From the painting by J. B. Greuze, in the Louvre, Paris.
Chevalier Christoph Willibald von Gluck.
Father of Modern Opera.
From a statue by Barrias, in the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris.
The Boy Mozart.
About the time in history when Franz Joseph Haydn was born, the world was very much upset. No one knew what to think or how. It was a time of battle and struggle as he was born in the midst of the Seven Years’ War and lived during the French Revolution. Everyone except for a few great persons felt bitter and discontented and doubt was everywhere. This seems to be the way wars and conflicts affect all peoples and it is why wars are so damaging.
Yet out of this mixture of feeling and thinking, the great classic period of music was created by such men as Bach and Haydn and Mozart and the finishing touches were put on it by Beethoven, the colossus.
Franz Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau (1732), a little town in Austria near Vienna. His father was a wheelwright and his mother was a very good cook. Beethoven’s mother, too, was a professional cook.
These simple parents, his brothers and sisters, measuring not a baker’s, but a wheelwright’s dozen, had an hour or two of music every evening after the hard day’s work, and Mathias, the father, played the harp and sang. It was during these evenings that little Joseph’s father noticed that at the age of six he was passionately fond of music.
One time at a festival the drummer failed to appear and there was no one who could play for the choristers who were to march through the town. His teacher, Frankh, called Joseph and showed him how to make the drum stroke and told him to practice it. When he was left by himself he found a meal tub, over which he stretched a cloth, put it on a stool and drummed with such vigor that the whole thing toppled over and he and his drum were covered with meal! But he learned to drum! And the people laughed when in this solemn church festival, the little six year old Joseph was seen drumming the big drum carried by a hunchback in front of him. The drums on which he played are still at Hainburg. But, we forget, we have not brought him from Rohrau!
Not long before J. M. Frankh, a relative, came to visit the Haydns, and it was decided that he should take Joseph to Hainburg to teach him. The excitement, of course, was great and little Joseph felt very important with all the hustle and bustle preparing for his departure. Little did Saperle (his nickname) realize what a hard master he was getting in Frankh, who only cared for the pay he received from Joseph’s father. Nevertheless he learned much and showed great talent while at Hainburg and one day a great thing happened. Reutter, the organist of St. Stephen’s in Vienna, visited Frankh and as they talked of music the conversation turned to the choir school which Reutter directed. Frankh sent for Joseph, a slight, dark haired, dark eyed little boy, and Reutter asked him to read a piece of music at sight. Joseph looked at it and said: “How can I, when my teacher couldn’t?” Yet, Joseph did sing it sweetly and he entered the choir school. Here his life was a misery, for Reutter was harsh and unsympathetic, but soon Joseph’s hard life in the choir school was over, for one very cold winter night, he felt a little frisky, as many a healthy lad does, and pulled off the wig of a man in the choir. Reutter, who had wanted an excuse to rid himself of Joseph, because his voice had begun to break, threw him out into the cold. Poor Saperle had no other place to go and wandered about all night, until he met his acquaintance Spangler, a tenor who was very poor and so had sympathy with Haydn. He took him home to live with him and his wife and child in his attic,—one small room with no comfort and no privacy. All this time young Haydn was forced to earn his daily bread by teaching as much as he could, playing for weddings, baptisms, funerals, festivals, dances and street serenadings. This street serenading was a sweet and pretty custom of the time.
One night Haydn and some other youths serenaded Kurz, a prominent comedian. Kurz, pleased by the music below his window, called to the lads: “Whose music is that?” “Joseph Haydn’s,” called back Haydn. “Who is he and where?” asked Kurz. “Down here, I am Haydn,” said Joseph. Kurz invited him upstairs and Haydn, at the age of seventeen, received a commission for a comic opera, which had two special performances.
All this time he mixed with the poor and laboring people, and their songs became his songs, and his heart was full of their frolics and their pains. He was of the people and was so filled with their humor that later he was called the father of humor in music.
Soon, in order to be alone, and to work in peace, he took a room in another attic, and bade good-bye to his very good friends. His room was cold in winter and let in the rains and snows, but it did have a spinet on which Haydn was allowed to play, and fortunately Metastasio the librettist lived in this house. Here Haydn studied the works of Karl Philip Emanuel Bach, Fuchs’ Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus, Parnassus meaning the mountain upon which the Greek Muses lived and so comes to mean the home of learning). He practised too, during this time, on any instrument he could find and learned so much that he became the founder of the modern orchestra.
When Metastasio discovered that there was a hard working musician in his house he met him and then introduced him to Porpora the greatest Italian singing teacher in Vienna. Not long after meeting him, Porpora entrusted to his care Marianne Van Martines, his ten year old pupil, the future musical celebrity. At seventeen Marianne wrote a mass which was used at St. Michael’s Church and she became the favorite singer and player of Empress Maria Theresa. You see women even in those days composed and performed!
So began Haydn’s successes. Porpora engaged him as accompanist, and treated him half way between a valet and a musician, but Haydn’s sweet nature carried him through all unpleasantnesses and he was so anxious to learn and to earn his six ducats that he did not care if he did have to eat with the servants.
In 1751–2, he wrote his first mass, his first string quartet, and his first comic opera for Kurz, The Crooked Devil, the music of which has been lost. Soon after he met Gluck at the concerts of the Prince of Hildburghausen, where Haydn acted as accompanist; at the prince’s house too, he met Ditter von Dittersdorf, the violinist. The princes and nobles of these days did much for music for it was usually at their homes and under their guidance that the composers received opportunities to work.
Nevertheless, we see Haydn during these days slaving to make his daily bread, but with the money he made he bought books on music theory and held himself sternly down to hard work, morning, noon, and night.
In 1755 Baron von Fürnburg, a music amateur, who gave concerts at his home, asked him to compose for him, and he wrote eighteen quartets, six scherzandi for wind instruments (the ancestors of his own symphonies), four string quartets, to be played by the village priest, himself, the steward, and the ’cellist Albrechtsberger.
All these pieces show how much happier he was since becoming part of the Baron’s staff, for they are merry and jolly, and filled with that humor which Haydn was the first to put into music.
Here, too, he met the cultivated Countess Thun, who was so interested in his struggle for success, and in the youth himself that she became his pupil. From this time on he began to earn more and to live more comfortably.
Everything seemed to be clearing up for him now. The Countess introduced him to Count Morzin, a Bohemian nobleman of great wealth, and in 1759 he became his musical director. His orchestra had eighteen members and here he wrote his first Symphony (the first of one hundred and twenty-five!)
All this time he kept up his teaching and very soon married the daughter of a wig-maker, who did not understand him and with whom he was very unhappy, but he lived with her like the good man he was until within a few years of his death.
Soon after Haydn’s marriage, Count Morzin had to cut down expenses and dismissed his musical staff, but Prince Paul Anton Esterhazy engaged him and he lived with him thirty years under salary with all his expenses paid,—thus ended his struggles to make a living. He composed in comfort and had a few able musicians to play whatever he wrote. He had quiet, solitude and appreciation,—the need of all art workers.
From 1761 to 1790 in the Esterhazy home he wrote most of his immortal works,—six of his best symphonies; the oratorio The Seven Words from the Cross (1785) which he himself thought was a masterpiece; six string quartets.
His orchestra here had six violins and violas, one violoncello, one double bass, one flute, two oboes, two bassoons and four horns,—seventeen in all; later he had twenty-two to twenty-four including trumpets, kettle-drums and from 1776–1778 the newest arrival, the clarinet.
His duties were to rehearse the orchestra daily, give music lessons, compose for the orchestra and instruct the singers engaged by the prince. Oh, yes! he had to tune his own harpsichord, on which he played when he led the orchestra.
Haydn led a beautiful life with the Esterhazy family. In the summer he hunted and fished, and in the winter, went off to Vienna to hear the orchestra and meet great personages attracted by the art, music and court life. But he had to keep on composing for the Esterhazys, who were constantly entertaining and there were many special occasions to be celebrated with Haydn’s lovely music.
It seems hard for us to realize that one family could play the compositions of one man continually, but we have rarely had so great a man to listen to!
In 1790 Haydn’s fame had spread abroad, especially to England. Salomon, a violinist and concert manager begged him to come to conduct twenty concerts with a new composition for each concert, for which he was to receive a fabulous sum. He gave his first concert February 25th, 1791. He was now about sixty years old and his popularity was so great that the Prince of Wales engaged him for twenty-six court concerts. He forgot to pay him, but later Parliament sent him one hundred guineas (about $500). Money at that time bought four or five times what it buys now, so Haydn went back to Austria, rich and famous and with a degree from Oxford. The English asked him many times to return and finally in 1794 he went again and was greeted with even more enthusiasm. Few composers in all the world have lived to see such triumphs as did the jovial, charming “Papa Haydn,” as his warm friend and pupil Mozart called him. But withal, Haydn was modest and unassuming and never hesitated to give his services in concerts for the poor or to give money to the sick.
Besides all the money he must have received, he had a generous pension from his friends, the Esterhazys, who demanded very little of his time. So now, with leisure, he could do his greatest works and at this period he wrote two oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons. They were more than successful. Emil Naumann says this of The Seasons: “It is not until we come to Haydn that we witness the joys and sorrows of men and women of our own time and dwellers in our own land, the tiller of the soil, the wine-presser and shepherd, or homely figures like Simon the farmer, his daughter Anna and the peasant Lucas, in The Seasons.” Then he says of The Creation: “We move with him through the German spinning room, where the girls relate stories to the accompaniment of the musical hum of the spinning wheel, or we rove through woods to follow the chase. His whole heart is in nature. He loves to depict her in her many varying aspects, and at all seasons, and all is touched with a light, tender hand. His types are of home.... His delineation of nature is ever the same, fresh and loving, whether we look at The Seasons or at The Creation.”
Haydn said of his English experience, “It is England which has made me famous in Germany.”
In 1797 he wrote God Preserve the Emperor which became the Austrian National Hymn, and later put it in his quartet called the Kaiser Quartet. From this time on, nearly every nation honored him,—Russia, France, Sweden, England, Austria, Germany. And as Haydn was leaving for England, when Mozart said to him, “Papa, you are scarcely fitted for such an undertaking, mixing with the big world without the gift of language,” he replied, “Aye, but my language is understood by the whole world.”
And this is the keynote of Haydn’s greatness, his music is and was understood by the whole world, so true and simple and melodious is it.
One year before his death when he was seventy-six years of age, he was so feeble that he had to be carried to the concert hall where a great performance of The Creation was given in his honor under the direction of Salieri, who later taught Beethoven. Princes and nobles and grand ladies did him homage and the ladies threw their beautiful cloaks over his couch to keep him warm, for it was a cold night in March, 1808. When that part of the oratorio came where they sing, “And there was light,” it is said that Haydn exclaimed, “Not I, but a power from above created that.”
He died on May 30th, 1809, from shock, it is said, caused by the booming of cannon near his house when the French besieged Vienna.
So passed this conscientious musician, whose belief is summed up in these sentences: “I know that God appointed me a task. I acknowledge it with thanks, and hope and believe I have done my duty and have been useful to the world. May others do likewise.”
1. He made over the orchestra, he discovered that muted strings made a beautiful winning effect.
2. He and Mozart at about the same time, added the clarinet to the orchestra.
3. He was the first composer who brought humor, that difficult thing which is neither wit nor comicalness, to music, although others had brought fun and boisterousness.
4. He was the first to use the individual tone color of each instrument, so, rightly he has been called the father of the modern orchestra.
5. He developed sonata-form in the sonata itself, the quartet, concerto and symphony. He was one of the first to establish two themes instead of one in the movements of sonata-forms. This was a great innovation and made the sonata a far more living thing and gave the composers who followed him a richer field to carry out musical design and human feeling.
6. He wrote about 1,407 works! 157 symphonies of which 18 are masterpieces, 83 string quartets, 66 piano sonatas, 5 oratorios, 42 German and English songs, 336 Scotch songs, 40 canons, 13 part songs for three and four voices, 5 German marionette operas written for the Esterhazy theatre, 14 Italian operas, 163 pieces for the baryton (viola da bordona), a favorite instrument of one of the Esterhazy princes, 47 divertimenti and trios, 15 concertos for different instruments, 15 masses, 5 other sacred works, 400 single minuets and waltzes. (Emil Naumann.)
7. Among his larger vocal works with orchestra are: Alcide (1762), Philemon and Baucis, entre acte music for King Lear and many others. His symphonies are so numerous and so many in the same key that in order to tell them apart some have been given such names as Surprise Symphony, The Farewell Symphony, the Military Symphony, Queen of France, The Oxford, the fascinating Kinder Symphonie (children’s symphony) and on and on!
Mozart was years younger than Haydn and died while still very young, but they were the closest friends. Haydn was his teacher, but lived to think of Mozart as his superior and didn’t hesitate to say so. This again shows the great spirit of Haydn.
Although Haydn was an innovator and a master of form his rules were never cast into molds he could not break through inspiration. A critic once asked him about the introduction to the Mozart Quartet in C major which had been much discussed on account of its complex harmonies,—a work which today we look upon as one of the greatest examples of his genius. Haydn replied in a decided tone, “If Mozart has written it, be sure he had good reason for so doing.” Albrechtsberger, a strict technician, questioned him about the use of consecutive fourths which was breaking a good old-fashioned law of harmony. Haydn replied, “Art is free and must not be fettered by handicraft rule. The cultivated ear must decide, and I believe myself as capable as any one of making laws in this respect.” Thus spoke the great musician and not just the teacher and follower.
He loved his art so well that he welcomed the young Mozart to Vienna generously, because of his genius. Haydn, when asked by a manager to have one of his operas follow the night after one of Mozart’s refused, saying: “It would be too much to venture, for next to the great Mozart it would be difficult for anyone to stand. Could I force home to every lover of music the grandeur and inimitableness of Mozart’s operas, ... and display of genius, and were I able to impress all others with the same feelings which excite me, the nations would contend for the possession of so rare a gem. Let Prague strive to hold fast the priceless man. But reward him adequately, for without this the history of great men is truly sad and offers to posterity little inducement to exertion, as indeed many a hopeful mind lies fallow for want of encouragement. It angers me only that Mozart has not yet been engaged at some Imperial court. Pardon this digression but I love the man dearly.” When he left Mozart he wrote to his friend Frau von Gennzinger, “I am inconsolable at parting,” and then he tells with the simplicity of a child “a happy dream” he had listening to a performance of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. (Adapted from Naumann.)
And thus we see this cheerful-hearted man according honor and love even to his rivals, his broad realistic humor showing itself, as well as charm, dignity and beauty, in all his works whether in music or in life.
Papa Haydn was a good and truly religious man. He leaves us an example of kindliness and thoughtfulness, for even the people who loaned him money, which he repaid, were remembered in his will. A touching story is told of him; that when he returned to his parent’s home, he kissed the floor upon which his mother and father used to walk, so well had he remembered them, yet so simple had he remained, he who played among and played with and played for the greatest people who lived in his time.
Now we come to the greatest musical genius of all time. For, whereas Bach, Handel, Haydn, Gluck, and Beethoven excelled in many things, Mozart excelled in everything; living but thirty-five years, about half the time of most of these, he outstripped them all in natural genius.
Wolfgang Amadeus, born in Salzburg on the 27th of January, 1756, was the son of Leopold Mozart, under chapel master to the hated Archbishop of Salzburg. His mother was the daughter of a minor official in Hildenstein, and was not a cook as were the mothers of Haydn and of Beethoven. However, Madam Mozart’s not having been of that profession did not lessen her son’s genius!
One day when little Wolfgang was four years old, his father found the boy busily writing. He warned his father not to disturb him, as he was writing a concerto for the harpsichord. And, sure enough, when the father looked over the boy’s shoulder he saw that he was not scribbling as most children of four years do, but was actually composing a work for harpsichord and orchestra, which he afterwards played to show how it should go. In spite of the blots of ink, it could easily be read.
Mozart’s father was a wise and kindly man. He soon appreciated that the boy was destined for a great career, and decided that he must be properly trained.
Wolfgang was a sweet and loving child, very kind and easy to control, although he and his sister “Nannerl” were “regular” children and loved to play as other children. The father decided to take them both on a concert tour through Europe, in order to meet the great musicians and to earn money for their education.
In May, 1765, Wolfgang and his pretty little sister gave their first concert in London “for the benefit” so the sign read, “of Miss Mozart aged thirteen and Master Mozart eight years of age, prodigies of nature ... a concert of music, with all the overtures of this little boy’s composition.”
The people, tired of all the pomp and ceremony of fashion, were eager for something different and were ready to listen to youthful prodigies, so the hall was crowded, and everyone was amazed.
They were beautifully brought up, charming, merry and unspoiled by the gifts showered upon them. Father Mozart gave the presents to them by degrees, teaching them the value of all things, from jewels to flattery.
Because of this training, Mozart always remained modest, did everything with gratitude to God and greatest love for his parents. He was especially loving to Nannerl to whom he brought every new idea. In fact Mozart radiated friendship and love.
On this concert tour (1765) in Paris, London, Holland and Switzerland, Mozart was received with great enthusiasm everywhere. When they came back, Mozart had no time to become conceited for he began a strict course of study and at twelve he composed his first mass and his first opera Bastien et Bastienne, which is still played and is charming. At fourteen he was assistant concertmaster to the Archbishop of Salzburg, and then began a series of woes, for the Archbishop was a mean character and treated him most unjustly.
However, in 1777, we see him in Paris with his mother, where to his great advantage he heard Gluck’s operas and met Gluck. Shortly after that his mother died, and it made a very deep scar in his heart. Soon he was absorbed in composing and finishing Idomeneo and in this year (1781) took up his residence in Vienna. In the next, he married Constance Weber and wrote Il Seraglio in which his heroine is called Constance. They say he was teased for this, but he did not mind very much. In 1786 he wrote the unexcelled Marriage of Figaro, which at first was not appreciated, but soon came into its own.
Prague began to love Mozart and gave him ovations. To show his appreciation he composed Don Giovanni (1787) and so great was the people’s delight in this masterpiece that Emperor Joseph made him court composer at the salary of $400 a year! Too bad it was not more, for poor Mozart was never free from the heart-breaking struggle to make enough money to live. You will recall the letter of Haydn in the last section where he wished some nation would adopt Mozart and free him from care, so great was Haydn’s appreciation and love for Mozart, which Mozart returned. When listening to a piece of Haydn’s, a critic once said: “I wouldn’t have written it like that, would you?” “No,” replied Mozart, “and do you know why? Because neither of us would have had the idea!” Isn’t it refreshing to see men so great in wisdom and works that they become greater because of their loyalties.
Yet this man, a genius almost divine, was so hated by petty musicians, so badgered by unjust criticism, that when he was dying he believed that someone had poisoned him!
In spite of his enemies, he was known for his gaiety and bubbling fun, which ever overflowed into his music. No one seems to know why his country did not free him of money worry.
As it so often happens with great men, after his death public subscriptions were collected and statues erected as a tribute to his memory. At Salzburg you can see a statue of him, and yearly festivals of his works are held in his honor; and in Vienna, the opera house is decorated with frescoes of scenes from the Magic Flute!
After his visit to Prague he was never well, and when he had finished the inimitable Magic Flute he started work on his last composition, the great Requiem (a mass played for the dead) which influenced Catholic Church music for years. He became very despondent, in great contrast to his usual high spirits, and poor Constance did everything to cheer him. One day, while writing the Requiem, Mozart began to weep and declared he was writing it for himself, “I feel I am not going to last much longer, some one has certainly given me poison, I cannot get rid of this idea.”
In November, being an ardent member of the Masonic brotherhood, as were also Beethoven and Haydn, believing as they did in the freedom and brotherhood of man, he wrote a cantata and led it himself at his lodge. Ill and despondent, he continued work on the Requiem, finished while he was dying. All during this time he longed to hear his Magic Flute which was constantly given at the opera house, and like a child, he would say: “I guess they have just reached this or that point,” and he would hum the music as he thought it must be progressing at the opera. The day before he died, Roser, his friend, played some of the opera on the harpsichord to cheer him.
The afternoon before his death, after finishing the Requiem, he and some of his friends sang it. At the Lacrymosa, Mozart wept. He said to Sussmayer, his friend, “Did I not say I was writing the Requiem for myself?” Later he asked his wife to tell Albrechtsberger of his approaching end, so that he would be ready to take his post at St. Stephen’s. During his last hours he was informed that he had been made director of all the music at St. Stephen’s with a salary that for the first time in his life would have enabled him to live in comfort, but it was too late! At midnight, on December 5th, 1791, he lost consciousness and fell into a slumber from which he did not awake. His wife was so overcome with grief that she was too ill to attend his funeral. A few faithful friends followed the coffin, but had to turn back as a furious tempest was raging and they could not force their way through the driving rain and sleet. Thus passed one of the rarest spirits that has ever brought Music to earth, and he lies in a grave unknown and unmarked. In 1859, the city of Vienna erected a monument to his memory near the spot where he was probably buried.
Sad, sad end for so great a man! He and Raphael, Keats and Shelley and Jesus, Himself, all died early in their careers and yet had time to leave the world a finer and more lovely place for us.
Why do we celebrate Mozart in what seems to be exaggerated terms?
Where Handel was a great epic composer, Bach a great religious composer, Gluck, a dramatic writer, Haydn more versatile than many of the others yet not dramatic, Beethoven lyric, free and hating all tyrannies, in Mozart we have great opera, great masses, great epics, symphonies and chamber music quartets and quintets.
The list of his works is gigantic! How he was able in the short span of his life, to write down so much, to say nothing of composing them, is a problem that cannot be solved!
With his usual tendency not to finish work until the last minute, he wrote the overture to Don Giovanni the night before the first performance. He composed and scored it for orchestra in less time that it took the copyists to copy the parts, and the audience was forced to wait almost an hour until Mozart appeared at the conductor’s stand to direct the unrehearsed overture. When the curtain rose on the first act Mozart said, “The overture went off very well on the whole, although a good many notes certainly fell under the desks!”
Mozart promised a group of country dances to a count, but failed to keep his word. The count invited him, putting dinner time an hour ahead. When Mozart arrived he was shown into a room, was given music paper, quills and ink and was asked to compose, then and there, four country dances to be performed the next evening. In a half hour’s time he wrote the entire orchestra score and earned his dinner!
Mozart could be not only humorous, but tragic in the same work, making his humor seem greater by contrast. Don Giovanni and the Magic Flute could be called tragic-comedies they are so rich in both moods.
In the Marriage of Figaro he originated what Emil Naumann calls conversational opera, although Rossini’s Barber of Seville, and Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment follow it in style they do not reach it in real fun, melody and quality. When we say some of his operas were humorous we do not mean that they were comic operas.
In Don Giovanni he originated romantic opera, and although Weber in Oberon and other operas have their fine moments, none approach the awe-inspiring, continuous beauty of Mozart’s.
He was the first to write a great fairy opera, The Magic Flute, composed when he was writing the Requiem! Although the librettist wrote it for money, Mozart wanted it idealistic and true to his beliefs.
Cosi Fan Tutti (They’re All Alike) was really and truly comic opera, and Titus shows his mastery of the formal and severe style. So in all these he left models for those who followed him. Had he done but this one thing he would have been great indeed.
Coming into the world when he did, he was the connecting link between the old Italian opera and Gluck, who idealized what the old Florentines did, on the one hand, and the romantic and romantic comic opera of the later masters of Germany and France, on the other.
In instrumental music he is the link between Haydn and Beethoven. Let us see how! He furthered the work of Haydn in the quartets and quintets by making them more human and more expressive of sorrow, pain, passionate grief and the deeper things than Haydn. In his six quartets dedicated to Haydn he says, “I labored over these.” This does not agree with the usual statement, says Naumann, “that he shook his music out of his sleeve.”
Out of his forty-nine symphonies nine rank, some think, with Beethoven’s nine! In the finale of the Jupiter symphony he does so great a musical feat that as yet no one has surpassed it. For in it he writes a fugue along with the sonata form of the symphony, so spontaneous and so lovely that even Bach himself could not have reached the freshness of it.
Mozart treated the fugue with the same limpid mirthfulness that he used in less strict forms of music. This Beethoven never achieved for his fugues were always a bit labored, but Mozart was perfectly at home in contrapuntal writing.
Mozart also invented the art song! This is different from the regular song for the music changes from verse to verse to make the meaning of the poem or words more expressive. Thus he paved the way for Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and other great song writers, as he did for the symphonist Beethoven and those born later.
He opened the gate, not to a national art, but to an international art, for he was a world figure.
So, we leave Mozart, the Genius, for Beethoven, the Colossus, who deepened and glorified music and gave it a broader path along which to travel.
After a “Portrait of a Young Man” (Mozart?) by Prud’hon, in the Louvre, Paris.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
From the head by Gourwitch.
Ludwig van Beethoven.
Let us see what was happening in the world into which Beethoven was born.
The French Revolution had closed the 1700s with blood and terror, and the American Colonies were uneasy under British rule, and before Beethoven was six, the American Revolution was in full blast.
It was another time like the Renaissance, when people began to think for themselves. In other words, the individual was commencing to count more than the nation.
Slowly we see the idea die out that only the nobles and the wealthy had the right to life, liberty and happiness, and we see the ideas of freedom and equality taking the place of serfdom and slavish obedience to over-lords. All this may seem strange to appear in a book on music but art always mirrors the life and feelings of the people of its time.
Then came Napoleon, who dragged the French army through the continent of Europe, until he was defeated at Waterloo by the English.
Then, too, came the War of 1812 between England and America, and unrest seemed to be over the face of the world.
But through it all came the insistent demand of the people for more democratic governments, and these new demands grudgingly granted by monarchs caused revolts and uprisings everywhere.
This was the time when men like Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Fichte and other famous poets and philosophers did their thinking and writing.
And into this world, the great democrat, Beethoven, came to add his contribution to life, liberty, and beauty, as have few others of our race.
And so the road is made easy for the people who followed Beethoven,—Weber, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin, and later Wagner, who helped make the 19th century, a great musical era.
Instead, now, of people writing around a well known song, as they did in the cantus-firmus days, originality was the keynote; instead of conventional forms, composers began to find new forms and to compose from the heart; instead of writing dainty and graceful music, they wrote music of power; instead of holding back what they wanted to say, they poured out in rich melody their very deepest, loveliest and most exalted feelings,—caring more for what they felt themselves than for the effect on their audiences. Instead, too, of mathematical rules, they wrote themselves, their hopes and their fears into their compositions, and this freedom is labeled the Romantic Movement in Music.
Now appeared the great vocal and instrumental soloists (virtuosi). They developed because of the advance in the making of instruments. Beethoven could write more richly with the piano he had, than if he had lived in Bach’s time. For the advance in instruments helps the composer and the composer, the instruments.
Since music became of age, we have seen many things happen to it: the advance in instruments, of the orchestra, and opera, and the development of the sonata and symphony.
Ludwig van Beethoven was the bridge between the classic writers and those to follow him: Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt, members of the “Romantic School.”
Before explaining what Beethoven did to advance music, you must hear about his life, for he was so interesting that knowing him will help you to understand his work.
Although born in Bonn, Germany, his ancestors on his father’s side were of Dutch-Flemish stock like our old friends, Okeghem and Willaert. You will notice that the syllable before his last name is “van.” If his name had been German, it would have been “von.” He was proud of his Dutch origin and corrected anyone who misspelled it. This frankness, you will see, was a part of his character.
He was born December 16th, 1770, and his mother was the chief cook in the Castle of Ehrenbreitstein. His father, a tenor, and his grandfather were musicians in the band of the Elector of Cologne at Bonn. His mother was sweet and loving, but his father was unkind and intemperate. According to some accounts, his boyhood was spent in poverty and his father tried to drive him to earn money for the family. It was very hard on Beethoven that his mother should have died early in his life.
At four years of age Ludwig’s father insisted upon his learning to play the piano, and as he did not want to practise, he was whipped often. Later he started to work in earnest and in spite of hating it, played in public when he was eight and at eleven he had mastered Bach’s forty-eight Preludes and Fugues, a difficult task even for a grown up. Besides, he had written three piano sonatas published in 1781. We think he wasted little time after his first whippings!
When thirteen, he went on the opera staff where he played accompaniments for rehearsals, without pay. Not a bad job for a lad!
One of his first teachers was Pfeiffer, who belonged to the opera troupe and boarded with the Beethovens. Beethoven now was growing most enthusiastic about music and took up the study of the organ. Not only this, but he wrote a funeral cantata for organ, which excited the whole town.
He played the piano very beautifully, as did Mozart, and when he went to Holland with his mother, at eleven, he played at many private houses, and gained confidence in himself.
Think of it! When Beethoven was twelve, Neefe, his teacher and organist at Bonn, left town and Beethoven took his place. This proves his great ability, because playing for services was complicated. He was so successful that Neefe prophesied he would become a second Mozart!
In 1787, Beethoven, despite his poverty, went to Vienna, where Mozart said that he would “make a noise in the world,” and gave the young pianist a few lessons. Not long afterwards, Beethoven was recalled to Bonn where his life was much saddened by the deaths of his mother and his little sister.
At this time he made the acquaintance of the von Bruening family,—mother, three boys and a girl, whose friendship was one of the inspiring events of his boyhood. He gave lessons to Eleanore and to a brother, and was a close friend to them all. Here he was introduced to the marvels of literature, which proved to be a lifelong love and a solace for the sad hours after he became deaf. He also accompanied the von Bruenings on holidays in the country, and through them met Count Waldstein, a young noble and amateur musician, who was most enthusiastic over Beethoven’s budding talent. Through Count Waldstein he was brought to the attention of the Elector of Bonn, who gave the young musician a place as viola player in the orchestra of his national theatre. Here he made several lifelong friends,—Franz Ries, who probably taught him to play the violin and viola, the two Rombergs, Simrock and Stumpff. His old teacher Neefe, was pianist and stage manager in the theatre.
Now his home became most unhappy because of his father’s drunkenness and bad habits. The Court, however, in 1799, looked after Beethoven and saw that part of his father’s salary was paid to him to help him care for the family. In addition to this the money he earned by playing and by giving lessons enabled him to support his brothers and sister.
When Papa Haydn passed through Bonn on his way to London, Beethoven went to visit him, and brought with him, instead of candy or flowers, a cantata which he had written for the occasion. Haydn was delighted with him and offered to teach him if he would go to Vienna. So, in 1792, on the advice of Count Waldstein, we see him again in Vienna, studying counterpoint with Haydn. At first he frankly imitated his master, and although he leaned more toward Mozart’s colorfulness of style than Haydn’s, from the older composer he learned how to treat and develop themes, and how to write for the orchestra.
When Haydn left Vienna for his second visit to England, Beethoven studied with Albrechtsberger, also with Schenck, Salieri and Förster. Although he was an amazing student his teachers were afraid of and for him, for his ideas were ahead of his day. They failed to see in him the great pathfinder, and naturally thought he was a dangerous radical or “red” as we would say.
The story of Beethoven’s life is a story of a few faithful friendships. He was not befriended for his personal beauty, but for his inner beauty. His head was too big for his body, he did not care what sort of clothes he wore, nor did he have any regard for conventions, fashions or great personages. He was a real democrat and cared nothing for titles and the things smaller men respect. Once Beethoven’s brother called on him and left his card upon which was written, next his name, “Man of Property.” Beethoven in return sent his card on which he wrote, “Man of Brains.”
Thinking that Napoleon was going to free mankind, he dedicated the Eroica, the third symphony, to him. But when he heard that Napoleon had set himself up as Emperor, in a violent rage, he trampled on the dedication page.
One day he and Goethe were walking along the street when the King passed by. Goethe stood aside with uncovered head but Beethoven refused to alter his path for royalty and kept on his hat, for he felt on an equality with every man and probably a little superior. But he lost his friendship with Goethe because of his many failures to conform to customs.
At twenty-seven Beethoven began to grow deaf. It made him very morose and unhappy. In 1800 he wrote to his friend Wegeler, the husband of Eleanore von Bruening, “My hearing during the last three years has become gradually worse. I can say with truth that my life is very wretched. For nearly two years past I have avoided all society because I find it impossible to say to people ‘I am deaf.’ In any other profession this might be tolerable but in mine, such a condition is truly frightful.”
Beethoven was forceful and noble in spirit, quick tempered, absent-minded, gruff, and cared little for manners and customs except to be honest and good. But although he was absent-minded he never neglected his work or his obligations to any man, and his compositions show the greatest care and thought. He worked a piece over and over before it was finished and not, like Mozart, did it bubble from him whole and perfect.
He was too high-strung and impatient to teach much and Ferdinand Ries, the son of Franz, and Czerny seem to be his only well-known pupils. But he taught many amateurs among the nobility, which probably accounts for many of his romances. In later years, he withdrew unto himself and became irritable and suspicious of everybody, both because of his deafness and the misery his family caused him.
Yet this great man, tortured with suspicions and doubt, and storming often against his handicap, always stood upright and straight and never did anything dishonorable or mean. In fact, he was a very moral man, who lived and composed according to the dictates of his soul and never wrote to please or to win favor.
He made valuable friends among music lovers and patrons such as Prince and Princess Lichnowsky, Prince Lobkowitz, Count Rasomouwsky, Empress Maria Theresa and others, to whom he dedicated many of his great works. This he did only as a mark of his friendship rather than for gain.
He was clumsy and awkward and had bad manners and a quick temper, and he had a heavy shock of black hair, that was always in disorder, but the soul of the man shone out from his eyes and his smile lit up his face. Although he is said to have been unkempt, he was exceedingly clean, for when he was composing he would often interrupt his work to wash.
When the Leonore overture was being rehearsed, one of the three bassoon players was missing. Prince Lobkowitz, a friend of Beethoven, jokingly tried to relieve his mind by saying, “It doesn’t make any difference, the first and second bassoon are here, don’t mind the third.” Beethoven nearly pranced with rage, and reaching the street later, where the Prince lived, he crossed the square to the gates of the Palace and stopped to shout at the entrance, “Donkey of a Lobkowitz!” and then passed on, raving to himself. But there was a warm, sweet streak in his nature for his friends loved him dearly, and he was very good to his nephew Carl, who lied to him and deceived him. Carl added to Beethoven’s unhappiness, for when he was lonely and in need of him, Carl never would come to him unless for money.
Beethoven had a high regard for women and loved Countess Guicciardi, who refused many times to marry him, but he dedicated The Moonlight Sonata and some of his songs to her.
We see his great heart broken by his nephew, we see his sad letters begging him to come and take pity on his loneliness, we see him struggle to make money for him; and all Carl did was to accept all and give nothing. Finally this ungrateful boy was expelled from college because he failed in his examinations. This was such a disgrace that he attempted to commit suicide. As this was also looked upon as a crime he was given twenty-four hours to leave Vienna and so enlisted in the army. Nevertheless Beethoven made Carl his sole heir. Doesn’t this show him to be a really great person?
While at Vienna he met the great pianists and played far better than any of them. No one played with such expression, with such power or seemed worthy even to compete with him. Mozart and others had been charming players and composers, but Beethoven was powerful and deep, even most humorous when he wanted to be.
He worked well during these years, and with his usual extreme care changed and rechanged the themes he found in his little sketch books into which, from boyhood he had put down his musical ideas. Those marvelous sketch books! What an example they are! They show infinite patience and “an infinite capacity for taking pains” which has been given by George Eliot as a definition of genius.
At his first appearance as a pianist in Vienna he played his own C major Concerto in 1795. From 1795 to 1803 he wrote all the works from opus 1 to 50. In these were included symphonies 1 and 2, the first three piano concertos, and many sonatas for piano, trios and quartets, a septet and other less important works.
This is the first period of Beethoven’s life. His second period in which his deafness grew worse and caused him real physical illness, extended to 1815—in this the trouble with his nephew and the deceit of his two brothers preyed on his mind, to such an extent, that he became irascible and unapproachable. His lodgings were the scene of distressing upheavals and Beethoven was like a storm-beaten mountain!
For consolation, he turned to his music, and in the storm and stress he wrote the noble opera Fidelio, and the third symphony, Eroica, concertos, sonatas and many other things.
Someone once asked him, “Why don’t you write opera?” He replied, “Give me a libretto noble enough for my music.” Evidently this is the reason why he wrote only one opera. We find another example of his patience and self-criticism, as he wrote four overtures for Fidelio. Three of them are called Leonore overtures and one Fidelio. The third Leonore seems to be the favorite, and is often played.
By 1822, the beginning of the third period, the great music maker was stone deaf! Yet he wrote the magnificent Mass in D and his last symphony, the Ninth, with the “Hymn of Joy,” two of the great masterpieces of the world, although he was unable to hear one note of what he had composed as he could not hear his beloved violin even when he held it close to his ears.
Imagine Beethoven—stone deaf, attending a performance of the Ninth Symphony in a great hall—not knowing that it had had a triumphal success until one of the soloists turned him around to see the enthusiastic faces and the hands clapping and arms waving, for he could hear not a sound! He who had built such beautiful things for us to hear, knew them only in his mind!
Beethoven was a great lover of nature. He used to stroll with his head down and his hands behind his back, clasping his note book in which he jotted down the new ideas as they came to him. He wrote to a friend, “I wander about here with music paper among the hills and dales and valleys and scribble a bit; no man on earth could love the country as I do.”