Though he had been warned not to write in Beethoven’s book, Sir George did not, or was not always able to, obey the injunction. A considerable portion of the conversation at the meeting is preserved in a Conversation Book which covers three dates, September 16, 19, and 24. From this book some excerpts are made here, since they bear on the subject which filled so large a place in the plans of Beethoven for several years, and were in his mind up to the time of his death—the English tour. Other matters bearing on points of history which have been or may be mentioned, are included. The nephew has translated for Beethoven the announcement of the Ninth Symphony as it appeared on the programme of the Philharmonic’s concert of March 21, viz.: “New Grand Characteristic Sinfonia, MS. with vocal finale, the principal parts to be sung by Madame Caradori, Miss Goodall, Mr. Vaughn and Mr. Phillips; composed expressly for this Society.” No doubt Beethoven gave expression, as he frequently had done, to his admiration for the English people and possibly also for their national hymn, for Karl translates the stanza:

The one-sided conversation proceeds:

According to Smart’s journal, Beethoven now ordered dinner “with his funny old cook,” told his nephew to look after the wine, and the party of five took a walk in the course of which Schuppanzigh told Smart that it was while sketching in the open air that Beethoven caught his deafness. “He was writing in a garden and was so absorbed that he was not sensible of a pouring rain, till his music paper was so wet that he could no longer write.” The story is inconsequential unless Schuppanzigh had it from Beethoven who, as we have seen in an earlier volume (Vol. I, p. 263 et seq.), gave an entirely different account of the origin of his deafness to Neate. Holz talks to Beethoven now about Schlesinger, telling him that it was the publisher’s purpose to print the quartets in succession, which would postpone the appearance of the thirteenth for two years, and advises Beethoven hereafter to make immediate publication a condition of purchase. He suggests that if he were to threaten not to compose the quintets under the circumstances it might help.

We shall let Smart conclude the story of the meeting:

Smart left Vienna on his return journey to London on September 20. Three months later Beethoven received a visit from one who must have raised more curious questionings in his mind than did the brilliant young Englishman. With Smart he had corresponded years before. Smart had produced his oratorio and his “Wellington’s Victory” in England and conducted the first performance in London of his Ninth Symphony; there were direct bonds of sympathy between them. The other visitor brought a message of appreciation from across the wide Atlantic. It was Theodore Molt, evidently a German or a man of German birth, who, a music teacher in Quebec, was making a European tour and gained the privilege of telling Beethoven to his face how greatly he admired him, then asked the favor of a souvenir which he could carry back on a journey of “3,000 hours” as a precious keepsake. For him, on December 16, Beethoven wrote the canon, “Freu dich des Lebens” (Ges. Aus. Series XXV, 285, 5).[143]

To this period belongs an anecdote which is almost a parallel of one related by Zelter to Goethe. It was told[144] by Mittag, a bassoon player who had taken part in a performance of the Septet at a concert on December 11. Going home one evening, Mittag stepped into a tavern known as “Zum Dachs” to drink a glass of beer. Smoking was not allowed in the place and there were few guests. In a corner, however, sat Beethoven in the attitude of one lost in thought. After Mittag had watched him a few minutes he jumped up and called to the waiter: “My bill!” “Already paid!” shrieked the waiter in his ear. Mittag, thinking that Beethoven ought not to be left alone, followed him without betraying himself and saw him enter his house safely.

On November 29, 1825, Beethoven was one of fifteen men elected to honorary membership in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde by the directors (Cherubini, Spontini, Spohr, Catel and Weigl being among them); the election was confirmed by the society on January 26, 1826, but the diploma was not issued until October 26, and thus reached Beethoven’s hands only a few months before his death. On November 25, Beethoven wrote to Schott and Sons promising to send them the metronome marks for the Mass in D soon, telling them to print the list of subscribers before the dedication, asking delay in the matter of the dedication of the Ninth Symphony, and requesting that the publication of both works be postponed three months. He gives the title of the mass as follows:

MISSA
Composita et
Serenissimo ac Eminentissimo Domino Domino
Rudolpho Joanni Cæsareo Principi et Archiduci Austriæ S. R. E.
Tit. S. Petri in monte aureo Cardinali Archiepiscopo Olomucensi
profundissima cum veneratione dicata [sic]
a
Ludovico van Beethoven

On the same day he wrote to Peters in Leipsic to the effect that his recent letters had not been definite and certain. He wanted a specific statement that the amount which he (Beethoven) had received as an advance was 360 florins. If Peters was willing to take a quartet for that sum he would send him one as soon as possible; if not, and he preferred to have the money, he would return it to him. “If you had done this at once you might have had two quartets; but you can not ask me to be loser. If I wanted to draw the strings tighter I could ask a larger price. I will send nothing for examination.” This, then, was Beethoven’s ultimatum: Peters must pay 360 florins for the Quartet or receive back the money advanced three years before. Peters asked for the money and it was paid over to Steiner and Co., on his order on December 7.

