Chapter 4

135. “As for me I prefer to set Homer, Klopstock, Schiller, to music; if it is difficult to do, these immortal poets at least deserve it.”

(To the directorate of the “Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde” of Vienna, January, 1824, in negotiations for an oratorio, “The Victory of the Cross” [which he had been commissioned to write by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. H. E. K.].)

136. “Goethe and Schiller are my favorite poets, as also Ossian and Homer, the latter of whom, unfortunately, I can read only in translation.”

(August 8, 1809, to Breitkopf and Hartel.)

137. “Who can sufficiently thank a great poet,--the most valuable jewel of a nation!”

(February 10, 1811, to Bettina von Arnim. The reference was to Goethe.)

138. “When you write to Goethe about me search out all the words which can express my deepest reverence and admiration. I am myself about to write to him about ‘Egmont’ for which I have composed the music, purely out of love for his poems which make me happy.”

(February 10, 1811, to Bettina von Arnim.)

139. “I would have gone to death, yes, ten times to death for Goethe. Then, when I was in the height of my enthusiasm, I thought out my ‘Egmont’ music. Goethe,--he lives and wants us all to live with him. It is for that reason that he can be composed. Nobody is so easily composed as he. But I do not like to compose songs.”

(To Rochlitz, in 1822, when Beethoven recalled Goethe’s amiability in Teplitz.)

140. “Goethe is too fond of the atmosphere of the court; fonder than becomes a poet. There is little room for sport over the absurdities of the virtuosi, when poets, who ought to be looked upon as the foremost teachers of the nation, can forget everything else in the enjoyment of court glitter.”

(Franzensbrunn, August 9, 1812, to Gottfried Hartel of Leipzig.)

141. “When two persons like Goethe and I meet these grand folk must be made to see what our sort consider great.”

(August 15, 1812, in a description of how haughtily he, and how humbly Goethe, had behaved in the presence of the Imperial court.)

142. “Since that summer in Carlsbad I read Goethe every day,--when I read at all.”

(Remarked to Rochlitz.)

143. “Goethe ought not to write more; he will meet the fate of the singers. Nevertheless he will remain the foremost poet of Germany.”

(Conversationbook, 1818.)

144. “Can you lend me the ‘Theory of Colors’ for a few weeks? It is an important work. His last things are insipid.”

(Conversation-book, 1820.)

145. “After all the fellow writes for money only.”

(Reported by Schindler as having been said by Beethoven when, on his death-bed, he angrily threw a book of Walter Scott’s aside.)

146. “He, too, then, is nothing better than an ordinary man! Now he will trample on all human rights only to humor his ambition; he will place himself above all others,--become a tyrant!”

(With these words, as testified to by Ries, an eye-witness, Beethoven tore the title-page from the score of his “Eroica” symphony (which bore a dedication to Bonaparte) when the news reached him that Napoleon had declared himself emperor.)

147. “I believe that so long as the Austrian has his brown beer and sausage he will not revolt.”

(To Simrock, publisher, in Bonn, August 2, 1794.)

148. “Why do you sell nothing but music? Why did you not long ago follow my well-meant advice? Do get wise, and find your raison. Instead of a hundred-weight of paper order genuine unwatered Regensburger, float this much-liked article of trade down the Danube, serve it in measures, half-measures and seidels at cheap prices, throw in at intervals sausages, rolls, radishes, butter and cheese, invite the hungry and thirsty with letters an ell long on a sign: ‘Musical Beer House,’ and you will have so many guests at all hours of the day that one will hold the door open for the other and your office will never be empty.”

(To Haslinger, the music publisher, when the latter had complained about the indifference of the Viennese to music.)

