothing in Meyerbeer; he hasn’t the courage to strike at the right time.”

(To Tomaschek, in October, 1814, in a conversation about the “Battle of Victoria,” at the performance of which, in 1813, Meyerbeer had played the big drum.)

130. “Rossini is a talented and a melodious composer, his music suits the frivolous and sensuous spirit of the times, and his productivity is such that he needs only as many weeks as the Germans do years to write an opera.”

(In 1824, at Baden, to Freudenberg.)

131. “This rascal Rossini, who is not respected by a single master of his art!”

(Conversation-book, 1825.)

132. “Rossini would have become a great composer if his teacher had frequently applied some blows ad posteriora.”

(Reported by Schindler. Beethoven had been reading the score of “Il Barbiere di Siviglia.”)

133. “The Bohemians are born musicians. The Italians ought to take them as models. What have they to show for their famous conservatories? Behold! their idol, Rossini! If Dame Fortune had not given him a pretty talent and amiable melodies by the bushel, what he learned at school would have brought him nothing but potatoes for his big belly.”

(In a conversation-book at Haslinger’s music shop, where Beethoven frequently visited.)

136. “Goethe has killed Klopstock for me. You wonder? Now you laugh? Ah, because I have read Klopstock. I carried him about with me for years when I walked. What besides? Well, I didn’t always understand him. He skips about so; and he always begins so far away, above or below; always Maestoso! D-flat major! Isn’t, it so? But he’s great, nevertheless, and uplifts the soul. When I couldn’t understand him I sort of guessed at him.”

(To Rochlitz, in 1822.)