In the renting season of St. Michael (September 29 to October 12) Beethoven signed a lease for lodgings in the Schwarzspanierhaus, Alservorstadt Glacis 200. Into this, which was the last lodging occupied by Beethoven, he moved presumably on October 15. The house, which is fully described and pictured in Gerhard von Breuning’s book “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” derived its name from the fact that it had been built by the Benedictines of Spain. In it Beethoven occupied four rooms on the second floor, besides a kitchen and servant’s quarters. One of the most important results of Beethoven’s removal to these quarters was a reëstablishment of the intimate relations which had existed for so many years with the friend of his youth Stephan von Breuning, a Councillor in the War Department of the Austrian Government, who lived hard by. Though there had been no open rupture between him and Beethoven an estrangement had existed from the time when von Breuning had advised against Beethoven’s assumption of the guardianship over his nephew. They had met occasionally ad interim, but it was not until they became neighbors that the intimate friendship which had existed in earlier years was restored. A beginning in this direction was made when, on a visit to Vienna in August, Beethoven met the Breuning family in the street. It was necessary that changes be made in the lodgings and while waiting for them Beethoven became a frequent visitor at the Breunings, dining with them frequently and sometimes sending them a mess of fish, of which he was very fond. Madame von Breuning meanwhile looked after the fitting out of his kitchen and saw to the engagement of his servants. Concerning the relations which existed between Beethoven and her father’s family, Marie, a daughter of Stephan von Breuning, wrote many years after:[145]

Beethoven was fond of Stephan von Breuning’s son Gerhard, whom, because of his attachment to his father, he dubbed Hosen-knopf (Trousers-button) and because of his lightness of foot Ariel. He once had the boy play for him, criticized the position of his hands and sent him Clementi’s Method as preferable to Czerny’s which the lad was using.

There can be no doubt that the renewed association with von Breuning frequently turned his thoughts to his old home and his boyhood friends in the Rhine country, and his delight must have been keen when in this year, he received letters from Wegeler, whom he had not seen since he left Vienna twenty-eight years before, and his wife, who had been Eleonore von Breuning. They were tender letters, full of information about their family, each other, friends and relations—real home letters telling of births, marriages, careers and deaths. One would think that they ought to have been answered at once, but Beethoven did not find time or occasion to write a reply until the next year, despite this obvious challenge in Dr. von Wegeler’s letter:

The great contributions which Beethoven made to music in the year 1825, were the Quartets in A minor, Op. 132 and in B-flat major, Op. 130, which were composed in the order here mentioned; but the second, being published before its companion, received the earlier opus number. The A minor Quartet was the second of the three which Beethoven composed on invitation of Prince Galitzin, the first being that in E-flat, Op. 127, the third that in B-flat. It was taken up immediately on the completion of the E-flat Quartet. In March Beethoven had written to Neate that the first of the three quartets which he thought of bringing with him to London was written, that he was at work on the second and that it and the third would be finished “soon.” On the same day he wrote to Schott and Sons: “The violin quartets are in hand; the second is nearly finished.” The sketches of the A minor (as established by Nottebohm) date back to 1824. The work was originally to have the customary four movements; labor on it was interrupted by the illness of April and then the plan was changed to include the “Song of Thanksgiving in the Lydian mode,” the short march before the last movement, and the minuet. The work was finished by August at the latest. The passage in eighth-notes in the second part of the first movement is practically a quotation from one of the German dances written for the Ridotto balls fully thirty years before, with the bar-lines shifted so that the change of harmony occurs on the up-beats of the measures. In a Conversation Book used in May or June, 1825, Beethoven wrote Dankeshimne eines Kranken an Gott bei seiner Genesung. Gefühl neuer Kraft und wiedererwachtes Gefühl (“Hymn of Thanksgiving to God of an Invalid on his Convalescence. Feeling of new strength and reawakened feeling”). In the original score this was changed to the reading: “Sacred Song of Thanksgiving of a Convalescent to the Divinity, in the Lydian Mode. N. B. This piece has always B instead of B-flat.” As has already been mentioned in the history of the Ninth Symphony, the principal theme of the last movement was originally conceived for the finale of that work. The B-flat Quartet was begun early in the year, as the letters to Neate and Schott indicate. On August 29, Beethoven wrote to his nephew that it would be wholly finished in ten or twelve days. In November he himself writes in the Conversation Book: “Title for the Quartet,” and a strange hand adds: “31ème Quatuor. Pour deux Violons, Viola et Violoncello composé aux désirs de S. A. Monseigneur le Prince Nicolas Galitzin et dédié au même,” to which Beethoven adds: “par L. v. B.” The Quartet, though more than half-promised to Schlesinger, who got the A minor Quartet, was sold to Artaria, and in January, 1826, Holz writes, “The Quartet will be printed at once; thus the third Quartet will appear before the first two.” This was the case, which accounts for the incorrect numbering of them. It had its first public performance in March, 1826. The Fugue in B-flat, Op. 133, originally formed the finale of the work but was put aside after the first performance and the present finale, which was composed in Gneixendorf in 1826, was substituted.

