Thus stands the record at the time of Beethoven’s death. Prince Galitzin was back from the wars, but sent no money. On March 20, 1829, Hotschevar as guardian of Karl van Beethoven appealed to the Imperial Chancellary to ask the Embassy at St. Petersburg to collect the debt of 125 ducats from the Prince. Galitzin demanded an explanation, but after repeated requests from Karl agreed to pay 50 ducats in two installments of 20 and 30 ducats each. The sums were paid, the latter, as Karl’s receipt shows, on November 9, 1832. Karl continued to make representations to the Prince touching a balance of 75 ducats still due and on June 2-14, 1835, Galitzin promised to pay the sum, not as a balance due on his business transactions with Beethoven, but as a memorial pour honorer sa mémoire, que m’est chère. Even now the money was not paid, but after a controversy had broken out between Schindler and the Prince over the former’s charge that Beethoven had never been paid for the Quartets, Galitzin sent the 75 ducats, and Karl complaisantly acquiesced in the Prince’s request and signed a receipt for the money, not as in payment of the debt, but as a voluntary tribute to the dead composer.[149]

Schott was ready with the Ninth Symphony in July, 1826, but Beethoven asked him to delay the despatch of the printed score to the King of Prussia, to whom it was dedicated, until he had had an opportunity to send the monarch a manuscript copy, which, he said, would have no value after the publication. The reward which he was looking forward to in return was a decoration. The Conversation Books have considerable to say about the dedication, but if the London Philharmonic Society ever entered Beethoven’s mind in connection with it, the record has been lost. He wanted an Order, and had he received one in time for the concert, its insignia would, in great likelihood, have graced his breast on that occasion. He had repeatedly expressed contempt for the outward signs of royal condescension, but the medal sent by the King of France had evidently caused a change of heart in this regard. He was eager to see a description and illustration of the medallion in the newspapers; and that he thought of hanging it about his neck, appears from a remark to him made by Karl before the concert, telling him that it was too heavy to wear and would pull down his collar. Visitors called to see it and he permitted his intimate friends to show it about, until Holz cautioned him to do so no more, as it was showing marks of damage from a fall. In one conversation, Johann suggests that the Symphony be dedicated to the Czar of Russia and from a remark in one of Prince Galitzin’s letters telling him that, by a recent decree, all foreigners who wished to dedicate works of art to the Czar would have to obtain permission to do so from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it would appear that Johann’s suggestion, or approval, had also received his sanction. Ferdinand Ries was also a candidate for the distinction (Beethoven had promised him the dedication in a letter), his claim being put forward, without particular urgency, by Franz Christian Kirchhoffer, a bookkeeper with whom Beethoven was acquainted and through whom Ries carried on his correspondence with the composer. On April 8, 1824, Karl wrote in a Conversation Book: “As soon as the Symphony has been sent to England it must be copied again handsomely on vellum paper and sent with an inscription to the King of France.” On the same day, apparently, Schindler asks: “Who has the preference in the matter of the dedication of the Symphony—Ries or the King of Prussia?—It ought to be offered as a proof of your gratitude, in these words.—There could be no better opportunity than just now for this purpose.” It is obvious that Schindler favors the King of France, for a day or two later he writes: “Schwaebl sends his compliments and is highly delighted that you are pleased with the gift. As regards the you-know-what he wants you to write to the Duke de la Chârtre [d’Âchats] yourself, but for the present nothing about the dedication—leave the reference till later.” The advice is repeated and the subject concluded with: “Good, then you will stick to France.”

These facts belong chronologically to the history of 1824, but they have been made pertinent by the discussion of the dedication and presentation of the Ninth Symphony to the King of Prussia, which took place in 1826. They are also valuable to correct a misapprehension which has prevailed ever since the publication of Hogarth’s history of the London Philharmonic Society and was no doubt current before then. Hogarth says that the directors of the society resolved to offer Beethoven £50 for a manuscript symphony on November 10, 1822, and adds, “the money was immediately advanced.” In a note to his translation of one of Beethoven’s letters (Kalischer-Shedlock, Vol. II, p. 448) Mr. Shedlock calls attention to the fact that there is a document in the British Museum, acknowledging receipt of £50 for a symphony composed for the society, dated April 27, 1824. This document proves the date on which Beethoven received the remuneration for the Symphony to have been that indicated in the receipt beyond peradventure. On April 26 or 27 Karl writes, in the Conversation Book from which we have been quoting:

