The E-flat Quartet was now finished and about to be performed by Schuppanzigh and his companions. Beethoven was greatly concerned about the outcome and, as if at once to encourage and admonish them, he drafted a document in which all pledged themselves to do their best and sent it to them for signature. They obeyed, Linke adding to his name the words: “The Grand Master’s accursed violoncello.” and Holz: “The last—but only in signing.” The performance took place on March 6, and the result was disappointing. The music was not understood either by the players or the public and was all but ineffective. Schuppanzigh was held responsible and his patience must have been severely taxed by Beethoven’s upbraidings and his determination to have an immediate repetition by other players. Schuppanzigh defended himself as vigorously as possible and was particularly vexed because Beethoven cited his brother’s opinion of the performance—that of a musical ignoramus. He wanted to play the Quartet a second time, but told Beethoven that he had no objections to the work being handed over to Böhm; yet he protested with no little energy, that the fault of the fiasco was not his individually, as Beethoven had been told. He could easily master the technical difficulties, but it was hard to arrive at the spirit of the work: the ensemble was faulty, because of this fact and too few rehearsals. Beethoven decided that the next hearing should be had from Böhm, and though Schuppanzigh had acquiesced, he harbored a grievance against the composer for some time. Böhm had been leader of the quartet concerts in Vienna during Schuppanzigh’s long absence. He has left an account of the incident, in which he plainly says that Schuppanzigh’s attitude toward the work was not sympathetic and that he had wearied of the rehearsals, wherefore at the performance it made but a succès d’estime. Beethoven sent for him (Böhm) and curtly said: “You must play my Quartet”—and the business was settled; objections, questionings, doubts were of no avail against Beethoven’s will. The Quartet was newly studied under Beethoven’s own eyes, a circumstance which added to the severity of the rehearsals, for, though he could not hear a tone, Beethoven watched the players keenly and detected even the slightest variation in tempo or rhythm from the movement of the bows. Böhm tells a story in illustration of this:

The Quartet was played twice by Böhm and his fellows at a morning concert in a coffee-house in the Prater, late in March or early in April, and was enthusiastically received. Steiner, who had attended one or more of the rehearsals, was particularly enraptured by it and at once offered to buy it for publication for 60 ducats—a fact which Beethoven did not fail to report to Schott and Sons when he sent the manuscript to them. Subsequently Mayseder also played it at a private concert in the house of Dembscher, an official or agent of the war department of the Austrian Government, and this performance Holz described as a réparation d’honneur. Beethoven was now completely satisfied and, no doubt, went to work on its successor with a contented mind.

It is now become necessary to pay attention to the new friend of Beethoven whose name has been mentioned—the successor of Schindler, as he had been of Oliva, in the office of factotum in ordinary. This was Karl Holz, a young man (he was born in 1798) who occupied a post in the States’ Chancellary of Lower Austria. He had studied music with Glöggl in Linz and was so capable a violinist that, on Schuppanzigh’s return from Russia in 1823, he became second in the latter’s quartet. He seems to have come into closer contact with Beethoven early in the spring of 1825, probably when, having to conduct a performance of the B-flat Symphony at a concert in the Ridotto Room, he asked an audience of the composer in order that he might get the tempi for that work. Though not a professional musician, he gave music lessons, later occasionally conducted the Concerts spirituels and eventually became the regular director of these affairs. Emboldened by the kindness with which he was first received he gradually drew nearer to the composer and in August, 1825, an intimate friendship seems imminent, as is indicated by Beethoven’s remark in a letter to his nephew: “It seems as if Holz might become a friend.” He was good at figures, a quality which made him particularly serviceable to Beethoven (who was woefully deficient in arithmetic)[127] at a time when he was dealing with foreign publishers and there was great confusion in money values and rates of exchange. He was also a well-read man, a clever talker, musically cultured, a cheery companion, and altogether an engaging person. All these qualities, no less than the fact that he was strong and independent in his convictions and fearless in his proclamation of them, recommended him to Beethoven, and he does not seem to have hesitated to take advantage of the fact that he entered the inner circle of Beethoven’s companions at a time when the composer had begun to feel a growing antipathy to Schindler. He promptly embraced the opportunity which his willing usefulness brought him, to draw close to the great man, to learn of him and also to exhibit himself to the world as his confidential friend. He was not obsequious, and this pleased Beethoven despite the fact that he himself was not indisposed to play upon his friends for his own purposes “like instruments,” as he himself once confessed. In a short time Holz made himself indispensable and acquired great influence over the composer. He aided him in the copying of his works, looked into the affairs of Nephew Karl and reported upon them, advised him in his correspondence, and directed his finances at a time when he was more than ordinarily desirous to acquire money so that he might leave a competency on his death to his foster-son. In time Beethoven came to entrust weighty matters to his decision, even the choice of publishers and his dealings with them. His prepossessing address, heightened by his independence of speech, made it less easy to contradict him than Schindler. Moreover, the recorded conversations show that he was witty, that he had a wider outlook on affairs than Beethoven’s other musical advisers, that his judgments were quickly reached and unhesitatingly pronounced. His speeches are not free from frivolity nor always from flattery, but he lived at a time and among a people accustomed to extravagant compliments and there can be no doubt of his reverence for Beethoven’s genius. Beethoven could endure a monstrous deal of lip-service, as all his friends knew, and surely took no offence when Holz said to him: “I am no flatterer, but I assure you that the mere thought of Beethovenian music makes me glad, first of all, that I am alive!”

