The musical drama naturally took the first place in the musical life of Vienna at this period. The enthusiasm of Joseph II for a national German opera, to which the world owed Mozart’s exquisite “EntfÜhrung,” proved to be but short-lived, and the Italian opera buffa resumed its old place in his affections. The new company engaged was, however, equal to the performance of “Don Giovanni” and “Figaro” and Salieri’s magnificent “Axur.” Leopold II reached Vienna on the evening of March 13, 1790, to assume the crown of his deceased brother, but no change was, for the present, made in the court theatre. Indeed, as late as July 5 he had not entered a theatre, and his first appearance at the opera was at the performance of “Axur,” September 21, in the company of his visitor King Ferdinand of Naples; but once firmly settled on the imperial throne, Joseph’s numerous reforms successfully annulled, the Turkish war brought to a close and his diverse coronations happily ended, the Emperor gave his thoughts to the theatre. Salieri, though now but forty-one years of age, and rich with the observation and experience of more than twenty years in the direction of the opera, was, according to Mosel, graciously allowed, but according to other and better authorities, compelled, to withdraw from the operatic orchestra and confine himself to his duties as director of the sacred music in the court chapel and to the composition of one operatic work annually, if required. The “Wiener Zeitung” of January 28, 1792, records the appointment of Joseph Weigl, Salieri’s pupil and assistant, now twenty-five years old, “as Chapelmaster and Composer to the Royal Imperial National Court Theatre with a salary of 1,000 florins.” The title Composer was rather an empty one. Though already favorably known to the public, he was forbidden to compose new operas for the court stage. To this end famous masters were to be invited to Vienna. A first fruit of this new order of things was the production of Cimarosa’s “Il Matrimonio segreto,” February 7, 1792, which with good reason so delighted Leopold that he gave the performers a supper and ordered them back into the theatre and heard the opera again da capo. It was among the last of the Emperor’s theatrical pleasures; he died March 1st, and his wife on the 15th of May following. Thus for the greater part of the time from March 1 to May 24, the court theatres were shut; and yet during the thirteen months ending December 15, 1792, Italian opera had been given 180 times—134 times in the Burg and 46 times in the KÄrnthnerthor-Theater—and ballet 163 times; so that, as no change for the present was made, there was abundance in these branches of the art for a young composer, like Beethoven, to hear and see. All accounts agree that the company then performing was one of uncommon excellence and its performances, with those of the superb orchestra, proved the value of the long experience, exquisite taste, unflagging zeal and profound knowledge of their recent head, Salieri. Such as Beethoven found the opera in the first week of November, 1792, such it continued for the next two years—exclusively Italian, but of the first order.

A single stroke of extraordinary good fortune—a happy accident is perhaps a better term—had just now given such prosperity to a minor theatrical enterprise that in ten years it was to erect and occupy the best playhouse in Vienna and, for a time, to surpass the Court Theatre in the excellence and splendor of its operatic performances. We mean Schikaneder’s Theater auf der Wieden; but in 1793 its company was mean, its house small, its performances bad enough.

Schikaneder’s chapelmaster and composer was John Baptist Henneberg; the chapelmaster of Marinelli, head of another German company in the Leopoldstadt, was Wenzel MÜller, who had already begun his long list of 227 light and popular compositions to texts magical or farcical. Some two weeks after Beethoven’s arrival in Vienna, on November 23rd, Schikaneder announced, falsely, the one-hundredth performance of “Die ZauberflÖte,” an opera the success of which placed his theatre a few years later upon a totally different footing, and brought Beethoven into other relations to it than those of an ordinary visitor indulging his comical taste, teste Seyfried, for listening to and heartily enjoying very bad music.

The leading dramatic composers of Vienna, not yet named, must receive a passing notice. Besides Cimarosa, who left Vienna a few months later, Beethoven found Peter Dutillieu, a Frenchman by birth but an Italian musician by education and profession, engaged as composer for the Court Theatre. His “Il Trionfo d’Amore” had been produced there November 14, 1791, and his “Nanerina e Padolfino” had lately come upon the stage. Ignaz Umlauf, composer of “Die schÖne Schusterin” and other not unpopular works, had the title of Chapelmaster and Composer to the German Court Opera, and was Salieri’s substitute as chapelmaster in the sacred music of the Court Chapel. Franz Xavier SÜssmayr, so well known from his connection with Mozart, was just now writing for Schikaneder’s stage; Schenk for Marinelli’s and for the private stages of the nobility; and Paul Wranitzky, first violinist and so-called Musikdirektor in the Court Theatre, author of the then popular “Oberon” composed for the Wieden stage, was employing his very respectable talents for both Marinelli and Schikaneder.

The church music of Vienna seems to have been at a very low point in 1792 and 1793. Two composers, however, whose names are still of importance in musical history, were then in that city devoting themselves almost exclusively to this branch of the art; Albrechtsberger, Court Organist, but in a few months (through the death of Leopold Hoffmann, March 17, 1793) to become musical director at St. Stephen’s; and Joseph Eybler (some five years older than Beethoven), who had just become Regens chori in the Carmelite church, whence he was called to a similar and better position in the Schottische Kirche two years later.

Public concerts, as the term is now understood, may be said not to have existed, and regular subscription concerts were few. Mozart gave a few series of them, but after his death there appears to have been no one of sufficient note in the musical world to make such a speculation remunerative. Single subscription concerts given by virtuosos, and annual ones by some of the leading resident musicians, of course, took place then as before and since. The only real and regular concerts were the four annual performances in the Burgtheater, two at Christmas and two at Easter, for the benefit of the musicians’ widows and orphans. These concerts, established mainly by Gassmann and Salieri, were never exclusive in their programmes—oratorio, symphony, cantata, concerto, whatever would add to their attraction, found place. The stage was covered with the best musicians and vocalists of the capital and the superb orchestra was equally ready to accompany the playing of a Mozart or of an ephemeral Wunderkind. Risbeck was told ten years before that the number taking part in orchestra and chorus had even then on some occasions reached 400—a statement, however, which looks much like exaggeration.

Very uncommon semi-private concerts were still kept up in 1793. The reader of Mozart’s biography will remember that in 1782 this great composer joined a certain Martin in giving a series of concerts during the morning hours in the Augarten Hall, most of the performers being dilettanti and the music being furnished from the library of von Kees. These concerts found such favor that they were renewed for several years and generally were twelve in number.

This man, still young, and a fine violin-player, was the director when Beethoven came to Vienna, and the extraordinary spectacle was still to be seen of princes and nobles following his lead in the performance of orchestral music to an audience of their own class at the strange hours of from 6 to 8 in the morning!

From the above it appears that Vienna presented to the young musician no preËminent advantages either in opera, church-music or its public concerts. Other cities equalled the Austrian capital in the first two, and London was then far in advance of all in the number, variety and magnificence of the last. It was in another field that Vienna surpassed every competitor. As Gluck twenty years before had begun the great revolution in operatic music completed by Mozart, so Haydn, building on the foundation of the Bachs and aided by Mozart, was effecting a new development of purely instrumental music which was yet to reach its highest stage through the genius and daring of the youth now his pupil. The example set by the Austrian family through so many generations had produced its natural effect, and a knowledge of and taste for music were universal among the princes and nobles of the empire. Some of the more wealthy princes, like Esterhazy, maintained musical establishments complete even to the Italian opera; others were contented with hearing the mass sung in their house-chapel to an orchestral accompaniment; where this was impossible, a small orchestra only was kept up, often composed of the officials and servants, who were selected with regard to their musical abilities; and so down to the band of wind-instruments, the string quartet, and even to a single organ-player, pianist or violinist. What has been said in a former chapter of music as a quasi-necessity at the courts of the ecclesiastical princes, applies in great measure to the secular nobility. At their castles and country-seats in the summer, amusement was to be provided for many an otherwise tedious hour; and in their city residences during the winter they and their guests could not always feast, dance or play at cards; and here, too, music became a common and favored recreation. At all events, it was the fashion. Outside the ranks of the noble-born, such as by talents, high culture or wealth occupied high social positions, followed the example and opened their salons to musicians and lovers of music, moved thereto for the most part by a real, rarely by a pretended, taste for the art—in either case aiding and encouraging its progress. Hence, an enormous demand for chamber music, both vocal and instrumental, especially the latter. The demand created the supply by encouraging genius and talent to labor in that direction; and thus the Austrian school of instrumental music soon led the world, as in the previous generation the demand for oratorios in England gave that country the supremacy in that branch of art.

During certain months of the year, Vienna was filled with the greatest nobles, not only of the Austrian states, but of other portions of the German Empire. Those who spent their time mostly in their own small courts came up to the capital but for a short season; others reversed this, making the city their usual residence and visiting their estates only in summer. By the former class many a once (if not still) famous composer in their service was thus occasionally for short periods brought to the metropolis—as Mozart by the brutal Archbishop of Salzburg, and Haydn by Prince Esterhazy. By the latter class many of the distinguished composers and virtuosos resident in the city were taken into the country during the summer to be treated as equals, to live like gentlemen among gentlemen. Another mode of encouraging the art was the ordering or purchasing of compositions; and this not only from composers of established reputation, as Haydn, Mozart, C. P. E. Bach, but also from young and as yet unknown men; thus affording a twofold benefit—pecuniary aid and an opportunity of exhibiting their powers.

The instrumental virtuosos, when not permanently engaged in the service of some prince or theatre, looked in the main for the reward of their studies and labors to the private concerts of the nobility. If at the same time they were composers, it was in such concerts that they brought their productions to a hearing. The reader of Jahn’s biography of Mozart will remember how much even he depended upon this resource to gain the means of support for himself and family. Out of London, even so late as 1793, there can hardly be said to have existed a “musical public,” as the term is now understood, and in Vienna at least, with its 200,000 inhabitants, a virtuoso rarely ventured to announce a concert to which he had not already a subscription, sufficient to ensure him against loss, from those at whose residences he had successfully exhibited his skill. Beethoven, remaining “in Vienna without salary until recalled” by Max, found in these resources and his pupils an ample income.

But this topic requires something more than the above general remarks. Some twelve years previous to Beethoven’s coming to Vienna, Risbeck, speaking of the art in that capital, had written:

Musicians are the only ones (artists) concerning whom the nobility exhibit taste. Many houses maintain private bands for their own delectation, and all the public concerts prove that this field of art stands in high respect. It is possible to enlist four or five large orchestras here, all of them incomparable. The number of real virtuosos is small, but as regards the orchestral musicians scarcely anything more beautiful is to be heard in the world.