Читать книгу Ludwig van Beethoven (Biography in 3 Volumes) - Alexander Wheelock Thayer - Страница 23

Table of Contents

Beethoven’s Creative Activity in Bonn—An Inquiry into the Genesis of Many Compositions—The Cantatas on the Death of Joseph II and the Elevation of Leopold II—Songs, the “Ritterballet,” the Octet and Other Chamber Pieces.

But for the outbreak of the French Revolution, Bonn seems to have been destined to become a brilliant centre of learning and art. Owing to the Elector’s taste and love for music, that art became—what under the influence of Goethe poetry and drama were in Weimar—the artistic expression and embodiment of the intellectual character of the time. In this art, among musicians and composers, Beethoven, endowed with a genius whose originality has rarely if ever been surpassed, “lived, moved and had his being.” His official superiors, Lucchesi, Reicha, Neefe, were indefatigable in their labors for the church, the stage and the concert-room; his companions, Andreas Perner, Anton Reicha, the Rombergs, were prolific in all the forms of composition from the set of variations to even the opera and oratorios; and in the performance of their productions, as organist, pianist and viola player, he, of course, assisted. The trophies of Miltiades allowed no rest to Themistocles. Did the applause bestowed upon the scenes, duos, trios, quartets, symphonies, operas of his friends awaken no spirit of emulation in him? Was he contented to be the mere performer, leaving composition to others? And yet what a “beggarly account” is the list of compositions known to belong to this period of his life![49] Calling to mind the activity of others, particularly Mozart, developed in their boyhood, and reflecting on the incentives which were offered to Beethoven in Bonn, one may well marvel at the small number and the small significance of the compositions which preceded the Trios Op. 1, with which, at the age of 24 years, he first presented himself to the world as a finished artist. But a change has come over the picture in the progress of time. Not only are the beginnings of many works which he presented to the world at a late day as the ripe products of his genius to be traced back to the Bonn period; fate has also made known to us compositions of his youth which, for a long time, were lost in whole or in part, and which, in connection with the three great pianoforte quartets of 1785, not only disclose a steady progress, but also discover the self-developed individual artist at a much earlier date than has heretofore been accepted. Now that we are again in possession of the cantatas and other fruits of the Bonn period, or have learned to know them better as such, we are able to free ourselves from the old notion which presented Beethoven as a slowly and tardily developed master.

Cantata on the Death of Joseph II

The most interesting of Beethoven’s compositions in the Bonn period are unquestionably the cantatas on the death of Joseph II and the elevation of Leopold II. Beethoven did not bring them either to performance or publication; they were dead to the world. Nottebohm called attention to the fact that manuscript copies of their scores were announced in the auction catalogue of the library of Baron de Beine in April, 1813. It seems probable that Hummel purchased them at that time; at any rate, after his death they found their way from his estate into the second-hand bookshop of List and Francke in Leipsic, where they were bought in 1884 by Armin Fridmann of Vienna. Dr. Eduard Hanslick acquainted the world with the rediscovered treasures in a feuilleton published in the “Neue Freie Presse” newspaper of Vienna on May 13, 1884, and the funeral cantata was performed for the first time at Vienna in November, 1884, and at Bonn on June 29, 1885.[50] Both cantatas were then included in the Complete Works of Beethoven published by Breitkopf and Härtel. The “Cantata on the Death of Joseph the Second, composed by L. van Beethoven,” was written between March and June, 1790. The Emperor died on February 20th, and the news of his death reached Bonn on February 24th. The Lesegesellschaft at once planned a memorial celebration, which took place on March 19th. At a meeting held to make preparations for the function on February 28, Prof. Eulogius Schneider (who delivered the memorial address) expressed the wish that a musical feature be incorporated in the programme and said that a young poet had that day placed a poem in his hands which only needed a setting from one of the excellent musicians who were members of the society or a composer from elsewhere. Beethoven’s most influential friends, at the head of them Count Waldstein, were members of the society. Here, therefore, we have beyond doubt the story of how Beethoven’s composition originated. The minutes of the last meeting for preparation, held on March 17, state that “for various reasons the proposed cantata cannot be performed.” Among the various reasons may have been the excessive difficulty of the parts for the wind-instruments which, according to Wegeler, frustrated a projected performance at Mergentheim; though it is also possible that Beethoven, who was notoriously a slow worker, was unable to complete the music in the short time which was at his disposal. The text of the cantata was written by Severin Anton Averdonk, son of an employee of the electoral Bureau of Accounts, and brother of the court singer Johanna Helene Averdonk, who, in her youth, was for a space a pupil of Johann van Beethoven. Beethoven set the young poet’s ode for solo voice, chorus and orchestra without trumpets and drums. Brahms, on playing through the score, remarked: “It is Beethoven through and through. Even if there were no name on the title-page none other than that of Beethoven could be conjectured.” The same thing may be said of the “Cantata on the Elevation of Leopold II to the Imperial Dignity, composed by L. v. Beethoven.” Leopold’s election as Roman Emperor took place on September 30, 1790, his coronation on October 9, when Elector Max Franz was present at Frankfort. This gives us a hint as to the date of the composition. Whether or not the Elector commissioned it cannot be said. Averdonk was again the poet. The two cantatas mark the culmination of Beethoven’s creative labors in Bonn; they show his artistic individuality ripened and a sovereign command of all the elements which Bonn was able to teach him from a technical point of view.

