Part 11

Some months in 1806 were passed in visits. Beethoven stopped at the country-seat of Count Brunswick--and some say that he was in love with Therese, the sister, to whom he dedicated his favorite sonata Op. 78, and that the posthumous love letters were addressed to her. He went to Silesia to see Prince Lichnowsky. There were French officers there who wished to hear him play, and when he refused, the Prince threatened in jest to lock him up. There was an angry scene, and Beethoven, rushing back to Vienna, dashed a bust of the Prince to pieces. The 4th symphony was played at a concert in March, 1807, for Beethoven's benefit. The subscriptions were as liberal as the program, which was made up of two and a half hours of orchestral music. Clementi of London paid him $1,000 down for copyrights. And so he had money and he was cheerful. He worked at the "Coriolan" overture, and, it is believed, the Pastoral and C-minor symphonies. In September the mass in C was brought out under the protection of Prince Esterhazy, who, accustomed to Haydn's music, said to Beethoven, "What, pray, have you been doing now?" Hummel, the Chapelmaster, laughed, and there was no intercourse between the composers for some time. In spite of the failure of "Fidelio," Beethoven looked toward the theatre and offered to supply one grand opera and one operetta yearly at a salary of about $960 with benefit performances, an offer that was rejected. 1807 saw the publication of the "Appassionata" sonata and the thirty-two variations. The pianoforte concerto in G and the Choral Fantasia were performed in 1808.

The pension from the Elector had been stopped. Prince Lichnowsky made Beethoven a small allowance, and with this exception, the latter was dependent on his own exertions. Some time in 1808 Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, offered Beethoven the position of _Maître de Chapelle_ at Cassel, with an annual salary, beside travelling expenses, of about $1,500. This led the Archduke Rudolph, Prince Lobkowitz, and Prince Kinsky to give a joint undertaking in March 1809 to secure Beethoven 4,000 florins, payable half-yearly, a sum nominally worth about $2,000, and really about $1,000; this was lessened by the depreciation of the Austrian paper and the bankruptcy and the death of Prince Kinsky. It was in this year that Beethoven met young Moscheles, began relations with Breitkopf and Härtel, negotiated with Thomson about the harmonization of Scottish melodies, a contract which in the course of years netted him about $1,000. The French were again in Vienna. Wagram was fought. Beethoven, during the bombardment of his town, was in a cellar, and dreading the effect of the explosions on his hearing, called in the aid of cushions. Haydn died in May, and there is no hint of the fact in the letters or journals of his quondam pupil. It was the year of the beginning of the "Les Adieux" sonata, to commemorate the departure of the Archduke.

May, 1810, was the date of the first performance of the music to "Egmont," probably in a private house, and in this month Beethoven first saw Bettine Brentano, "Goethe's child, who seemed the incarnation or the original of Mignon." With her he fell in love, although she was betrothed to Count Arnim. The authenticity of the three letters which she published in after years as his has been a subject of warm dispute. It was in this same year that he contemplated marriage, and wrote for his baptismal certificate. But the name of the possible wife is unknown. Some have called her Therese von Brunswick; others Therese Malfatti.

There was a rumor in Vienna in 1811 that Beethoven thought of moving to Naples in response to advantageous offers. His income was lowered by the depreciation in the value of the Austrian paper money. He suffered from headaches, his feet were swollen, and he hoped that the climate of Italy would bring relief. His physician did not favor the plan. In 1812 the Brentanos lent Beethoven about $920, and he tried the baths at Carlsbad, Franzensbrunn, and Töplitz. At the latter place he fell in love with Amalie Sebald, a soprano from Berlin, about thirty years of age, handsome and intellectual. The affection was deep and mutual; why the intimate relations did not lead to marriage, is an insoluble problem. And here Beethoven met Goethe, whom he reverenced; but the poet saw in him "an utterly untamed character." The acquaintance did not ripen into friendship, although Goethe recognized the "marvellous talent" of the composer; Mendelssohn declared, however, in a letter to Zelter, that the antipathy of the poet to Beethoven's music was poorly disguised. Nor on the other hand did the composer relish the self-effacement of Goethe when he was in the presence of royalty. In October he visited his brother Johann at Linz and found him entangled with a woman; he forced him to marry her by threats of arresting her and sending her to Vienna. 1812 was the year of the composition of the Seventh and Eight symphonies. Beethoven returned to Vienna in gloomy spirits; he was sick in body; he squabbled with his servants; Amalie Sebald was ever in his mind.