When finally, in 1826, Beethoven decided that the Symphony should be dedicated to the King of Prussia, he obtained permission of Prince Hatzfeld, the Prussian Ambassador, to do so. Dr. Spicker, the King’s librarian, was in Vienna at the time and arrangements were made to transmit a copy of the score to Berlin through him. Holz had a talk with him and he advised him concerning the preparation of the presentation copy and also discussed the possibility of a decoration. Spicker told Holz to have Beethoven copy the title of the printed work on the title-page in his natural and habitual handwriting without any attempt at beautification. This would enhance the value of the score in the eyes of the King and he would put it in his private library. To get the order would be an easy matter, for the King was predisposed in Beethoven’s favor. Spicker also visited Beethoven, being presented by Haslinger, but, unfortunately, the pages of the book which must have recorded the conversation have not been preserved; or, if preserved, not been made known. Beethoven wrote the title-page, the score was handsomely bound by Steiner and Co. and placed in the hands of Dr. Spicker with the following letter:

The King’s acknowledgment was as follows:

Schindler says that when the case containing the King’s gift was opened it was found to contain, not a diamond ring as the letter had described it, but one set with a stone of a “reddish” hue which the court jeweller to whom it was shown appraised at 300 florins, paper money. Beethoven was very indignant and was with difficulty dissuaded from sending it back to the Prussian Ambassador; eventually he sold it to the jeweler at the value which he had set upon it. Whether or not the ring was the one really sent from Berlin or one which had been substituted for it (as was suspected in some quarters), has never been determined.

Despite the cordial relations between Beethoven and Haslinger, which endured to the end of the composer’s life, there was continual friction between him and the Steiner firm, for which it would seem that Holz was at this time responsible in a considerable degree; and it may have been he who put the notion into Beethoven’s head that it would be a stroke of business to buy back all of his manuscripts which Steiner had acquired but had not yet published. Dissatisfaction with the policy of publishers, however, was in Beethoven a confirmed mood; we have heard him rail against the men who wanted to withhold his works till he was dead, so as to profit from the public curiosity which would follow. Beethoven made the proposition in a jocular letter to Haslinger offering to pay the same “shameful” price for all his unpublished manuscripts which the firm had paid him. The transaction was not consummated; if it had been there can be no doubt but that it would have been highly advantageous to him, since both Schott and Artaria were now eager to have his works.

Among Beethoven’s intimate friends was Abbé Stadler, an old man and an old-fashioned musician, the horizon of whose æsthetic appreciation was marked by the death-date of his friend Mozart. Castelli says that he used to call Beethoven’s music “pure nonsense”; certain it is that he used to leave the concert-room whenever a composition by Beethoven was to be played. Schuppanzigh offered as an excuse for him that he had a long way home, and it does not appear that Beethoven ever took umbrage at his conduct. Holz, telling Beethoven in February, 1825, that as usual he had left the room when an overture by Beethoven was about to be played, added: “He is too old. He always says when Mozart is reached, ‘More I cannot understand.’” But once he staid and not only listened to a Beethoven piece but praised it. It was the Trio for Strings, Op. 9, which had been composed nearly a generation before! Holz becomes sarcastic: “One might say A. B. C. D. (Abbé cédait).” Stadler now had occasion to court Beethoven’s favor, or at least to betray the fact that even if he could not appreciate his music he yet had had a vast respect for his genius and reputation. In 1825, Gottfried Weber had written an essay, which was published in the “Cäcilia” journal, attacking the authenticity of Mozart’s “Requiem.” The article angered Beethoven, as is evidenced by his marginal glosses on the copy of the journal which he read, now in the possession of Dr. Prieger in Bonn. The glosses are two in number: “Oh, you arch ass!” and “Double ass!” Such a disposition of an attack on the artistic honor of his friend did not suffice Stadler. He published a defence of Mozart (“Vertheidigung der Echtheit des Mozartschen Requiems”) and sent a copy to Beethoven, who acknowledged it thus:

The concluding supplication recalls an anecdote related by Castelli in his memoirs: Beethoven and Abbé Stadler once met at Steiner’s. About to depart, Beethoven kneeled before the Abbé and said: “Reverend Sir, give me your blessing.” Stadler, not at all embarrassed, made the sign of the cross over the kneeling man and, as if mumbling a prayer, said: “Hilft’s nix, schadt’s nix” (“If it does no good, ’twill do no harm”). Beethoven thereupon kissed his hand amid the laughter of the bystanders. Jahn heard the same story from Fischoff.[152]