Other Works of the Bonn Period

Two airs for bass voice with orchestral accompaniment are, to judge by the handwriting, also to be ascribed to about 1790. The first is entitled “ ‘Prüfung des Küssens’ (’The Test of Kissing’), v. L. v. Beethowen.” The use of the “w” instead of the “v” in the spelling of the name points to an early period for the composition. The text of the second bears the title, “Mit Mädeln sich vertragen,” and was taken by Beethoven from the original version of Goethe’s “Claudine von Villa Bella.” Paper, handwriting and the spelling of the name of the composer indicate the same period as the first air. The two compositions remained unknown a long time, but are now to be had in the Supplement to the Complete Works published by Breitkopf and Härtel.

To these airs must be added a considerable number of songs as fruits of Beethoven’s creative labors in Bonn. The first of these, “Ich, der mit flatterndem Sinn,” was made known by publication in the Complete Works. A sketch found among sketches for the variations on “Se vuol ballare,” led Nottebohm to set down 1792 as the year of its origin. Of the songs grouped and published as Op. 52 the second, “Feuerfarbe,” belongs to the period of transition from Bonn to Vienna. On January 26, 1793, Fischenich wrote to Charlotte von Schiller: “I am enclosing with this a setting of the ‘Feuerfarbe’ on which I should like to have your opinion. It is by a young man of this place whose musical talents are universally praised and whom the Elector has sent to Haydn in Vienna. He proposes also to compose Schiller’s ‘Freude,’ and indeed strophe by strophe. Ordinarily he does not trouble himself with such trifles as the enclosed, which he wrote at the request of a lady.” From this it is fair to conclude that the song was finished before Beethoven’s departure from Bonn. Later he wrote a new postlude, which is found among motivi for the Octet and the Trio in C minor. Of the other songs in Op. 52 the origin of several may be set down as falling in the Bonn period. That of the first, “Urian’s Reise um die Welt,” we have already seen. Whether or not these songs, which met with severe criticism in comparison with other greater works of Beethoven, were published without Beethoven’s knowledge, is doubtful.[51] Probability places the following songs in the period of transition, or just before it: “An Minna,” sketched on a page with “Feuerfarbe,” and other works written out in the early days of the Vienna period; a drinking-song, “to be sung at parting,” “Erhebt das Glas mit froher Hand,” to judge by the handwriting, an early work, presumably circa 1787; “Elegie auf den Tod eines Pudels”; “Die Klage,” to be placed in 1790, inasmuch as the original manuscript form appears simultaneously with sketches of the funeral cantata; “Wer ist ein freier Mann?”, whose original autograph in the British Museum bears the inscription “ipse fecit L. v. Beethoven,” and must be placed not later than 1790, while a revised form is probably a product of 1795, and to a third Wegeler appended a different text, “Was ist des Maurer’s Ziel?” published in 1806; the “Punschlied” may be a trifle older; the autograph of “Man strebt die Flamme zu verhehlen,” in the possession of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, which has been placed in the year 1792, bears in Beethoven’s handwriting the words “pour Madame Weissenthurn par Louis van Beethoven.” Madame Weissenthurn was a writer and actress, and from 1789 a member of the company of the Burgtheater in Vienna, and it is more than likely that Beethoven did not get acquainted with her till he went to Vienna, although she was born on the Rhine.

