Beethoven: A Memoir Part 11

"Leonora" No. 2 was condemned on account of the predominance of the wind instruments, and No. 3 ultimately, because the stringed instruments had so much to do that precision was out of the question.

When, at length, the composer was satisfied with his creation; when the singers (pacified by the friendly intervention of Seyfried) had agreed to give the music as it was written; when all difficulties were apparently overcome, the unlucky composer's annoyances reached a climax in the reception accorded to his work by the public.

With great want of judgment (purposely to annoy him, as Beethoven thought) the opera was produced a few days after the French troops had entered Vienna; when all his friends and patrons, including Lichnowski, had sought refuge at their country seats till the storm had blown over; and the theatre was filled with French officers and soldiers, an audience utterly incapable of appreciating the master. As might have been antic.i.p.ated, the work was coldly received, and, after three representations, withdrawn. In 1806 it met with the same fate, and not till 1814 did this, the grandest work of the German school--a work which has fought its way to every stage in Europe, and has been brought home to every heart by a Malibran, a Schroder-Devrient, or a Tietjens,--obtain a favourable hearing.

During the time the opera was in progress, Beethoven (like Mozart in producing his "Seraglio") suffered keenly from the jealousy of some of his opponents, and his brothers took care that every barb should find its way home to his sensitive mind. Even his friend Stephan Breuning, in his great desire to help the composer, aggravated the evil by the very warmth of his partisans.h.i.+p,--and thus, by constant dwelling upon them, many little slights a.s.sumed a disproportionate magnitude, and annoyed our poor Beethoven intensely.

But enough of darkness and despondency; life now begins, by one of those sudden and apparently inexplicable changes, to wear a rosier hue for the composer. Reserving our inquiry into the cause of this, we close this chapter with the beautiful letter to the poet Matthison, whose "Adelade" he had set to music some time previously.

"MOST ESTEEMED FRIEND,--You will receive, together with this, a composition of mine which has already been printed for several years, but of which, to my shame, you perhaps know nothing yet.

"I may, perhaps, be able to excuse myself, and to explain why I dedicated anything to you, which came so warmly from my heart, and yet did not make you acquainted with it,--by the plea that, at first, I did not know where you resided, and then my diffidence led me to think that I had been somewhat hasty in dedicating anything to you without knowing if it had your approval. And, indeed, even now I send you the 'Adelade' with some timidity. You yourself know what changes a few years produce in an artist who is constantly progressing; the more one accomplishes in art, the less is one satisfied with former works.

"My most fervent wish will be realized if you are not altogether dissatisfied with the music to your heavenly 'Adelade,' and if you are incited by it to compose a similar poem soon, and (should my request not seem too bold) to send it to me forthwith, when I shall put forth all my strength to approach your lovely poetry in merit.

"Consider the dedication as a mark of my esteem and grat.i.tude for the exquisite pleasure which your poetry has always afforded, and will still afford me.

"When playing the 'Adelade,' remember sometimes

"Your sincere admirer,

"BEETHOVEN."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: Surgeon-in-Chief to the army.]

[Footnote 17: Eleanore von Breuning.]

[Footnote 18: Stephan von Breuning.]

[Footnote 19: Probably in the house of Baron Pasqualati.]

[Footnote 20: A painting by Fuger, Director of the Vienna Academy.]

[Footnote 21: Christoph Breuning.]

[Footnote 22: Madame von Breuning.]

[Footnote 23: Franz Ries, the violinist.]

[Footnote 24: Ferdinand, afterwards Beethoven's pupil.]

[Footnote 25: Professor of Medicine at the Academie Josephine, and author of several works.]

[Footnote 26: Undoubtedly the Countess Julia Guicciardi.]

[Footnote 27: The Breuning family had long been in possession of one of the most honourable posts in the Teutonic Order, four members had successively filled the office of Chancellor, and Stephan himself was afterwards appointed to the government of Mergentheim. He was generally esteemed, and died a short time after Beethoven.]

[Footnote 28: The omission of the name of Johann van Beethoven from this doc.u.ment is somewhat unaccountable. It may have been caused through Beethoven's irritation at his conduct. The original of the Promemoria is now in the possession of Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt.]

