CHAPTER IV

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Form and formalism--Beethoven’s life--His relations with his family, teachers, friends, and other contemporaries--His character--The man and the artist--Determining factors in his development--The three periods in his work and their characteristics--His place in the history of music.

The most important contributions of the eighteenth century to the history of music--the establishment of harmony and the new tonalities, the technical growth of the various forms, especially of the sonata and the development of opera--have been treated in preceding chapters; and we now only glance at them momentarily in order to point out that they typify and illustrate two of the predominating forces of the century, the desire for form and the reaction against mere formality. The first is well illustrated in the history of the sonata, which, at the middle of the century, was comparatively unimportant as a form of composition and often without special significance in its musical ideas. By 1796 Mozart had lived and died, and the symphonic work of Haydn was done; with the result that the principles of design, so strongly characteristic of eighteenth century art, were in full operation in the realm of music; the sonata form, as illustrated in the quartet and symphony, was lifted to noble position among the types of pure music; and the orchestra was vastly improved.

The second of these forces, the reaction against formality and conservatism, is connected with one of the most interesting phases of the history of art. For a large part of the century France held a dominating place in drama, literature, and the opera. The art of the theatre and of letters had become merely a suave obedience to rule, and even the genius of a Voltaire, with his dramatic instinct and boldness, could not lift it entirely out of the frigid zone in which it had become fixed. Germany and England, however, were preparing to overthrow the traditions of French classicism. Popular interest in legends, folk-lore, and ballads revived. ‘Ossian’ (published 1760-63) and Percy’s ‘Reliques’ (1765) aroused great enthusiasm both in England and on the continent. Before the end of the century Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller had placed new landmarks in the progress of literature in Germany; and in England, by 1810, much of Wordsworth’s best poetry had been written. The study of early national history and an appreciation of Nature took the place of logic and the cold niceties of wit and epigram. The comfortable acquiescence in the existing state of things, the objectiveness, the decorous veiling of personal and subjective elements, which characterize so many eighteenth century writers, gave place to a passionate, lyrical outburst of rapture over nature, expression of personal desire, melancholy visions, or romantic love. In politics and social life there was a strong revival of republican ideas, a loosening of many of the more orthodox tenets of religion, and again a strong note of individualism.

That this counter-current against conventionality and mere formalism should find expression in music was but natural. The new development, however, in so far as pure instrumental music is concerned, was a change, not in form, but in content and style, an increase in richness and depth, which took place within the boundaries already laid out by earlier masters, especially Haydn and Mozart. The musician in whom we are to trace these developments is, of course, Ludwig van Beethoven, who stands, like a colossus, bridging the gulf between eighteenth century classicism and nineteenth century romanticism. He was in a profound sense the child of his age and nation. He summed up the wisdom of the older contrapuntists, as well as that of Mozart and Haydn; and he also gave the impulse to what is most modern in musical achievement.

‘The most powerful currents in nineteenth century music (the romanticism of Liszt, Berlioz; the Wagnerian music drama) to a large extent take their point of departure from Beethoven,’ writes Dickinson; and the same author goes on to say: ‘No one disputes his preëminence as sonata and symphony writer. In these two departments he completes the movements of the eighteenth century in the development of the cyclical homophonic form, and is the first and greatest exponent of that principle of individualism which has given the later instrumental music its special character. He must always be studied in the light of this double significance.’[50]

I

Although born in Germany and of German parents, Beethoven belonged partly to that nation whose work forms so large a chapter in the history of music, the Netherlanders. His paternal grandfather, Louis van Beethoven, early in the century emigrated from Antwerp to Bonn, taking a position first as bass singer then as chapel master in the court band of the Elector of Cologne. He was an unusually capable man, highly esteemed as a musician, and, although he died when Ludwig was but three years of age, left an indelible impression on his character. The father, Johann or Jean, also a singer in the court chapel, was lacking in the excellent qualities of the elder Beethoven. The mother was of humble family, a woman with soft manners and frail health, who bore her many sorrows with quiet stoicism. Ludwig, the composer, christened in the Roman Catholic Church in Bonn, December 17, 1770, was the second of a family of seven, only three of whom lived to maturity. The house of his birth is in the Bonngasse, now marked with a memorial tablet.

At a very early age the father put little Ludwig at his music, and, upon perceiving his ability, kept him practising in spite of tears. Violin and piano were studied at home, while the rudiments of education were followed in a public school until the lad was about thirteen. As early as the age of nine, however, he had learned all his father could teach him and was turned over, first to a tenor singer named Pfeiffer and later to the court organist, van den Eeden, a friend of the grandfather. In 1781 Christian Gottlieb Neefe (1748-1798) succeeded van den Eeden and took Beethoven as his pupil. It is said that during an absence he left his scholar, who had now reached the age of eleven and a half years, to take his place at the organ, and that a few months later this same pupil was playing the larger part of Bach’s _Wohltemperiertes Klavier_. There seems to be abundant evidence, indeed, that not only Neefe but others were convinced of the boy’s genius and disposed to assist him. At the age of fifteen he was studying the violin with Franz Ries, the father of Ferdinand, and at seventeen he made his first journey to Vienna, where he had the famous interview with Mozart. His return to Bonn was hastened by the illness of his mother, who died shortly after.

Domestic affairs with the Beethovens went from bad to worse, what with poverty, the loss of the mother, and the irregular habits of the father. At nineteen Ludwig was virtually in the position of head of the family, earning money, dictating the expenditures, and looking after the education of the younger brothers. At this time he was assistant court organist and viola player, both in the opera and chapel, and associated with such men as Ries, the two Rombergs, Simrock, and Stumpff. In July, 1792, when Haydn passed through Bonn on his return from the first London visit, Beethoven showed him a composition and was warmly praised; and, in the course of this very year, the Elector arranged for him to go again to Vienna, this time for a longer stay and for the purpose of further study.

His life thenceforth was in Vienna, varied only by visits to nearby villages or country places. His first public appearance in Vienna as pianist was in 1795, and from that time on his life was one of successful musical activity. As improviser at the pianoforte he was especially gifted, even at a time when there were marvellous feats in extempore playing. By the year 1798 there appeared symptoms of deafness, which gradually increased in spite of the efforts of physicians to arrest or cure it, and finally forced him to give up his playing. His last appearance in public as actual participant in concerted work took place in 1814, when he played his trio in B flat, though he conducted the orchestra until 1822. At last this activity was also denied him; and when the Choral Symphony was first performed, in 1824, he was totally unaware of the applause of the audience until he turned and saw it.

During these years, however, Beethoven had established himself in favor with the musical public with an independence such as no musician up to that time ever achieved. From 1800 on he was in receipt of a small annuity from Prince Lichnowsky, which was increased by the sale of many compositions. In 1809 Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, appears to have offered him the post of master of the chapel at Cassel, with a salary of $1,500 a year and very easy duties. The prospect of losing Beethoven, however, aroused the lovers of music in Vienna to such an extent that three of the nobility--Princes Kinsky and Lobkowitz and Archduke Rudolph, brother of the emperor--guaranteed him a regular stipend in order to insure his continued residence among them. This maintenance, moreover, was given absolutely free from conditions of any sort. In 1815 his brother Caspar Carl died, charging the composer with the care of his son Carl, then a lad about nine years of age. The responsibility was assumed by Beethoven with fervor and enthusiasm, though the boy, as it proved, was far from being worthy of the affectionate care of his distinguished uncle. Moreover, Beethoven was now constantly in ill health, and often in trouble over lodgings, servants, and the like.

In spite of these preoccupations the composition of masterpieces went on, though undoubtedly with difficulty and pain, since their author was robbed of that peace of mind so necessary to health and great achievements. The nephew kept his hold on his uncle’s affection to the end, was made heir to his property, and at the last commended to the care of Beethoven’s old advocate, Dr. Bach. In November, 1826, the master, while making a journey from his brother’s house at Gneixendorf, took cold and arrived at his home in Vienna, the Swarzspanierhaus, mortally ill with inflammation of the stomach and dropsy. The disease abated for a time and Beethoven, though still confined to his bed, was again eager for work. In March of the following year, however, he grew steadily worse, received the sacraments of the Roman Church on the twenty-fourth, and two days later, at evening during a tremendous thunder storm, he breathed his last. Stephan von Breuning and Anton Schindler, who had attended him, had gone to the cemetery to choose a burial place, and only Anselm Hüttenbrenner, the friend of both Schubert and Beethoven, was by his side. His funeral, March twenty-ninth, was attended by an immense concourse of people, including all the musicians and many of the nobility of Vienna. In the procession to the church the coffin was borne by eight distinguished members of the opera; thirty-two musicians carried torches, and at the gate of the cemetery there was an address from the pen of the most distinguished Austrian writer of the time, Grillparzer, recited by the actor Anschütz. The grave was on the south side of the cemetery near the spot where, a little more than a year later, Schubert was buried. In 1863 the bodies of both Schubert and Beethoven were exhumed and reburied after the tombs were put in repair, the work being carried out by _Die Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde_ of Vienna.