We owe much of our knowledge of the relations between Beethoven and Holz to Schindler’s statements as they appear in his biography,[128] two articles which appeared in the “Kölnische Zeitung” in 1845, and among the glosses on the Conversation Book. But many of his utterances show ill-feeling, which it is not unfair to trace to a jealousy dating back to the time when Holz crowded Beethoven’s “Secretary sans salary” out of Beethoven’s service and good graces. There was no open rupture between Beethoven and Schindler, but a feeling of coolness and indifference which grew with the advancement of the younger man in the favor of the composer. There is considerably more to be read between Schindler’s lines than on their surface, and because of their personal equation they ought to be received with caution. True, he does not deny that Holz was possessed of excellent artistic capacities, that he was well educated and entirely respectable as a man. He describes him as a prime specimen of the Viennese “Phæacians” of whom Beethoven was wont to speak with supreme contempt; and there is ample evidence that Holz was indeed given to the pleasures which Beethoven attributed to the denizens of Scheria. But the results of Beethoven’s fellowship with a cheery companion were certainly not so great as Schindler says, nor so evil and grievous as he intimates. His earlier insinuation, that in order to exhibit his influence to the public Holz led Beethoven into company and practices which he would otherwise have avoided, among them to the frequenting of taverns and to excessive wine-bibbing, were subsequently developed into an accusation that Holz had spread a report that the composer had contracted dropsy from vinous indulgence. Beethoven was accustomed to drink wine from youth up, and also to the companionship which he found in the inns and coffee houses of Vienna, which are not to be confounded with the groggeries with which straitlaced Americans and Englishmen are prone to associate the words. It was, moreover, undoubtedly a charitable act to drag him out of his isolation into cheerful company. We know that he was so accustomed to take wine at his meals that his physicians found it difficult to make him obey their prohibition of wine and heating spices when he was ill; but that he was more given to wine-drinking in 1825 and 1826 than at any other period, we learn only from Schindler, whose credibility as a witness on this point is impeached by the fact that, as he himself confesses, he seldom saw Beethoven between March 1825 and August 1826. Nor is it true, as Schindler asserts, that Beethoven’s habits now cost him the loss of old friendships. On the contrary, it was in this period that the cordial relations between him and Stephan von Breuning, which had been interrupted many years before, were restored and became peculiarly warm. Czerny told Jahn that Beethoven’s hypochondria led to many estrangements; but when he was ill, Count Lichnowsky, Haslinger and Piringer were visitors at his bedside, and not even Schindler seems to have been able to name a man whose sympathy the composer had sacrificed. His life was solitary; but not more than it had been for years.[129] In Gerhard von Breuning’s recollections, as recorded in “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” there is scarcely a mention of Holz and none at all of the dangers into which Beethoven is alleged to have been led by him.