A remark in a Conversation Book of 1826 indicates that Stadler had urged Beethoven to write a mass. Holz says: “If Stadler tells you to write a mass it is certain that something will be done for it. He knows best of anybody which way the wind blows.—He has Dietrichstein and Eybler in his pocket.—You are well cared for if Stadler favors it.” The conversations of Holz also provide a fleeting glimpse of Schubert in this year. Holz tells Beethoven that he had seen the young composer with either Artaria or Mosel (the allusion is vague) and that the two were reading a Handel score together. “He (Schubert) was very amiable and thanked me for the pleasure which Mylord’s [Schuppanzigh’s] Quartets gave him; he was always present.—He has a great gift for songs.—Do you know the ‘Erlking’? He spoke very mystically, always.”

Friedrich Wieck, father of Clara Schumann, spent three hours with Beethoven in May, having been presented by Andreas Stein, the pianoforte maker. He told about the visit long afterward in a letter to his second wife which was reprinted in the “Signale” No. 57, in December, 1873, from the “Dresdener Nachrichten.” Beethoven gave his guest wine (to which Wieck was not accustomed), improvised for him over an hour and talked voluminously about

Wieck says the meeting was in Hietzing, and that Beethoven played upon the pianoforte “presented to him by the city of London”—three obvious mistakes, since Beethoven was not in Hietzing in May, but in Vienna, and the Broadwood pianoforte, which was not presented to him by the city of London but by Thomas Broadwood, was in the hands of Graf for repairs in May.

After Karl’s attempt to end his ill-spent life, with its crushing effect upon the composer, the friends, Holz in particular, made many efforts to divert Beethoven’s mind from his disappointment and grief. They accompanied him on brief excursions into the country which he loved so passionately and which had been closed to him, for the customary happy season, by his nephew’s act. Again did his brother offer him a haven at Gneixendorf in August, only to receive the curt answer: “I will not come. Your brother??????!!!! Ludwig.” His nephew was lying in the hospital. He could not leave him then nor did he go until it had become necessary to find an asylum for Karl as well as a resting-place for himself. His brother came to the city late in September; it was necessary that Karl should remain out of Vienna until he could join a regiment of soldiery, and so Beethoven accepted Johann’s renewed invitation to make a sojourn at Gneixendorf. Meanwhile he was far from idle. He had begun a new quartet, in F major, and Schlesinger, père, who had come from Berlin, negotiated with him for its publication. He had the new finale for the B-flat Quartet on his mind and, as will appear later, several other works occupied him. With Schlesinger he talked about the Complete Edition and some military marches which the King of Prussia was to pay for, as they were to be written for the Royal Band. The chief obstacle to Beethoven’s acceptance of his brother’s repeated invitations to visit him at Gneixendorf came from the presence there of the brother’s wife. Her scandalous conduct had begotten an intense hatred in Beethoven’s mind. Urged on by his brother, Johann had once planned to put her away, but there was an obstacle in the shape of a marriage contract, which gave her half of his property, and though she was willing to surrender the contract at one time, she was not content to be turned out upon the world with neither character nor means of subsistence. Besides, Johann was loath to take the drastic methods which alone were open to him. He was inclined, much to the indignation of his brother, to be complaisant; he needed a housekeeper and for that she would serve. “I go my way and let her go hers,” he said, and he told his brother when trying to persuade him to spend his summers, perhaps eventually all his time, at Gneixendorf, that he need pay no heed whatever to his sister-in-law. Much of the ill-feeling was due to the fact that Beethoven wanted to insure his brother’s fortune for Karl. The nephew did eventually become his sole heir and inherited 42,000 florins from him.