Turn we now to the instrumental works which date back to the Bonn period. The beginning is made with the work which, in a manner, first brought Beethoven into close relationship with the stage—the “Ritterballet,” produced by the nobility on Carnival Sunday, March 6, 1791, and which, consequently, cannot have been composed long before, say in 1790 or 1791. The ballet was designed by Count Waldstein in connection with Habich, a dancing-master from Aix-la-Chapelle. Of the contents of the piece we know nothing more than is contained in the report from Bonn printed three chapters back, namely, that it illustrated the predilection of the ancient Germans for war, the chase, love and drinking; the music, being without words, can give us no further help. It consists of eight short numbers, designed to accompany the pantomime: 1, March; 2, German Song;[52] 3, Hunting Song; 4, Romance; 5, War Song; 6, Drinking Song; 7, German Dance; 8, Coda. It was intended that the music should be accepted as Waldstein’s and, therefore, Beethoven never published it.

It seems as if the last year of Beethoven’s sojourn in Bonn was especially influential in the development of his artistic character and ability. Of the works of 1792, besides trifles, there were two of larger dimensions which, if we were not better advised, would unhesitatingly be placed in the riper Vienna period. The autograph of the Octet for wind-instruments, published after the composer’s death and designated at a later date as Op. 103, bears the inscription “Parthia in Es” (above this, “dans un Concert”), “Due Oboe, Due Clarinetti, Due Corni, Due Fagotti di L. v. Beethoven.” From a sketch which precedes suggestions for the song “Feuerfarbe,” Nottebohm concludes that the Octet was composed in 1792, or, at the latest in 1793. In the latter case it would be a Viennese product. It is improbable, however, that Beethoven found either incentive or occasion soon after reaching Vienna to write a piece of this character, and it is significant that in his later years he never returned to a combination of eight instruments. But there was an incentive in Bonn in the form of the excellent dinner-music of the Elector described by Chaplain Junker, which was performed by two oboes, two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons. It may be set down as a fruit of 1792, his last year in Bonn. For the same combination of instruments, Beethoven also composed a Rondino in E-flat, published in 1829 by Diabelli, probably from the posthumous manuscript. From the autograph Nottebohm argued that it was written in Bonn, and what has been said of the origin of the Octet applies also to the Rondino. The autograph of a little duet in G for two flutes bears the inscription: “For Friend Degenharth by L. v. Beethoven. August 23rd, 1792, midnight.”

We are lifted to a higher plane again by a work which in invention and construction surpasses the compositions already mentioned and still to be mentioned in the present category, and discloses the fully developed Beethoven as we know him—the Trio in E-flat, for violin, viola and violoncello, Op. 3. Its publication was announced by Artaria in February, 1797. According to Wegeler, Beethoven was commissioned by Count Appony in 1795 to write a quartet. He made two efforts, but produced first a Trio (Op. 3), and then a Quintet (Op. 4). We know better the origin of the latter work now; but Wegeler is also mistaken about the origin of the Trio; it was a Bonn product. Here the proof:

At the general flight from Bonn, whether the one at the end of October or that of December 15, 1793, the Elector ordered his chaplain, Abbé Clemens Dobbeler, to accompany an English lady, the Honourable Mrs. Bowater, to Hamburg. “While there,” says William Gardiner in his “Music and Friends,” III, 142, “he was declared an emigrant and his property was seized. Luckily he placed some money in our (English) government funds, and his only alternative was to proceed to England.” Dobbeler accompanied Mrs. Bowater to Leicester. She,

having lived much in Germany, had acquired a fine taste in music; and as the Abbé was a very fine performer on the violin, music was essential to fill up this irksome period (while Mrs. Bowater lived in lodgings before moving into old Dolby Hall). My company was sought with that of two of my friends to make up occasionally an instrumental quartett. … Our music consisted of the Quartetts of Haydn, Boccherini, and Wranizky. The Abbé, who never travelled without his violin, had luckily put into his fiddle-case a Trio composed by Beethoven, just before he set off, which thus, in the year 1793, found its way to Leicester. This composition, so different from anything I had ever heard, awakened in me a new sense, a new delight in the science of sounds. … When I went to town (London) I enquired for the works of this author, but could learn nothing more than that he was considered a madman and that his music was like himself. However, I had a friend in Hamburg through whom, although the war was raging at the time, I occasionally obtained some of these inestimable treasures.

