The fact that Beethoven received an advance payment on a commission for an oratorio which he undertook to write for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde has been mentioned. The sum was 400 florins. It was on August 18. Four days later there was a meeting of the society at which Landgrave von Fürstenberg reported[16] that on the written application of Prince von Odescalchi, representing the President, Beethoven had replied that he had long been desirous to compose a work which would reflect honor on the society and that he would do his best to expedite it. That seems to have been the end of the matter for the time being. There was also during the Mödling sojourn a continuation of the negotiations with Thomson. A Mr. Smith visited Beethoven bearing a letter from the Scotch publisher which called out a playful rejoinder in which Beethoven sought to turn an easy play upon German words into French. Thomson suggested that the introductions and accompaniments to the Scotch songs be made easier (“lighter,” in the German idiom); they would be so, Beethoven replied, if the compensation were made more difficult (“heavier” would have been his word had he been permitted to use the German equivalent). As it is, Beethoven’s humor becomes rather ponderous, as see the letter which was written in French by Beethoven apparently without assistance:

Thomson indorsed on this letter: “25 May, 1819. Beethoven. Some pleasantry on my repeated requests to make his Symphs and accompgnts. to our National Airs Easy, sent by Mr. John Smith of Glasg.” Another British commission was offered him about the same time. There are two entries in a Conversation Book, apparently in the handwriting of Schindler:

And again:

Great Britain’s monetary reward, had Beethoven accepted all its invitations, would no doubt have been all that the friend of “Mr. Donaldson of Edinburgh” stated and in proportion would have been the appreciation which Beethoven would have found at the hands of the English professional musicians, amateurs and musical laity.

Pathetic and diverting are the incidents which Karl Friedrich Zelter relates in letters to Goethe of his attempts to form a closer acquaintance with Beethoven. Zelter came to Vienna in July. He says that he wanted to call upon Beethoven, but he was in the country—nobody knew where. This in his first letter which mentions the subject. On August 16 he writes:

Zelter stays in Vienna from July to September, but sees nothing of Beethoven. Then, on September 12, he sets out with Steiner to visit the master at Mödling. On the road they meet Beethoven, who is on his way to the city. Leaving their carriages they embrace each other, but conversation with a deaf man not being practicable on the highway they separate after agreeing to meet at Steiner’s at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Zelter was moved almost to tears. After a hurried meal he and Steiner hastened back to Vienna. Let him relate the rest:

Zelter’s letter calls for a slight rectification. It was not the next day but four days later that Beethoven wrote him the letter of explanation, and Zelter’s statement that Beethoven had overslept himself as he had done was pure assumption—unless he learned it from another source. Beethoven wrote:

The autograph of this letter contains what appears to be either a transcript or a draft of a letter which Zelter either sent or planned to send to Beethoven. In view of the fact that it shows a different feeling towards the great composer than that formerly entertained by the teacher of Mendelssohn, it is given here:

Friedrich Schneider, of Dessau, visited Vienna in the fall of the year and caused a sensation by his organ-playing. He reported that Beethoven had received him graciously and that he, in turn, had heard the master play the pianoforte, his improvisation being the most marvellous thing he had ever listened to. In August, Johann van Beethoven bought an estate near Gneixendorf. This brought the brothers together in Vienna during the winter. Johann was the “landowner” of a familiar story, and Beethoven, the “brain owner,” seemed at this time disposed to emulate him. At least he read advertisements of houses for sale in Mödling before the day set for the sale and advised him in the premises. In the same letter[17] he advises Steiner to publish a set of variations composed by the Archduke. “I have mentioned your name in the matter, inasmuch as I do not believe that you will lose anything by the transaction, and it is always honorable to print something by such a Principe Professore.” The variations were on a theme composed by Beethoven and given to his imperial pupil as a lesson, and had called out the obsequious remarks which may be read in the New Year’s letter to the Archduke. His remark to Steiner is explained by the fact that on August 31 he had written to the Archduke as follows:

Steiner printed the archducal work in the seventh number of his “Musical Museum” under a slightly changed title, viz.: “Theme (Aufgabe) composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, varied forty times and dedicated to the author by his pupil R[udolph], A[rch-]D[uke].”[18] Other evidences of Beethoven’s interest in Archduke Rudolph’s studies in composition are to be noted about this time. On July 29 he wrote to his pupil from Mödling, sending him three poems and asking him to select one for composition, encouraging him in these words: “The Austrians now know already that the spirit of Apollo has newly awakened in the Imperial family. From all quarters I receive requests for something. The proprietor of the Modezeitung will appeal to Y. I. H. in writing. I hope I shall not be accused of bribery—at Court and not a courtier, what possibilities??!!!” In this letter, however, there are words of vaster import, as showing Beethoven’s attitude towards musical evolution. We quote:

A number of incidents in Beethoven’s life may now be passed in hurried chronological review: On October 1, he was made an honorary member of the Mercantile Association (Kaufmännischer Verein) in Vienna. In the fall Ferdinand Schimon (1797-1852), who was musician and opera-singer as well as painter, painted the portrait which afterward came into the possession of Schindler, and was engraved by Eduard Eichers for Schindler’s biography.[20] Schimon had obtained permission through Schindler to set up his easel in the chamber adjoining Beethoven’s workroom, the composer having resolutely refused a sitting because he was busy on the Credo of the mass. From this point of vantage he made his studies and had finished them all but the eyes—the most striking feature in the portrait. Out of this dilemma Beethoven unconsciously helped him. He had evidently been impressed with the discretion, or independence, of the young artist who came without a “good morning” and went without a “good evening,” and invited him to coffee. Thus Schimon had ample opportunity to supply the one deficiency in his sketches.

At the end of October, Beethoven returned to Vienna from Mödling, taking lodging this time at No. 16 Josephstädter Glacis, opposite the Auersberg Palace and near the Blöchlinger Institute where Karl was studying. The guardianship matter soon occupied his attention; spells of indisposition tormented him; and financial distress so threatened him that he attempted to negotiate a loan from the banker Hennickstein, and borrowed 750 florins from Steiner.[21] Countess Erdödy was in Vienna at the end of the year and he sent her a note on December 19, promising to visit her soon and scratching down a musical phrase which he afterwards erased to make of it the New Year canon: “Glück, Glück zum neuen Jahr.”

It is remarkable that Beethoven, under the circumstances which have been set forth in this chapter, could continue his labors on the Mass which were his principal occupation during the year; it was but another proof of the absorbing possession which the composition of a great work took of him when once fairly begun. So diligently did he apply himself that he had hopes not only of finishing it in time for the installation of the Archduke as Archbishop of Olmütz, but wrote to Ries on November 10 that he had already nearly completed it and would like to know what could be done with it in London. To Schindler, however, in expressing a doubt that he would have it done in time for the ceremonial, he said that every movement had taken on larger dimensions than had originally been contemplated. Schindler says also that when the day came, not one of the movements was finished in the eyes of the composer; yet he alleges that Beethoven brought the completed Credo with him when he came back to Vienna from Mödling. There is this to be added to these statements: A pocket sketchbook used in 1820 (it is now in the Beethoven House at Bonn) shows some sketches for the Credo; and there are memoranda for the same movement in a Conversation Book used near the close of the year. That the Gloria had received its final shape is a fair deduction from a Conversation Book of the same period. Bernard (presumably) writes:

The project is mentioned again by another friend, and Beethoven remarks: “It is too late for Christmas, but it might be possible in Lent.” That he worked occasionally on the Ninth Symphony, especially in the early part of the year, has already been said. Thomson’s commissions occupied some of his time, as well as a project to extend his labors on folksongs into a wider field. The second set of Variations on folksong themes which was published as Op. 107 in 1820, must be assigned, at least in part, to this year. He also, as Schindler tells us, composed a set of waltzes for a band of seven men who played at an inn in the valley of the Brühl near Mödling, and wrote out the parts for the different instruments. These waltzes have disappeared; Schindler tried in vain to find them a few years later. The canon “Glück zum neuen Jahr” was composed for Countess Erdödy on the last day of December, if A. Fuchs, who says that he copied it from the original manuscript, is correct. He also wrote a canon for Steiner in the summer, as appears from a conversation recorded in a book of March 20, 1820. An unidentified hand writes:

The publications of the year 1819 were (1) Two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102, dedicated to Countess Erdödy, by Artaria in Vienna (they had already been published by Simrock); (2) The Quintet in C minor, Op. 104, arranged from the Trio, Op. 1, No. 3; (3) Themes and Variations on Motives from Folksongs, for Pianoforte and Flute or Violin, Op. 105, by Artaria; Pianoforte Sonata in B-flat, Op. 106, dedicated to Archduke Rudolph, by Artaria.