ON EDUCATION

Beethoven’s observations on this subject were called out by his experiences in securing an education for his nephew Karl, son of his like-named brother, a duty which devolved on him on the death of his brother in the winter of 1815. He loved his nephew almost to idolatry, and hoped that he would honor the name of Beethoven in the future. But there was a frivolous vein in Karl, inherited probably from his mother, who was on easy footing with morality both before and after her husband’s death. She sought with all her might to rid her son of the guardianship of his uncle. Karl was sent to various educational institutions and to these Beethoven sent many letters containing advice and instructions. The nephew grew to be more and more a care, not wholly without fault of the master. His passionate nature led to many quarrels between the two, all of which were followed by periods of extravagant fondness. Karl neglected his studies, led a frivolous life, was fond of billiards and the coffee-houses which were then generally popular, and finally, in the summer of 1826, made an attempt at suicide in the Helenental near Baden, which caused his social ostracism. When he was found he cried out: “I went to the bad because my uncle wanted to better me.”

Beethoven succeeded in persuading Baron von Stutterheim, commander of an infantry regiment at Iglau, to accept him as an aspirant for military office. In later life he became a respected official and man. So Beethoven himself was vouchsafed only an ill regulated education. His dissolute father treated him now harshly, now gently. His mother, who died early, was a silent sufferer, had thoroughly understood her son, and to her his love was devotion itself. He labored unwearyingly at his own intellectual and moral advancement until his death.

It seems difficult to reconcile his almost extravagant estimate of the greatest possible liberty in the development of man with his demands for strict constraint to which he frequently gives expression; but he had recognized that it is necessary to grow out of restraint into liberty. His model as a sensitive and sympathetic educator was his motherly friend, the wife of Court Councillor von Breuning in Bonn, of whom he once said: “She knew how to keep the insects off the blossoms.”

Beethoven’s views on musical education are to be found in the chapters “On Composition” and “On Performing Music.”

149. “Like the State, each man must have his own constitution.”

(Diary, 1815.)

150. “Recommend virtue to your children; that, alone can bring happiness; not wealth,--I speak from experience. It was virtue alone that bore me up in my misery; to her and my art I owe that I did not end my life by self-murder.”

(October 6, 1802, to his brothers Karl and Johann [the so-called Heiligenstadt Will].)

151. “I know no more sacred duty than to rear and educate a child.”

(January 7, 1820, in a communication to the Court of Appeals in the suit touching the guardianship of his nephew Karl.)

152. “Nature’s weaknesses are nature’s endowments; reason, the guide, must seek to lead and lessen them.”

(Diary, 1817.)

153. “It is man’s habit to hold his fellow man in esteem because he committed no greater errors.”

(May 6, 1811, to Breitkopf and Hartel, in a letter complaining of faulty printing in some of his compositions.)

154. “There is nothing more efficient in enforcing obedience upon others than the belief on their part that you are wiser than they...Without tears fathers can not inculcate virtue in their children, or teachers learning and wisdom in their pupils; even the laws, by compelling tears from the citizens, compel them also to strive for justice.”

(Diary, 1815.)

155. “It is only becoming in a youth to combine his duties toward education and advancement with those which he owes to his benefactor and supporter; this I did toward my parents.”

(May 19, 1825, to his nephew Karl.)

156. “You can not honor the memory of your father better than to continue your studies with the greatest zeal, and strive to become an honest and excellent man.”

(To his nephew, 1816-18.)

157. “Let your conduct always be amiable; through art and science the best and noblest of men are bound together and your future vocation will not exclude you.”

(Baden, July 18, 1825, to his nephew, who had decided to become a merchant.)

158. “It is very true that a drop will hollow a stone; a thousand lovely impressions are obliterated when children are placed in wooden institutions while they might receive from their parents the most soulful impressions which would continue to exert their influence till the latest age.”

(Diary, spring of 1817. Beethoven was dissatisfied with Giannatasio’s school in which he had placed his nephew. “Karl is a different child after he has been with me a few hours” (Diary). In 1826, after the attempt at suicide, Beethoven said to Breuning: “My Karl was in an institute; educational institutions furnish forth only hot house plants.”)

159. “Drops of water wear away a stone in time, not by force but by continual falling. Only through tireless industry are the sciences achieved so that one can truthfully say: no day without its line,--nulla dies sine linea.”

(1799, in a sketch for a theoretical handbook for Archduke Rudolph.)