The Trio for Strings, Op. 3

What trio was this so praised by the enthusiastic Englishman? On the last page but one of Gardiner’s “Italy, her Music, Arts and People” he writes, speaking of his return down the Rhine:

Recently we arrived at Bonn, the birthplace of Beethoven. About the year 1786, my friend the Abbé Dobler, chaplain to the Elector of Cologne, first noticed this curly, blackheaded boy, the son of a tenor singer in the cathedral. Through the Abbé I became acquainted with the first production of this wonderful composer. How great was my surprise in playing the viola part to his Trio in E-flat, so unlike anything I had ever heard. It was a new sense to me, an intellectual pleasure which I had never received from sounds.

Again, in a letter to Beethoven, Gardiner says, “Your Trio in E-flat (for violin, viola and bass).” To all but the blind this narrative pours a flood of light upon the whole question.[53]

There come up now for consideration the compositions in which Beethoven’s principal instrument, the pianoforte, is employed. They carry us back a space, and to the earliest examples we add a related composition for violin.

It was a part of Beethoven’s official duty to play pianoforte before the Elector, and it may therefore easily be imagined that after his first boyish attempt in 1784, he would continue to compose concertos and parts of concertos for the pianoforte and orchestra, and not wait until 1795, when he publicly performed the “entirely new” concerto in B-flat. Quite recently the world has learned of a first movement for a pianoforte concerto in D, concerning which the first report was made by Guido Adler in 1888, and which was performed in Vienna on April 7, 1889, and then incorporated, as edited by Adler, in the supplement to the Complete Works. It was discovered in copy, solo and orchestra parts, in the possession of Joseph Bezeczny, the head of an educational institution for the blind in Prague, and the handwriting is his. Immediately after its first performance its authenticity was questioned by Dr. Paumgartner, who called attention to its Mozartian characteristics, but failed to advance any reason for doubting the testimony of so thorough a musical scholar as Adler. The latter had emphasized the resemblances to Mozart’s works, which, indeed, are too obvious to escape attention; but for a long time after 1785, especially after Beethoven met Mozart personally in Vienna, the former was completely in the latter’s thrall, and that his music should occasionally be reminiscent of his model is not at all singular. Such reminiscences are to be found in the quartets of 1785 and the trio for pianoforte and wind-instruments. It is safe to assume that the movement was written, as Adler suggests, in the period 1788–1793, perhaps before rather than after 1790, and that Beethoven attached little value to it and laid it permanently aside.

A companion-piece to this movement is the fragment of a Concerto for Violin in C major, of which the autograph is in the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, the handwriting of which indicates that it belongs to the early Vienna if not the Bonn period. That it is a first transcription is indicated by the fact that there are many erasures and corrections. The fragment contains 259 measures, embracing the orchestral introduction, the first solo passage, the second tutti and the beginning of the free fantasia for the solo instrument; it ends with the introduction of a new transition motif which leads to the conjecture that the movement was finished and that the missing portion has been lost.[54]

A Trio in E-flat for Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, found among Beethoven’s posthumous papers, was published in 1836 by Dunst in Frankfort-on-the-Main. On the original publication its authenticity was certified to by Diabelli, Czerny and Ferdinand Ries, and it was stated that the original manuscript was in the possession of Schindler; Wegeler verified the handwriting as that of Beethoven. Schindler cites Beethoven’s utterance that he had written the work at the age of 15 years and described it as one of his “highest strivings in the free style of composition,” which was either a misunderstanding of Schindler’s or a bit of irony on the part of Beethoven. Nearer the truth, at any rate, is a remark in Gräffer’s written catalogue of Beethoven’s works: “Composed anno 1791, and originally intended for the three trios, Op. 1, but omitted as too weak by Beethoven.” Whether or not this observation rests on an authentic source is not stated.[55]

Whether or not the Pianoforte Trios, Op. 1, were composed in Bonn may be left without discussion here, since we shall be obliged to recur to the subject later. The facts about them that have been determined beyond controversy are, that they were published in 1795; were not ready in their final shape in 1794; and were already played in the presence of Haydn in 1793.