After securing the A minor Quartet and an assurance that he should also have that in B-flat (he had offered to deposit 80 ducats with a Viennese banker against its completion and delivery and Beethoven had accepted his offer), Schlesinger said that he would purchase the first of the three Quartets from Schott and Sons so as to have all three for his Complete Edition. Karl, in reporting the fact to Beethoven, expressed his belief that the Schotts would sell for fear that if they did not Schlesinger would reprint the work in Paris without permission. The latter made a strenuous effort to get the autograph score of the A minor, but had perforce to content himself with a copy. Holz represented to Beethoven that the autograph would be an asset for Karl in the future, and Karl was of the same opinion; he supported Holz’s assertion with the argument that such Capitalien grew more valuable with age and that he was sure Schlesinger would get 30 ducats for the manuscript. Beethoven expressed indifference as to which publisher got the works so long as he was promptly paid. In urging haste upon Holz, who had undertaken to look after the copying of the B-flat, he wrote:

The Leipsic “hellhound” thus consigned to Belzebub was, of course, Peters. It was about this time that Karl told his uncle an anecdote to the effect that Cherubini, asked why he did not compose a quartet, replied: “If Beethoven had never written a quartet I would write quartets; as it is, I can not.” After the meetings at Schlesinger’s room in the inn “Zum wilden Mann” the Quartets in E-flat and A minor were played again at a concert in which Schuppanzigh was prevented from taking part, and Holz played the first violin. Beethoven grew merry at his expense and wrote a canon in the Conversation Book to the words: “Holz fiddles the quartets as if they were treading Kraut.”

Two trifles which kept company with the Quartets in this year were a Waltz in D and an Écossaise in E-flat for pianoforte, which were published in a collection of light music by C. F. Müller. There are several allusions to the oratorio commissioned by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in the Conversation Books of 1825, in one of which Grillparzer is mentioned as a likely author for another book; but so far as is known no work was done on “The Victory of the Cross,” though Bernard shortened the book. Before the end of the year the principal theme of the Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, is noted, accompanied by the words written by Beethoven: “Only the praise of one who has enjoyed praise can give pleasure”;—it is, no doubt, a relic of some of the composer’s classic readings.[146]