The defeat of the French at Vittoria in 1813 provoked the vulgar program-music, "Wellington's Victory," which was suggested also by Maelzel, the famous mechanician; it enjoyed great popularity, although Beethoven himself regarded it as "a stupid affair." Spohr was in Vienna when Beethoven conducted an orchestral concert, the program of which included the 7th symphony in MS. and this Battle Symphony. He and Mayseder, Salieri, Hummel, Moscheles, Romberg and Meyerbeer were in the orchestra. According to Spohr, Beethoven at this time had only one pair of boots, and when they were repaired he was obliged to stay at home. In 1816 the composer recorded in a note-book that he had seven pairs.

In 1814 Anton Schindler first met Beethoven. They grew intimate, and five years later he lived with him as a secretary. They quarreled, but they were reconciled shortly before the death of the composer. "Fidelio" was revived the same year. The new overture (in E) was included in the performance. Prince Lichnowsky died before the opera, which had undergone alteration, was thus produced. Then came a quarrel between Beethoven and Maelzel, which worried sorely the composer. September saw his triumph, when six thousand people waxed enthusiastic at a concert given by him in the Redouten-Saal. There were royal and celebrated visitors, drawn to Vienna by the Congress. Beethoven wrote a cantata for the event. "_Der glorreiche Augenblick_" ("The Glorious Moment"), a work unworthy of his reputation. He was made an honorary member of the Academies of London, Paris, Stockholm and Amsterdam. Vienna gave him the freedom of the city. He was courted in the drawing-rooms of the great. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia made him a present of about $4,600. He bought shares of the Bank of Austria.

Caspar Carl Beethoven died in November, 1815, and thus gave final and posthumous anxiety to his brother Ludwig; for he left to him the care of his son Carl. The mother of the eight-year-old boy was not a fit person to rear him, and Caspar had written his last wishes with an affectionate reference to Ludwig, who in fact had ministered generously to his wants and his caprices, and had thus spent at least $4,000. A codicil, however, restrained the uncle from taking his nephew away from the maternal house. The widow did not restrain her passions even in her grief, and Beethoven appealed to the law to give him control of the boy. There were annoyances, changes of jurisdiction, and the decree was not given in his favor until 1820. It was before the _Landrechts_ court that Beethoven pointed to his head and his heart, saying, "My nobility is here and here"; for the cause was in this court on the assumption that the _van_ in his name was an indication of nobility. Owing to these law-suits he composed but little; still it was the period of the great pianoforte sonatas Op. 106, Op. 109, Op. 110. He was in straitened circumstances. In 1816 his pension was diminished to about $550. He had quarreled again with Stephen Breuning. He found pleasure in the thought that he was a father. He was influenced mightily by the death of his brother and the painful incidents that followed, not only in his daily life but in his work. At first there was a time of comparative unproductiveness, and the cantata "Calm Sea and Happy Voyage" and the song-cyclus "To the Absent Loved-one," with the pianoforte sonata Op. 101, are the most important compositions between 1815 and 1818. Texts for oratorios and operas were offered him, but he did not put them to music. In 1818 he received a grand pianoforte from the Broadwoods, and there was vain talk of his going to England.