Other Works Composed in Bonn

The Variations in E-flat for Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, which were published in 1804 by Hofmeister in Leipsic as Op. 44, apparently belong to the last year of Beethoven’s life in Bonn. Nottebohm found a sketch of the work alongside one of the song “Feuerfarbe,” which fact points to the year 1792; Beethoven in a letter to the publisher appears not to have laid particular store by it, a circumstance easily understood in view of the great works which had followed the youthful effort.

Besides these compositions, a Trio for Pianoforte, Flute and Bassoon,[56] concerning which all the information which we have came from the catalogue of Beethoven’s effects sold at auction, has recently been published. It is No. 179 in the catalogue, where it is described as a composition of the Bonn period. On the autograph, preserved in Berlin, the title, placed at the end, is “Trio concertante a clavicembalo, flauto, fagotto, composto da Ludovico van Beethoven organista di S. S. (illegible word), cologne.” The designation of the composer as organist, etc., fixes the place of its origin, and the handwriting indicates an early date.

Among the papers found in Beethoven’s apartments after his death, was the manuscript of a Sonata in B-flat for Pianoforte and Flute, which passed into the hands of Artaria. It is not in Beethoven’s handwriting, and the little evidence of its authenticity is not convincing.[57]

It is more than likely that the Variations for Pianoforte and Violin on Mozart’s “Se vuol ballare” ought to be assigned to the latter part of the Bonn period. They were published in July, 1793, with a dedication to Eleonore von Breuning, to whom Beethoven sent the composition with a letter dated November 2, 1793.[58] The dedication leads to the presumption that the work was carried to Vienna in a finished state and there subjected to only the final polish. The postscript to the letter to Fräulein von Breuning betrays the reason for the hurried publication: Beethoven wanted to checkmate certain Viennese pianists whom he had detected copying peculiarities of his playing in improvisation which he suspected they would publish as their own devices.

Besides the pieces already mentioned, Beethoven wrote the following works for pianoforte in Bonn:

1. A Prelude in F minor.[59] According to a remark on a printed copy shown to be authentic, Beethoven wrote it when he was 15 year old, that is, in 1786 or, the question of his age not being determined at the time, 1787. The prelude is, as a matter of fact, a fruit of his studies in the art of imitation; and the initiative, probably, came from Bach’s Preludes.

2. Two Preludes through the Twelve Major Keys for Pianoforte or Organ; published by Hoffmeister in 1803 as Op. 39. Obviously exercises written for Neefe while he was Beethoven’s teacher in composition.

3. Variations on the arietta “Venni Amore,” by Righini, in D major—“Venni Amore,” not “Vieni”; the arietta begins: “Venni Amore nel tuo regno, ma compagno del Timor.” Righini gave his melody a number of vocal variations. Beethoven republished his in Vienna in 1801 through Traeg (Complete Works, Series 17, No. 178); composed about 1790 and published in Mannheim in 1791. They were inscribed to Countess Hatzfeld (née Countess de Girodin), who has been praised in this book as an eminent pianist. The story of the encounter between Beethoven and Sterkel in which these variations figure has also been told. Beethoven had a good opinion of them; Czerny told Otto Jahn that he had brought them with him to Vienna and used them to “introduce” himself.