Beethoven’s letters bear witness to the fond regard in which he held him. His name, which in German signifies wood and in the literature of the church also cross, provided Beethoven with a welcome chance to indulge his extravagant fondness for punning. Thus in the composer’s jovial address-book, not distinguished by reverence for anything sacred or profane, Holz becomes “Best Mahoghany,” “Best Splinter from the Cross of Christ,” “Best lignum crucis.” The tone of the letters is always respectful, and once he begs his friend to forget an undescribed happening. Holz had his entire confidence, and when the great catastrophe of 1826 came, Holz was the strongest prop upon which he leaned. Schindler says that Beethoven was godfather to Holz’s child, but that is plainly an error; Holz was married in the early winter of 1826, only three or four months before Beethoven’s death. The extent to which he had won Beethoven’s confidence and Beethoven’s high opinion of his character and ability are attested by the following document, which was signed only a short time after the intimacy began:

There can be no question as to the sincerity of the desire which finds utterance in this declaration. It was made in the midst of a period when Holz was of incalculable service to him, and he had every reason to believe that Holz had both the ability and the disposition to write the truthful, unvarnished account of his life which he wanted the world to have. Schindler says that he subsequently changed his mind, said that the document was the result of a surprise sprung upon him in the confusion of occurrences, and asked von Breuning to request Holz to return it. Breuning declined to do so, says Schindler, and Beethoven, not having courage himself to make the request, contented himself with doubting the validity of a paper which was written only in pencil. On his deathbed, Schindler continues,[130] Beethoven, in answer to a question directly put to him by Breuning, unhesitatingly declared that Rochlitz was his choice as biographer; and at a later date, realizing that death was approaching, he requested Breuning and Schindler to gather up his papers, make such use of them as could be done in strict truth, and to write to Rochlitz. Two months after Beethoven had passed away Breuning followed him, and Schindler was left alone to fulfil the composer’s wish. He wrote to Rochlitz, who regretfully declined the pious task on the ground that the state of his health did not permit him to undertake so large a work. Thereupon Schindler let the matter rest, waiting for time and circumstances to determine the course which he should follow.

Stephan von Breuning had informed his brother-in-law, Dr. Wegeler, of Beethoven’s charge with reference to the papers, and Wegeler had sent Schindler notes on Beethoven’s boyhood years and his life in Bonn. In 1833 Schindler visited Wegeler in Coblenz and consulted with him about the biography which, as Wegeler knew, Rochlitz had been asked, but declined, to write. Wegeler thereupon suggested that Schindler, he and Ferdinand Ries collaborate in the writing. Ries was consulted and agreed, but work had scarcely been begun before differences arose between Schindler and Ries as to the propriety of giving to the world matters which Schindler (who insisted that Ries was paying a grudge which he owed his erstwhile teacher) thought of no interest or too offensive for publication. Ries contended that to tell the whole truth about great men was right and could do them no injury. Schindler says he then persuaded Wegeler to continue the collaboration without Ries, but, delays resulting from correspondence with persons in Vienna, Wegeler became impatient and in October, 1844,[131] announced that his notes were about to be published. They did not appear, however, and Schindler tried again to work in company with Ries; but the latter persisted in his purpose, and the project fell through a second time. This was in 1837, and the next year, shortly after Ries’s sudden death, appeared the “Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven” by Wegeler and Ries. In the remarks with which the men prefaced their reminiscences there is no reference to the projected collaboration described by Schindler, nor can it truthfully be said that anything in Ries’s observations bears out Schindler’s charge that he felt a grudge against Beethoven and sought to feed it by telling unpleasant truths about him.

To continue the story of these early biographies: Schindler now asked counsel of Dr. Bach, who advised him to betake himself to the task of writing the life of Beethoven alone. He did so, and his book appeared in 1840. Holz never made use of the imprimatur which he had received from Beethoven, but in 1843 formally relinquished his authorization to Dr. Gassner, of Carlsruhe, promising to deliver all the material which he held into his hands and to use his influence in the procurement of dates from authentic sources, “so that the errors in the faulty biographies which have appeared up to the present time may be corrected.” That this was a fling at Schindler’s book is evident from a document[132] in which, on November 1, 1845, Holz, at that time director of the Concerts spirituels in Vienna, declares that the forthcoming biography (by Gassner) would “not derive its dates from fictitious or stolen conversation books, and unsophisticated evidence will also give more intimate information about Mr. Schindler.” Twice did Schindler attack Holz in the “Kölnische Zeitung” in 1845 and once, it would appear, Holz answered him, but anonymously. The subject need not be continued here, however; it has a bearing only on the credibility of the two men in the discussion of each other. Gassner’s biography never appeared.