His friend and pupil, the Archduke Rudolph, was appointed Archbishop of Olmütz in 1818, and Beethoven began in the autumn a grand Mass for the Installation. The ceremony was in March, 1820; the Mass was not finished until 1822; it was published in 1827, and there were seven subscribers at about $115 a copy; among them were the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the King of France. The summer and autumn of 1818 and '19 were spent at Mödling in the composition of the Mass, relieved only by anxious thoughts about his nephew. Sketches for the 9th symphony date back to 1817, and the theme of the scherzo is found in 1815. This colossal work was in his mind together with a tenth, which should be choral in the adagio and the finale, even when he wrote the overture in C for the opening of the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna and watched with fiery eyes Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, the Leonora of the revival in 1822. In this same year Rossini, sweeping all before him, visited Vienna, and tried to call on Beethoven. According to Azevedo the interview was painful between the young man flushed with success and the deaf and "almost blind" composer of the Heroic Symphony. But Schindler affirms that Beethoven succeeded in escaping the visits. The operatic triumphs of Rossini and the thought of the Schröder-Devrient again led him to meditate opera. There were discussions concerning music to Goethe's "Faust," not in set operatic form, but incidental airs, choruses, symphonic pieces and melodrama. In June, 1823, he was hard at work on the Ninth Symphony. He passed whole days in the open air at Hetzendorf, but his host, a baron, was too obsequiously civil, and he moved to Baden, where in the fall he received a visit from Weber. The Philharmonic Society of London in 1822 passed a resolution offering Beethoven £50 for a MS. symphony; the money was advanced, and the work was to be delivered in the March following. Ries was in London in the fall of 1823, and in September he heard from Beethoven that the manuscript was finished, nevertheless there was additional work on it after the return to Vienna; and according to Wilder, who quotes Schindler, the finale was not written until Beethoven was in his new lodgings in town, and the use of the voices in Schiller's Ode was then first definitely determined, although the intention was of earlier date.

The Italians still tickled the ears of the Viennese, who apparently cared not for German music, vocal or instrumental. Beethoven looked toward Berlin as the city where his solemn Mass and Ninth Symphony (in spite of his arrangement with the Philharmonic society of London) should be produced, and he negotiated with Count Brühl. This drove finally the noble friends of Beethoven in Vienna to send him an address praying him to allow the first production of these new works to be in the city in which he lived. Beethoven was moved deeply; he found the address "noble and great." There were the unfortunate misunderstandings that accompany so often such an occasion. Beethoven was suspicious, the manager of the Kärnthnerthor theatre where the concert was given was greedy, and the music perplexed the singers and the players. Sontag and Ungher, who sang the female solo parts, begged him to change certain passages, but he would not listen to them. The 7th of May, 1824, the theatre was crowded, with the exception of the Imperial box; no one of the Imperial family was present, no one sent a ducat to the composer. The program was as follows: Overture in C (Op. 124); the Kyrie, Credo, Agnus and Dona Nobis of the mass in D arranged in the form of three hymns and sung in German, on account of the interference of the Censure, as the word "mass" could not appear on a theatre program; the Ninth Symphony. The public enthusiasm was extraordinary. As Beethoven could not hear the plaudits Caroline Ungher took him by the shoulders and turned him about that he might see the waving of hats and the beating together of hands. He bowed, and then the storm of applause was redoubled. After the expenses of the concert there were about 400 florins for Beethoven--about $200. The concert was repeated and the manager guaranteed 500 florins. The hall was half-empty. The composer was angry; he at first refused to accept the guarantee; and he accused his friends whom he had invited to eat with him of conspiring to cheat him.