Chapter II

Almost involuntarily, in passing in review the incidents of the year whose story has just been told and projecting a glance into the near future, the question arises: Where, in these moments of doubt, ill-health, trial, vexation of spirit and torment of body were the old friends of Beethoven who in the earlier years had stood by him faithfully and lovingly? Where was Stephan von Breuning? Alas! he seems to have been an early sacrifice to Beethoven’s obstinate course in respect of his nephew. Schindler says that he had advised against the adoption of the boy and thus wounded Beethoven in his most sensitive part. The temporary estrangement began in 1817. Some others of the old friends may have been rebuffed in like manner; some, like the faithful seneschal, Zmeskall, were ill; some were absent from Vienna—Count Brunswick, Schuppanzigh; some were dead; in some the flames of friendship may have died down because there was so little in Beethoven’s public life to challenge their sympathy and support. Count Lichnowsky has dropped out of the narrative and does not appear for some years. What had happened to the ardent friend of the youthful days, Count Waldstein? There is no answer. Once a Conversation Book awakens curiosity and a hope. Somebody warns Beethoven in a public place not to speak so loud, as everybody is listening. “Count Waldstein is sitting near; where does he live?” Beethoven’s answer is unrecorded and thus passes the only opportunity which the known material offers from which might have been learned what caused the death of that beautiful friendship. Bernard, Schindler, Oliva, Peters and Bach were near to him, and the last was of incalculable value to him in his great trial. But could they replace those who were gone?

Beethoven was become a lonely man—an enforced seeker of solitude. No doubt many who would have been glad to give him their friendship were deterred by the wide-spread reports of his suspicious, unapproachable, almost repellant nature. But a miracle happens. Driven in upon himself by the forces which seem to have been arrayed against him, introspection opens wider and wider to him the doors of that imagination which in its creative function, as Ruskin tells us, is “an eminent beholder of things when and where they are not; a seer that is, in the prophetic sense, calling the things that are not as though they were; and for ever delighting to dwell on that which is not tangibly present.” Now he proclaims a new evangel, illustrates a higher union of beauty and truthfulness of expression, exalts art till it enters the realm of religion.

In the Tagebuch there stands a bold inscription written in February of the year 1820: “The moral law in us, and the starry sky above us—Kant.”[24] This and two other citations, the first of which Beethoven surely culled from some book, also deserve to be set down here as mottoes applicable to the creative work which occupied his mind during the year and thereafter:

We can only record the fact that Beethoven began the year 1820, as he had begun its immediate predecessor, by sending a New Year’s greeting to the august pupil who was now almost continually in his mind—Archduke Rudolph, soon to be Archbishop and Cardinal[25]—before taking up the story of the incubus which oppressed the composer’s mind, the clog which impeded his creative activities during much of the year—the legal proceedings concerning the guardianship of nephew Karl. Fortunately for the tinge of these pages the end is not distant.