Such is the bare outline of a life filled with passionate earnestness and continuous striving after unattainable ideals of happiness. Beethoven’s character was a strange combination of forces, and is not to be gauged by the measuring rod of the average man. Some writers have made too much of the accidents of his disposition, such as his violent temper and rough manners; and others have apparently been most concerned with his affairs of the heart. What really matters in connection with any biography has been noted by the great countryman and contemporary of Beethoven, Goethe: ‘To present the man in relation to his times, and to show how far as a whole they are opposed to him, in how far they are favorable to him, and how, if he be an artist, poet, or writer, he reflects them outwardly.’[51]

It is the purpose of this chapter to present a few of the more salient qualities of this great man, as they have appeared to those contemporaneous and later writers best fitted to understand him; and to indicate the path by which he was led to his achievements in music. More than this is impossible within the limitations of the present volume, but it is the writer’s hope that this chapter may serve at least as an introduction to one or more of the excellent longer works--biographies, volumes of criticism, editions of letters--which set forth more in detail the character of the man and artist.

II

In relation to the members of his family it cannot be said that Beethoven’s life was happy or even comfortable. Two amiable and gentle figures emerge from the domestic group, the fine old grandfather, Louis, and the mother. For these Beethoven cherished till his death a tender and reverent memory. In the autumn of 1787 he writes to the Councillor, Dr. von Schaden, at Augsburg, with whom he had become acquainted on his return journey from Vienna: ‘I found my mother still alive, but in the worst possible state; she was dying of consumption, and the end came about seven weeks ago, after she had endured much pain and suffering. She was to me such a good, lovable mother, my best friend. Oh! who was happier than I when I could still utter the sweet name of mother, and heed was paid to it.’ The gentle soul suffered much, not only in her last illness, but throughout her married life, for her husband, the tenor singer, was a drunkard and worse than a nonentity in the family life. He died soon after the composer’s removal to Vienna. The two brothers contributed little to his happiness or welfare. Johann was selfish and narrow-minded, penurious and mean, with a dash of egotistic arrogance which had nothing in common with the fierce pride of the older brother, Ludwig. Acquiring some property and living on it, Johann was capable of leaving at his brother’s house his card inscribed _Johann van Beethoven, Gutsbesitzer_ (land proprietor). This was promptly returned by the composer who had endorsed it with the counter inscription, _L. van Beethoven, Hirnbesitzer_ (brain proprietor). The brother Caspar Carl was a less positive character, and seems to have shown some loyalty and affection for Ludwig at certain periods of his life, sometimes acting virtually as his secretary and business manager. But, though he was more tolerable to Ludwig than the _Gutsbesitzer_, his character was anything but admirable. Both brothers borrowed freely of the composer when he was affluent and neglected him when he most needed attention. ‘Heaven keep me from having to receive favors from my brothers!’ he writes. And in the ‘Heiligenstadt Will,’ written in 1802, before his fame as a composer was firmly established, his bitterness against them overflows. ‘O ye men who regard or declare me to be malignant, stubborn, or cynical, how unjust are ye towards me.... What you have done against me has, as you know, long been forgiven. And you, brother Carl, I especially thank you for the attachment you have shown toward me of late ... I should much like one of you to keep as an heirloom the instruments given to me by Prince L., but let no strife arise between you concerning them; if money should be of more service to you, just sell them.’ This passage throws light on the characters of the brothers, as well as on Beethoven himself. It was at the house of the brother Johann, where the composer and his nephew Carl were visiting in 1826, near the end of his life, that he received such scant courtesy in respect to fires, attendance and the like (being also asked to pay board) that he was forced to return to his home in Vienna. The use of the family carriage was denied him and he was therefore compelled to ride in an open carriage to the nearest post station--an exposure which resulted in his fatal illness.

Young Carl, who became the precious charge of the composer upon Caspar’s death, was intolerable. Beethoven sought, with an almost desperate courage, to bring the boy into paths of manhood and virtue, making plans for his schooling, for his proper acquaintance, and for his advancement. Carl was deaf, apparently, to all accents of affection and devotion, as well as to the occasional outbursts of fury from his uncle. He perpetually harassed him by his looseness, frivolity, continual demands for money, and lack of sensibility; and finally he attempted to take his own life. This last stroke was almost too much for the uncle, who gave way to his grief. Beethoven was, doubtless, but poorly adapted to the task of schoolmaster or disciplinarian; but he was generous, forgiving to a fault, and devoted to the ideal of duty which he conceived to be his. But the charge was from the beginning a constant source of anxiety and sorrow, altering his nature, causing trouble with his friends, and embittering his existence by constant disappointments and contentions.

Some uncertainties exist concerning Beethoven’s relations with his teachers. The court organist, van den Eeden, was an old man, and could scarcely have taught the boy more than a year before he was handed over to Neefe, who was a good musician, a composer, and a writer on musical matters. He undoubtedly gave his pupil a thoroughly honest grounding in essentials, and, what was of even greater importance, he showed a confidence in the boy’s powers that must have left a strong impression upon his sensitive nature. ‘This young genius,’ he writes, when Beethoven was about twelve years old, ‘deserves some assistance that he may travel. If he goes on as he has begun, he will certainly become a second Mozart.’ During Neefe’s tutelage Beethoven was appointed accompanist to the opera band--an office which involved a good deal of responsibility and no pay--and later assistant court organist. His compositions, however, even up to the time of his departure for Vienna, do not at all compare, either in number or significance, with those belonging to the first twenty-two years of Mozart’s life. This fact, however, did not dampen the confidence of the teacher, who seems to have exerted the strongest influence of an academic nature which ever came into the composer’s life. Upon leaving Bonn, Beethoven expresses his obligation. ‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘for the counsel you have so often given me in my progress in my divine art. Should I ever become a great man, you will certainly have assisted in it.’[52]

His relations with Haydn have been a fruitful source of discussion and explanation. On his second arrival in Vienna, 1792, Beethoven became Haydn’s pupil. Feeling, however, that his progress was slow, and finding that errors in counterpoint had been overlooked in his exercises, he quietly placed himself under the instruction of Schenck, a composer well known in Beethoven’s day. There was at the time no rupture with Haydn, and he did not actually withdraw from his tutorship until the older master’s second visit to London, in 1794. Beethoven then took up work with Albrechtsberger, but the relationship was mutually unsatisfactory. The pupil felt a lack of sympathy and Albrechtsberger expressed himself in regard to Beethoven with something like contempt. ‘Have nothing to do with him,’ he advises another pupil. ‘He has learned nothing and will never do anything in decent style.’ Although in later years Beethoven would not call himself a pupil of Haydn, yet there were many occasions when he showed a genuine and cordial appreciation for the chapel master of Esterhàzy. The natures of the two men, however, were fundamentally different, and could scarcely fail to be antagonistic. Haydn was by nature and court discipline schooled to habits of good temper and self-control; he was pious, submissive to the control of church and state, kindly and cheerful in disposition. Beethoven, on the contrary, was individualistic to the core, rough often to the point of rudeness in manner, deeply affected by the revolutionary spirit of the times, scornful of ritual and priest, melancholy and passionate in temperament. Is it strange that two such diverse natures found no common ground of meeting?

Beethoven, however, aside from his formal instruction, found nourishment for his genius, as all great men do, in the work of the masters of his own and other arts. He probably learned more from an independent study of Haydn’s works than from all the stated lessons; for his early compositions begin precisely where those of Haydn and Mozart leave off. They show, also, that he knew the worth of the earlier masters. Concerning Emanuel Bach he writes: ‘Of his pianoforte works I have only a few things, yet a few by that true artist serve not only for high enjoyment but also for study.’ In 1803 he writes to his publishers, Breitkopf and Härtel: ‘I thank you heartily for the beautiful things of Sebastian Bach. I will keep and study them.’ Elsewhere he calls Sebastian Bach ‘the forefather of harmony,’ and in his characteristic vein said that his name should be Meer (Sea), instead of Bach (Brook). According to Wagner, this great master was Beethoven’s guide in his artistic self-development.

The only other art with which he had any acquaintance was poetry, and for this he shows a lifelong and steadily growing appreciation. In the home circle of his early friends, the Breunings, he first learned something of German and English literature. Shakespeare was familiar to him, and he had a great admiration for Ossian, just then very popular in Germany. Homer and Plutarch he knew, though only in translation. In 1809 we find him ordering complete sets of Goethe and Schiller, and in a letter to Bettina Brentano he says: ‘When you write to Goethe about me, select all words which will express to him my inmost reverence and admiration.’ At the time of his interest in his physician’s daughter, Therese Malfatti, he sends her as a gift Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meister_ and Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare, and speaks to her of reading Tacitus. Elsewhere he writes: ‘I have always tried from childhood onward to grasp the meaning of the better and the wise of every age. It is a disgrace for any artist who does not think it his duty at least to do that much.’ These instances of deliberate selection show the strong tendency of his mind toward the powerful, epic, and ‘grand’ style of literature, and an almost complete indifference toward the light and ephemeral. His own language, as shown in the letters, show many minor inaccuracies, but is, nevertheless, strongly characteristic, forceful, and natural, and often trenchant or sardonic.