On September 28, Beethoven and his nephew left Vienna for Gneixendorf, intending to stay a week. A night was passed at a village en route, and Johann’s estate was reached in the afternoon of the next day—the 29th—but not too late for the composer to walk through the fields with his brother to take a look at the property. The next day the walk was extended to the vineyards on the hill in the forenoon and to Imbach in the afternoon. There Karl pointed out to his uncle some historical monuments: “This is the cloister where Margarethe, Ottocar’s wife, died; the scene occurs in Grillparzer’s piece.” Thus, with other excursions the next day, life at Gneixendorf began. [153] Gneixendorf is a little village on a high plateau of the Danube Valley about an hour’s walk from Krems. It is a mean hamlet, with only one street and that narrow, rough and dirty. The houses are low huts. Wasserhof, as the place is now called, the Beethoven estate, lies opposite the village and is reached by a wagon road which runs a large part of the way along the edge of a ravine, which torrents have cut out of the clayey soil. The plateau is almost treeless but covered with fields and vines. In Beethoven’s time there were two houses on the estate, both large and handsome, each with its garden and surrounding wall. The houses were separated from each other by a road. A generation after Beethoven had been a visitor there the gardens were found neglected and the trees which surrounded the house, a two-storey structure strongly built of stone with a covering of mortar, shut out a view of the surrounding country.[154] Beethoven’s rooms were on the east side, and unless the trees interfered the composer had a magnificent view of the Danubian valley stretching to the distant Styrian mountains. Johann van Beethoven’s possessions compassed nearly 400 acres, most of which he leased to tenants. A lover of hills and forests like Beethoven must have found Wasserhof dreary and monotonous in the extreme, yet the distant view of the Danube seems to have compensated him in a measure, for it reminded him of the Rhine.

Gerhard von Breuning gives a distressful account of Beethoven’s reception and treatment at Gneixendorf. It is, indeed, too distressful to be implicitly accepted as true, nor are all his accusations against Johann borne out by the evidence of the Conversation Books and other indubitable facts. If the account in Breuning’s book “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause” were literally true, we should have to picture to ourselves Beethoven, arrived at his brother’s place, being assigned rooms which were unfit for occupation in the cold, wet November weather which ensued, denied facilities for proper heating, having fire-wood stingily doled out to him, compelled to eat miserable food and forced to be content with too little even of that, and three days after his arrival informed that he would be expected to pay for his board and lodging. One would think while reading the account that Johann van Beethoven, who had been offering hospitalities to his brother for years, had done so only to make money out of him and had at last succeeded in his design by taking advantage of the overwhelming sorrow which had come upon him.[155] Beethoven is said to have made complaints in the nature of von Breuning’s accusations in a letter written from Gneixendorf to Stephan von Breuning, and also to have given expression to his feelings at being obliged to submit to the repulsive companionship of his brother’s wife and step-daughter. The letter is lost and was not printed by Breuning’s son in proof of the charges; but if it had been it would not be conclusive in the minds of dispassionate judges. Against it there would lie the evidences of the brother’s numerous acts of helpfulness, the many instances of Beethoven’s unreasonable suspicion and unjust judgment and, above all, the testimony of the Conversation Books. As to the matter of an insufficient supply of fire-wood, there is a remark of Karl’s, made after a return to Vienna is already in contemplation: “As regards expenses, wood is so cheap that it is inconceivable that your brother should be at any considerable cost, for you can heat a long time with a cord and he is already overpaid.” Long before when Johann had been trying in vain to induce him to come to Gneixendorf for the summer he rebukes him for his unwillingness to accept his hospitality gratis. Once during the sojourn he says explicitly: “You do not need money here”; and at another time: “If you want to live with us you can have everything for 40 florins Convention money a month, which makes only 500 florins for a whole year,” and again: “You will need only half of your pension” and “I will charge nothing for the first fortnight; I would do more if I were not so hard-pressed with taxes.” Beethoven had planned at the outset to stay only a week, just long enough for the scar on Karl’s head to disappear sufficiently to make him presentable to his commanding officer. Instead, the visit lasted two months and Johann was short of money. He had still two payments to make on the purchase-money for the estate, and collections were not good.

Beethoven was sick when he went to Gneixendorf. He had not recovered from his illness of the early months of the year when Karl attempted to kill himself, and this was not calculated to improve the physical or mental condition of so nervous and irritable a being as he. On October 7, eight days after his arrival in Gneixendorf, he wrote a letter from a sickbed and Breuning, to whom it was sent, who knew his physical condition well, remarked that he was in danger of becoming seriously ill, possibly dropsical. Nothing was more natural than that his letters should be full of complaints, some of which might well be measurably founded on fact without convicting his brother of inhumanity. He had never been a comfortable or considerate guest or tenant at the best, and his adaptability to circumstances was certainly not promoted by the repugnance which he felt towards his sister-in-law and his want of honest affection for his brother.