Perhaps it was characteristic of Beethoven, and also of the friends who came to his help in need, that though Schindler had been written down in his bad books before Holz established himself in his confidence, and though there was never a serious estrangement between Beethoven and Holz, it was Schindler upon whom Beethoven leaned most strongly for help when the days of physical dissolution arrived—Schindler, not Holz. The latter’s devotion had either undergone a cooling process or been interfered with by his newly assumed domestic obligations. But Schindler’s statement that he was “dismissed” in December, 1826, is an exaggeration, to say the least; Beethoven wrote him a letter a month before he died, asking his help in collecting money from the Archduke. Holz died on November 9, 1858. He had been helpful to Otto Jahn when the latter was gathering material for a life of Beethoven.[133]

The E-flat Quartet had been successfully brought forward, a pause had been reached in the correspondence with Schott and Sons and Neate, a summer home for Beethoven was in prospect, and considerable progress had been made in the draft for a new quartet designed for Prince Galitzin, when an illness befell Beethoven which kept him within doors, and for a portion of the time in bed, from about the middle of April to the beginning of May, 1825. Beethoven had been told by his physician that he was in danger of an inflammation of the bowels, and as such Beethoven described his ailment in letters to his brother and to Schott and Sons. Dr. Staudenheimer had been in attendance on him before and had insisted upon strict obedience to his prescriptions. Beethoven now called in Dr. Braunhofer, who proved to be even less considerate of the patient’s wilfulness; he was so blunt and forceful in his demands for obedience that Beethoven was somewhat awed, and beneficial results followed. Were it possible for the readers of these pages who are curious on such subjects to consult the Conversation Books of this period, they would there find interesting information as to diagnosis and treatment in the case of the distinguished patient. Dr. Braunhofer did not want to “torment” Beethoven long with medicines, but he gave orders for a strict diet. “No wine; no coffee; no spices of any kind. I’ll arrange matters with the cook.”—“Patience, a sickness does not disappear in a day.” “I shall not trouble you much longer with medicine, but you must adhere to the diet; you’ll not starve on it.” “You must do some work in the daytime so that you can sleep at night. If you want to get entirely well and live a long time, you must live according to nature. You are very liable to inflammatory attacks and were close to a severe attack of inflammation of the bowels; the predisposition is still in your body. I’ll wager that if you take a drink of spirits you’ll be lying weak and exhausted on your back inside of an hour.” The doctor inspired him with courage and hope, and admonished him to keep quiet and be patient. In dry weather he was to take walks, but even after going to Baden he must take no baths so long as the weather remained damp and symptoms of his illness remained.

Beethoven went to Baden early in May and probably within a week of his arrival he reported his condition to Dr. Braunhofer in a semi-humorous manner by writing down a dialogue between doctor and patient in which the latter suggests desired changes in his treatment. He asks for something strengthening to help him get to his desk, thinks that he might be permitted to drink white wine and water, as the “mephitic beer” revolts him; he is still very weak, expectorates blood freely “probably from the bronchial tubes,” etc. The physician had asked for a few notes written by his own hand as a souvenir. Beethoven complies with the request by sending him a canon written while taking a walk on May 11. It looks like a sign of mingled apprehension and returning spirits:

On May 17, he reports to his nephew that he is beginning to do considerable work.

It was while Beethoven was ill in Vienna that Ludwig Rellstab made several visits to him, of which he has left enthusiastic reports.[134] He was 26 years old at the time and had made a mark as essayist and poet; the chief object of his journey to Vienna from Berlin, on which he set out on March 21, was to see the composer. He reached the Austrian capital in the last days of March or the first days of April. His account of the meeting is like many others except that it is written with literary elegance, albeit with that excessive fervor, that Überschwänglichkeit, which is characteristic of German hero-worshippers. Zelter had given him a letter of introduction and had written that Rellstab wanted to write the libretto of an opera to be set by the composer, and this was the first subject broached after Beethoven had warmly greeted his visitor and expressed delight with Zelter’s letter. Beethoven is pleased at the prospect of getting an opera-book from Rellstab:

Rellstab had had it in mind to write an opera-book for Weber and had pondered over many subjects, and he now gave a list of these to Beethoven—“Attila,” “Antigone,” “Belisarius,” “Orestes” and others. Beethoven read the names thoughtfully and then apologized for the trouble he was causing his visitor. Rellstab, seeing an expression of weariness in his face, took his departure, after saying that he would send him a specimen of his handiwork. In a Conversation Book used in the middle of April there is further talk between Rellstab and Beethoven about opera, but the notes, which are fragmentary, give no indications of Beethoven’s views. The most interesting incident of the meetings occurred at a subsequent visit. Rellstab had told that he had been deeply moved (he dared not express a more specific opinion on the subject, being in doubt himself) by the Quartet in E-flat, which he had heard performed twice in succession.[135] He continues:

Rellstab had planned a short excursion to Hungary and then intended to leave Vienna for his home. Fearful that he might not see Beethoven on his return to the city he went to him to say farewell:

On his departure Beethoven, who had been absent from his lodgings when Rellstab called for his final leavetaking, sent him a letter to Steiner and Co., containing a canon on the words from Matthison’s “Opferlied” of which he had made use on at least one earlier occasion (“Das Schöne zu dem Guten”).

Karl Gottfried Freudenberg, a young musician who afterwards became Head Organist at Breslau and wrote a book of reminiscences entitled “Erinnerungen eines alten Organisten,” visited Beethoven in July of the year and has left a record which is none the less interesting because its lack of literary flourish is offset by succinct reports of the great composer’s estimate of some of his contemporaries, and his views on ecclesiastical music. Beethoven, according to Freudenberg, described Rossini as a “talented and a melodious composer; his music suits the frivolous and sensuous spirit of the time, and his productivity is such that he needs only as many weeks as the Germans do years to write an opera.” He said of Spontini: “There is much good in him; he understands theatrical effects and the musical noises of warfare thoroughly”; of Spohr: “He is too rich in dissonances, pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody”; of Bach: “His name ought not to be Bach (brook) but Ocean, because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of combinations and harmonies. He was the ideal of an organist.” This led Beethoven into the subject of music for the church. “I, too, played the organ a great deal in my youth,” he said, “but my nerves could not stand the power of the gigantic instrument. I place an organist who is master of his instrument, first among virtuosi.” Pure church music, he remarked, ought to be performed only by voices, unless the text be a Gloria or something of the kind. For this reason he preferred Palestrina to all other composers of church music, but it was folly to imitate him unless one had his genius and his religious beliefs; moreover, it was practically impossible for singers to-day to sing the long-sustained notes of this music in a cantabile manner.

Karl August Reichardt, afterwards Court Organist in Altenburg, S. M. de Boer, a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, Carl Czerny, Friedrich Kuhlau, Sir George Smart and Moritz Schlesinger were among the visitors to Baden in the summer to whose meetings with the composer the Conversation Books bear always interesting and sometimes diverting witness. Reichardt’s visit seems to have been brief, and it is safe to presume that the young man received scant encouragement to remain long, for his talk was chiefly about himself, his desire to get advice as to a good teacher and to have Beethoven look at some of his music. The man from Holland, who probably had used his predicate as a member of the Academy which had elected Beethoven an honorary member to gain an audience, must have diverted the composer with his broken German, which looks no more comical in the Conversation Book than it must have sounded; but a canon without words which he carried away with him may be said to bear witness to the fact that he made a good impression on Beethoven, to whom he gave information concerning the state of music in the Dutch country. Czerny, apparently, was urged by his erstwhile teacher to get an appointment and to compose in the larger forms. Beethoven was curious to learn how much Czerny received for his compositions and Czerny told him that he attached no importance to his pieces, because he scribbled them down so easily, and that he took music from the publishers in exchange.

The visit of the Danish composer, flautist and director, Friedrich Kuhlau, led to a right merry feast, for a description of which Seyfried found a place in the appendix of his “Studien.” That the boundaries of nice taste in conversation and story-telling may have been strained a bit is an inference from the fact that several pages of the Conversation Book containing the recorded relics of the affair are missing. After a promenade through the Helenenthal in which Beethoven amused himself by setting all manner of difficult tasks in hill-climbing, the party sat down to dinner at an inn. Champagne flowed freely, and after the return to Beethoven’s lodgings red Vöslauer, brought from his closet or cellar, did its share still further to elevate the spirits of the feasters. Beethoven seems to have held his own in the van of the revel. Kuhlau improvised a canon on B-a-c-h, to which Beethoven replied with the same notes as an opening motive and the words “Kühl, nicht lau” (“Cool, not lukewarm”)—a feeble play on the Danish musician’s name, but one which served to carry the music. Beethoven wrote his canon in the Conversation Book. The next day Kuhlau confessed to Schlesinger that he did not know how he had gotten home and to bed: Beethoven’s post-festal reflections may be gathered from the letter which accompanied a copy of the canon which he sent to Kuhlau by the hands of Holz:

In handing over letter and canon to Holz for delivery he wrote to him that he had scarcely reached home before it occurred to him that he might have made a dreadful mess of it on the day before.