Chapter VIII

The year which witnessed the last of Beethoven’s completed labors, and saw what by general consent might be set down as the greatest of his string quartets, that in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, beheld also the culmination of the grief and pain caused by the conduct of his nephew. The year 1826 was a year of awful happenings and great achievements; a year of startling contradictions, in which the most grievous blows which an inscrutable Providence dealt the composer as if utterly to crush him to earth, were met by a display of creative energy which was amazing not only in its puissance but also in its exposition of transfigured emotion and imagination. The history of the year can best be followed if it be told in two sections, for which reason we have chosen to group the incidents connected with the nephew in a chapter by themselves and review first the artistic activities of the composer. After the history of the year has been set forth there will remain to be told only the story of the gathering of the gloom which early in the next year shut down over his mortal eyes forever. The figure which stands out in highest relief throughout the year beside that of the composer is that of Holz, whose concern for his welfare goes into the smallest detail of his unfortunate domestic life and includes also the major part of the labors and responsibilities caused by the tragical outcome of the nephew’s waywardness—his attempt at self-destruction. Schindler appears at intervals, but with jealous reserve, chary of advice, waiting to be asked for his opinion and pettishly protesting that after it once has been given it will not be acted upon. Stephan von Breuning appears in all the nobility of his nature; and in the attitude and acts of Brother Johann, though they have been severely faulted and, we fear, maligned, there is evidence of something as near affectionate sympathy and interest as Beethoven’s paradoxical conduct and nature invited of him. Among the other persons whom the Conversation Books disclose as his occasional associates are Schuppanzigh, Kuffner, Grillparzer, Abbé Stadler and Mathias Artaria, whose talk is chiefly about affairs in which they are concerned, though Kuffner at one time entertains Beethoven with a discourse on things ancient and modern which must have fascinated the artist whose mind ever delighted to dwell on matters of large moment. Beethoven was troubled with a spell of sickness which began near the end of January and lasted till into March. Dr. Braunhofer was called and we read the familiar injunctions in the Conversation Book. The composer has pains in the bowels, gouty twinges, and finds locomotion difficult. He is advised to abstain from wine for a few days and also from coffee, which he is told is injurious because of its stimulating effect on the nerves. The patient is advised to eat freely of soups, and small doses of quinine are prescribed. There are postponed obligations of duty—the oratorio, the opera, a Requiem—upon the composer which occupy him somewhat, but his friends and advisers more. His thoughts are not with such things but in the congenial region of the Quartets; for the little community of stringed instruments is become more than ever his colporteur, confidant, comforter and oracle. Kuffner tells him through Holz that he has read Bernard’s oratorio book but cannot find in it even the semblance of an oratorio, much less half-good execution. Perhaps there is something of personal equation in this judgment, for Kuffner is ready to write not only one but even two oratorio texts if Beethoven will but undertake their composition. He presents the plan of a work to be called “The Four Elements,” in which man is to be brought into relationship with the imposing phenomena of nature, but Beethoven has been inspired by a study of Handel’s “Saul” with a desire to undertake that subject and Kuffner submits specimens of his poetical handiwork to him. He had become interested in the ancient modes (as his Song of Thanksgiving in the Lydian mode in the A minor quartet had already witnessed) and was now eager to read up on the ancient Hebrews. He sends Holz to get him books on the subject and to a visitor, who to us is a stranger (so far as the handwriting in the C. B. is concerned), he expresses a desire to get Luther’s translation of the Bible. He is also interested in religious questions, as a long talk with his nephew shows. Kuffner intended in his treatment of the story of Saul to make it a representation of the triumph of the nobler impulses of man over untamed desire, and said that he would be ready to deliver the book in six weeks. Holz shows Beethoven some of the specimen sheets and points out a place in which Beethoven might indulge in an excursion into antique art. “Here you might introduce a chorus in the Lydian mode,” he says. He also explains that Kuffner intended to treat the chorus as an effective agent in the action, for which purpose it was to be divided into two sections, like the dramatic chorus of the Greek tragedians. Kuffner was sufficiently encouraged to write the book and Holz says that Beethoven finished the music of the first part “In his head”; if so, it staid there, so far as the sketchbooks bear testimony.

Grillparzer still hopes that the breath of musical life will be breathed into “Melusine”; Duport, having secured the Court Opera, asks for it, and Brother Johann and Karl urge that an opera is the most remunerative enterprise to which he can now apply himself. Schlesinger, in Berlin, had told Count von Brühl that Beethoven was disposed to write an opera for the Royal Opera at the Prussian capital and Brühl had written to the composer that he would be glad to have an opera from him and expressed a desire that he collaborate with Grillparzer in its making; but he did not want “Melusine,” because of the resemblance between its subject and that of de la Motte-Fouqué’s “Undine.” An adaptation to operatic uses of Goethe’s “Claudine von Villa Bella” was discussed, apparently with favor, but Kanne, who was designated to take the adaptation in hand, was afraid to meddle with the great poet’s drama. So nothing came of the Berlin project or of “Melusine,” though Grillparzer talked it over again with Beethoven and told Holz that though he was not inclined to attach too great importance to it, he yet thought it would be hard to find an opera text better adapted to its purpose than it, from a musical and scenic point of view. To Schindler, Beethoven once held out a prospect that “something would come” of the idea of music for “Faust” which Rochlitz had implanted in Beethoven’s mind; but it shared the fate of opera and oratorio. His friends also urged him to compose a Requiem mass and such a composition belongs in the category with the oratorio as a work which he had been paid to undertake. Among the ardent admirers of Beethoven and most zealous patrons of the Schuppanzigh Quartets was Johann Nepomuk Wolfmayer, a much respected cloth merchant. One of the methods chosen by Wolfmayer to show his appreciation of the composer was occasionally to have a new coat made for him which he would bring to Beethoven’s lodgings, place upon a chair and then see to it that an old one disappeared from his wardrobe. We have already heard a similar story from Mayseder. It is said that Wolfmayer sometimes had difficulty in getting the composer’s consent to the exchange, but always managed to do it. Early in the second decade of the century Wolfmayer commissioned Beethoven to write a Requiem for him and paid him 1,000 florins as an advance on the honorarium. Beethoven promised, but never set to work: though Holz says that he was firmly resolved to do so and, in talking about it, said that he was better satisfied with Cherubini’s setting of the text of the Mass for the Dead than with Mozart’s. A Requiem, he said, should be a sorrowful memorial of the dead and have nothing in it of the noises of the last trump and the day of judgment.