Concerning his life in Gneixendorf, a number of interesting details were told in an article entitled “Beethoven in Gneixendorf,” published in the “Deutsche Musikzeitung” in 1862,[156] some of which are worth reciting again. One day Johann went to Langenfeld and Beethoven and other people from Gneixendorf went with him. The purpose was to visit a surgeon named Karrer, a friend of the brother. The surgeon was absent on a sick-call, but his wife, flattered by a visit from the landowner, entertained him lavishly. Noticing a man who held himself aloof from the company, sitting silently on the bench behind the stove, and taking him for one of her guest’s servants, she filled a little jug with native wine and handed it to him with the remark: “He shall also have a drink.” When the surgeon returned home late at night and heard an account of the incident he exclaimed: “My dear wife, what have you done? The greatest composer of the century was in our house to-day and you treated him with such disrespect!”

Johann had occasion to visit the syndic Sterz in Langenlois on a matter of business. Beethoven accompanied him. The conference lasted a considerable time, during all of which Beethoven stood motionless at the door of the official’s office. At the leavetaking Sterz bowed often and low to the stranger, and after he was gone asked his clerk, named Fux, an enthusiastic lover of music, especially of Beethoven’s; “Who do you think the man was who stood by the door?” Fux replied: “Considering that you, Mr. Syndic, treated him with such politeness, his may be an exceptional case; otherwise I should take him for an imbecile (Trottel).” The consternation of the clerk may be imagined when told the name of the man whom he had taken for an idiot.

Johann’s wife had assigned Michael Krenn, son of one of her husband’s vinedressers, to look after Beethoven’s wants. At first the cook had to make up Beethoven’s bed. One day, while the woman was thus occupied, Beethoven sat at a table gesticulating with his hands, beating time with his feet, muttering and singing. The woman burst into a laugh, which Beethoven observed. He drove her out of the room instanter. Krenn tried to follow her, but Beethoven drew him back, gave him three 20-kreutzer pieces, told him not to be afraid, and said that hereafter he should make the bed and clean the floor every day. Krenn said that he was told to come to the room early, but generally had to knock a long time before Beethoven opened the door. It was Beethoven’s custom to get up at half-past 5 o’clock, seat himself at a table and write while he beat time with hands and feet and sang. This frequently stirred Krenn’s risibles, and when he could no longer restrain his laughter he used to leave the room. Gradually he grew accustomed to it. The family breakfast was eaten at half-past 7 o’clock, after which Beethoven hurried out into the open air, rambled across the fields shouting and waving his arms, sometimes walking very rapidly, sometimes very slowly and stopping at times to write in a sort of pocketbook. This book he once lost and said: “Michael, run about and hunt my writings; I must have them again at any cost.” Michael luckily found them. At half-past 12 Beethoven would come home for dinner, after which he went to his room until about 3 o’clock; then he roamed over the fields until shortly before sunset, after which he never went out of doors. Supper was at half-past 7, and after eating he went to his room, wrote till 10 o’clock and then went to bed. Occasionally Beethoven played the pianoforte, which did not stand in his room but in the salon. Nobody was permitted to enter his rooms except Michael, who had to put them in order while Beethoven was out walking. In doing so he several times found money on the floor, and when he carried it to its owner, Beethoven made him show him where he had picked it up and then gave it to him. This happened three or four times, after which no more money was found. In the evening Michael had to sit with Beethoven and write down answers to questions which he asked. Generally Beethoven wanted to know what had been said about him at dinner and supper.

One day the wife of the landowner sent Michael to Stein with 5 florins to buy wine and a fish; but Michael was careless and lost the money. He came back to Gneixendorf in consternation. As soon as Madame van Beethoven saw him she asked for the fish, and when he told her of the loss she discharged him from her service. When Beethoven came into dinner he asked at once for his servant and the lady told him what had happened. Beethoven grew fearfully excited, gave her 5 florins, and angrily demanded that Michael be called back at once. After that he never went to table any more but had his dinner and supper brought to his rooms, where Michael had to prepare breakfast for him. Even before this occurrence Beethoven scarcely ever spoke to his sister-in-law and seldom to his brother. Beethoven wanted to take Michael with him to Vienna, but when a cook came to call for the composer the plan was abandoned.