Meanwhile his nephew, for whom he was willing to make any sacrifice and for whose benefit he labored incessantly and sold his manuscripts, neglected his studies and became an expert at the game of billiards. On the return of Beethoven from Baden to Vienna in 1824, the nephew entered the University as a student of philology; he failed in a subsequent examination; he thought of trade; he failed in an examination for admission into the Polytechnic school; and although in despair he pulled the triggers of two pistols which he had applied to his head, he failed to kill himself. He then fell into the hands of the police, was ordered out of Vienna, and joined the Austrian army. After he was obliged to quit Vienna, the uncle and the nephew in 1826 lived with Johann at Gneixendorf. The surroundings were dreary; the stingy sister-in-law of Beethoven refused him a fire; the brother found that he must charge him for board and lodging; and the nephew was insolent. He left the house in an open chaise and caught a cold which settled in his abdomen. The result of the journey was a sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs and dropsy. For the sake of his nephew Beethoven offered his manuscripts to publishers. Schott bought the Mass in D for 1,000 florins and the Ninth Symphony for 600 florins. A young man named Holtz helped the composer in his business calculations and gained a strange influence over him; he even induced him to abandon occasionally his customary sobriety. And yet these days of business and anxiety saw the composition of the last Quartets. Prince Nicholas de Galitzin of Saint Petersburg begged three string-quartets with dedications from him; he wrote to him in flattering terms; he named his bankers. Beethoven fixed the price at $115 a quartet. The Prince acknowledged the receipt of two (E-flat Op. 127 and A minor Op. 132) and regretted his delay in answering; "I now live in the depths of Russia and in a few days I shall go to Persia to fight." He promised again to send the money. Beethoven never received it, and the quartets were sold to publishers. The third, B-flat Op. 130, originally ended with a long fugue which was afterward published separately, and the new finale was written at the dreary house of his brother, where he also finished the quartet in F.

When he arrived at Vienna in December, 1826, he went immediately to bed in his lodgings in the Schwarzspanierhaus. He had dismissed rudely two eminent physicians who had treated him for a former illness, and they would not now attend him. His nephew, who was charged with the errand of finding a doctor, played billiards and forgot the condition of his uncle, so that two days went by without medical assistance. Finally Dr. Andreas Wawruch was told by a billiard-marker of the suffering of the sick man. He went to him and dosed him with decoctions. In a few days the patient was worse, in spite of the great array of empty bottles of medicine. Dropsy declared itself. He was tapped by Dr. Seibert, and during one of the operations he said, "I would rather see the water flow from my belly than from my pen." Schindler and Breuning came to his bedside, and with them young Gerhard Breuning, the son of Stephen. This lad now dwelled in the house with Beethoven as his constant companion. Dr. Malfatti was persuaded to forget his quarrels with the composer, and he consented to act in consultation with Dr. Wawruch. Beethoven saw his old friend gladly; but he would turn his back to Wawruch with the remark, "Oh, the ass!" Malfatti administered iced punch; for a short time the patient seemed stronger, and he talked of the 10th symphony. But in February, 1827, he was tapped for the fourth time; his aristocratic friends were forgetful of him, and even the Archduke Rudolph did not interest himself by cheap inquiry. In this same month Beethoven wrote to Moscheles and Sir George Smart telling them of his strait, and begging them to arrange for a concert for his benefit. All this time he had the seven bank shares of one thousand florins each that were found with the two mysterious love letters in a secret drawer of his writing desk, the day after his death; these shares he held for his scape-grace nephew, whom he made his sole heir, although by a codicil the capital was placed beyond his nephew's control. The Philharmonic Society promptly sent through Moscheles £100 on account of the future concert, and promised more if it were necessary. Unable to compose, Beethoven tried to read Sir Walter Scott's "Kenilworth," but he threw it aside and said, "The man writes only for money." He saw "the divine fire" in some of Schubert's songs. He wrote many letters, he arranged certain dedications of his works, and he found pleasure in a lithograph of Haydn's birthplace, and in a set of Handel's compositions in forty volumes, which had been given him. The Rhine wine that he had asked of Schott came too late. Hummel called on him in March and introduced his pupil Ferdinand Hiller. On the 19th of this month Beethoven felt the end, and he said to Breuning and Schindler, "_Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est_." On the 23d he made with his own hand the codicil above mentioned. Several people called, among them Schubert, who saw him but could not speak with him. The last Sacraments of the Roman Catholic church were administered to the dying man the 24th. Then Beethoven wrestled with death until a quarter to six on the evening of the 26th, when he gave up the ghost. His sufferings were atrocious; the final agony was terrible. Just as he was delivered from his earthly ills a tempest, a great storm of hail and snow, burst over the roofs of Vienna. There was a dazzling flash of lightning; and the roaring thunder roused Beethoven. He pulled himself up in his bed, shook his fist at the sky, and fell back dead. Anselm Hüttenbrenner and the wife of Johann Beethoven were by his side.