In his relation to his friends, happily his life shows many richer and more grateful experiences than with his own immediate family. Besides the Breunings, his first and perhaps most important friend was Count Waldstein, who recognized his genius and was undoubtedly of service to him in Bonn as well as in Vienna. In the album in which his friends inscribed their farewells upon his departure from Bonn Waldstein’s entry is this: ‘Dear Beethoven, you are travelling to Vienna in fulfillment of your long cherished wish. The genius of Mozart is still weeping and bewailing the death of her favorite. With the inexhaustible Haydn she found a refuge, but no occupation, and is now waiting to leave him and join herself to someone else. Labor assiduously and receive Mozart’s spirit from the hands of Haydn. Your true friend, Waldstein. Bonn, October 29, 1792.’[53]

From the time of his arrival in Vienna, his biography is one long story of his connection with this or that group of charming and fashionable people. Vienna was then in a very special sense the musical centre of Europe. There Mozart had just ended his marvellous career, and there was the home of Haydn, the most distinguished living musician. Many worthy representatives of the art of music--Salieri, Gyrowetz, Eybler, Weigl, Hummel, Woelfl, Steibelt, Ries--as well as a host of fashionable and titled people who possessed knowledge and a sincere love of music, called Vienna their home. Many people of rank and fashion were pleased to count themselves among Beethoven’s friends. ‘My art wins for me friends and esteem,’ he writes, and from these friends he received hospitality, money, and countless favors. To them, in return, he dedicated one after another of his noble works. To Count Waldstein was inscribed the pianoforte sonata in C, opus 53; to Baron von Zmeskall the quartet in F minor, opus 95; to Countess Giulia Guicciardi the _Sonata quasi una fantasia_ in C sharp minor (often called the Moonlight Sonata); the second symphony to Prince Carl Lobkowitz, and so on through the long, illustrious tale. He enjoyed the society of the polite world. ‘It is good,’ he says, ‘to be with the aristocracy, but one must be able to impress them.’

The old order of princely patronage, however, under which nearly all musicians lived up to the close of the eighteenth century, had no part nor lot in Beethoven’s career. Haydn, living until 1809, spent nearly all his life as a paid employee in the service of the prince of Esterhàzy, and even his London symphonies and the famous Austrian Hymn were composed ‘to order.’ Mozart, whose career began later and ended earlier than Haydn’s, had the hardihood to throw off his yoke of servitude to the archbishop of Salzburg; but Beethoven was never under such a yoke. He accepted no conditions as to the time or character of his compositions; and, although he received a maintenance from some of his princely friends, he was never on the footing of a paid servant. On the contrary, he mingled with nobility on a basis of perfect equality and shows no trace of humiliation or submission. He was furiously proud, and would accept nothing save on his own terms. Nine years before his death he welcomed joyfully a commission from the London Philharmonic Society to visit England and bring with him a symphony (it would have been the Ninth). Upon receiving an intimation, however, that the Philharmonic would be pleased to have something written in his earlier style, he indignantly rejected the whole proposition. For him there was no turning back and his art was too sacred to be subject to the lighter preferences of a chance patron. Though the plan to go to England was again raised shortly before his last illness (this time by the composer himself) it never came to a realization.

A special place among his friends should be given to a few whose appreciation of the master was singularly disinterested and deep. First among these were the von Breunings, who encouraged his genius, bore with the peculiar awkwardness and uncouthness of his youth, and managed, for the most part, to escape his suspicion and anger. It was in their house at the age of sixteen or seventeen that he literally first discovered what personal friendship meant; and it was Stephen von Breuning and his son Gerhart who, with Schindler, waited on him during his final illness. No others are to be compared with the Breunings; but more than one showed a capacity for genuine and unselfish devotion. Nanette Streicher, the daughter of the piano manufacturer, Stein, was among these. Often in his letters Beethoven declares that he does not wish to trouble anyone; and yet he complains to this amiable and capable woman about servants, dusters, spoons, scissors, neckties, stays, and blames the Austrian government, both for his bad servants and smoking chimneys. It is evident that she repeatedly helped him over his difficulties, as did also Baron von Zmeskall, court secretary and distinguished violoncellist, to whom he applied numberless times for such things as quills, a looking glass, and the exchanging of a torn hat, and whom he sent about like an errand boy. Schuppanzigh, the celebrated violinist and founder of the Rasoumowsky quartet, which produced for the first time many of the Beethoven compositions, was a trustworthy and valuable friend. Princes Lichnowsky and Lobkowitz, Count von Brunswick, the Archbishop Rudolph, Countesses Ertmann, Erdödy, Therese von Brunswick, and Bettina Brentano (afterward von Arnim)--the list of titled and fashionable friends is long and all of them seem to have borne with patience his eccentricities and delinquencies in a genuine appreciation of his fine character and genius. Among the few friends who proved faithful to the last, however, was a young musician, Anton Schindler, who for a time was Beethoven’s housemate and devoted slave, and became his literary executor and biographer. Schindler has been the object of much detraction and censure, but both Grove and Thayer regard him as trustworthy, in character as well as in intelligence. He had much to bear from his adored master, who tired of him, treated him with violence and injustice, and finally banished him from his house. But when Beethoven returned to Vienna from the ill-fated visit to Johann in 1826, sick unto death, Schindler resumed his old position as house companion. Both Schindler and Baron von Zmeskall collected notes, memoranda, and letters which have been of great service to later biographers of the composer.

Beethoven’s friendships were often marked by periods of storm, and many who were once proud to be in his favored circle afterward became weary of his eccentricities, or were led away to newer interests. It was hard for him to understand some of the most obvious rules of social conduct, and impossible for him to control his tongue or temper. Close and well-tried friends, falling under his suspicion or arousing his anger, were in the morning forbidden his house, roundly denounced, and treated almost like felons; in the afternoon, with a return of calmness and reason, he would write to them remorseful letters, beg their forgiveness, and plead for a continuance of their affection. Often the remorse was out of all proportion to his crime. After a quarrel with Stephan von Breuning he sends his portrait with the following message: ‘My dear, good Stephan--Let what for a time passed between us lie forever hidden behind this picture. I know it, I have broken _your heart_. The emotion which you must certainly have noticed in me was sufficient punishment for it. It was not a feeling of _malice_ against you; no, for then I should be no longer worthy of your friendship. It was passion on your part and on mine--but mistrust of you arose in me. Men came between us who are not worthy either of you or of me ... faithful, good, and noble Stephan. Forgive me if I did hurt your feelings; I was not less a sufferer myself through not having you near me during such a long period; then only did I really feel how dear to my heart you are and ever will be.’ Too apologetic and remorseful, maybe; but still breathing a kind of stubborn pride under its genuine and sincere affection.

Although Goethe and Beethoven met at least once, they did not become friends. The poet was twenty-one years the elder, and was too much the gentleman of the world to like outward roughness and uncouth manners in his associates. He had, moreover, no sympathy with Beethoven’s rather republican opinions. On the other hand, Beethoven had something of the peasant’s intolerance for the courtier and fine gentleman. ‘Court air,’ he writes in 1812, ‘suits Goethe more than becomes a poet. One cannot laugh much at the ridiculous things that virtuosi do, when poets, who ought to be looked upon as the principal teachers of the nation, forget everything else amidst this glitter.’

In spite of his deafness, rudeness, and eccentricity Beethoven seems to have had no small degree of fascination for women. He was continually in love, writing sincere and charming letters to his ‘immortal Beloved,’ and planning more than once, with almost pathetic tenderness, for marriage and a home. There is a genuine infatuation, an ardent young-lover-like exultation in courtship that lifts him for a time even out of his art and leaves him wholly a man--a man, however, whose passion was always stayed and ennobled by spiritual bonds. License and immorality had no attraction for him, even when all his hopes of marriage were frustrated. Talented and lovely women accepted his admiration--Magdelena Willman, the singer, Countess Giulia Guicciardi, Therese Malfatti, Countess von Brunswick, Bettina Brentano, the ‘Sybil of romantic literature’--one after another received his addresses, possibly returned in a measure his love, and, presently, married someone else. Beethoven was undoubtedly deeply moved at these successive disappointments. ‘Oh, God!’ he writes, ‘let me at last find her who is destined to be mine, and who shall strengthen me in virtue.’ But, though he was destined never to be happy in this way, his thwarted love wrecked neither his art nor his happiness. He writes to Ries in 1812, in a tone almost of contentment and resignation: ‘All kind messages to your wife, unfortunately I have none. I found one who will probably never be mine, nevertheless, I am not on that account a woman hater.’ The truth is, music was in reality his only mistress, and his plans for a more practical domesticity were like clouds temporarily illumined by the sun of his own imagination, and predestined to be as fleeting.

As has been noted, toward the end of his life most of the intimacies and associations with the fashionable circles of Vienna gradually ceased. During the early part of his last illness the brother Johann, a few musicians and an occasional stranger were among his visitors, and until December of the year 1826 the nephew made his home with Beethoven. But Johann returned to his property, Carl rejoined his regiment, much to the added comfort of the sick man, and the visits from outsiders grew fewer in number. The friends of earlier days--those whom he had honored by his dedications or who had profited by the production of his works, as well as those who had suffered from his violence and abuse--nearly all were either dead or unable to attend him in his failing strength. Only the Breunings and Schindler remained actively faithful till the last.