Schlesinger, of Paris, son of the Berlin publisher, was a very insistent as well as persistent courtier, with an auspicious eye to business at all times. He wanted to purchase the two new quartets and did succeed in getting one of them, and he aroused Beethoven’s suspicions by the pertinacity with which he pleaded for permission to attend a rehearsal of the second; the pride of the composer revolted, evidently, at the thought that a publisher should ask to hear a work of his which he purposed buying. But Schlesinger, who had Nephew Karl as his advocate at court in all things, made it appear that he was eager only for the inestimable privilege of hearing the new works of the master, and put in a plea that he might also hear the Quartet which had already been sold to Schott and Sons. Holz discloses a distrust of him very plainly and misses no occasion to warn Beethoven against entangling alliances with the Parisian publisher. Schlesinger wins his way to a very familiar footing with Beethoven, going so far once as to ask him if a report which he had heard that Beethoven had wanted to marry the pianist, Cibbini, was true.[136] The old page does not tell us what answer Beethoven gave, but Schlesinger, who had disclosed his own heartwounds and railed against the fair sex because of his experiences, tells the composer that he shall be the first to make the bride’s acquaintance should he ever get married. Schlesinger appears desirous to become a sort of dealer en gros in Beethoven’s products; he would like the two new Quartets (in A minor and B-flat major); he will publish a Complete Edition and begin with the chamber pieces, to which ends he wants still another quartet and three quintets; he seeks to awaken a literary ambition in the writer of notes—the journal published by the Schlesingers in Berlin will be glad to republish whatever Beethoven may write to the Mayence journal about the joke on Haslinger, and Beethoven ought really to write some essays—on what a symphony and an overture ought to be and on the art of fugue, of which he was now the sole repository. He knows how to approach genius on its most susceptible side. Beethoven must go to England, where he is so greatly admired; he reports that Cherubini had said to his pupils at the Conservatoire in Paris: “The greatest musical minds that ever lived or ever will live, are Beethoven and Mozart.” At dinner, at the suggestion of the same garrulous talker, the company drink the healths of Goethe and Cherubini. Again Schlesinger urges Beethoven to go to London: “I repeat again that if you will go to England for three months I will engage that, deducting your travelling expenses, you will make 1000 pounds, or 25,000 florins W. W. at least, if you give only two concerts and produce some new music.... The Englishmen are proud enough to count themselves fortunate if Beethoven would only be satisfied with them.” When the toast to Cherubini is drunk, Schlesinger takes occasion to satisfy the curiosity of Beethoven touching the status of the composer whom he most admired among living men.

Schlesinger had his way about hearing the new Quartet (in A minor, Op. 132), for it was rehearsed at his rooms on Wednesday, September 7, preparatory to the performance, which was to take place at the tavern “Zum wilden Mann” at noon on September 9. Beethoven wanted the players to come to him at Baden for the final rehearsal, but that was found to be impracticable. On the day after the meeting at Schlesinger’s, however, Holz went out to Beethoven to tell him all about it. He reported that Wolfmayr “at the Adagio wept like a child?” and that “Tobias scratched himself behind the ears when he heard the Quartet; he certainly regrets that the Jew Steiner did not take it.”

We have an account of the performance at the “Wilden Mann” from the English visitor whom Beethoven received at this time. This was Sir George Smart, who, in the summer of 1825, made a tour of Germany in company with Charles Kemble. He was with Mr. Kemble when that gentleman made the agreement with Weber for “Oberon,” but his “principal reason for the journey,” as he himself put it, “was to ascertain from Beethoven himself the exact times of the movements of his characteristic—and some of his other—Sinfonias.”[137] Sir George recorded the incidents of his meetings with Beethoven in his journal, from which the following excerpts are taken:

Smart accepted Beethoven’s invitation to visit him at Baden on September 16, and at this meeting accomplished the specific purpose of his visit to Vienna by getting Beethoven to give him the tempo of various movements from his symphonies, by playing portions of them on the pianoforte.[142]