Two old peasants told the owner of Wasserhof in 1862 stories which confirm Krenn’s account of Beethoven’s unusual behavior in the fields. Because of his unaccountable actions they at first took him for a madman and kept out of his way. When they had become accustomed to his singularities and learned that he was a brother of the landlord they used to greet him politely; but he, always lost in thought, seldom if ever returned their greetings. One of these peasants, a young man at the time, had an adventure with Beethoven of a most comical nature. He was driving a pair of young oxen, scarcely broken to the yoke, from the tile-kiln toward the manor-house when he met Beethoven shouting and waving his arms about in wild gesticulations. The peasant called to him: A bissel stada! (“A little quieter”) but he paid no attention to the request. The oxen took fright, ran down a steep hill and the peasant had great difficulty in bringing them to a stand, turning them and getting them back on the road. Again Beethoven came towards them, still shouting and gesticulating. The yokel called to him a second time, but in vain; and now the oxen rushed towards the house, where they were stopped by one of the men employed there. When the driver came up and asked who the fool was who had scared his oxen the man told him it was the proprietor’s brother. “A pretty brother, that he is!” was the answering comment.

On October 7 Beethoven answered the letter which he had received many months before from Wegeler. He wrote a long letter in the cordial and intimate tone which is to be found only in the correspondence with persons to whom he was bound by ties of affectionate friendship, but made no reference to Karl. On the subject of his paternity he wrote:

He tells with pride of the gift from the King of France, of other distinctions which he had received, and of King Frederick William’s desire to have the autograph of his new Symphony for the Royal Library, and adds: “Something has been said to me in this connection about the order of the Red Eagle, second class.[157] What the outcome will be I do not know; I have never sought for such marks of honor, but at my present age they would not be unwelcome, for several reasons.”

On October 13 he wrote a merry letter to Haslinger, whom he addresses in music as “First of all Tobiasses,” asking him to deliver a quartet (the one in F major published as Op. 135) to Schlesinger’s agent and collect and forward the money, of which he stands in need. On the same day he wrote to Schott and Sons enclosing the metronome marks for the Ninth Symphony which the Conversation Book shows had been dictated to Karl before the departure from Vienna. That he was not as grievously disappointed by his surroundings at Gneixendorf as might have been expected is evidenced by the remark: “The scenes among which I am sojourning remind me somewhat of the Rhine country which I so greatly long to see again, having left them in my youth.”

The Quartet in F was completed at Gneixendorf. Beethoven sent it to Schlesinger’s agent on October 30, and had probably put the finishing touches on it about the time when he wrote to Haslinger about its delivery a fortnight before. Schlesinger had agreed to pay 80 ducats for it. It had been in hand four months at least, for in July he told Holz that he intended to write another quartet and when Holz asked, “In what key?” and was told, he remarked, “But that will be the third in F. There is none in D minor. It is singular that there is none among Haydn’s in A minor.” If there were positive evidence in the “Muss es sein?” incident, a still earlier date would have to be set for its origin, but here we are left to conjecture. There was considerable merry-making over the Dembscher joke, and it is at least probable that the first sketches for the Quartet and the Canon were written about the same time. The point which cannot be definitely determined is whether or not the motif of the Canon was destined from the first for the finale of the Quartet. It may have been in Beethoven’s mind for that purpose and the sudden inspiration on hearing the story of Dembscher’s query “Muss es sein?” may have gone only to the words and the use of them with the music for the Canon. That the Quartet was to be shorter than the others was known before Beethoven left Vienna. Holz once says to Beethoven before the departure that Schlesinger had asked about it and that he had replied that Beethoven was at work upon it, and added: “You will not publish it if it is short. Even if it should have only three movements it would still be a quartet by Beethoven, and it would not cost so much to print it.”[158]

The new finale for the Quartet in B-flat was also completed in Gneixendorf, though it, too, had been worked out almost to a conclusion in Vienna. It was delivered on November 25 to Artaria, who gave him 15 ducats for it. Schuppanzigh gave it a private performance in December and told Beethoven that the company thought it köstlich and that Artaria was overjoyed when he heard it. There were other compositions on which Beethoven worked in Gneixendorf when he compelled laughter from the cook and frightened the peasant’s oxen. At Diabelli’s request he had said that he would write a quintet with flute. Sketches for a quintet have been found, showing that the work was in a considerable state of forwardness, but in them there are no signs of a flute. Holz told Jahn that the first movement of a quintet in C for strings which Diabelli had bought for 100 ducats was finished in the composer’s head and the first page written out. In the catalogue of Beethoven’s posthumous effects No. 173 was “Fragment of a new Violin Quintet, of November, 1826, last work of the composer,” which was officially valued at 10 florins. It was bought by Diabelli at the auction sale and published in pianoforte arrangements, two and four hands, with the title: “Ludwig van Beethoven’s last Musical Thought, after the original manuscript of November, 1826,” and the remark: “Sketch of the Quintet which the publishers, A. Diabelli and Co., commissioned Beethoven to write and purchased from his relics with proprietary rights.” The published work is a short movement in C in two divisions, having a broad theme of a festal character, Andante maestoso and Polonaise rhythm. The autograph having disappeared it can not now be said how much of the piece was actually written out by Beethoven. Nottebohm shows (“Zweit. Beeth.,” p. 79 et seq.) that the sketches for the quintet were written after Beethoven had begun to make a fair copy of the last movement of the B-flat Quartet. Lenz, in volume V of his work on Beethoven (p. 219), tells a story derived from Holz to the effect that when Beethoven sent him the last movement of the B-flat Quartet with injunctions to collect 12 ducats from Artaria, he accompanied it with a Canon on the words “Here is the work; get me the money” (Hier ist das Werk, schafft mir das Geld). According to a report circulated in Vienna in 1889, a copy of this Canon was purchased from Holz’s son for the Beethoven Collection in Heiligenstadt. The lines and notes were described as having been written by Beethoven, the words: Hier ist das Werk, sorgt für das Geld—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Dukaten, by Holz to Beethoven’s dictation. The story is not altogether convincing. The movement was completed in Gneixendorf and Artaria received and paid for it in November. He paid 15, not 12, ducats; and it is not patent how Beethoven in Gneixendorf could dictate to Holz in Vienna. He did not return to Vienna till December 2. There are references to other works in the Conversation Books which are not clear. In January Mathias Artaria writes: “I hear of six fugues.—We will empty a bottle of champagne in their honor.” Holz asks: “Is it true that you sold a rondo to Dominik Artaria which he has not yet received? It is said that you took it back and have not returned it.”—It is possible that the Rondo Caprice which was published by Diabelli as Op. 129, the history of which is a blank, is the work alluded to; but there is no evidence on the subject.

Chapter IX

We are now to learn of the calamitous consequences of Beethoven’s effort to be a foster-father to the son of his dead brother Kaspar. The tale is one that has been fruitful of fiction in most of the writings which have dealt with the life-history of the great composer; nor is the circumstance to be wondered at. There is still some obscurity in the story, and if there is anything in the melancholy lot of the great man, next to his supreme affliction, calculated to challenge the pity of the world, it is the manner in which his efforts to attach to himself the one human being for whom he felt affection were requited. There is no more pitiful picture in the history of great men than that presented by his devotion to the lad in whom, for a reason which must have seemed to him more inscrutable than his own physical calamity, he could not inspire a spark of love or a scintilla of gratitude. It was an unwise devotion and an ill-directed effort, but that does not alter the case. From the beginning, all of his friends recognized Beethoven’s unfitness for the office of guardian of his nephew. He was incapacitated for it by his occupation, his irregular mode of life, his lack of understanding of a child’s nature, his irresolute mind, his infirmities of temper, and the wretchedness of his domestic surroundings due to his ignorance of and indifference to the things essential to the amenities and comforts of social life. He did not assume the guardianship in a spirit of gentle obedience to a dying brother’s request; he violently wrested it unto himself alone in defiance of that brother’s last entreaties. There can be no doubt but that he believed that in doing so he was performing a pious duty toward his own flesh and blood and acting for the good of the child and the welfare of the community. He was proud of the boy’s intellectual gifts, which were out of the ordinary; he dreamed of seeing him great and respected in the eyes of the world; he wanted loving companionship now, and in his old age; he hungered for sympathy and for help which would not keep him in bonds of obligation to men whose disinterestedness he could not understand because of his suspicious disposition; he desired to see by his side and in his kin an incarnation of that polite learning and that practical knowledge of worldly affairs which had been denied to him. All his aims were laudable, all his desires natural and praiseworthy; but he was the last man in the world to know how to attain them. There can be no doubt that his stubborn insistence upon making himself the sole director of the welfare of his ward cost him the sympathy, perhaps also the respect and regard, of many of those whose counsel he was perforce compelled to seek. For a long time until the final and woeful trial came it separated him from the oldest and truest friend that he had in Vienna—Stephan von Breuning. It tested the patience and tried the forbearance of those who helped him in his mistaken zeal.