With his publishers his relations were, on the whole, of a calmer and more stable nature than with his princely friends. It must be noted that Beethoven is the first composer whose works were placed before the public in the manner which has now become universal. Although music printing had been practised since the sixteenth century, the publisher in the modern sense did not arrive until about Beethoven’s time. The works of the eighteenth century composers were often produced from manuscript and kept in that state in the libraries of private houses, and whatever copies were made were generally at the express order of some musical patron. Neither Mozart nor Haydn had a ‘publisher’ in the modern sense--a man who purchases the author’s work outright or on royalties, taking his own risk in printing and selling it. The greater part of Beethoven’s compositions were sold outright to the distinguished house of Breitkopf and Härtel, and, all things considered, he was well paid. In those days it took a week for a letter to travel from Vienna to Leipzig, and Beethoven’s patience was often sorely tried by delays not due to tardiness of post. The correspondence is not lacking in those frantic calls for proof, questions about dates of publication, alarms over errors, and other matters so familiar to every composer and author. In earlier days, Simrock of Bonn undertook the publication of some of the master’s work, but did not come up to his ideas in respect to time. The following letter, concerning the Sonata in A, opus 47, shows that even the impatient Beethoven could bear good-naturedly with a certain amount of irritating trouble:

‘Dear, best Herr Simrock: I have been all the time waiting anxiously for my sonata which I gave you--but in vain. Do please write and tell me the reason of the delay--whether you have taken it from me merely to give it as food to the moths or do you wish to claim it by special imperial privilege? Well, I thought that might have happened long ago. This slow devil who was to beat out this sonata, where is he hiding? As a rule you are a quick devil, it is known that, like Faust, you are in league with the black one, and on that very account _so beloved_ by your comrades.’

It is said that Nägeli of Zürich on receiving for publication the Sonata in G (opus 31, No. 1), undertook to improve a passage which he considered too abrupt or heterodox, and added four measures of his own. The liberty was discovered in proof, and the publication immediately transferred to Simrock, who produced a correct version. Nägeli, however, still retained and adhered to his own version, copies of which are still occasionally met with.

More than once Beethoven shows himself to be reasonable and even patient with troublesome conditions. In regard to some corrections in the C minor symphony he writes to Breitkopf and Härtel: ‘One must not pretend to be so divine as not to make improvements here and there in one’s creations’--and surely the following is a mild protest, considering the cause: ‘How in heaven’s name did my Fantasia with orchestra come to be dedicated to the King of Bavaria?’ This was no slip of memory on Beethoven’s part, for he was very particular about dedications. Again he writes to his publishers, after citing a list of errors: ‘Make as many faults as you like, leave out as much as you like--you are still highly esteemed by me; that is the way with men, they are esteemed because they have not made still greater faults.’ His letters reveal the fact, not that he was disorderly and careless, but that, on the contrary, when he had time to give attention, he could manage his business affairs very sensibly indeed. Usually he is exact in stating his terms and conditions for any given piece of work; but occasionally he was also somewhat free in promising the same composition to more than one publisher, and in setting off one bid against another in order to get his price. But it is impossible to see, even in such acts, any very deep-seated selfish or mercenary quality. Full of ideas, pushed from within as well as from without, he knew himself capable of replacing one composition with another of even richer value. He was always in need of money, not because he lived luxuriously, but because of the many demands made upon him from his family and by reason of the fact that absorption in composition, frequent illness, and deafness rendered him incapable of ordering his affairs with any degree of economy. Whenever it was possible he gave his services generously for needy causes, such as a benefit for sick soldiers, or for the indigent daughter of Bach. Writing to Dr. Wegeler, the husband of Eleanore von Breuning, he says: ‘If in our native land there are any signs of returning prosperity, I will only use my art for the benefit of the poor.’

In respect to other musicians Beethoven was in a state of more or less open warfare. Bitterly resentful of any slight, it was not easy for him to forgive even an innocent or kindly criticism, much less the open sneers that invariably attend the progress of a new and somewhat heretical genius. If, however, he considered other musicians worthy, he was glad of their recognition. Although he did not care for the subject of _Don Giovanni_, he writes that Mozart’s success gave him as much pleasure as if it were his own work. To his publishers he addresses these wise words concerning young musicians: ‘Advise your critics to exercise more care and good sense with regard to the productions of young authors, for many a one may become thereby dispirited, who otherwise might have risen to higher things.’

III

Perhaps the most obvious element of his character was his essential innocence and simplicity, with all the curious secondary traits that accompany a nature fundamentally incapable of becoming sophisticated. Love of nature was one part of it. To an exceptional degree he loved to walk in the woods and to make long sojourns in the country. Lying on his back in the fields, staring into the sky, he forgot himself and his anxieties in a kind of ecstatic delight. Klober, the painter, writes: ‘He would stand still, as if listening, with a piece of paper in his hand, look up and down, and then write something.’ Not always was he quiet, but often strode impatiently along, humming, singing, or roaring, with an occasional pause for the purpose of making notes. In this manner dozens of sketch books were filled with ideas which enable the student to trace, step by step, the evolution of his themes. An Englishman who lived in intimate friendship with him for some months asserts that he never ‘met anyone who so delighted in nature, or so thoroughly enjoyed flowers, clouds, or other natural subjects. Nature was almost meat and drink to him; he seems positively to exist upon it.’ This quality is emphasized by Beethoven’s letter to Therese Malfatti, in which he says: ‘No man on earth can love the country as I do. It is trees, woods, and rocks that return to us the echo of our own thought.’ Like the Greeks, he could turn the dancing of the Satyrs into an acceptable offering on the altar of art. Of this part of his nature, the Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony is the monument. It is as if he took special occasion, once for all, to let speak the immediate voice of Pan within him. It is full of the sights and sounds of nature, not, however, as Beethoven himself says, a painting, but an expression of feeling. In an analysis of the _allegro_, referring to the constant repetition of short phrases, Grove says: ‘I believe that the delicious, natural, May-day, out-of-doors feeling of this movement arises in a great measure from this kind of repetition. It causes a monotony--which, however, is never monotonous--and which, though no _imitation_, is akin to the constant sounds of nature--the monotony of rustling leaves and swaying trees, and running brooks and blowing wind, the call of birds and the hum of insects.’ And he adds, as a summing up of its beauty: ‘However abstruse or characteristic the mood of Beethoven, the expression of his mind is never dry or repulsive. To hear one of his great compositions is like contemplating, not a work of art or man’s device, but a mountain, a forest, or other immense product of nature--at once so complex and so simple; the whole so great and overpowering; the parts so minute, so lovely, and so consistent; and the effect so inspiring, so beneficial, and so elevating.’

Another phase of this deep, unworldly innocence was the very exhibition of temper that so often brought him into trouble. Sophistication and conformity remove these violences from men’s conduct, and rightly so; often with them is also removed much of the earnestness, the spontaneous tenderness, and the trustfulness of innocence. What but a deeply innocent, unsophisticated mind could have dictated words like these, which were written to Dr. Wegeler, after a misunderstanding: ‘My only consolation is that you knew me almost from my childhood, and--oh, let me say it myself--I was really always of good disposition, and in my dealings always strove to be upright and honest; how, otherwise, could you have loved me.’ Together with this yearning for understanding from his friends was a consciousness also of genius, which was humble, the very opposite of vanity and self-conceit: ‘You will only see me again when I am truly great; not only greater as an artist, but as a man you shall find me better, more perfect’; and again, ‘I am convinced good fortune will not fail me; with whom need I be afraid of measuring my strength?’ This is the language of self-confidence, and also of a nature thoroughly innocent and simple.

Still another, and perhaps the most remarkable, phase of his character was a certain boisterous love of fun and high spirits, which betrayed itself on the most unexpected occasions, often in puns, jests, practical jokes, and satiric comment. He was, in fact, an invincible humorist, ready, in season or out of season, with or without decorum, to expend his jocose or facetious pleasantry upon friend or enemy. If he could deliver a home thrust, it was often accompanied with a roar of laughter, and his sense of a joke often overthrew every other consideration. Throwing books, plates, eggs, at the servants, pouring a dish of stew over the head of the waiter who had served him improperly; sending the wisp of goat’s hair to the lady who had asked him for a lock of his own--these were his sardonically jesting retorts to what he considered to be clumsiness or sentimentality. The estimable Schuppanzigh, who in later life grew very fat, was the subject of many a joke. ‘My lord Falstaff’ was one of his nicknames, and a piece of musical drollery exists, scrawled by Beethoven on a blank page of the end of his sonata, opus 28, entitled _Lob an den Dicken_ (Praise to the fat one), which consists of a sort of canon to the words, _Schuppanzigh ist ein Lump, Lump, Lump_, and so on. Beethoven writes to Count von Brunswick: ‘Schuppanzigh is married--they say his wife is as fat as himself--what a family!’ Nicknames are invented for friend and foe: Johann, the _Gutsbesitzer_, is the ‘Brain-eater’ or ‘Pseudo-brother’; his brother’s widow is ‘Queen of the Night,’ and a canon written to Count Moritz Lichnowsky is set to the words, _Bester Herr Graf, du bist ein Schaf!_ Often his humor is in bad taste and frequently out of season, but it is always on call, a boisterous, biting, shrewd eighteenth century gift for ridicule and jest.