Two applications made by Beethoven to the Court of Magistrates had been denied and he now asked for a review of these decisions by the Court of Appeals. The action of the Magistracy had grievously pained him, so he informed the superior tribunal, and not only had his rights been set aside, but no regard had been shown for the welfare of his nephew. Against this he now sought relief, and he set forth his grievances: (1) He was testamentary appointee and the Landrecht had confirmed him and excluded the mother; circumstances compelling his absence from Vienna, he had arranged that Herr Nussböck should be appointed guardian ad interim; back permanently in the city, his nephew’s welfare required that he resume the guardianship; (2) The higher education which his nephew’s talents demanded neither the mother nor Nussböck could direct—the former because she was a woman and had conducted herself in a manner which had led the Landrecht to exclude her, Nussböck because he was too much occupied with his duties as Municipal Sequestrator and, having been no more than a paper-maker, he did not possess the insight and judgment essential to the scientific education of the ward. (3) Having no child of his own, his hopes were set on the boy, who was unusually talented, yet he had been told that he had been held back a year in his studies and that owing to a lack of funds he was to be taken from the institution in which he had been placed and given in the care of his mother; by her mismanagement the boy would be sacrificed, it being the aim of the mother to expend his share of the pension money on herself. He had declared to the Magistracy his willingness to defray the costs at the institute and also to engage other masters for the boy. Being “somewhat hard of hearing” communication with him was difficult and therefore he had asked that a co-guardian be appointed in the person of Herr Peters, Prince Lobkowitzsian Councillor, whose knowledge and moral character would assure such a training and education as were justified by the boy’s capacity. “I know of no more sacred duty than the care and education of a child,” he observes. He would offer no objection to the mother’s having a “sort of joint-guardianship,” but its duties and privileges should be limited to her visiting him and learning what plans were making for his education; to permit more would be to compass the ruin of the boy.[26]

This petition was filed on January 7, 1820; three days later the Appellate Court commanded the Magistracy to file a report of the proceedings had before it, together with all minutes and documents. The Magistracy complied on February 5, citing its decision of September 17, 1819, and defending its action on the grounds that (a) Beethoven, owing to his deafness and his hatred of the mother of the ward, was incapable of acting as guardian; (b) the guardianship belonged to the mother by right of law; (c) the commission of an act of infidelity against her husband in 1811, for which she had suffered punishment, was no longer a bar; (d) none of the alleged “injurious disturbances and interferences” had been definitely set forth or proven:

Answering the second charge, the magistrates urged that the appellant seemed to ask of the mother and other guardian that they themselves educate the boy in the sciences. For this not even the appellant was fitted, at least he had not demonstrated such a fitness; he had left the preparation for the higher studies to others and this the mother and guardian could also do, having, indeed, a better plan, which was to send the boy to the R. I. Convict, where he would surely make better progress at smaller expense. Ad tertium, the failure of the boy to advance in his classes could not be laid to the mother or guardian, but must be charged against the appellant, who had taken the boy away from his studies for the university after two months, kept him at home three months, and sent him to another institution of learning at the end of June; naturally enough he lost a school year.

The Court of Appeals demanded a more explicit report, which the Magistracy filed on February 28, taking advantage of the opportunity to review the proceedings had before the Landrecht from the beginning, and to make severe strictures on the conduct of Beethoven in filing an exhibit (F) with his petition in support of which no evidence was offered, though because of it the Landrecht was asked to exclude the mother from the guardianship which belonged to her under the law. Again we quote:

Let us try now to take a dispassionate view of the case as thus far presented in the pleadings and documents. Not only the law of nature but the laws of the land justified the mother in asserting her right to look after the physical well-being of her child and seeking to enforce it. Dr. Bach seems to have impressed that fact upon Beethoven, wherefore he declares his willingness in the bill of appeal to associate her with himself in the guardianship to that extent. That the Magistrates displayed unusual, not to say unjudicial zeal in her behalf while defending their own course is indubitable; but we are in no position to judge of the propriety of their course, which seems to have been in harmony with the judicial procedure of the place and period, least of all to condemn them, so long as it was permitted them so to do, for having made a stout resistance when their acts were impugned in the appeal to the higher court. The “Exhibit F,” filed in the proceedings before the Landrecht, has not been found and its contents can only be guessed at from the allusions to it in the documents. Obviously it contained aspersions on the moral character of Madame van Beethoven, and it may have been, nay, probably was, true that they were unsupported by evidence and therefore undeserving of consideration in a court either of law or equity. Perhaps they were not susceptible of legal proof. It has been thought that Beethoven felt some hesitancy in flaunting evidence of his sister-in-law’s infamy in the face of the world,[27] but he certainly showed no disposition to spare her in his letters, nor did he hesitate to accuse her of unmentionable things by innuendo. In a Conversation Book of this year (1820) he writes of her that she was “born for intrigue, accomplished in deceit, mistress of all the arts of dissimulation.” On the other hand, it is singular that the Magistrates in their final effort to justify their course have nothing to say about the present moral standing of the woman whose legal and natural rights they claimed to be upholding. Were they in ignorance of what we now know, namely, that her conduct had not only been reprehensible in 1811 (though condoned by her husband) but continued so after her husband’s death? Schindler says that she gave birth to a child while the case was pending, and that is confirmed by a statement of Nephew Karl’s widow,[28] that in her old age Madame van Beethoven lived in Baden with this illegitimate daughter, who was also a dissolute woman.