Moreover, it may be said without harshness or injustice to his memory that its consequences to his own moral nature were most deplorable. In a mind and heart prone to equity and tenderness it developed a strange capacity for cruel injustice. Aided by his native irresolution it twisted his judgment and turned his conduct into paradox. To satisfy his own love for the boy he strove fiercely to stifle a child’s natural affection for its mother. He thought that love for himself would grow out of hatred of the woman, though the passion which he tried to evoke was abhorrent to every instinct of nature. It matters not that the mother of Karl was profligate and lewd. Once a glimmer of that fact dawned upon him. It was while he was struggling to prevent all intercourse between the widow and her child in the early years that he was compelled to admit that to a child under all circumstances a mother is a mother still; but he made the confession to extenuate the conduct of the boy, not to justify the solicitude of the woman. His memory of his own mother, the sweet, patient sufferer of Bonn, was to him like a benison his whole life long. “Who was happier than I when I could still speak the sweet word ‘mother’ and have it heard,” he wrote to Dr. Schade, who had helped him on his sorrowful journey from Vienna to Bonn in 1787. But from the time that his brother Kaspar died until he himself gave up the ghost he was unswervingly occupied in preventing communication between Kaspar’s widow and her son. After more than twelve years he found that what he had tried to eradicate in the child, still lived in the youth. He had fought against nature and failed; and the failure filled him with bitterness, added to his hatred of the woman and his disappointment with the son. Such intensity of malevolence, though it may have had its origin in the profoundest conviction of virtuous purpose, could not fail to be prejudicial to his own moral character. So, also, his solicitude for his ward’s material welfare, which extended to a time when he should no longer be able to make provision for him, seems to have warped his nature. It weakened his pride; distorted his moral view; subjected him, not always unjustly, to accusation of dishonesty in his dealings with his patrons and publishers; made him parsimonious, and at the last brought upon him the reproach of having begged alms of his English friends, though possessed of property which might easily and quickly have been converted into money to supply his last needs more than generously.

To protect him against indictment for these moral flaws, many of Beethoven’s biographers thought, and still think, it necessary or justifiable to veil the truth and magnify the transgressions of his kindred and friends. His earliest apologists may have had other reasons besides these for so doing; his present biographers have none. By his own decree the world is entitled to know the truth. Schindler was embittered against Holz; Holz against Schindler; both against Johann van Beethoven, the brother; Beethoven himself taught his nephew to despise his uncle Johann as well as Schindler; and all three—Schindler, Holz and Johann—commissioned to that end, reported their observations of the lad’s shortcomings to his guardian. He accepted everything they said against the boy as he did everything they said against each other; indeed, his suspicious nature made him prone to believe evil of everyone near to him; and we do not know of a certainty that their reports were always within the bounds of strict veracity. After the tragedy they were unanimous in condemnation of the misguided, wayward, wicked youth and in praise of Beethoven’s magnanimity and self-sacrifice; but the evidence of helpful advice, warning and admonition to the mariner who was sailing a craft on a sea full of dangers to which nature had made him blind is not plentiful. Holz was young. He had scarcely finished sowing his own wild oats, and he seems to have been more lenient in his judgment than his elders, though just as convinced of the dangers into which the young man was running during the fateful last two years; but the few practical suggestions which we find him making do not seem to have been accepted. He was himself, like everybody else, under suspicion in Beethoven’s mind.

Concerning the details of the always disgraceful and at the end tragical conduct of Beethoven’s nephew much obscurity is left after the most painstaking study of the evidence to be found in the contemporary documents which have been preserved; but it is to these documents that appeal must be made if the truth is to be learned, not to the generalizations of romancing biographers. Twenty-nine letters written by Beethoven to the youth came into the hands of Beethoven after the attempt at suicide and through Schindler into the Royal Library at Berlin. However they may be viewed, they are a pathetic monument. They are a deeply affecting memorial of his almost idolatrous love for one wholly unworthy to receive it; but they also help measurably to explain why Beethoven defeated his own benevolent intentions. In them the paradoxes in his nature are piled one on top of the other. Alternately they breathe tender affection, gentle admonition and violent accusation; pride in the lad’s mental gifts, hope for his future, and loathing of his conduct; proclamations of his own self-sacrificing devotion set off against his ward’s ingratitude; pleadings that the boy love him and hate his mother; proud condemnation and piteous prayers for forgiveness; petitions for the boy’s reformation and promises of betterment in his own conduct. They give out the light in which the story must be told, though they contribute but little to the record of concrete facts. They leave us to conjecture and surmise as to many of the nephew’s motives and actual doings. It is from the pages of the Conversation Books of 1825 and 1826 that practically all of the attested truth concerning the happenings, their causes and effects, must be learned. Letters and these records of conversations are at the base of the following recital.[159]