The sketchbooks bear witness, though not voluminously, to two other works of magnitude which were in Beethoven’s thoughts in this year but never saw completion. These were a symphony and a string quintet. In a book used towards the end of 1825, containing sketches for the last movement of the Quartet in B-flat, there is a memorandum of a Presto in C minor, 3-4 time, and of a short movement in A-flat, Andante, which Schindler marked as belonging to “the tenth symphony.” There are also some much longer sketches for an overture on B-a-c-h, in the midst of which Beethoven has written: “This overture together with the new symphony and we shall have a new concert (Akademie) in the Kärnthnerthor.” Schindler published the sketches of the symphony in Hirschbach’s “Musikalisch-kritisches Repertorium” of January, 1844, and started the story of an uncompleted tenth symphony. Nottebohm, in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 12), scouts the idea that Beethoven occupied himself seriously with the composition of such a work. “It is not necessary,” he says, “to turn over many leaves of the sketchbooks to prove the untenableness of the view that if Beethoven had written a Tenth Symphony it would have been on the basis of these sketches. We see in them only such momentary conceits as came to Beethoven by the thousand and which were as much destined to be left undeveloped as the multitude of other abandoned sketches in the other books. To be big with a symphony argues persevering application to it. Of such application there can be no talk in this case. The sketches in question were never continued; there is not a vestige of them in the books which follow. If Beethoven had written as many symphonies as he began we should have at least fifty.” Nottebohm’s argument does not dispose of the matter, though we shall presently find occasion to think well of it. Lenz says that Holz wrote to him that Beethoven had played “the whole of the Tenth Symphony” for him on the pianoforte, that it was finished in all of its movements in the sketches, but that nobody but Beethoven could decipher them. Holz, however, made no such broad statement to Otto Jahn, a much more conscientious reporter than Lenz. To Jahn he said that there was an introduction in E-flat major, a soft piece, and then a powerful Allegro in C minor, which were complete in Beethoven’s head and which he had played to him (Holz) on the pianoforte. This is very different from an entire symphony. But in the letter to Moscheles which Schindler says Beethoven dictated to him on March 18, 1827, bearing a message of thanks to the Philharmonic Society of London, Beethoven says: “An entire sketched symphony lies in my desk, also a new overture and other things”; and a few days later Schindler writes to Moscheles: “Three days after receiving your letter he was greatly excited and demanded the sketches of the Tenth Symphony, concerning the plan of which he told me a great deal. He has now definitely decided that it shall go to the Philharmonic Society.” The reader is familiar with Beethoven’s habit of speaking of works as finished though not a note of them had been put on paper (as in the case of the additional movements for the Mass in D, for instance), and if there were sketches for a finished symphony in Beethoven’s desk when he died, it is passing strange that Schindler did not produce them when he started the world to talking about its loss of a successor to the Ninth. What Nottebohm saw in the books deposited by Schindler in the Royal Library in Berlin seems to justify what he said, at least. Moreover, Schindler says that the sketches for the Symphony dated back to 1824, and the incorrectness of this statement can be shown beyond all peradventure by Nottebohm’s study of the sketchbooks. Of the other works which play a part in the story of 1826, something will be said hereafter.

Opera, oratorio, the mass for the dead, symphony, beckoned to him, but his affections were fixed in the higher and purer regions of chamber music, the form which represents chaste ideals, lofty imagination, profound learning; which exacts a mutual sympathy between composer, performer and listener and binds them in something like that angelic wedlock which Weber said to Planché ought to unite librettist and composer. When the year 1826 opened, Beethoven was looking forward with no little eagerness to the first performance of the Quartet in B-flat—his “Liebquartett” it is once called in the Conversation Books. Schuppanzigh and his fellows had taken it in hand. They found the concluding fugue extremely troublesome, but the Cavatina entranced them at once; Schuppanzigh entered a record against any change in it. The performance took place on March 21. The second and fourth movements had to be repeated, but the fugue proved a crux as, no doubt, the players had expected it would. Some of Beethoven’s friends argued that it had not been understood and that this objection would vanish with repeated hearings; others, plainly a majority, asked that a new movement be written to take its place. Johann van Beethoven told the composer that “the whole city” was delighted with the work. Schindler says that the Danza alla tedesca, one of the movements which were demanded a second time, was originally intended for another quartet, presumably that in A minor. Lenz objects to the theory on critical grounds, but Nottebohm points out that the first sketches appear in A before the sketches for the B-flat Quartet and assigns them to the A minor Quartet without qualification of any kind. Dr. Deiters suggests that the movement was written for the A minor Quartet and put aside when the Song of Thanksgiving presented itself to Beethoven’s mind. There is another reason for believing that Nottebohm is right and Lenz, as he so frequently is, is wrong. As has been mentioned, Beethoven recurred to one of his old German dances, written for the Ridotto balls, in the first movement of the A minor Quartet; what more likely than that, thinking over the old German dance, he should have conceived the idea of a Danza tedesca? Schuppanzigh’s high opinion of the Cavatina was shared by many and also by Beethoven himself. Holz said that it cost the composer tears in the writing and brought out the confession that nothing that he had written had so moved him; in fact, that merely to revive it afterwards in his thoughts and feelings brought forth renewed tributes of tears.

The doubts about the effectiveness of the fugue felt by Beethoven’s friends found an echo in the opinions of the critics. Mathias Artaria, the publisher, who seems in this year to have entered the circle of the composer’s intimate associates, presented the matter to him in a practicable light. He had purchased the publishing rights of the Quartet and after the performance he went to Beethoven with the suggestion that he write a new finale and that the fugue be published as an independent piece, for which he would remunerate him separately. Beethoven listened to the protests unwillingly, but, “vowing he would ne’er consent, consented” and requested the pianist Anton Halm, who had played in the B-flat Trio at the concert, to make the pianoforte arrangements for which there had already been inquiries at Artaria’s shop. Halm accepted the commission and made the arrangement, with which Beethoven was not satisfied; “You have divided the parts too much between prim and second,” he remarked to Halm,[147] referring to a device which the arranger had adopted to avoid crossing of hands—giving passages to the right hand which should logically have been given to the left, the effect being the same to the ear but not to the eye. Nevertheless, Halm presented a claim for 40 florins to Artaria for the work, and was paid. Beethoven then made an arrangement and sent it to Artaria, also demanding a fee. To this Artaria demurred and asked Beethoven for Halm’s manuscript. Beethoven sent it by a messenger (probably Holz) with instructions to get his arrangement in return for it, but at the same time told Artaria, that while he did not ask that Artaria publish his work, he was under no obligations to give it to him; he might have it for twelve ducats. Artaria reconciled himself to the matter and paid Beethoven his fee on September 5. Schindler incorrectly states that the arrangement which Artaria announced on March 10, 1827, as Op. 134 (the original score being advertised at the same time as Op. 133), was Halm’s.

Other performances of the Quartet were planned, but it does not appear that any took place. Schuppanzigh was indisposed to venture upon a repetition, but Böhm and Mayseder were eager to play it. The latter with his companions gave quartet parties at the house of Dembscher, an agent of the Austrian War Department, and wanted to produce the Quartet there. But Dembscher had neglected to subscribe for Schuppanzigh’s concert and had said that he would have it played at his house, since it was easy for him to get manuscripts from Beethoven for that purpose. He applied to Beethoven for the Quartet, but the latter refused to let him have it, and Holz, as he related to Beethoven, told Dembscher in the presence of other persons that Beethoven would not let him have any more music because he had not attended Schuppanzigh’s concert. Dembscher stammered in confusion and begged Holz to find some means to restore him to Beethoven’s good graces. Holz said that the first step should be to send Schuppanzigh 50 florins, the price of the subscription. Dembscher laughingly asked, “Must it be?” (Muss es sein?). When Holz related the incident to Beethoven he too laughed and instantly wrote down a canon on the words: “It must be! Yes, yes, yes, it must be. Out with the purse!”[148]

Out of this joke in the late fall of the year grew the finale of the last of the last five quartets, that in F major. Op. 135, to which Beethoven gave the superscription: “The difficult resolution” (Der schwergefasste Entschluss). The story, almost universally current and still repeated, that the phrases: Muss es sein? Es muss sein, and Der schwergefasste Entschluss had their origin in

a scene frequently repeated when Beethoven’s housekeeper came to him of a Saturday for the weekly house-money, was spread by Schindler, who was familiar in a way with the Dembscher incident but assigned it to the Quartet in E-flat. Holz was an actor in the scene and is the better witness, being confirmed, moreover, by the Conversation Book. Schindler probably took his clue from a page in the Conversation Book used in December, 1826, in which Beethoven writes the phrases “Must it be?” and “It must be,” and Schindler, after a conversation in which Schuppanzigh takes part, concludes with: “It must be. The old woman is again in need of her weekly money.” The joke played a part in the conversations with Beethoven for some time.

Holz says that when once he remarked to Beethoven that the one in B-flat was the greatest of his Quartets the composer replied: “Each in its way. Art demands of us that we shall not stand still. You will find a new manner of voice treatment (part writing) and, thank God! there is less lack of fancy than ever before.” Afterward he declared the C-sharp minor Quartet to be his greatest. The first form of the fugue-theme in this work, as has been noted, was written down in a Conversation Book in the last days of December, 1825. The theme of the variations, in a form afterwards altered, was also noted amid the records of conversations before the end of January, 1826. It is likely that a goodly portion of the work was written within a month and ready for the copyist, for Schuppanzigh once in January suggests that something from the work in hand be tried. Whether or not it was ever played in the lifetime of the composer can not be said with certainty. Schindler says positively that it was not. It was ready for the publisher in July and Schott and Sons, who had bought it for 80 ducats payable in two installments, sent the drafts early to accommodate Beethoven, who spoke of being on the eve of a short journey—of which nothing is known save that he did not make it. The score was turned over to Schott’s agent in Vienna on August 7. On the copy Beethoven had written “Put together from pilferings from one thing and another” (Zusammengestohlen aus Verschiedenem diesem und Jenem). This alarmed the publishers, who wrote to Beethoven about it and in reply received a letter stating: “You wrote me that the quartet must be an original one. As a joke I wrote on the copy ‘Put together, etc....’; but it is brand new.” It was published by Schott and Sons very shortly after Beethoven’s death in April, 1827, under the opus number 129. Beethoven originally intended to dedicate it to Wolfmayer but out of gratitude to Baron von Stutterheim, Lieutenant Fieldmarshal, who had made a place for Nephew Karl in his regiment, placed his name upon the title-page.

With the Quartet in B-flat, Beethoven had completed the three works of its kind which he had been commissioned to compose by Prince Nicolas Galitzin. He had taken three years to perform the task, but in the end the patience of his patron had been nobly rewarded—rewarded, indeed, in a manner which insured him as large a share of immortality as falls to the lot of a man—and meanwhile he had been privileged to shine in the musical circles of St. Petersburg as one who stood peculiarly close to the greatest of living composers. During the delay Prince Galitzin’s conduct was in the highest degree honorable. In his letters he was most generous in his offers of assistance, practically giving Beethoven carte blanche to draw on his bankers in case of need. He organized a performance of the Missa solemnis (the first given of the work or any portion of it), and presented his copy of the written score to the Philharmonic Society of St. Petersburg. He was so proud of his collection of Beethoven’s music that he applied to the composer himself to help him make it complete. Too eager to wait for the publishers, he commissioned Beethoven to have copies made of new works, like the Ninth Symphony and the overture to “The Consecration of the House,” at his expense. He entertained the idea of repeating in St. Petersburg the concert which Beethoven had given in Vienna, at which the Symphony had received its first performance. For a while he contemplated a repetition of the Mass. Beethoven had dedicated the overture to him and he had written that he would requite the act with a gift of 25 ducats. All this before he received the Quartets. Then a strange and unaccountable change came over his attitude towards the composer. Beethoven sent the first Quartet to him in January, 1825; the second and third sometime in February, 1826. He had followed up his commission in 1823 with an order to his bankers, Henikstein and Co. in Vienna, to pay Beethoven 50 ducats, the fee agreed upon, for each Quartet. The money was paid over in October, 1823, but with his express consent, at Beethoven’s request, was applied to the payment of his subscription for the Mass. If there could be any doubt on this point it would be dissipated by the letter in which Henikstein and Co., forwarded Beethoven’s receipt. This letter was written on October 15, 1823, and stated that the sum had been paid comme honoraire de la messe que nous expediée par l’entremise de la haute chancellerie de l’État. On December 5, 1824, let us say six weeks or two months before he received the first Quartet, he sent another 50 ducats, which it is fair to assume was the fee for that work and took the place of the sum diverted to the payment for the Mass. These facts must be carefully noted and borne in mind, for the question of Galitzin’s indebtedness to Beethoven became the subject of a scandalous controversy a long time after the composer’s death; it endured down to 1838 and might be opened again were there a disposition in any quarter to do so. For the present the story of the Quartets during Beethoven’s lifetime may be pursued as it is disclosed by records in the Conversation Books and so much of the correspondence as has been preserved.