But there are many anomalous things to the studious mind in the proceedings which we are reporting, which differ greatly from anything which could happen in a court of chancery or probate in Great Britain or America to-day. It is certainly repugnant to our present legal ethics that having filed a petition to reverse the action of one court Beethoven should not only have written private letters to a judge of the court of review, pleading his case on personal grounds, but that his counsel should have advised him to visit members of the higher court to present arguments in his behalf. But, no doubt, this was consistent with the customs of Austria a century ago; and it is what happened. Beethoven writes to Karl Winter, an Appellationsrat, and his lawyer tells him to engage him and one of his colleagues, Schmerling, in conversation on the subject. Perhaps Winter himself questioned the propriety of the proceeding, for in a Conversation Book somebody, who had evidently acted as messenger in the delivery of the letter, writes: “I gave it to Herr v. Winter; he kept me waiting and then said that he could give no answer, nor involve himself in a correspondence.” The letter in question was written on March 6. In it Beethoven says that he had prepared a memorial which he would place in his hands in a few days. From the outline given it is plain that the memorial contained a review of the case since the death of Beethoven’s brother. It had been prepared, said Beethoven, “believing that I owed it to myself to expose the falsity of the many slanders which have been uttered against me and to lay bare the intrigues of Madame van Beethoven against me to the injury of her own child, as also to place in its proper light the conduct of the Magistrates’ Court.” He charges that the Magistrates had summoned the widow and her son to a hearing without his knowledge and, as his nephew had told him, he had been urged and led on by his mother to make false accusations against him. He had also forwarded a document which proved the wavering and partisan conduct of the Magistrates. He repeats the charge about his nephew’s failure to advance in his studies and adds that the boy had had a hemorrhage which, had he not been on hand, might almost have cost him his life. These things were not attributable to Herr Tuscher for the reason that the Magistrates had given him too little support and he could not proceed with sufficient energy—this the writer could do in his capacity of uncle, guardian and defrayer of expenses. He asks that if it becomes necessary he and his nephew be examined, cites his expenditures to keep the boy two years in an educational institution, saying that he had received nothing from the widow in nearly fourteen months but would continue to pay the cost unselfishly in the future, and had set apart 4,000 florins which was on deposit in bank and was to go to his nephew on his death. Moreover, he had expectations from his relations with the Archbishop of Olmütz, etc.

The case was prepared shrewdly, carefully and most discreetly by Dr. Bach, who seems to have exerted an admirable influence on Beethoven at this crisis. The nature of his advice may be learned from the communication of Bernard in one of the recorded conversations. Bernard is writing, and evidently giving the result of a consultation with Dr. Bach. The Court of Appeals would ask another report from the Magistrates and on its receipt would adjudge the case. Nussböck, who Dr. Bach said was willing, should voluntarily retire from the guardianship. Beethoven was asked as to the appointment of Tuscher; had he resigned permanently or only temporarily in favor of Tuscher, the better to accomplish the nephew’s removal from his mother? In what manner had Tuscher abdicated, and had the Magistracy informed Beethoven of the fact? It was necessary, said the adviser, to proceed with moderation in all things so as to avoid the appearance of malice, and the mother should not be assailed if it was at all avoidable, stress being laid only on the fact that as a woman she ought not to have the direction of the education of a boy of Karl’s age, not having the requisite fitness. It would also be necessary for him, in case he were asked, to state his readiness to defray the cost of the boy’s education in the future and this, if the worst came to the worst, might be followed by a threat to withdraw wholly from his care. Reproaches might be made against him concerning the period when he had the boy with him, the priests having taken to meddling in the matter, and it would be well in the future not to take the boy to public eating-houses where he would be observed and scandal fomented.