ON HIS OWN DISPOSITION AND CHARACTER

So open-hearted and straightforward a character as Beethoven could not have pictured himself with less reserve or greater truthfulness than he did during his life. Frankness toward himself, frankness toward others (though sometimes it went to the extreme of rudeness and ill-breeding) was his motto. The joyous nature which was his as a lad, and which was not at all averse to a merry prank now and then, underwent a change when he began to lose his hearing. The dread of deafness and its consequences drove him nearly to despair, so that he sometimes contemplated suicide. Increasing hardness of hearing gradually made him reserved, morose and gloomy. With the progress of the malady his disposition and character underwent a decided change,--a fact which may be said to account for the contradictions in his conduct and utterances. It made him suspicious, distrustful; in his later years he imagined himself cheated and deceived in the most trifling matters by relatives, friends, publishers, servants.

Nevertheless Beethoven’s whole soul was filled with a high idealism which penetrated through the miseries of his daily life; it was full, too, of a great love toward humanity in general and his unworthy nephew in particular. Towards his publishers he often appeared covetous and grasping, seeking to rake and scrape together all the money possible; but this was only for the purpose of assuring the future of his nephew. At the same time, in a merry moment, he would load down his table with all that kitchen and cellar could provide, for the reflection of his friends. Thus he oscillated continuously between two extremes; but the power which swung the pendulum was always the aural malady. He grew peevish and capricious towards his best friends, rude, even brutal at times in his treatment of them; only in the next moment to overwhelm them most pathetically with attentions. Till the end of his life he remained a sufferer from his passionate disposition over which he gradually obtained control until, at the end, one could almost speak of a sunny clarification of his nature.

He has heedlessly been accused of having led a dissolute life, of having been an intemperate drinker. There would be no necessity of contradicting such a charge even if there were a scintilla of evidence to support it; a drinker is not necessarily a dishonorable man, least of all a musician who drinks. But, the fact of the matter is that it is not true. If once Beethoven wrote a merry note about merrymaking with friends, let us rejoice that occasions did sometimes occur, though but rarely, when the heart of the sufferer was temporarily gladdened.

He was a strict moralist, as is particularly evidenced by the notes in his journal which have not been made public. In many things which befell him in his daily life he was as ingenuous as a child. His personality, on the whole, presented itself in such a manner as to invite the intellectual and social Philistine to call him a fool.

160. “I shall print a request in all the newspapers that henceforth all artists refrain from painting my picture without my knowledge; I never thought that my own face would bring me embarrassment.”

(About 1803, to Christine Gerardi, because without his knowledge a portrait of him had been made somewhere--in a cafe, probably.)

161. “Pity that I do not understand the art of war as well as I do the art of music; I should yet conquer Napoleon!”

(To Krumpholz, the violinist, when he informed Beethoven of the victory of Napoleon at Jena.)

162. “If I were a general and knew as much about strategy as I, a composer, know about counterpoint, I’d give you fellows something to do.”

(Called out behind the back of a French officer, his fist doubled, on May 12, 1809, when the French had occupied Vienna. Reported by a witness, W. Rust.)

163. “Camillus, if I am not mistaken, was the name of the Roman who drove the wicked Gauls from Rome. At such a cost I would also take the name if I could drive them wherever I found them to where they belong.”

(To Pleyel, publisher, in Paris, April, 1807.)

164. “I love most the realm of mind which, to me, is the highest of all spiritual and temporal monarchies.”

(To Advocate Kauka in the summer of 1814. He had been speaking about the monarchs represented in the Congress of Vienna.)

165. “I shall not come in person, since that would be a sort of farewell, and farewells I have always avoided.”

(January 24, 1818, to Giannatasio del Rio, on taking his nephew Karl out of the latter institute.)

166. “I hope still to bring a few large works into the world, and then, like an old child, to end my earthly career somewhere among good people.”

(October 6, 1802, to Wegeler.)

167. “O ye men, who think or declare me to be hostile, morose or misanthropical, what injustice ye do me. Ye know not the secret cause of what thus appears to you. My heart and mind were from childhood disposed for the tender feelings of benevolence; I was always wishing to accomplish great deeds.”

(October 6, 1802, in the so-called Heiligenstadt Will.)