In February, 1826, one of the Quartets, perhaps both of them, had been sent to St. Petersburg by special courier. (“Everything written by Beethoven ought to be sent to its destination by special courier,” is one of Schuppanzigh’s magnificent remarks when the question of sending the Quartet to the Prince is under discussion.) The money did not come and Beethoven grew impatient and anxious. Karl tried to reassure him. The Prince had written Je vais, he remarks in the Conversation Book, plainly referring to a letter dated January 14, 1826, in which Prince Galitzin had said: “Je vais faire remettre à M. Stieglitz (his banker) la valeur de 75 ducats pour vous être remis par M. Fries; 50 pour le quatuor et 25 pour l’ouverture qui est magnifique et que je vous remercie beaucoup de m’avoir dédiée.” Still the money did not come. In the middle of May Holz reports to Beethoven that a letter had been received from the courier, whose name was Lipscher. He had called on Prince Galitzin, who had begged to be excused; “he had not time—call another day.” He had repeated the visit five or six times, but each time was denied an audience on one pretext or another. Finally, he had bribed a domestic with five florins and found his way to the Prince, who seemed greatly embarrassed, fumbled amongst his scores for a time and then asked him to come again before his departure and he would give him the money. The courier had added that he considered it a “Russian trick” but that he was not to be disposed of so easily. Lipscher would be back in Vienna in four or five days, Holz added, and advised Beethoven to await his coming before writing to him. Schindler, a short time after, gives his views in a style characteristic of his attitude toward Beethoven during the period of Holz’s factotumship: “The matter of the Prince Galitzin is getting critical and I wish you a happy outcome. If you had obeyed me he would have had only one quartet and with that basta. You never permitted yourself to be deceived by flattery as you have by this princely braggart.” Again: “Voila, the letter to Count Lebzeltern (Russian Ambassador) and the banker Stieglitz. They can go to-day as it is great postday. What more is there to be considered? Wait, and wait—and no results. Breuning is agreed. If Prince Galitzin could act in such contradiction to his letters nothing good is to be expected of him.” At a later date there came another letter from the courier. He had tried seven times to see the Prince, but all in vain. Later (it was now July) he had gone again; the Prince had been polite, but denied him admittance. Still later in the same month Karl tells his uncle that he wants to write to Stieglitz, the Prince’s banker, upon whom Beethoven had been told to draw in case he needed money. Karl does not use general terms as to the sum involved, but specifically says “the 125 ducats.” On August 2 Beethoven wrote to Stieglitz and Co., from whom he received a letter dated August 13 saying that the Prince was absent, but his attention should be directed to the matter. Evidently the bankers kept their word, for on November 10-22, Prince Galitzin wrote to Beethoven saying that he had received the two Quartets but had been the victim of great losses and other misfortunes; he was now obliged to go to the wars in Persia, but before going would pay the “125 ducats” which he owed, thus admitting the debt in specific terms. On January 10, 1827, Beethoven, already on his deathbed, dictated a letter of inquiry to Stieglitz and Co., and the bankers again answered promptly: they were still waiting for an answer from the Prince. Five days before his death Beethoven made his last appeal to Stieglitz and Co., reviewing the recent correspondence and Galitzin’s promise and asking the bankers, if the money had been received, to forward it to Arnstein and Eskeles, as he was greatly in need of it because of his protracted sickness. Beethoven dictated the letter, but signed it himself and endorsed the draft: “To Prince Galitzin, concerning 125 ducats, March 21, 1827.” He died on March 26.