It must be admitted, however, that he was usually blind to the jest when it was turned on himself. There is an anecdote to the effect that in Berlin in 1796 he interrupted Himmel, the pianist, in the midst of an improvisation, asking him when he was intending to begin in earnest. When, however, months afterward, Himmel attempted to even up the joke by writing to Beethoven about the invention of a lantern for the blind, the composer not only did not see the point but was enraged when it was pointed out to him. Often, however, the humorous turn which he was enabled to give must have assisted in averting difficult situations, and not always was his jesting so heavy handed. He speaks of sending a song to the Princess Kinsky, ‘one of the stoutest, prettiest ladies in Vienna,’ and the following note shows his keen understanding of the peculiarities of popular favorites. Anna Milder, a celebrated German singer, was needed for rehearsal. ‘Manage the affair cleverly with Milder,’ he writes; ‘only tell her that you really come in my name, and in advance beg her not to sing anywhere else. But to-morrow I will come myself in order to kiss the hem of her garment.’

Another phase of the essential simplicity, as well as greatness, of his mind is in his direct grasp of the central thought of any work. He overlooked incidental elements, in order to get at the fundamental idea. This quality, as well as his own innate tendency toward the heroic and grand, led him to such writers as Homer, Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and made it impossible for him to find any interest in trivial or frivolous themes. He was always looking for suitable subjects for opera, but could never bring himself to regard seriously such a subject as Figaro or Don Giovanni. The less noble impulses were not, for him, worthy themes for art. ‘He refused with horror,’ Wagner notes, ‘to write music to ballet, shows, fireworks, sensual love intrigues, or an opera text of a frivolous tendency.’

‘Mozart, with his divine nonchalance, snatched at any earthly happiness, any gaiety of the flesh or spirit, and changed it instantly into the immortal substance of his music. But Beethoven, with his peasant seriousness, could not jest with virtue or the rhythmical order of the world. His art was his religion and must be served with a devotion in which there was none of the easy pleasantness of the world.’[54] This same ability of grasping the fundamental idea, however, led him also sometimes to set an undue valuation upon an inferior poet, such as Klopstock, whom it is said he read habitually for years. Something in the nobility and grandeur of the ideas at the bottom of this poet’s work caused Beethoven to overlook its pompousness and chaotic quality. The words meant less for him than the emotion and conception which prompted them. Beethoven himself, however, says that Goethe spoiled Klopstock for him, but it was only, fortunately, to provide him with something better. His taste for whatever was noble and grand in art never left him; and, so far as he was able, he lived up to the idea that it was the artist’s duty to be acquainted with the ancient and modern poets, not only so as to choose the best poetry for his own work, but also to afford food for his inspiration.

Beethoven from the first faced the world with a defiant spirit and a sort of wild independence. His sordid childhood nourished in him a rugged habit of self-dependence, and the knowledge of his own powers was like a steady beacon holding him unfalteringly to a consciousness of his high destiny. He _believed_, with all the innocence of a great mind, that gifts of genius were more than sufficient to raise their possessor to a level with the highest nobility; and, with such a belief, he could not pretend to a humility he was far from feeling in the companionship of social superiors. This feeling was perfectly compatible with the genuine modesty and clearness of judgment in regard to his own work. ‘Do not snatch the laurel wreaths from Handel, Haydn, and Mozart,’ he writes; ‘they are entitled to them; as yet I am not.’ But his modesty in things artistic was born, after all, of a sense of his own kinship with the greatest of the masters of art. He could face a comparison with them, knowing full well he belonged to their court; but to courts of a more temporal nature he did not and could not belong, however often he chanced to come under a princely roof. The light ease of manner, the assured courtesies, the happy audacities of speech and conduct which are native to the life of the salon and court were foreign to his nature. The suffrage of the fashionable world of Vienna he won by reason of qualities which were alien to them, but yet touched their sympathies, satisfied their genuine love of music, and pricked their sensibilities as with a goad. His is perhaps the first historic instance of ‘artistic temperament’ dominating and imposing itself upon society. Byron to a certain extent defied social customs and allowed himself liberties which he expected to be excused on account of his genius and popularity; but he was fundamentally much more closely allied to the world of fashion than Beethoven, who was a law unto himself and in sympathy with society only so far as it understood and applauded his actions.

Theoretically, at least, he was an ardent revolutionist. During the last decades of the eighteenth century the revolution in France had dwarfed all other political events in Europe, and republicanism was in the air. Two years after Beethoven left Bonn the Electorate of Cologne was abolished, and during the succeeding period many other small principalities were swallowed up by the larger kingdoms. The old order was changed and almost all Europe was involved in warfare. In 1799 the allied European states began to make headway against the invading French armies, and, as a consequence, the Directory fell into disfavor in France. Confusion and disorder prevailed, the Royalists recovering somewhat of their former power, and the Jacobins threatening another Reign of Terror. In this desperate state of affairs Napoleon was looked to as the liberator of his country. How he returned in all haste from his victorious campaign in Egypt, was hailed with wild enthusiasm, joined forces with some of the Directors, drove the Council of Five Hundred from the Chamber of Deputies (1799) and became First Consul--in fact, master of France--need hardly be recounted here.

Beethoven regarded Napoleon as the embodiment of the new hopes for the freedom of mankind which had been fostered by the Revolution. That he had also been affected by the martial spirit of the times is revealed in the first and second symphonies. It was the third, however, which was to prove the true monument to republicanism. The story is one of the familiar tales of musical history. Still full of confidence and faith in the Corsican hero, Beethoven composed his great ‘Eroica’ symphony (1804) and inscribed it with the name ‘Buonaparte.’ A fair copy had already been sent to an envoy who should present it to Napoleon, and another finished copy was lying on the composer’s work table when Beethoven’s friend Ries brought the news that Napoleon had assumed the title of emperor. Forthwith the admiration of Beethoven turned to hatred. ‘After all, then,’ he cried, ‘he is nothing but an ordinary mortal! He will trample all the rights of man underfoot, to indulge his ambition, and become a greater tyrant than anyone!’ The title page was seized, torn in half and thrown on the floor; and the symphony was rededicated to the memory of _un grand’ uomo_. It is said that Beethoven was never heard to refer to the matter again until the death of Napoleon in 1821, when he remarked, in allusion to the Funeral March of his second movement, ‘I have already foreseen and provided for that catastrophe.’ Probably nothing, however, beyond the title page was altered. ‘It is still a portrait--and we may believe a favorable portrait--of Napoleon, and should be listened to in that sense. Not as a conqueror--that would not attract Beethoven’s admiration--but for the general grandeur and loftiness of his course and of his public character. How far the portraiture extends, whether to the first movement only or through the entire work, there will probably be always a difference of opinion. The first movement is certain. The March is certain also, as is shown by Beethoven’s own remark--and the writer believes, after the best consideration he can give to the subject, that the other movements are also included in the picture, and that the _poco andante_ at the end represents the apotheosis of the hero.’[55]

IV

It is in vain, however, that one looks for a parallel between the life and the work of the master. In everyday matters he was impatient, abrupt and often careless; while in his art his patience was such as to become even a slow brooding, an infinite care. His life was often distracted and melancholy; his music is never distracted or melancholy, except in so far as great art can be melancholy with a nobly tragic, universal depth of sadness. In political matters a revolutionist and in social life a rebel, in his art he accepted forms as he found them, expanding them, indeed, but not discarding them. Audacious and impassioned not only in private conduct but in his extempore playing, in his writing he was cautious and selective beyond all belief. The sketch books are a curious and interesting witness to the slow and tentative processes of his mind. More than fifty of these--books of coarse music paper of two hundred or more pages, sixteen staves to the page--were found among his effects after death and sold. One of these books was constantly with him, on his walks, by his bedside, or when travelling, and in them he wrote down his musical ideas as they came, rewrote and elaborated them until they reached the form he desired. They are, as Grove points out, perhaps the most remarkable relic that any artist or literary man has left behind him. In them can be traced the germs of his themes from crude or often trivial beginning, growing under his hand spontaneously, as it seemed, into the distinguished and artistic designs of his completed work. A dozen or a score attempts at the same theme can often be found, and ‘the more they are elaborated, the more spontaneous they become.’ In these books it can also be seen how he often worked upon four or five different compositions at the same time; how he sometimes kept in mind a theme or an idea for years before finally using it, and how extraordinary was the fertility of his genius. Nottebohm, the author of ‘Beethoveniana,’ says: ‘Had he carried out all the symphonies which are begun in these books, we should have at least fifty.’ Thus we see his method of work, and the stages through which his compositions passed. ‘He took a story out of his own life, the life of a friend, a play of Goethe or Shakespeare--and he labored, eternally altering and improving, until at last every phrase expressed just the emotions he himself felt. The exhibition of his themes, as expressed in the sketch books, show how passionately and patiently he worked.’