Pianoforte Variations and a Sonata

Two books of variations are to be adjudged to the Bonn period because of their place of publication and other biographical considerations. They are the Variations in A major on a theme from Dittersdorf’s opera “Das rothe Käppchen” (“Es war einmal ein alter Mann”) and the Variations for four hands on a theme by Count Waldstein. Both sets were published by Simrock in Bonn, the first of Beethoven’s compositions published in his native town. They were not published until 1794, but according to a letter to Simrock, dated August 2, 1794, the latter had received the first set a considerable time before, and Beethoven had held back the corrections while the other was already printed. Beethoven’s intimate association with Waldstein in Bonn is a familiar story, but we hear nothing of it in the early Viennese days. The variations on a theme of his own seem likely to have been the product of a wish expressed by the Count. That Beethoven seldom wrote for four hands, and certainly not without a special reason, is an accepted fact.[60]

Another presumably Bonnian product which has come down to us only as a fragment is the Sonata in C major for Pianoforte, published in 1830 by Dunst in Frankfort, with a dedication to Eleonore von Breuning. It is probably the sonata which Beethoven, according to the letter to be given presently, had promised to his friend and which was fully sketched at the time. There would be no doubt of the fact that the sonata was written in Bonn if the presumption that the letter was written in Bonn were true; but even as it is, the fact that the letter says that it had been promised “long ago” indicates a pre-Viennese origin. All that is certain is that Eleonore von Breuning received it from Beethoven in 1796. In the copy sent to the publisher eleven measures at the end of the Adagio were lacking. These were supplied by Ferdinand Ries in the manner of Beethoven. There can scarcely be a doubt that Beethoven finished the Adagio, and it can be assumed that he also composed a last movement, which has been lost.

Concerning the Rondo in C major published in Bossler’s “Blumenlese” of 1783, we have already spoken.[61]

It is a striking fact to any one who has had occasion to examine carefully the chronology of publication of Beethoven’s works, that up to nearly the close of 1802 whatever appeared under his name was worthy of that name; but that then, in the period of the second, third and fourth symphonies, of the sonatas. Op. 47, 53, 57 and of “Leonore,” to the wonder of the critics of that time serial advertisements of the “Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir” in Vienna announce the Trios, Op. 30 and the seven Bagatelles, Op. 33; in another the “Grand Sinfonie,” Op. 36, and the Variations on “God save the King”; on May 15, 1805, the Waldstein Sonata and the Romance, Op. 50; and on June 16 the songs. Op. 52, which the “Allgemeine Mus. Zeitung” describes as “commonplace, poor, weak, in part ridiculous stuff.” Ries solves the enigma when he writes (“Notizen,” 124) that all trifles, many things which he never intended to publish because he deemed them unworthy of his name, were given to the world through the agency of his brother. In this manner the world was made acquainted with songs which he had written long before he went to Vienna from Bonn. Even little compositions which he had written in albums were filched and published.

But even if the widest latitude be given to the judgment in selecting from the publications of these years’ works belonging to the Bonn period, still what an exceedingly meagre list is the aggregate of Beethoven’s compositions from his twelfth to the end of his twenty-second year! Mozart’s, according to Köchel, reach at that age 293; Handel completed his twentieth year, February 23, 1705; on the twenty-fifth his second opera “Nero” was performed. And what had he not previously written!

This apparent lack of productiveness on the part of Beethoven has been noticed by other writers. One has disputed the fact and is of opinion that the composer in later years destroyed the manuscripts of his youth to prevent the possibility of injury to his fame by their posthumous publication. But this explanation is nonsense, as every one knows who has had an opportunity to examine the autograph collections in Vienna and there to remark with what scrupulous care even his most valueless productions were preserved by their author in all his migrations from house to house and from city to country throughout his Vienna life.

Beethoven attached absolutely no value to his autographs; after they had once been engraved they generally were piled on the floor in his living room or an anteroom among other pieces of music. I often brought order into his music, but when Beethoven hunted for anything, everything was sent flying in disorder. At that time I might have carried away the autograph manuscripts of all the pieces which had been printed, or had I asked him for them he would unquestionably have given them to me without a thought.

These words of Ries are confirmed by the small number of autographs of printed works in the auction catalogue of Beethoven’s posthumous papers—most of them having remained in the hands of the publishers or having been lost, destroyed or stolen.

