The chronological progress of the narrative must again be interrupted for a chapter or two, since no picture of a man’s life can be complete without the lights or shades arising from his social relations—without some degree of knowledge respecting those with whom he is on terms of equality and intimacy and whose company he most affects. The attempt to draw such a picture in the case of Beethoven, that is, during his first years in Vienna, leaves much to be desired, for, although the search for materials has not been very unsuccessful, many of the data are but vague and scattered notices. In a Conversation Book, bearing Beethoven’s own date “on the 20th of March, 1820,” some person unknown writes:

There is nothing in the portions of this Conversation Book, copied for this work, to show who this man of “15 thousand mÉtiers” was, now sitting with Beethoven in an eating-house, and recalling to his memory the frolics of his first year and a quarter in Vienna; nor are Heinerle, Cristen, Greyenstein and Frank of Prague sufficiently known to fame as to be now identified; but Johann Michael Vogl, less than two years older than Beethoven, was afterward a very celebrated tenor of the opera. In 1793-4 he was still pursuing the study of jurisprudence, which he abandoned in 1795 for the stage. May not this early friendship for Beethoven have been among the causes of the resuscitation of “Fidelio” in 1814, for the benefit performance of Vogl, Saal and WeinmÜller?

There is a story, first put in circulation by a certain August Barth, to the effect that the singer of that name once finding Beethoven employed in burning a mass of musical and other papers, sang one vocal piece thus destined to destruction, was pleased with it, and saved the immortal “Adelaide!” The story is sufficiently refuted by the fact that when Barth first came to Vienna, in 1807, the “Adelaide” had been in print some ten years. If the name Vogl be substituted in the tale, there may, perhaps, be so much truth in it as this: that he was consulted upon the merits of the composition by Beethoven, approved it, and first sang it and made it known—as he was the first, years afterwards, to sing in public the “ErlkÖnig” and other fine productions of Franz Schubert. The “KÖsswetter, basso,” was Raphael George Kiesewetter, who lived to be renowned as a writer upon topics of musical history, and to play a part in the revival of ancient music in Vienna, not less noteworthy than that of Thibaut in Heidelberg. At the period of the “music-making, supping and punch drinking” by the “noblemen” in the apartments of Frank of Prague, Kiesewetter was a young man of twenty, engaged, like Vogl, in the study of the law. In the spring of 1794—and thus the date of these meetings is determined—he received an appointment in the military chancellary, and went at once to the headquarters at Schwetzingen on the Rhine. More important and valuable during these years, as subsequently, was the warm, sincere friendship of Nicolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz, an official in the Royal Hungarian Court Chancellary. “You belong to my earliest friends in Vienna,” writes Beethoven in 1816. Zmeskall, to quote the words of Sonnleithner,

That Zmeskall was a very constant attendant at the musical parties of Prince Carl Lichnowsky and frequently took part in them, may be seen from Wegeler’s record. He was ten years older than Beethoven, had been long enough in Vienna to know the best society there, into which he was admitted not more because of his musical attainments than because of the respectability of his position and character; and was, therefore, what the young student-pianist needed most, a friend, who at the same time could be to a certain degree an authoritative adviser, and at all times was a judicious one. On the part of Zmeskall there was an instant and hearty appreciation of the extraordinary powers of the young stranger from the Rhine and a clear anticipation of his splendid artistic future. A singular proof of this is the care with which he preserved the most insignificant scraps of paper, if Beethoven had written a few words upon them; for, certainly, no other motive could have induced him to save many notes of this kind and of no importance ten, fifteen, twenty years, as may be seen in the published letters of the composer. On the part of Beethoven, there was sincere respect for the dignity and gravity of Zmeskall’s character, which usually restrained him within proper limits in their personal intercourse; but he delighted, especially in the earlier period, to give, in his notes and letters, full play to his queer fancies and sometimes extravagant humour.

Here are a few examples in point:

Mechanical skill was never so developed in Beethoven that he could make good pens from goose quills—and the days of other pens were not yet. When, therefore, he had no one with him to aid him in this, he usually sent to Zmeskall for a supply. Of the large number of such applications preserved by his friend and now scattered in all civilized lands as autographs, here are two specimens.

Had Zmeskall not carefully treasured these notes, they would never have met any eye but his own; it is evident, therefore, that he entered fully into their humor, and that it was the same to him, whether he found himself addressed as “Baron,” “Count,” “Cheapest Baron,” “Music Count,” “Baron Muckcartdriver,” “His Zmeskallian Zmeskallity,” or simply “Dear Z.”—which last is the more usual. He knew his man, and loved him; and these “quips and quiddities” were received in the spirit which begat them. The whole tenor of the correspondence between the two shows that Zmeskall had more influence for good upon Beethoven than any other of his friends; he could reprove him for faults, and check him when in the wrong, without producing a quarrel more serious than the one indicated in the protest, above given, against interrupting his “good humor.”

As a musician, as well as man and friend, Zmeskall stood high in Beethoven’s esteem. His apartments, No. 1166, in that huge conglomeration of buildings known as the BÜrgerspital, were for a long series of years the scene of a private morning concert, to which only the first performers of chamber music and a very few guests were admitted. Here, after the rupture with Prince Lichnowsky, Beethoven’s productions of this class were usually first tried over. Not until Beethoven’s death did their correspondence cease.

Another young man who gained an extraordinary place in Beethoven’s esteem and affection, and who departed from Vienna before anything occurred to cause a breach between them, was a certain Karl Amenda, from the shore of the Baltic, who died some forty years later as Provost in Courland. He was a good violinist, belonged to the circle of dilettanti which Beethoven so much affected, and, on parting, received from the composer one of his first attempts at quartet composition. His name most naturally suggests itself to fill the blank in a letter to Ries, July, 1804, wherein some living person, not named, is mentioned as one with whom he (Beethoven) “never had a misunderstanding,” but he adds “although we have known nothing of each other for nearly six years,” which was not true of Amenda, since letters passed between them in 1801. The small portion of their written correspondence which has been made public shows that their friendship was of the romantic character once so much the fashion; and a letter of Amenda is filled with incense which in our day would bear the name of almost too gross flattery. But times change and tastes with them. His name appears once in the Zmeskall correspondence, namely, in a mutilated note now in the Royal Imperial Court Library, beginning “My cheapest Baron! Tell the guitarist to come to me to-day. Amenda is to make an Amende (part torn away) which he deserves for his bad pauses (torn) provide the guitarist.”

Karl Amenda was born on October 4, 1771, at Lippaiken in Courland. He studied music with his father and Chapelmaster Beichtmer, was so good a violinist that he was able to give a concert at 14 years of age, and continued his musical studies after he was matriculated as a student of theology at the University of Jena. After a three years’ course there he set out on a tour, and reached Vienna in the spring of 1798. There he first became precentor for Prince Lobkowitz and afterward music-teacher in the family of Mozart’s widow. How, thereupon, he became acquainted with Beethoven we are able to report from a document still in the possession of the family, which bears the superscription “Brief Account of the Friendly Relations between L. v. Beethoven and Karl Friedrich Amenda, afterward Provost at Talsen in Courland, written down from oral tradition”:

Though, as we have learned, it was music which brought Beethoven into contact with Amenda, it was the latter’s amiability and nobility of character that endeared him to the composer, who cherished him as one of his dearest friends and confided things to him which he concealed from his other intimates—his deafness, for instance. A striking proof of Beethoven’s affection is offered by the fact that he gave Amenda a copy of his Quartet in F (Op.18, No. 1), writing on the first violin part:

In a letter written nearly a year later Beethoven asks his friend not to lend the quartet, as he had revised it. A letter written, evidently, about the time of Amenda’s departure from Vienna indicated that Beethoven was oppressed at this period with another grief than that caused by the loss of his friend’s companionship. Beethoven speaks of his “already lacerated heart,” says that “the worst of the storm is over” and mentions an invitation to Poland—which he had accepted. Nothing came of this Polish enterprise. Dr. A. C. Kalischer suspected that the lacerated heart was due to the composer’s unrequited love for Magdalena Willmann, a singer then in Vienna to whom he made a proposal of marriage which was never answered.

Count Moritz Lichnowsky, brother of Prince Carl, of whom we shall not lose sight entirely until the closing scene, was another of the friends of those years. He had been a pupil of Mozart, played the pianoforte with much skill and was an influential member of the party which defended the novelty and felt the grandeur of his friend’s compositions. Schindler saw much of him during Beethoven’s last years, and eulogizes the “noble Count” in very strong terms.

Another of that circle of young dilettanti, and one of the first players of Beethoven’s compositions, was a young Jewish violinist, Heinrich Eppinger. He played at a charity concert in Vienna, making his first appearance there in 1789. “He became, in after years,” says a correspondent of the time, “a dilettante of the most excellent reputation, lived modestly on a small fortune and devoted himself entirely to music.” At the period before us Eppinger was one of Beethoven’s first violins at the private concerts of the nobility. HÄring, who became a distinguished merchant and banker, belonged now to this circle of young amateur musicians, and in 1795 had the reputation of being at the head of the amateur violinists. The youthful friendship between him and the composer was not interrupted as they advanced into life, and twenty years later was of great advantage to Beethoven.

But a more interesting person for us is the instructor under whom Beethoven in Vienna resumed his study of the violin (a fact happily preserved by Ries)—Wenzel Krumpholz. He was a brother of the very celebrated Bohemian harp player who drowned himself in the Seine in 1790. In his youth Krumpholz had been for a period of three years a pupil of Haydn at Esterhaz and had played first violin in the orchestra there. He left Esterhaz to enter the service of Prince Kinsky, but came to Vienna in 1795 to join the operatic orchestra, and at once became noted as a performer in Haydn’s quartets. He was (says Eugene Eiserle in GlÖggl’s “Neue Wiener Musik-Zeitung” of August 13, 1857),

Krumpholz was a virtuoso on the mandolin, and hence, probably, that page of sketches by Beethoven in the Artaria Collection headed “Sonatine fÜr Mandolin u. P. F.” Among the Zmeskall papers in the Royal Imperial Library in Vienna there is a half-sheet of coarse foolscap paper upon which is written with lead-pencil in huge letters by the hand of Beethoven,

“Music Count” and “Baron” are, of course, Zmeskall; but these notices of Beethoven’s various first violins show the folly of attempting to decide whether one of them or Schuppanzigh was to be sent to Siberia, so long as there is no hint whatever as to the time and occasion of the note.

The very common mistake of forgetting that there is a time in the lives of distinguished men when they are but aspirants to fame, when they have their reputations still to make, often, in fact, attracting less notice and raising feebler hopes of future distinction in those who know them, than many a more precocious contemporary—this mistake has thrown the figures of Schuppanzigh and his associates in the quartet concerts at Prince Carl Lichnowsky’s into a very false prominence in the picture of these first seven years of Beethoven’s Vienna life. The composer himself was not the Beethoven whom we know. Had he died in 1800, his place in musical history would have been that of a great pianoforte player and of a very promising young composer, whose decease thus in his prime had disappointed well-founded hopes of great future eminence.

This is doubly true of the members of the quartet. Had they passed away in early manhood, not one of them, except perhaps young Kraft, the only one who ever distinguished himself as a virtuoso upon his instrument, would have been remembered in the annals of music. They were during these years but laying the foundation for future excellence and celebrity as performers of Mozart’s, Haydn’s, FÖrster’s and Beethoven’s quartets. Schuppanzigh, first violin, and Weiss, viola, alone appear to have been constantly associated in their quartet-playing. Kraft, violoncellist, was often absent, when his father, or Zmeskall, or some other, supplied his place; and as the second violin was often taken by the master of the house, when they were engaged for private concerts, Sina was, naturally, absent. Still, from 1794 to 1799, the four appear to have practised much and very regularly together. They enjoyed an advantage known to no other quartet—that of playing the compositions of Haydn and FÖrster under the eyes of the composers, and being taught by them every effect that the music was intended to produce. Each of the performers, therefore, knowing precisely the intentions of the composer, acquired the difficult art of being independent and at the same time of being subordinate to the general effect. When Beethoven began to compose quartets he had, therefore, a set of performers schooled to perfection by his great predecessors, and who already had experience in his own music through his trios and quartets.

Ignatz Schuppanzigh, the leader, born 1776, died March 2, 1830 in Vienna, originally studied music as a dilettante and became a capital player of the viola; but, about the time when Beethoven came to Vienna, he exchanged that instrument for the violin and made music his profession. He was fond of directing orchestral performances and seems to have gained a considerable degree of local reputation and to have been somewhat of a favorite in that capacity before reaching his 21st year. In 1798-99, he took charge of those concerts in the Augarten established by Mozart and Martin, and afterwards led by Rudolph. Seyfried, writing after his death, calls Schuppanzigh a “natural born and really energetic leader of the orchestra.” The difference in age, character and social position between him and Beethoven was such as not to admit between them that higher and nobler friendship which united the latter and Zmeskall; but they could be, and were, of great use to each other, and there was a strong personal liking, if not affection, which was mutual. Schuppanzigh’s person early assumed very much of the form and proportions of Sterne’s Dr. Slop, and after his return from Russia he is one of the “Milord Falstaffs” of Beethoven’s correspondence and Conversation Books. His obesity was, however, already the subject of the composer’s jests, and he must have been an exceedingly good-tempered young man, to bear with and forgive the coarse and even abusive text of the short vocal piece (1801) headed “Lob auf den Dicken” (“Praise of the Fat One”). But it is evidently a mere jest, and was taken as such. It is worthy of note that Beethoven and Schuppanzigh in addressing each other used neither the familiar “du” nor the respectful “Sie,” but “er”—a fact which has been supposed to prove Beethoven’s great contempt for the violinist; but as it would prove equal contempt on the other side, it proves too much. Of Sina and Weiss, both Silesians by birth, there is little that need be added here. Weiss became the first viola player of Vienna, and a not unsuccessful composer of ballet and other music.

Anton Kraft (the father) came from Bohemia to pursue his legal studies in Vienna, but abandoned them to enter the Imperial Court Orchestra as violoncellist. In 1778, he accepted an invitation from Haydn to join the orchestra in Esterhaz; where, on the 18th of December of the same year, his son Nicholas Anton was born. The child, endowed by nature with great musical talents, enjoyed the advantages of his father’s instructions and example and of growing up under the eye of Haydn and in the constant study of that great musician’s works. Upon the death of Esterhazy and the dispersion of his orchestra, Kraft came with his son, now in his fourteenth year, to Vienna. On April 15th, 1792, Nicholas played a concerto composed by his father at the “Widows and Orphans” concert, and on the 21st again appeared in a concert given by the father. Notwithstanding a very remarkable success, the son was destined for another profession than music; and from this time until his eighteenth year, he played his instrument only as an amateur, and as such Beethoven first knew the youth. But when the young Prince Lobkowitz formed his orchestra in 1796, both the Krafts were engaged, and Nicholas Anton thenceforth made music his profession. In the maturity of his years and powers, his only rival among all the German violoncellists was Bernhard Romberg.

Schindler, with his characteristic inattention to dates, observes, speaking of Schuppanzigh, Weiss and the elder Kraft:

These three artists are intimately connected with the development of Beethoven and, indeed, with a large portion of his creations; wherefore they will frequently be remembered here. Meanwhile it may suffice to say that it was to this company of practically-trained musicians that the rising young composer owed his knowledge of the efficient use of stringed instruments. In addition are to be mentioned Joseph Friedlowsky, who taught our master the mechanism of the clarinet, and the famous hornist, Johann Wenzel Stich, who called himself Giovanni Punto in Italian, to whom Beethoven owed what he knew of the proper writing for horn, of which he already gave striking illustration in his Sonata for Horn, Op.17. In the mechanism of the flute and its construction, which underwent so many changes in the first decades of the century, Carl Scholl steadily remained Beethoven’s instructor.