Although he certainly sometimes allowed his music to be affected by outside events, as has been traced, for example, in the Eroica Symphony, yet in most instances his work seems to be independent of the outward experiences of his life. One of the most striking examples of the detachment of his artistic from his everyday life is in connection with the Second Symphony, written in 1802, the year in which he wrote, also, the celebrated ‘Heiligenstadt Will.’ This document was prompted by his despair over his bad health, frequent unhappiness on account of his brothers, and his deafness, which was now pronounced incurable. In it he says:

‘During the last six years I have been in a wretched condition--I am compelled to live as an exile. If I approach near to people, a feeling of hot anxiety comes over me lest my condition should be noticed. At times I was on the point of putting an end to my life--art alone restrained my hand. Oh, it seemed as if I could not quit this earth until I had produced all I felt within me, and so I continued this wretched life--wretched, indeed, with so sensitive a body that a somewhat sudden change can throw me from the best into the worst state. Lasting, I hope, will be my resolution to bear up until it pleases the inexorable Parcæ to break the thread. My prayer is that your life may be better, less troubled by cares, than mine. Recommend to your children _virtue_; it alone can bring happiness, not money. So let it be. I joyfully hasten to meet death. O Providence, let me have just one pure day of _joy_; so long is it since true joy filled my heart. Oh, when, Divine Being, shall I be able once again to feel it in the temple of Nature and of men.’

Such was his expression of grief at the time when the nature of his malady became known to him; and who can doubt its depth and sincerity? In it the man speaks from the heart; but in the same year also the Second Symphony was written, and in this the artist speaks. What a wonderful difference! ‘The _scherzo_ is as proudly gay in its capricious fantasy as the _andante_ is completely happy and tranquil; for everything is smiling in this symphony, the warlike spirit of the _allegro_ is entirely free from violence; one can only find there the grateful fervor of a noble heart in which are still preserved unblemished the loveliest illusions of life.’[56]

There seem to be two periods--one from 1808 to 1811, during his love affair with Therese Malfatti, and again after his brother’s death in 1815--when outward circumstances prevailed against the artist and rendered him comparatively silent. Unable to loosen the grip of personal emotion, during these periods he wrote little of importance. ‘During all the rest of his agitated and tormented life nothing, neither the constant series of passionate and brief loves, nor constant bodily sickness, trouble about money, trouble about friends, relations, and the unspeakable nephew, meant anything vital to his deeper self. The nephew helped to kill him, but could not color a note of his music.’[57] If, as in the case of the ‘Eroica,’ music was sometimes the reflection of present emotion, it was still oftener, as in the case just cited, his magic against it, his shelter from grief, the rock-wall with which he shut out the woes of life.

V

In the development of his artistic career three circumstances may be counted as strongly determining factors: his early experience in the theatre at Bonn, his skill on the pianoforte, and his lifelong preference for the sonata form.

In regard to the first, it is clearly evident that, although Beethoven was moved least of all by operatic works, yet his constant familiarity with the orchestra during the formative years of his life must have left a strong impression. From 1788 to 1792 at the National Theatre in Bonn he was playing in such works as _Die Entführung_, _Don Giovanni_, and _Figaro_ by Mozart, _Die Pilgrime von Mekka_ by Gluck, and productions by Salieri, Benda, Dittersdorf, and Paesiello. That in after life he wrote but one opera was probably due to a number of causes, one of which was his difficulty in finding a libretto to his liking. His diary and letters show that he was frequently in correspondence with various poets concerning a libretto, and that the purpose of further operatic work was never dismissed from his mind. But he always conceived his melodies and musical ideas instrumentally rather than vocally, and never was able or willing to modify them to suit the compass of the average voice. One consequence of this was that he had endless trouble and difficulty in the production of his opera, _Fidelio_, which was withdrawn after the first three performances. Upon its revival it was played to larger and more appreciative audiences, but was again suddenly and finally withdrawn by the composer after a quarrel with Baron von Braun, the intendant of the theatre.

It was but natural that such difficulties and vexations should turn the attention of the composer away from operatic production, but he undoubtedly hoped that better fortune would sometime attend his endeavors. In one respect, at least, he reaped encouragement from the experience with _Fidelio_, for it helped him to overcome his sensitiveness in regard to his deafness. On the margin of his sketch book in 1805 he writes: ‘Struggling as you are in the vortex of society, it is yet possible, notwithstanding all social hindrances, to write operas. Let your deafness be no longer a secret, even in your art.’ Great as _Fidelio_ is, it does not possess the vocal excellences even of the commonplace Italian or French opera of its day. Its merit lies in the greater nobility of conception, the freedom and boldness of its orchestral score, and in its passionate emotional depth. The result of Beethoven’s early practice with the theatre, undoubtedly, was of far deeper significance in relation to his symphonies than to his operatic work.

During the early days in Vienna his reputation rested almost entirely upon his wonderful skill as player upon the pianoforte, or, more especially, as improviser. It was a period of great feats in extempore playing, and some of the greatest masters of the time--Himmel, Woelfl, Lipawsky, Gelinek, Steibelt--lived in Vienna. They were at first inclined to make sport of the newcomer, who bore himself awkwardly, spoke in dialect, and took unheard-of liberties in his playing; but they were presently forced to recognize the master hand. Steibelt challenged him at the piano and was thoroughly beaten, while Gelinek paid him the compliment of listening to his playing so carefully as to be able to reproduce many of his harmonies and melodies and pass them off as his own. Technically, only Himmel and Woelfl could seriously compare with Beethoven, the first being distinguished by clearness and elegance, and the second by the possession of unusually large hands, which gave him a remarkable command of the keyboard. They, as well as Beethoven, could perform wonders in transposition, reading at sight, and memorizing, just as Mozart had done. But Beethoven’s reputation as the ‘giant among players’ rested upon other qualities--the fire of his imagination, nobility of style, and great range of expression. Understanding as he did the capabilities of the pianoforte, he endowed his compositions for this instrument with a wealth of detail and depth of expression such as had hitherto not been achieved. Czerny, himself an excellent pianist, thus describes his playing: ‘His improvisation was most brilliant and striking; in whatever company he might chance to be he knew how to produce such an effect upon every hearer that frequently not an eye remained dry, while many would break out in loud sobs; for there was something wonderful in his expression, in addition to the beauty and originality of his ideas, and his spirited style of rendering them.’[58] Ries and other artists have also borne testimony to his skill, wealth of imagery and inexhaustible fertility of ideas. Grove says: ‘He extemporized in regular form; and his variations, when he treated a theme in that way, were not mere alterations of figure, but real developments and elaborations of the subject.’

In close connection with his work as pianist, and exercising a powerful influence not only upon Beethoven but also upon all later composers, was the mechanical development of the pianoforte. The clavichord and clavicembalo, which had occupied a modest place during the eighteenth century merely as accompanying instruments to string or wind music, were now gradually replaced by the _Hammer-clavier_, as it was called, which, by the middle of the century, began to be considered seriously as a solo instrument of remarkable powers. Important piano manufacturers, such as Silbermann in Strassburg, Späth in Regensburg, Stein in Augsburg, Broadwood in London, and Érard in Paris, did much to bring about the perfection of the instrument and so indirectly assisted in the development of pianoforte music. In 1747 Sebastian Bach had played a Silbermann piano before Frederick the Great in Potsdam, but the important development came after the middle of the century. In London, in 1768, Johann Christian Bach used the pianoforte for the first time in a public concert, and we know that Mozart possessed instruments both from Späth and Stein, and that in 1779 some of his work was published ‘for Clavier or Pianoforte.’ An immediate consequence of this sudden rise of the pianoforte into popularity was, of course, the appearance of a new musical literature adapted to the peculiarities of the instrument. Among the first of the technical students of the pianoforte was Muzio Clementi,[59] whose _Gradus ad Parnassum_, or hundred exercises ‘upon the art of playing the pianoforte in a severe and elegant style’ made a deep impression upon the rising generation of musicians and are still considered of the highest educational value. Some of these exercises were published as early as 1784, though the collection was not made until 1817. An extract from the writing of one of Clementi’s best pupils throws some light upon the standard of taste in regard to pianoforte playing which prevailed in Beethoven’s early days. He says: ‘I asked Clementi whether, in 1781, he had begun to treat the instrument in his present (1806) style. He answered _no_, and added that in those early days he had cultivated a more brilliant execution, especially in double stops, hardly known then, and in extemporized cadenzas, and that he had subsequently achieved a more melodic and noble style of performance after listening attentively to famous singers, and also by means of the perfected mechanism of English pianos, the construction of which formerly stood in the way of a cantabile and legato style of playing.’ It is evident that Beethoven came upon the scene as pianoforte player not only when the improved instrument was almost in the first flush of its popularity, but also when virtuosity and the ability to astonish by difficult technical feats were sometimes mistaken for true artistic achievement.