168. “Divinity, thou lookest into my heart, thou knowest it, thou knowest that love for mankind and a desire to do good have their abode there. O ye men, when one day ye read this think that ye have wronged me, and may the unfortunate console himself with the thought that he has found one of his kind who, despite all the obstacles which nature put in his path, yet did all in his power to be accepted in the ranks of worthy artists and men!”

(From the Heiligenstadt Will.)

169. “I spend all my mornings with the muses;--and they bless me also in my walks.”

(October 12, 1835, to his nephew Karl.)

170. “Concerning myself nothing,--that is, from nothing nothing.”

(October 19, 1815, to Countess Erdody.)

[A possible allusion to the line, “Nothing can come of nothing.” from Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” Act 1, scene 1]

171. “Beethoven can write, thank God; but do nothing else on earth.”

(December 22, 1822, to Ferdinand Ries, in London.)

172. “Mentally I often frame an answer, but when I come to write it down I generally throw the pen aside, since I am not able to write what I feel.”

(October 7, 1826, to his friend Wegeler, in Coblenz. “The better sort of people, I think, know me anyhow.” He is excusing his laziness in letter-writing.)

173. “I have the gift to conceal my sensitiveness touching a multitude of things; but when I am provoked at a moment when I am more sensitive than usual to anger, I burst out more violently than anybody else.”

(July 24, 1804, to Ries, in reporting to him a quarrel with Stephan von Breuning.)

174. “X. is completely changed since I threw half a dozen books at her head. Perhaps something of their contents accidentally got into her head or her wicked heart.”

(To Mme. Streicher, who often had to put Beethoven’s house in order.)

175. “I can have no intercourse, and do not want to have any, with persons who are not willing to believe in me because I have not yet made a wide reputation.”

(To Prince Lobkowitz, about 1798. A cavalier had failed to show him proper respect in the Prince’s salon.)

176. “Many a vigorous and unconsidered word drops from my mouth, for which reason I am considered mad.”

(In the summer of 1880, to Dr. Muller, of Bremen, who was paying him a visit.)

177. “I will grapple with Fate; it shall not quite bear me down. O, it is lovely to live life a thousand times!”

(November 16, 1800, or 1801, to Wegeler.)

178. “Morality is the strength of men who distinguish themselves over others, and it is mine.”

(In a communication to his friend, Baron Zmeskall.)

179. “I, too, am a king!”

(Said to Holz, when the latter begged him not to sell the ring which King Frederick William III, of Prussia, had sent to him instead of money or an order in return for the dedication of the ninth symphony. “Master, keep the ring,” Holz had said, “it is from a king.” Beethoven made his remark “with indescribable dignity and self-consciousness.”)

[On his deathbed he said to little Gerhard von Breuning: “Know that I am an artist.”]

[At the height of the popular infatuation for Rossini (1822) he said to his friends: “Well, they will not be able to rob me of my place in the history of art.”]

180. “Prince, what you are you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am through my own efforts. There have been thousands of princes and will be thousands more; there is only one Beethoven!”

(According to tradition, from a letter which he wrote to Prince Lichnowsky when the latter attempted to persuade him to play for some French officers on his estate in Silesia. Beethoven went at night to Troppau, carrying the manuscript of the (so-called) “Appassionata” sonata, which suffered from the rain.)

181. “My nobility is here, and here (pointing to his heart and head).”

(Reported by Schindler. In the lawsuit against his sister-in-law (the mother of nephew Karl) Beethoven had been called on to prove that the “van” in his name was a badge of nobility.)

182. “You write that somebody has said that I am the natural son of the late King of Prussia. The same thing was said to me long ago, but I have made it a rule never to write anything about myself or answer anything that is said about me.”

(October 7, 1826, to Wegeler.)

[“I leave it to you to give the world an account of myself and especially my mother.” The statement had appeared in Brockhaus’s “Lexicon.”]

183. “To me the highest thing, after God, is my honor.”

(July 26, 1822, to the publisher Peters, in Leipzig.)

184. “I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must out; that is the reason why I compose.”

(Remark to Karl Czerny, reported in his autobiography.)

185. “I do not desire that you shall esteem me greater as an artist, but better and more perfect as a man; when the condition of our country is somewhat better, then my art shall be devoted to the welfare of the poor.”

(Vienna, June 29, 1800, to Wegeler, in Bonn, writing of his return to his native land.)

186. “Perhaps the only thing that looks like genius about me is that my affairs are not always in the best of order, and that in this respect nobody can be of help but myself.”

(April 22, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig excusing himself for dilatoriness in sending him these compositions: the Pianoforte sonata op. 22, the symphony op. 21, the septet op. 20 and the concerto op. 19.)

187. “I am free from all small vanities. Only in the divine art is the lever which gives me power to sacrifice the best part of my life to the celestial muses.”

(September 9, 1824, to George Nigeli, in Zurich.)

188. “Inasmuch as the purpose of the undersigned throughout his career has not been selfish but the promotion of the interests of art, the elevation of popular taste and the flight of his own genius toward loftier ideals and perfection, it was inevitable that he should frequently sacrifice his own advantages and profit to the muse.”

(December, 1804, to the Director of the Court Theatre, applying for an engagement which was never effected.)

189. “From my earliest childhood my zeal to serve suffering humanity with my art was never content with any kind of a subterfuge; and no other reward is needed than the internal satisfaction which always accompanies such a deed.”

(To Procurator Varenna, who had asked him for compositions to be played at a charity concert in Graz.)

190. “There is no greater pleasure for me than to practice and exhibit my art.”

(November 16, 1800, or 1801, to Wegeler.)

191. “I recognize no other accomplishments or advantages than those which place one amongst the better class of men; where I find them, there is my home.”

(Teplitz, July 17, 1812, to his little admirer, Emile M., in H.)

192. “From childhood I learned to love virtue, and everything beautiful and good.”

(About 1808, to Frau Marie Bigot.)

193. “It is one of my foremost principles never to occupy any other relations than those of friendship with the wife of another man. I should never want to fill my heart with distrust towards those who may chance some day to share my fate with me, and thus destroy the loveliest and purest life for myself.”

(About 1808, to Frau Marie Bigot, after she had declined his invitation to drive with him.)

194. “In my solitude here I miss my roommate, at least at evening and noon, when the human animal is obliged to assimilate that which is necessary to the production of the intellectual, and which I prefer to do in company with another.”

(Teplitz, September 6, 1811, to Tiedge.)

195. “It was not intentional and premeditated malice which led me to act toward you as I did; it was my unpardonable carelessness.”

(To Wegeler.)

196. “I am not bad; hot blood is my wickedness, my crime is youthfulness. I am not bad, really not bad; even though wild surges often accuse my heart, it still is good. To do good wherever we can, to love liberty above all things, and never to deny truth though it be at the throne itself.--Think occasionally of the friend who honors you.”

(Written in the autograph album of a Herr Bocke.)

197. “It is a singular sensation to see and hear one’s self praised, and then to be conscious of one’s own imperfections as I am. I always regard such occasions as admonitions to get nearer the unattainable goal set for us by art and nature, hard as it may be.”

(To Mdlle. de Girardi, who had sung his praises in a poem.)

198. “It is my sincere desire that whatever shall be said of me hereafter shall adhere strictly to the truth in every respect regardless of who may be hurt thereby, me not excepted.”

(Reported by Schindler, who also relates that when Beethoven handed him documents to be used in the biography a week before his death, he said to him and Breuning: “But in all things severely the truth; for that I hold you to a strict accountability.”)

199. “Now you can help me to find a wife. If you find a beautiful woman in F. who, mayhap, endows my music with a sigh,--but she must be no Elise Burger--make a provisional engagement. But she must be beautiful, for I can love only the beautiful; otherwise I might love myself.”

(In 1809, to Baron von Gleichenstein. As for the personal reference it seems likely that Beethoven referred to Elise Burger, second wife of the poet G. August Burger, with whom he had got acquainted after she had been divorced and become an elocutionist.)

200. “Am I not a true friend? Why do you conceal your necessities from me? No friend of mine must suffer so long as I have anything.”

(To Ferdinand Ries, in 1801. Ries’s father had been kind to Beethoven on the death of his mother in 1787.)