Works Taken to Vienna From Bonn

Another author has endeavored to supply the vacuum by deducing the chronology of Beethoven’s works from their form, matter or general character as viewed by his eyes, referring all which seem to him below the standard of the composer at any particular period to an earlier one; and a very comical chronology he makes of it. His success certainly has not been such as to induce any attempt of the kind here; and yet that he is right in the general fact is the hypothesis which the following remarks are conceived to establish as truth. Schindler—who is often very positive on the ground that what he does not know cannot be true—in introducing his chronological table of Beethoven’s works, published from 1796 to 1800, remarks: “It may be asserted with positiveness that none of the works catalogued below were composed before 1794”; upon which point the assertion is ventured that Schindler is thoroughly mistaken and that many of the works published by Beethoven during the first dozen years of his Vienna life were taken thither from Bonn. They doubtless were more or less altered, amended, improved, corrected, but nevertheless belong as compositions to those years when “Beethoven played pianoforte concertos, and Herr Neefe accompanied at Court in the theatre and in concerts.” While the other young men were trying their strength upon works for the orchestra and stage, the performance of which would necessarily give them notoriety, the Court Pianist would naturally confine himself mostly to his own instrument and to chamber music—to works whose production before a small circle in the salons of the Elector, Countess Hatzfeld and others would excite little if any public notice. But here he struck out so new, and at that time so strange a path that no small degree of praise is due to the sagacity of Count Waldstein, who comprehended his aims, felt his greatness and encouraged him to trust to and be guided by his own instincts and genius.

That Beethoven also tried his powers in a wider field we know from the two cantatas, the airs in “Die schöne Schusterin” and the “Ritterballet.” Carl Haslinger in Vienna also possessed an orchestral introduction to the second act of an unnamed opera which may as well be referred to the Bonn period as to any other; and it is not by any means a wild suggestion that he had tried his strength in other concertos for pianoforte and full orchestra than that of 1784. As to the compositions for two, six or eight wind-instruments there was little if any danger of mistake in supposing them to have been written for the Elector’s “Harmonie-Musik.” But this is wandering from the point; to establish which the following remarks are in all humility submitted:

Creative Industry in Bonn

I. If a list be drawn up of Beethoven’s compositions published between 1795 and December, 1802, with the addition of other works known to have been composed in those years, the result will be nearly as follows (omitting single songs and other minor pieces): symphonies, 2; ballet (“Prometheus”), 1; sonatas (solo and duo), 32; romances (violin and orchestra), 2; serenade, 1; duos (clarinet and bassoon), 3; sets of variations, 15; sets of dances, 5; “Ah! perfido” and “Adelaide,” 2; pianoforte concertos, 3; trios (pianoforte and other instruments), 9; quartets, 6; quintets, 3; septet, 1; pianoforte rondos, 3; marches (for four hands), 3; oratorio (“Christus”), 1; an aggregate of 92 compositions in eight years or ninety-six months. And most of them such compositions! That Beethoven was a remarkable man all the world knows; but that he could produce at this rate, study operatic composition with Salieri, sustain, nay, increase his reputation as a pianoforte virtuoso, journey to Prague, Berlin and other places, correct proof-sheets for his publishers, give lessons and yet find time to write long letters to friends, to sleep, to eat, drink and be merry with companions of his own age—this is, to say the least, “a morsel difficult of digestion.” The more so from the fact that at the very time when he began to devote himself more exclusively to composition such marvellous fertility suddenly ceased. The inference is obvious.

II. When Neefe, in 1798, calls Beethoven “beyond controversy one of the foremost pianoforte players,” it excites no surprise. Ten years before he had played the most of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavichord” and had now long held the offices of Second Court Organist and Concerto Player; but what sufficient reason could Waldstein have had for his faith that this pianist, by study and perseverance, would yet be able to seize and hold the sceptre of Mozart? And upon what grounds, too, could Fischenich, on January 26, 1793, write as he did to Charlotte von Schiller from Bonn (see ante) and add, “I expect something perfect from him, for so far as I know him he is wholly devoted to the great and sublime. … Haydn has written here that he would soon put him at grand operas and soon be obliged to quit composing.”

Note the date of this—January 26, 1793. Haydn must have written some time before this, when Beethoven could not have been with him more than six or eight weeks. Did the master found his remark upon what he had seen in his pupil or upon the compositions which his pupil had placed before him? Wegeler has printed an undated and incomplete letter of Beethoven to Eleonore von Breuning, certainly, however, not later than the spring of 1794, which was accompanied by a set of variations and a rondo for pianoforte and violin. Do the following passages in this letter indicate anything?