By the time Beethoven’s career as a composer began the sonata had already been developed, as we have seen, especially by Haydn and Mozart, into a model form whose validity was established for all time. Technically, it was a compromise between the German effort toward a logical and coherent harmonic expression, as represented by Emanuel Bach and others, and the Italian tendency toward melodic beauty and grace. The first thirty-one published instrumental compositions of Beethoven, as well as the great majority of all his works, are in this form, which seemed, indeed, to be the ‘veil-like tissue through which he gazed into the realm of tones.’[60] With Haydn this form had reached a plane where structural lucidity was almost the first consideration. ‘Musicians had arrived at that artificial state of mind which deliberately chose to be conscious of formal elements,’ says Parry, ‘and it was only by breathing a new and mightier spirit into the framework that the structure would escape becoming merely a collection of lifeless bones.’ It was this spirit which Beethoven brought not only to the pianoforte sonata, but also to the symphony and quartet. His spirit, as we have seen, both in daily intercourse and in art, was of the sort to scoff at needless restrictions and defy conventionality. While, however, his rebellion against conventionality of conduct and artificiality in society was often somewhat excessive and superfluous, in his art it led him unerringly, not toward iconoclasm or even disregard of form, but toward the realities of human feeling.

VI

Beethoven’s works extend to every field of composition. They include five concertos for piano and orchestra, one concerto for violin and orchestra, sixteen quartets for strings, ten sonatas for piano and violin, thirty-eight sonatas for piano, one opera, two masses, nine overtures and nine symphonies--about forty vocal and less than two hundred instrumental compositions in all. The division of the work into three periods, made by von Lenz in 1852 is, on the whole, a useful and just classification, when due allowance is made for the periods overlapping and merging into each other according to the different species of composition. The ideas of his mature life expressed themselves earlier in the sonatas than in the symphonies; therefore the first period, so far as the sonatas are concerned, ends with opus 22 (1801), while it includes the Second Symphony, composed, as has been noted, in 1802. Individual exceptions to the classification also occur, as, for example, the Quartet in F minor, which, though composed during the first period, shows strongly many of the characteristics of the second. In general, however, the early works may be said to spring from the pattern set by Haydn and Mozart. In regard to this Grove says: ‘He began, as it was natural and inevitable he should, with, the best style of his day--the style of Mozart and Haydn, with melodies and passages that might be almost mistaken for theirs, with compositions apparently molded in intention on them. And yet even during this Mozartian epoch we meet with works or single movements which are not Mozart, which Mozart perhaps could not have written, and which very fully reveal the future Beethoven.’

In spite of being fully conscious of himself and knowing the power that was in him, Beethoven never was an iconoclast or radical. He was rather a builder whose architectural traditions came from ancient, well-accredited sources, in kinship probably somewhat closer to Haydn than to Mozart, though traces of Mozart are clearly evident. ‘The topics are different, the eloquence is more vivid, more nervous, more full-blooded--there is far greater use of rhythmic gesture, a far more intimate and telling appeal to emotion, but in point of actual phraseology there is little that could not have been written by an unusually adult, virile, and self-willed follower of the accepted school. It is eighteenth century music raised to a higher power.’[61]

The promise of a change in style, evident in the Kreutzer Sonata (1803) and in the pianoforte concerto in C minor, is practically completed in the Eroica Symphony (1804)--a change of which Beethoven was fully conscious and which he described in a letter as ‘something new.’ It began the second period, lasting until 1814, to which belongs a striking and remarkable group of works. In the long list are six symphonies, the third to the eighth inclusive, the opera _Fidelio_ with its four overtures, the Coriolan overture, the Egmont music, the pianoforte concertos in G and E flat, the violin concerto, the Rasoumowsky quartets, and a dozen sonatas for the piano, among which are the D minor and the Appassionata. It was a period characterized by maturity, wealth of imagination, humor, power, and individuality to a marvellous degree. If Beethoven had done nothing after 1814, he would still be one of the very greatest composers in the field of pure instrumental music. His ideas increase in breadth and variety, the designs grow to magnificent proportions, the work becomes more harmonious and significant, touching many sides of thought and emotion.

In this period he broke through many of the conventions of composition, as, for example, the idea that certain musical forms required certain kinds of treatment. The rondo and scherzo, formerly always of a certain stated character, were made by him to express what he wished, according to his conception of the requirements of the piece. Likewise the number of his movements was determined by the character and content of the work, and the conventional repetition of themes was made a matter of choice. Moreover, the usual method of key succession was used only if agreeable to his idea of fitness. In the great majority of sonatas by Haydn and Mozart, if the first theme be given out in a major key, the second is placed in the dominant; or, if the first is in minor, the second would be in the relative major. Beethoven makes the transition to the dominant only three times out of eighty-one examples, using instead the subdominant, the third above, or the third below. He changes also from tonic major to tonic minor, and _vice versa_. With him the stereotyped restriction as to key succession was no longer valid when it conflicted with the necessity for greater freedom.

Again, Beethoven ignored the well-established convention of separating different sections from one another by well-defined breaks. It was the custom with earlier masters to stop at the end of a passage, ‘to present arms, as it were,’ with a series of chords or other conventional stop; with Beethoven this gives place to a method of subtly connecting, instead of separating, the different sections, for which he used parts of the main theme or phrases akin to it, thus making the connecting link an inherent part of the piece. He also makes use of episodes in the working-out section, introduces even new themes, and expands both the coda and the introduction. These modifications are of the nature of enlargements or developments of a plan already accepted, and seem, as Grove points out, ‘to have sprung from the fact of his regarding his music less as a piece of technical performance than his predecessors had perhaps done, and more as the expression of the ideas with which his mind was charged.’ These ideas were too wide and too various to be contained within the usual limits, and, therefore, the limits had to be enlarged. The thing of first importance to him was the idea, to be expressed exactly as he wished, without regard to theoretical formulæ, which too often had become dry and meaningless. Therefore he allows himself liberties--such as the use of consecutive fifths--if they convey the exact impression he wishes to convey. Other musicians had also allowed themselves such liberties, but not with the same high-handed individualistic confidence that Beethoven betrays. ‘In Beethoven the fact was connected with the peculiar position he had taken in society, and with the new ideas which the general movement of freedom at the end of the eighteenth century, and the French Revolution in particular, had forced even into such strongholds as the Austrian courts.... What he felt he said, both in society and in his music.... The great difference is that, whereas in his ordinary intercourse he was extremely abrupt and careless of effect, in his music he was exactly the reverse--painstaking, laborious, and never satisfied till he had conveyed his ideas in unmistakable language.’[62]

In other words, conventional rules and regulations of composition which had formerly been the dominating factor were made subservient to what he considered the essentials--consistency of mood and the development of the poetic idea. He becomes the tone poet whose versatility and beauty of expression increase with the increasing power of his thought. Technical accessories of art were elevated to their highest importance, not for the sake of mere ornamentation, but because they were of use in enlarging and developing the idea.

During these years of rich achievement the staunch qualities of his genius, his delicacy and accuracy of sensation, his sound common sense and wisdom, his breadth of imagination, joy, humor, sanity, and moral earnestness--these qualities radiate from his work as if it were illuminated by an inward phosphorescent glow. He creates or translates for the listener a whole world of truth which cannot be expressed by speech, canvas, or marble, but is only capable of being revealed in the realm of sound. The gaiety of his music is large and beneficent; its humor is that of the gods at play; its sorrow is never whimpering; its cry of passion is never that of earthly desire. ‘It is the gaiety which cries in the bird, rustles in the reeds, shines in spray; it is a voice as immediate as sunlight. Some new epithet must be invented for this music which narrates nothing, yet is epic; sings no articulate message, yet is lyric; moves to no distinguishable action, yet is already awake in the wide waters out of which a world is to awaken.’[63]

The transition to the third period is even more definitely marked than that to the second. To it belong the pianoforte sonatas opus 101 to 111, the quartets opus 127 to 135, the Ninth Symphony, composed nearly eleven years after the eighth, and the mass in D--works built on even a grander scale than those of the second epoch. It would almost seem as if the form, enlarged and extended, ceased to exist as such and became a principle of growth, comparable only to the roots and fibres of a tree. The polyphony, quite unlike the old type of counterpoint, yet like that in that it is made up of distinct strands, is free and varied. Like the other artifices of technique, it serves only to repeat, intensify, or contrast the poetic idea. The usual medium of the orchestra is now insufficient to express his thought, therefore he adds a choral part for the full completion of the idea which had been germinating in his consciousness for more than twenty years. Moreover, these later works are touched with a mysticism almost beyond any words to define, as if the musician had ceased to speak in order to let the prophet have utterance. ‘He passes beyond the horizon of a mere singer and poet and touches upon the domain of the seer and the prophet; where, in unison with all genuine mystics and ethical teachers, he delivers a message of religious love and resignation, identification with the sufferings of all living creatures, depreciation of self, negation of personality, release from the world.’[64]

More radical than the modifications mentioned above were the substitution of the scherzo for the minuet, and the introduction of a chorus into the symphony. It will be remembered that the third symphonic movement, the minuet, originally a slow, stately dance, had already been modified in spirit and tempo by Mozart and Haydn for the purpose of contrast. In his symphonies, however, Beethoven abandoned the dance tune almost entirely, using it only in the Eighth. Even in the First, where the third movement is entitled ‘menuetto,’ it is in fact not a dance but a scherzo, and offers almost a miniature model of the longer and grander scherzos in such works as the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, where, as elsewhere, he made the form subservient to his mood.

Of the second innovation mentioned, the finale of the Ninth Symphony remains as the sole, but lasting and stupendous, monument. This whole work, the only symphony of his last period, deserves to be studied not only as the crowning achievement of a remarkable career and the logical outcome of the eight earlier symphonies with their steadily increasing breadth and power, but also as in itself voicing the last and best message of the master. Its arrangement, consisting of five parts, is rather irregular. The _allegro_ is followed by the scherzo, which in turn is followed by a slow movement. The finale consists of a theme with variations and a choral movement to the setting of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy.’ The thought of composing a work which should express his ideals of universal peace and love had been in his mind since the year 1792. It seems as if he conceived the use of the chorus as an enlargement and enrichment of the forces of the orchestra, rather than as an extraneous addition--as if human voices were but another group of instruments swelling that great orchestral hymn which forms the poetic and dramatic climax to the work, ‘carrying sentiment to the extremest pitch of exaltation.’ The melody itself is far above the merely æsthetic or beautiful, it reaches the highest possible simplicity and nobility. ‘Beethoven has emancipated this melody from all influences of fashion and fluctuating taste, and elevated it to an eternally valid type of pure humanity.’[65]

The changes in technical features inaugurated by Beethoven are of far less importance, comparatively, than the increase in æsthetic content, individuality, and expression. As has been noted, he was no iconoclast; seeking new effects in a striving for mere originality or altering forms for the mere sake of trying something new. On the contrary, his innovations were always undertaken with extreme discretion and only as necessity required; and even to the last the sonata form, ‘that triune symmetry of exposition, illustration, and repetition,’ can be discerned as the basis upon which his most extensive work was built. Even when this basis is not at first clearly apparent, the details which seemed to obscure it are found, upon study, to be the organic and logical amplification of the structure itself, never mere additions. It should be pointed out, however, that the last works, especially those for the piano, are of so transcendental or mystic a nature as to make it impossible for the average listener to appreciate them to their fullest extent; indeed, they provide a severe test even for a mature interpreter and for that reason they will hardly ever become popular.

VII

In spite of Beethoven’s own assertion that his work is not meant to be ‘program music,’ his name will no doubt always be connected with that special phase of modern art. We have seen how distinctly he grasped the true principles of program or delineative music in his words, _Mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei_ (the expression of feeling, not a painting); never an imitation, but a reproduction of the effect. More than any musician of his own or earlier times was he able to saturate his composition with the mood which prompted it. For this reason the whole world sees pictures in his sonatas and reads stories into his symphonies, as it has not done with the work of Haydn, Emanuel Bach, or Mozart. With the last-named composer it was sufficient to bring all the devices of art--balance, light and shade, contrast, repetition, surprise--to the perfection of an artistic ensemble, with a result which satisfies the æsthetic demands of the most fastidious. Beethoven’s achievement was art plus mood or emotion; therefore the popular habit of calling the favorite sonata in C sharp minor the ‘Moonlight Sonata,’ unscholarly though it may be, is striking witness to one of the most fundamental of Beethoven’s qualities--the power by which he imbued a given composition with a certain mood recognizable at once by imaginative minds. The aim at realism, however, is only apparent. That he is not a ‘programmist,’ in the accepted sense, is evident from the fact that he gave descriptive names to only the two symphonies, the _Eroica_ and _Pastoral_. He does not tell a story, he produces a feeling, an impression. His work is the notable embodiment of Schopenhauer’s idea: ‘Music is not a representation of the world, but an immediate voice of the world.’ Unlike the artist who complained that he disliked working out of doors because Nature ‘put him out,’ Beethoven was most himself when Nature spoke through him. This is the new element in music which was to germinate so variously in the music drama, tone poems and the like of the romantic writers of the nineteenth century.

In judging his operatic work, it has seemed to critics that Beethoven remained almost insensible to the requirements and limitations of a vocal style and was impatient of the restraints necessarily imposed upon all writing for the stage; with the result that his work spread out into something neither exactly dramatic nor oratorical. In spite of the obvious greatness of _Fidelio_, these charges have some validity. With his two masses, again, he went far beyond the boundaries allotted by circumstance to any ecclesiastical production and arrived at something like a ‘shapeless oratorio.’ His variations, also, so far exceed the limit of form usually maintained by this species of composition that they are scarcely to be classed with those of any other composer. For the pianoforte, solo and in connection with other instruments, there are twenty-nine sets of this species of music, besides many brilliant instances of its use in larger works, such as the slow movement in the ‘Appassionata,’ and the slow movements of the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. Sometimes he keeps the melody unchanged, weaving a varied accompaniment above, below, or around it; again he preserves the harmonic basis and embellishes the melody itself, these being types of variation well known also to other composers. Another method, however, peculiar to himself, is to subject each part--melody, rhythm, and harmony--to an interesting change, and yet with such skill and art that the individual theme still remains clearly recognizable. ‘In no other form than that of the variation,’ remarks Dannreuther, ‘does Beethoven’s creative power appear more wonderful and its effect on the art more difficult to measure.’

It is, however, primarily as symphonist and sonata writer that Beethoven stands preëminent. At the risk of another repetition we must again say that with Beethoven’s treatment the sonata form assumes a new aspect, in that it serves as the golden bowl into which the intensity of his thought is poured, rather than the limiting framework of his art. He was disdainful of the attitude of the Viennese public which caused the virtuoso often to be confused with the artist. Brilliant passages were to him merely so much bombast and fury, unless there was a thought sufficiently intense to justify the extra vigor; and to him cleverness of fingers could not disguise emptiness of soul. ‘Such is the vital germ from which spring the real peculiarities and individualities of Beethoven’s instrumental compositions. It must now be a form of spirit as well as a form of the framework; it is to become internal as well as external.’ A musical movement in Beethoven is a continuous and complete poem; an organism which is gradually unfolded before us, rarely weakened by the purely conventional passages which were part of the _form_ of his predecessors.

It must be noted, however, that Beethoven’s subtle modifications in regard to form were possible only because Mozart and Haydn had so well prepared the way by their very insistence upon the exact divisions of any given piece. Audiences of that day enjoyed the well-defined structure, which enabled them to follow and know just where they were. Perhaps for that very reason they sooner grew tired of the obviously constructed piece, but in any case they were educated to a familiarity with form, and were habituated to the effort of following its general outlines. Beethoven profited by this circumstance, taking liberties, especially in his pianoforte compositions, which would have caused mental confusion and bewilderment to earlier audiences, but were understood and accepted with delight by his own. His mastery of musical design and logical accuracy enabled him so to express himself as to be universally understood. He demonstrated both the supremacy and the elasticity of the sonata form, taking his mechanism from the eighteenth century, and in return bequeathing a new style to the nineteenth--a style which separated the later school of Vienna from any that had preceded it, spread rapidly over Europe, and exercised its authority upon every succeeding composer.

His great service was twofold: to free the art from formalism and spirit-killing laws; and to lift it beyond the level of fashionable taste. In this service he typifies that spirit which, in the persons of Wordsworth, Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe, has rescued literary art from similar deadening influences. Wagner expressed this feeling when he said, ‘For inasmuch as he elevated music, conformably to its utmost nature, out of its degradation as a merely diverting art to the height of its sublime calling, he has opened to us the understanding of that art in which the world explains itself.’ Herein lies his true relation to the world of art and the secret of his greatness; for almost unchallenged he takes the supreme place in the realm of pure instrumental music. His power is that of intellect combined with greatness of character. ‘He loves love rather than any of the images of love. He loves nature with the same, or even a more constant, passion. He loves God, whom he cannot name, whom he worships in no church built with hands, with an equal rapture. Virtue appears to him with the same loveliness as beauty.... There are times when he despairs for himself, never for the world. Law, order, a faultless celestial music, alone exist for him; and these he believed to have been settled before time was, in the heavens. Thus his music was neither revolt nor melancholy,’ and it is this, the noblest expression of a strange and otherwise inarticulate soul, which lives for the eternal glory of the art of music.

F. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Edward Dickinson: ‘The Study of the History of Music.’

[51] _Dichtung und Wahrheit._

[52] Thayer, Vol. I, p. 227.

[53] Nottebohm: _Beethoveniana_, XXVII.

[54] Arthur Symons, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[55] Grove: ‘Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies,’ pp. 55-56.

[56] Berlioz: _Étude critique des symphonies de Beethoven_.

[57] Arthur Symons, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[58] Thayer: Vol. II, p. 10.

[59] Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) is now remembered chiefly by his technical studies for the pianoforte, though a much greater portion of his work deserves recognition. He was a great concert pianist, a rival of whom Mozart was a little unwilling to admit the ability. A great part of his life was spent in England. He composed a great amount of music for the pianoforte which has little by little been displaced by that of Mozart; and in his own lifetime symphonies which once were hailed with acclaim fell into neglect before Haydn’s. His pianoforte works expanded keyboard technique, especially in the direction of double notes and octaves, and were the first distinctly pianoforte works in distinction to works for the harpsichord.

[60] Wagner, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[61] ‘Oxford History of Music,’ Vol. V.

[62] Grove, Vol. I, p. 204.

[63] Arthur Symons, Essay ‘Beethoven.’

[64] Dannreuther, ‘Beethoven,’ Macmillan’s Magazine, July, 1876.

[65] Richard Wagner, Essay ‘Beethoven.’