The post mortem examination was made by Doctors Wagner and Rokitansky. Wagner cut and preserved the temporal muscles and the organs of hearing. The body was dressed and exposed in the room of the death. The lower jaw was not sustained, and the face with its long hair and its beard of three months' growth was savage.

The funeral was the 29th at three o'clock in the afternoon. It was attended by an immense crowd. Dr. Breuning estimated the number of persons on the glacis and in the neighboring streets at 20,000. The coffin was placed on the shoulders of eight members of the Imperial Opera. Eybler, Hummel, Kreutzer, Weigl, Gyrowetz, Seyfried, Gänsbacher and Würfel held the streamers of the canopy. There were thirty-two torch bearers, whose left arms were wrapped in crape ornamented by lilies and white roses. Among these torch bearers were Czerny, Schubert and the giant Lablache. At the head, after the crucifix, four trombone players marched, and played alternately with the singing of a choir of sixteen men the two Equali of the dead composer. The crowd that followed was so enormous that soldiers were summoned to force a way. The ceremonies were held at the Church of the Minorites, and the body was then put in a hearse which was drawn by four horses to the Währinger cemetery. The gate was reached at the falling of night, and the play-actor Anschütz delivered an address written by Grillparzer. Other poems were read and distributed. Flowers and laurel wreaths were heaped on the coffin when it was lowered to its resting place.

The 3d of April the furniture, clothes and the Graf and Broadwood pianofortes were sold at auction. The same day Mozart's Requiem was sung in the Hofpfarrkirche of the Augustines, and Lablache not only sang the solo bass but paid about $80 for the cost of the singers. In November the musical effects were sold at auction, and they brought about 1200 florins. The total amount of money then was about $5,000.

In 1863 the Gesellschaft der Musik-Freunde opened the tombs of Beethoven and Schubert and reburied their bodies in leaden coffins. The 21st of June, 1888, the body of Beethoven was removed from the Währinger cemetery and transferred to the central cemetery of Vienna at Simmering. A monument was raised in Bonn in 1845, chiefly through the generosity and enthusiasm of Liszt. It is by Höhnel, and it represents Beethoven standing, draped in a mantle. A colossal statue by Zurnbusch stands in one of the public places in Vienna, in front of the Academic Gymnasium.

When the body of Beethoven was exhumed in 1863 an impression and a photograph of his skull were taken. The head was remarkable. The box of bone was unusually thick; the dimensions of the forehead were extraordinary; in height the forehead came next to that of Napoleon, and in breadth it surpassed it. His face was strong and sombre, and while it was not without ugliness, it was expressive. The head was built stoutly throughout. The complexion was red and highly accented; though Schindler tells us that it grew yellow in summer. The hair was thick and rebellious; it was originally black, and in later years turned white. He shaved cheeks, chin and upper lip, and he was as awkward as Lord Macaulay with a razor. The eyes were black, not large, and they shot forth a piercing flame when he was excited. The nose was thick; the jaw was broad; the mouth was firm, and with protruding lips; the teeth were white, well-shaped, and sound, and when he laughed he showed them freely; the square chin rested on a white cravat. The greater number of pictures of Beethoven are idealized. The most faithful likenesses are the miniature by Hornemann, taken in 1802, and sent by Beethoven to Breuning in token of reconciliation; the drawing by Letronne, a French artist who was in Vienna in 1814; and the portrait by Schimon in 1819. Two plaster masks were made; one by Klein in 1812; the other, a death-mask, by the sculptor Dannhauser, from which Fortuny made an etching.