[Footnote 29: Beethoven was at the time in his thirty-second year; but he never knew precisely his age.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VII.

LOVE.

The Fourth Symphony--Julia Guicciardi--Letters to her--To Bettina Brentano--Beethoven's Attachments--Domestic Troubles--Frau Nanette Streicher--Daily Life--Composing _im Freien_.

"In love with an Ideal, A creature of his own imagination, A child of air, and echo of his heart; And like a lily on a river floating, She floats upon the river of his thoughts."

Whence comes it that after a storm of darkness and gloom--after the disappointment of his "Leonora"--the next offspring of the poet's fancy should be a symphony (No. 4), the most delicately finished and bright in colouring which we possess?

The mystery is not easily solved. Former biographers have at once come to the conclusion that this was the period in which Beethoven's love for Julia Guicciardi, alluded to in a letter to Wegeler, had reached its climax. This hypothesis has, however, been put to flight by the discovery of Alexander Thayer that the lady was married to Count Gallenberg (afterwards the Keeper of the Archives of the Imperial Opera) in 1803--that is, three years before the composition of the work.

Is the B flat major Symphony, after all, as much the exponent of the master pa.s.sion as is, in another way, the C sharp minor Sonata? Or is it, with its troubled, gloomy opening, expanding into glorious warmth and suns.h.i.+ne, another evidence of Beethoven's resolution to set fate at defiance, and to keep at bay the monster Grief which threatened to annihilate him? Who can tell? When the traveller, suddenly emerging from some mist-hung mountain gorge, steps out upon the rocky platform, he beholds in the distance, beneath his delighted gaze, a landscape bathed in suns.h.i.+ne; so to the poet's excited fancy there must have been present some bright vision, one of those "loftier spirits, who sported with him and allotted to him n.o.bler tasks," drawing a veil over the troubled Past, and pointing him onwards to a glorious Future.

Let the Reader take which interpretation he will.

We propose briefly to present to him the two sets of letters which show us Beethoven in two different aspects as a lover--the first _pur et simple_, the second Platonic.

Nothing is known with certainty of Beethoven's "immortal beloved," whose name vibrates throughout the Adagio of the Moonlight Sonata. The letters to her (of date unknown, written from some baths in Hungary, whither he had been ordered for his health) breathe the very intensity of pa.s.sion--a pa.s.sion at times too deep for words.[30]

"_Morning, 6th July._

"My Angel! my All! my Second Self!

"Only a few words to-day, written with a pencil (with thine). My residence will not be definitely fixed before to-morrow. What a ruinous waste of time!--Why this deep sorrow where Necessity speaks?

can our love exist otherwise than by sacrifices, than by our not expecting everything? Canst thou alter the fact that thou art not wholly mine, that I am not wholly thine?--Alas! look into the beauties of Nature, and calm thy mind for what must be endured. Love demands all, and with perfect right, and thus _I feel towards thee_ and _thou towards me_, only thou forgettest so easily that I have to live _for myself_ and _for thee_,--were we perfectly united, thou wouldst feel this trial as little as I do.

"My journey was terrible. I only arrived yesterday at four o'clock in the morning, owing to the want of horses. The driver chose another route, but what a fearful one! At the last station they warned me not to travel by night, and tried to terrify me by a forest, but this only stimulated me, though I was wrong. The carriage broke down on that dreadful road, a mere rough, unmade country lane, and had not my postillions been what they were, I should have been obliged to remain there by the wayside.

"Esterhazy, on the usual route, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four, and yet I felt a certain degree of pleasure, as I always do when I overcome anything happily.--Now, in haste, from the outer to the inner man! We shall probably soon see each other again. I cannot communicate to thee to-day the reflections I have been making, during the last few days, on my life--were our hearts ever near to one another, I should make none such. My heart is full of much that I have to say to thee. Ah! there are moments in which I feel that language is absolutely nothing. Take courage!

continue to be my true, my only treasure, my All, as I am thine. The G.o.ds must send the rest--that which is ordained to be, and shall be for us.

"Thy faithful