Part 10

At that time Bonn was a sleepy town of about 10,000 inhabitants, who were chiefly priests and people of the court. There were no factories; there was no garrison, and the only soldiers were the body guard of the elector. The theatre was in a wing of the palace. Strolling companies tarried there for a season. Concerts, or "academies," as they were called, were given in a handsome hall. The musicians lived bunched together in a quarter of the town. Franz Ries, the violinist; the horn player, Simrock, the founder of the publishing house; the singing daughters of Salomon;--these worthy people were neighbors of the Beethovens. There were many skilled amateurs in society. The Elector himself was passionately fond of music; he played the viola and the pianoforte.

There is a story that in 1781, Ludwig made a concert tour in Holland, or at least played in Rotterdam, but, with this possible exception, he did not leave Bonn from his birth until the spring of 1787, and then he went to Vienna. The Elector probably paid the expenses, and he gave him a letter to Mozart. This great composer was apt to look askew at any infant phenomenon. He listened at first impatiently to the playing of Beethoven, but when the latter invented a fantasia on a given theme, Mozart said to the hearers, "Pay attention to this youngster; he will make a noise in the world, one of these days." He gave the boy a few lessons. There is a story that Beethoven also met the Emperor Joseph. His stay was cut short by lack of money and the news that his mother was dying. In July, Franz Ries paid her burial expenses. Johann kept on drinking, and his son, who was now the head of the house, rescued him occasionally from the hands of the police. In 1789 it was decreed that a portion of the father's salary should be paid to the son, and December 18, 1792, the unfortunate man died. The Elector, in a letter to Marshall Schall, pronounced this funeral oration: "Beethoven is dead; it is a serious loss to the duties on spirits."

Ludwig looked after the education of his brothers; Caspar learned music, and Johann was put under the Court Apothecary. And now he found devoted friends in Count Waldstein and the Breuning family. The widow von Breuning was a woman of society, accomplished and kind-hearted. She was one of the few people who had an influence over the actions of Beethoven, and her influence was no doubt strengthened by the sweetness of her daughter Eleonore. He gave Eleonore lessons, and she in turn acquainted him with the German poets, and Homer and Shakespeare. Was he in love with her? We know that he was of amorous temperament. Dr. Wegeler, Stephen von Breuning, Ries, Romberg, all bear witness that he was never without an object of passion in his heart. Mr. Thayer says that we have no proof that Beethoven loved her, but such affairs are not often matters for cross-examination and a jury. No doubt the susceptible young man was smitten deeply with every fair girl he met, and in the new-comer forgot the old flame. There was Miss Jeannette d'Honrath of Cologne; there was Miss Westerhold, whose eyes he remembered for forty years; nor must pretty Babette Koch be forgotten, the daughter of a tavern keeper, and afterward a Countess. And so he passed his days in music, conversation, and innocent pleasures. He went with the Elector to Mergentheim; at Aschaffenburg he played in friendly rivalry with the Abbé Sterkel. It was at Mergentheim that the modest and unassuming pianist touched hearts by his telling, suggestive, expressive improvisations; for so Chaplain Junker bore record. In 1792, Haydn passed through Bonn on his return from London to Vienna, and praised a cantata by Beethoven on the succession of Leopold II., and in November of the same year Ludwig left Bonn for ever. The Elector realized the extent of his genius, and gave him a small pension. The political condition of France affected the Rhenish town; there was panic, and in October there was a general exodus. His many friends bade Beethoven warm God-speed, and Count Waldstein in a letter prayed him to receive "through unbroken industry from the hands of Haydn the spirit of Mozart." Nearly twenty-two, he was known chiefly by the remarkable facility of his extempore playing, and the record of his compositions during the Bonn period is insignificant. At the age of twenty-three, Mozart was famous as a writer of operas, symphonies, cantatas, and masses, and his pieces were in number about three hundred.

On his arrival at Vienna he bought clothing and took dancing lessons, that he might be an acceptable guest in houses to which he was recommended by Count Waldstein. He never was able to dance, by the way, for he could not keep step to the music. The 12th of December, he recorded the fact that he had only about $35. The Elector, fearing hard times, did not fulfill his first promises. Beethoven took a garret,--and afterwards moved to a room on the ground-floor--in a printer's house in the Alservorstadt; there he began a student-life of three years. He took lessons of Haydn, and although they drank coffee and chocolate at Beethoven's expense, the lessons were unsatisfactory. Haydn looked on the pupil as a musical atheist, who had not the fear of Fux before his eyes, and the pupil thought that Haydn was not diligent and that he did not correct carefully his mistakes. "It is true he gave me lessons," he once said to Ries, "but he taught me nothing." Then he took secretly lessons of Schenk, and when Haydn went to London in 1794, he put himself under the rigid disciplinarian Albrechtsberger. He studied with Salieri the art of writing for the voice and the stage. He also took lessons on the viola, violin, violoncello, clarinet and horn. There were a few exceptions, but Beethoven was unpopular with his masters. They considered him obstinate and arrogant. Haydn spoke of him as "the great Mogul"; Albrechtsberger once said, "He has learned nothing, and will never do anything in decent style." Nor was Beethoven's continual "_I_ say it is right" calculated to win the affection of his masters.

Meanwhile Beethoven made influential friends. Vienna at that time numbered about 250,000 inhabitants. The life was gay, even frivolous. Reichardt considered the city a most agreeable dwelling place for musicians. "You find there a rich, educated, and hospitable aristocracy, devoted to music; the middle class is wealthy and intelligent; and the common people, jolly and good-natured, have always a song in the mouth." Princes hired orchestra and singers for their own theatres. Others had musicians in their employment, and even those in moderate circumstances retained an organist or pianist. These Viennese were the patrons of composers who wrote especially for them. In common with other South Germans they were pleased with music that appealed to the heart rather than to the brain, and the neighborhood of Italy influenced their melodies and taste. This influence was also marked in the sympathetic performance of the Vienna players, for the abandon and the swing were opposed to the rigidity of Northern orchestras. The amateurs were many and of the noblest families. There was Van Swieten who bowed the knee to Handel; Count Kinsky, whose son was in after years the devoted friend of Beethoven; Prince Lobkowitz, who played the violin and spent his fortune in the pursuit of musical pleasure; the Esterhazy family; Von Rees and Von Meyer; and princes and counts without number, in whose houses symphonies, oratorios, and chamber music were performed from manuscript. Public concerts were then rare. The court opera house was devoted to Italian opera; at the Theatre Marinelli German operettas were seen; at the theatre _an der Wien_, farces and operettas were given. The chief composers in Vienna were Haydn, Salieri, Weizl, Schenk, Süssmayr, Wranitzky, Kozeluch, Förster, Eberl and Vanhall.

Two of the warmest friends of Beethoven were the Prince Lichnowsky and his wife, formerly the Countess of Thun. They mourned the death of Mozart, and saw in Haydn's pupil a possible successor. In 1794 they took Beethoven to their house and humored him and petted him. They were childless, and their affection was spent on the rude, hot-tempered, trying young man. The princess saw through the rugged exterior, and the stories of her tact and forbearance are many. "She would have put me in a glass case that no evil might come nigh me," said the composer in after years. In their palace Beethoven was free in action and in dress. He studied or gave lessons by day, and at night he was associated with the Schuppanzigh quartet--afterward the Rasoumoffsky quartet--the members of which met every Friday at Lichnowsky's house.

At this time he was chiefly known as a virtuoso, and his first appearance in public was March 29, 1795, in a concert at the Burgtheatre for the benefit of the widows of the Society of Musicians. An oratorio by Cartellieri was given, and Beethoven played his pianoforte concerto in C major, which was published six years after as Op. 15. At rehearsal there was a difference of half a tone between the pitch of the pianoforte and that of the orchestral instruments, and the composer played the concerto in C sharp major. In the same year he made a contract with Artaria for the publication of his first three pianoforte trios. Two hundred and forty-two copies were subscribed for, and the composer netted about $400, a respectable sum at that time, especially for the early works of a young man.

In 1796 Beethoven went to Nuremberg, where he met his Bonn friends, the Breuning brothers, and for some reason not clearly known, they were arrested at Linz by the police, but were quickly released. On his return to Vienna he busied himself in overseeing the publication of sonatas (Op. 2), minuets and variations. His brothers were in the city. Johann, "tall, black, handsome, a complete dandy," found a place in an apothecary shop. Caspar, "small, red-haired, ugly," gave music lessons. In February Beethoven was in Prague and in Berlin, the only occasion on which he visited "the Athens of the Spree." Frederick William II. was gracious to him, heard him play, and gave him a snuff-box filled with gold pieces; "not an ordinary box," as Beethoven proudly said when he showed it, "but such a one as they give to ambassadors." Beethoven also met Prince Louis Ferdinand and complimented him by saying, "you play like an artist, not like a prince." He jeered at Himmel's improvisation, and Himmel in turn persuaded him that a lantern had been invented for the benefit of the blind. He saw Fasch and Zelter. When he returned to Vienna the talk was of Napoleon conquering in Italy.

In 1797 Beethoven, through imprudent exposure when he was heated, contracted a dangerous illness, and Zmeskall relates that it "eventually settled in the organs of hearing." He worked at his trade. He entered into a contest with Wölfl, a virtuoso of remarkable technique, and they vied with each other in friendly spirit; whereas in a similar and later trial of skill between Beethoven and Steibelt, the latter sulked at the power of his rival. In 1798 he met Prince Rasumowsky, Count Browne, Rudolphe Kreutzer (who introduced him to Bernadotte, the suggestor of the "Heroic" symphony and the French ambassador), and in the following year he saw Dragonetti, the great player of the double-bass, who without doubt influenced him in his treatment of that instrument, and Cramer the pianist. The few recorded events of the next years are chiefly connected with music. The septet and first symphony were produced in 1800, and April 2 of the same year Beethoven gave the first concert in Vienna for his own benefit. He had left the palace of Prince Lichnowsky and lodged at No. 241 "im tiefen Graben." In the fall he went into the country, the first instance of what was afterward his settled custom. We know of no publication of music by Beethoven in 1800. He finished the first symphony, the septet (which he disliked), the string quartets Op. 18, the C-minor concerto Op. 37, the sonata Op. 22, and other works of less importance, including the horn sonata for Punto. Czerny, ten years old, met him some time in this year, and he has left a curious description of him, although it was written years after the meeting. He mentions the "desert of a room--bare walls--paper and clothes scattered about--scarcely a chair except the rickety one before the pianoforte. Beethoven was dressed in a dark gray jacket and trousers of some long-haired material which reminded me of the description of Robinson Crusoe. The jet-black hair stood upright on his head. A beard, unshaven for several days, made still darker his naturally swarthy face. He had in both ears cotton wool which seemed to have been dipped in some yellow fluid. His hands were covered with hair, and the fingers were very broad, especially at the tips."

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.

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.