Bach seems to have advised Beethoven to visit two of the judges, Winter and Schmerling, and himself had an interview with the boy, who told his uncle what the advocate had questioned him about. For the nonce Karl was on his good behavior. Blöchlinger reported favorably on his studies to Bernard, and in a Conversation Book the boy apologized to his uncle for some statements derogatory to him which he had made to the Magistrates. “She promised me so many things,” he said, “that I could not resist her; I am sorry that I was so weak at the time and beg your forgiveness; I will not again permit myself to be led astray. I did not know what results might follow when I told the Magistrates what I did; but if there is another examination I will retract all the falsehoods I uttered.” The magisterial commission which followed on March 29, had plainly been held at the instance of the Appellate Court. Beethoven was solemnly admonished, and in answer to questions declared: (1) that he still demanded the guardianship of his nephew under the will and would not relinquish his claim; (2) that he requested the appointment of Councillor Peters as associate guardian; (3) that he demanded that Madame van Beethoven be excluded from the guardianship as she had been by the Landrecht, and (4) he reiterated his readiness to provide financially for the care of his ward; he would accept an associate guardian, but not a sole guardian, as he was convinced that no guardian would care for his nephew as well as he. In insisting on a renewed declaration on these points it is likely that the Court of Appeals had some hope that Beethoven might voluntarily renounce or modify his claims or the Magistrates recede from their attitude. Neither contingency occurred, however, and on April 8 the reviewing court issued its decree in Beethoven’s favor, he and Peters being appointed joint guardians (gemeinschaftliche Vormünde), the mother and Nussböck being deposed. The widow now played her last card:—she appealed to the Emperor, who upheld the Court of Appeals. There was nothing for the Magistracy to do except to notify the result of the appeals to Beethoven, Madame van Beethoven, Peters and Nussböck. This was done on July 24.

Beethoven had won at last. But at what a cost to himself, his art, the world! What time, what labor, what energy had he not taken away from his artistic creations! What had he not expended in the way of peace of mind, of friendship, of physical comfort, of wear of brain and nerve-force, for the privilege of keeping the boy to himself, of watching unmolested over his physical welfare and directing his intellectual and moral training unhindered! Surely such sacrifices, inspired, as we know they were, by a transcendent sense of duty and profoundest love, merited the rich reward of which he had dreamed—the devotion of one who ought to have been all that a son could be, the happiness of seeing the object of his love grow into a brilliant man and a useful citizen. Was it vouchsafed him? Let us not in the midst of his present happiness look too far into the future. Now his joy is unbounded. He breaks into a jubilation when, in conveying the news to Pinterics—that Pinterics who had sung the bass in “Ta, ta, ta,” in honor of Mälzel: “Dr. Bach was my representative in this affair and this Brook (Bach) was joined by the sea, lightning, thunder, a tempest, and the magisterial brigantine suffered complete shipwreck!” Schindler says that “his happiness over the triumph which he had won over wickedness and trickery, but also because of the supposed salvation from physical danger of his talented nephew, was so great that he worked but little or not at all all summer—though this was perhaps more apparent than real, the sketchbooks disclosing from now on only empty pages.” A wise qualification, for though the sketchbooks may have been empty, there is evidence enough elsewhere of hard work. Yet the Mass was not finished, and for this unfortunate circumstance the guardianship trial was no doubt largely to blame. To this subject we shall return presently.

Of Peters, who was appointed joint guardian with Beethoven of the nephew, little is known beyond what we learn from Beethoven and Peters’s contributions to the Conversation Books. He was a tutor in the house of Prince Lobkowitz and had been on terms of friendship with Beethoven since 1816; his appointment by the court is a confirmation of Beethoven’s tribute to him as a man of intellectual parts and of good moral character. His wife had a good voice and was a great admirer of Beethoven, who presented her with a copy of the song cycle “An die ferne Geliebte.” A letter, once in the possession of John Ella in London, which may be of earlier date than 1821, to which year it is, however, most naturally assigned in view of the allusion to the “state burden” (the nephew), runs as follows: