The life of an author or composer, when absorbed in the study of a great work, falls into a routine of daily labor that presents few salient points to the biographer. Thus it was with Beethoven during the first two-thirds of the year 1805. What has been preserved of his correspondence is very little in quantity and of slight value. Ries was away with Lichnowsky in Silesia during all the warm season, and, very soon after his return, was forced to depart again from Vienna for Bonn; hence the “Notizen” fail us in perhaps the most interesting period of the young man’s four years of pupilage under Beethoven—that of the composition of “Leonore,” or “Fidelio.” The history of the year is, in the main, the history of that work; and unfortunately a very unsatisfactory one. Not to break the thread of the story hereafter, the few events of the first half of the year unconnected with it, shall first be disposed of.

Schuppanzigh had discovered and taught a boy of great genius for the violin, Joseph Mayseder by name (born October 16, 1789), who was already, in his sixteenth year, the subject of eulogistic notices in the public press. With this youth as second, Schreiber, “in the service of Prince Lobkowitz,” for the viola, and the elder Kraft, violoncellist, Schuppanzigh during the winter 1804-5 gave quartets “in a private house in the Heiligenkreuzerhof, the listeners paying five florins in advance for four performances.” Up to the end of April the quartets given were by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Eberl, Romberg, with “occasionally larger pieces. Of the latter great pleasure was given by the beautiful Beethoven Sextet in E-flat, a composition which shines resplendent by reason of its lively melodies, unconstrained harmonies, and a wealth of new and surprising ideas.” So it is reported in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.,” VII, 535, of the Sextet for wind-instruments, which afterwards received the opus number 71, but was composed “in 1796 at the latest,” says Nottebohm, and, not improbably in its original form, in Bonn.

It was to the discredit of Vienna, where instrumental performers of rare ability so abounded, that for several years regular public orchestral concerts, save those at the Augarten in summer, had been abandoned. Sensible of this, the bankers WÜrth and Fellner during the winter of 1803-4 “had gathered together on all Sunday mornings a select company (nearly all dilettanti) for concerts restricted for the greater part to pieces for full orchestra, such as symphonies (among them Beethoven’s First and Second), overtures, concertos, which they played in really admirable style.” There were also “some overtures by a certain Count Gallenberg” who “imitated, or rather copied, Mozart and Cherubini so slavishly, following them even in the details of keys and modulations so faithfully, that it was easy to tell the titles of the overtures over whose lasts his had been made with the greatest certainty.” Thus the correspondent of the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” (VI, 467). In these concerts Clement of the Theater-an-der-Wien was director.

They were renewed the present winter, and new performances of Beethoven’s first two Symphonies, and the Concerto in C minor (Op. 37)—pianoforte part by Ries[29]—prepare the way for the production of “an entirely new symphony”—“a long composition extremely difficult of performance, in reality, a tremendously expanded, daring and wild fantasia”; wanting “nothing in the way of startling and beautiful passages, in which the energetic and talented composer must be recognized; but often it loses itself in lawlessness”; the writer “belongs to Herr van Beethoven’s sincerest admirers, but in this composition he must confess that he finds too much that is glaring and bizarre, which makes a survey too difficult; and the principle of unity is almost wholly lost sight of.” It was the “Sinfonia Eroica”—its first semi-public production. Its first really public performance was in the Theater-an-der-Wien, on Sunday evening, April 7th, where it began the second part of a concert given for his own benefit by Clement. The programme announces it thus: “A new grand symphony in D-sharp by Herrn Ludwig van Beethoven, dedicated to his Serene Highness Prince Lobkowitz. The composer has kindly consented to conduct the work.”

Czerny remembered, and told Jahn, that on this occasion “somebody in the gallery cried out: ‘I’ll give another kreutzer if the thing will but stop!’” This is the key-note to the strain in which the Symphony was criticized in communications to the press, that are now among the curiosities of musical literature. The correspondent of the “FreymÜthige” divided the audience into three parties.

This clear, compendious and valuable statement of the conflicting opinions of the first auditors of the “Eroica” renders farther citations superfluous; but a story—characteristic enough to be true—may be added: that Beethoven, in reply to the complaints of too great length, said, in substance: “If I write a symphony an hour long it will be found short enough!” He refused positively to make any change in the work, but deferred to public opinion so far, as, upon its publication, to affix to the title of the Symphony a note to the effect, that on account of its great length it should be played near the beginning of a concert, before the audience was become weary.

Beethoven, though choleric and violent in his anger, was placable. The theft of the Quintet in C dedicated to Count Fries, as related by Ries, and Beethoven’s warning against the pirated edition, will be remembered. Nottebohm has sufficiently established the fact that the engraved plates were not destroyed, as supposed by Ries, but afterwards again used with the composer’s consent and even his corrections. A short letter to the offending publisher (June 1) shows that his wrath was already appeased, and seems to indicate a purpose to grant him the copyright of a new quintet—a purpose which, under the pressure of his opera, and the subsequent invasion of the French, remained unexecuted.

Ignatz Pleyel, born in 1757, the twenty-fourth child of a schoolmaster at Ruppersthal, a village a few miles from Vienna, a favorite pupil of Haydn and just now the most widely known and popular living instrumental composer except his master, came from Paris this season to revisit, after many years’ absence, the scenes of his youth. He brought with him his last new quartets, “which,” writes Czerny,

Beethoven’s abandonment (if there really was one) of the rooms in the theatre in the spring of 1804, and his subsequent relinquishment of the apartments in “das Rothe Haus” to share those of Breuning, compelled his brother Kaspar to seek a lodging of his own, which he found for the present on the Hohen Markt. But the new contract, with Baron Braun, gave the composer again a right to the apartments in the theatre building, which he improved, at the same time retaining the dwelling in the Pasqualati house. The city directory for 1805 gives his address at the theatre, and there he received visitors; at the Pasqualati house he was accustomed to seclude himself for work, forbidding his servant to admit any person whatever. In the summer he retired to Hetzendorf, and wrought out his opera, sitting in the same crotched oak in the SchÖnbrunn Garden where, four years before, he had composed the “Christus am Ölberg.” Thus again he had three lodgings at the same time, as in the preceding summer; with this difference, that now one was no expense to him. The thousand times repeated story of Ries, that in 1804 he had four dwellings at once, is a mistake.

Before his migration to Hetzendorf—say about the middle of June—Beethoven had completely sketched the music of his opera. This is made sufficiently certain by one of those whimsical remarks that he was in the habit of making on the blank spaces of whatever manuscript he happened to have before him. In this case he writes: “June 2d Finale always simpler. All pianoforte music also. God knows why my pianoforte music always makes the worst impression, especially when it is badly played.” This is in the midst of sketches to the final chorus of the opera, and is written upon the upper outer corner of page 291 of the “Leonore” sketchbook which became the property of Mr. Paul Mendelssohn, of Berlin. The principal value of this manuscript lies of course in the insight which it gives the musician into the master’s methods of composition;[30] but for the biographer the volume is by no means without its value. Its striking confirmation of the previously formed opinion, that two current notions in relation to the composition of the opera are erroneous, well repays the toil of studying it through. First: A misinterpreted sentence in Jahn’s article on “Leonore, oder Fidelio,” has originated and given currency to the idea that Beethoven’s “daring enthusiasm for the welfare of men and their rights” led him to begin his sketches for the opera with the “second finale, with its hymn-like character.” But the sketchbook, if it proves anything, proves this: that Beethoven began at the beginning and took up all the principal numbers in order, as they stood in Sonnleithner’s text; that the final choruses were the last to be sketched; and that this sketchbook happens to begin in the midst of the chorus of prisoners (originally the second finale) because the previous studies are wanting.

This volume contains the first sketches of Nos. 11, 18, 15a, 17a and 18a (appendix) of Jahn’s edition; Nos. 1 and 5 occur, but not in the original studies; Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are either entirely wanting or only come up in mere fragmentary afterthoughts, as No. 9, on page 51, where Beethoven has written at the top of the page: “in the duet between P. and R.” and just below: “dann schleich ich,” with a hint (4 bars of music unisono) for the accompaniment. Afterthoughts for the duet “Um in die Ehe”—Fidelio and Marcelline—occur also on pages 23, 344, and possibly one or two others, but not more. The studies for Fidelio’s recitative “Ach brich noch nicht” and aria “Komm Hoffnung” (No. 11), which are found near the end of the volume, seem to form a marked exception to the rule; but if these are really the first sketches, their appearance after the final scenes is explained by two remarks in Beethoven’s hand on page 344: “Duetto with MÜller (Marcelline) and Fidelio aside,” and “Aria for Fidelio, another text which agrees with her.” These notes clearly indicate a change of plan in connection with the duet, and that the beautiful air, “Komm Hoffnung,” did not stand in Sonnleithner’s original text.

The other current error thoroughly exploded by the sketchbook is this, namely, that the noblest passages in the opera are a sort of spontaneous outpouring in music of feelings and sentiments awakened, or rendered intense and vivid, by the unfortunate love-affairs of the composer. Now, there is nothing from the first page to the last of this manuscript that conveys the impression of any such spontaneity. Every number, as it now stands complete in the score, was the tardy result of persevering labor—of the most painstaking study.

Where Jahn says: “I have not had an opportunity to study many of Beethoven’s sketchbooks, but I have found no instance in which one was not compelled to recognize that the material chosen was not the best, or to deplore that the material which he rejected had not been used,” he might have added, with truth, that some of the first ideas noted to passages, now among the gems of the opera, are commonplace and trivial to such a degree, that one can hardly attribute them to Beethoven. Yet, there they are in his own hand. Jahn’s compendious general description of the contents of this manuscript cannot be improved, except in a single passage, in which, probably trusting his memory a little too much, he conveys the mistaken (as we think) impression, that the aria of Marcelline is here first sketched.

This is rather too strongly expressed, unless Jahn had in mind the arias of Rocco and Marcelline.

In the notices of the “Leonore” sketchbook, made for use in this work, are copied eighteen different beginnings to Florestan’s air, “In des Lebens FrÜhlingstagen,” and ten to the chorus, “Wer ein holdes Weib”; others being omitted, because illegible or little more than repetitions. The studies for that wondrous outburst of joy, “O namenlose Freude,” are numerous; but the first bars of the duet are the same in all of them, having been taken by Beethoven from an “old opera.”

It certainly seems a little like cold-blooded cruelty thus ruthlessly to demolish the structure of romance which has been rising for thirty years on the sandy foundation laid by Schindler in his story of the Countess Guicciardi, and of which, through some fancied connection, the opera “Leonore” has become an imposing part. But facts are stubborn things, and here they are irreconcilable with the romance.

Inborn genius for musical composition, untiring industry, and the ambition to rival Cherubini in his own field, sufficiently explain the extraordinary merits of this work of Beethoven; want of practice and experience in operatic writing, its defects.

Beethoven’s seclusion at Hetzendorf from June to September (probably) and his labor of reducing the chaos of the sketchbook into the order and beauty of the score of “Leonore”—on which, as he told Schindler, he wrought in the bright summer days, sitting in the shades of SchÖnbrunn—are unbroken for us except by his first meeting with Cherubini. Some time in July—for that master arrived in Vienna after the 5th of that month, and Vogler was in Salzburg before the 28th—“Cherubini, Beethoven and Vogler were gathered together at Sonnleithner’s; everybody played, Vogler first, and without ceasing, so that the company meanwhile sat down to table. Beethoven was full of attention and respect toward Cherubini.” Such is Jahn’s note of a communication to him by Grillparzer; and Czerny told him: “B. did not give Cherubini a friendly reception in 1805, as the latter complained to Czerny later.”

At the end of the summer season Beethoven returned to town with his opera ready to be put in rehearsal. Here Ries found him. “He was really fond of me,” says he, “and gave me a comical proof of the fact in one of his fits of absentmindedness”; and Ries goes on to relate in the “Notizen”:

When I came back from Silesia, where, on Beethoven’s recommendation, I had spent a considerable time as pianoforte player for Prince Lichnowsky on his estate, I went into his room; he was about to shave and had lathered himself up to the eyes (for his fearful beard extended so far). He jumped up, embraced me cordially and, behold! he had transferred the soap from his left cheek to my right so completely that there was nothing left of it on him. Didn’t we laugh!