Beethoven might well have adopted Kotzebue’s title: “The most Remarkable Year of my Life” and written his own history for 1814, in glowing and triumphant language; but now the theme modulates into a soberer key. “Then there is the matter of a new opera,” says a letter to the Archduke early in December. The “Sammler” of the 17th explains the allusion: “It is with great pleasure that we inform the music-loving public that Herr van Beethoven has contracted to compose an opera. The poem is by Herrn Treitschke and bears the title: ‘Romulus and Remus.’” The notice was based upon this note to Treitschke:

Now here was a promising operatic project; but before six weeks had passed came the “Allg. Mus. Zeitung” bringing Johann Fuss’s musical “Review of the month of December,” wherein among the items of Vienna news was a notice that “Hr. Fuss had composed an opera in three acts entitled ‘Romulus and Remus’ for the Theater-an-der-Wien”! And this was so; portions of it were afterwards sung by a musical society of which Dr. L. Sonnleithner was a member, and in Pressburg it was put upon the stage at a later date;—but it never came to performance in the theatres of Vienna, perhaps in consequence of measures adopted after the following letter to Treitschke:

The matter was so arranged with Fuss as to leave the text in Beethoven’s hands; but how, and on what terms, is not known.

Among the sketches to “Der glorreiche Augenblick” appears the theme of the Polonaise for Pianoforte, Op. 89, the story of which is as follows: In a conversation with Beethoven one day, in the time of the Congress, Bertolini suggested to him that, as polonaises were then so much in vogue, he should compose one and dedicate it to the Empress of Russia; for, perhaps, thereby he might also obtain some acknowledgment from Emperor Alexander for the dedication to him of the Violin Sonatas, Op. 30,—for none had ever been made. As usual, Beethoven at first scorned dictation, but at length thought better of the proposal, sat down to the pianoforte, improvised various themes and requested Bertolini to choose one; which he did. When it was completed, they waited upon Walkonski, to seek through him permission to make the proposed dedication, which was granted. At the appointed time Beethoven was admitted to an audience with the Empress and presented the Polonaise, for which he received a present of 50 ducats. On this occasion he was asked, if he had ever received anything from the Czar? As he had not, a hundred ducats was added for the Sonatas.[145]

It was about this time (precisely when the painter could not remember when speaking of it in 1861), that Beethoven sat again to his friend MÄhler, who wished to add his portrait to his gallery of musicians. This was the picture which, after the death of the artist, was purchased by Prof. Karajan. Another portrait of Beethoven was painted by MÄhler for Gleichenstein. On the 25th of January, a grand festival took place in the Burg on the occasion of the Russian Empress’s birthday, which in part consisted of a concert in the Rittersaal. The last piece on the programme was the canon in “Fidelio”: “Mir ist so wunderbar,” and by a whimsical stroke of fortune Beethoven himself appeared, and, to the audience of emperors and empresses, kings and queens, with their ministers and retinues, played for the last time in public! Wild, who dates the concert a month too soon, gives an account of it in which, after telling of his own success with “Adelaide,” he says:

By far the most important event in Beethoven’s history during these months, was the final settlement, by compromise, of the annuity affair with the Kinsky heirs, on the 18th of January. So soon as the legal formalities could be ended and communicated to Beethoven, he issued in autograph a power of attorney to Baron Josef von Pasqualati in Prague to collect the money due, and act for him in all things necessary. On March 26th, Pasqualati acknowledged the receipt of 2479 florins W. W. as payment on the annuity in full up to the end of March, 1815. In this instance “W. W.” (Wiener WÄhrung) meant notes of redemption, since the bank-notes had been retired from circulation in 1812. The compromise decree arrived at through the ministration of Dr. Kanka fixed the original annuity of 1800 florins at 1200 florins, beginning on November 3d, 1812. There was therefore due to Beethoven, for from November 3d to the end of March, 1815, 2890 florins, from which was deducted 411 florins, as the equivalent of the 60 ducats paid to Beethoven by Prince Kinsky in October, 1812, leaving 2479 florins as aforesaid. The decision in the case with Lobkowitz also soon followed. According to the judgment of the Court, entered on April 19, 1815, the future annual payments were fixed at 700 florins (the equivalent of 280 fl. conventional coin, silver), and the 2508 fl. arrears were ordered paid in notes of redemption within two months. Payments were made accordingly and (as Dr. v. KÖchel reported in a private note to the author), from 1811 up to his death, Beethoven received on the annuity contract the following sums every year:

Notwithstanding that Prince Lobkowitz’s financial affairs had been satisfactorily ordered, his return to Vienna was delayed until the Spring of 1815, one reason being that (as he states in a letter to Archduke Rudolph, dated Prague, December 29, 1814) an opinion prevailed in the Austrian capital that his presence would be “unseemly.” In this letter he gives expression to his feelings toward Beethoven as follows:

Is this not nobly said?

Consider these facts: Lobkowitz was now deprived of the control of his revenues; those revenues, in so far as they were based upon contracts, were subject to the Finanz-Patent of 1811; the curators of his estates were also bound by it; and the General Court (Landrecht) had no power arbitrarily to set it aside. What that tribunal could and did do was, by its assent and decree, to give binding force to such agreement between the parties in principal, as had obtained the sanction of the curators, with, probably, the consent of the principal creditors of the Prince. It follows then that the concession of Beethoven’s full demand of 700 fl. in notes of redemption could have been obtained only through the good will and active intervention of Lobkowitz himself, using his personal influence with the other parties concerned. Schindler incidentally confirms this.

Will the reader here pause a moment and think what impression the aspersions on Lobkowitz’s character in Beethoven’s letters have left upon his mind? Have they not begotten a prejudice so strengthened by “damnable iteration” that it is now hardly possible to overcome it, and believe it unfounded? Lobkowitz, young, generous to prodigality, rendered careless by the very magnitude of his possessions, had, in the lapse of some twenty years, so squandered his enormous resources, as to fall into temporary embarrassments, which threw the responsibility of meeting his pecuniary engagements upon others, who were bound by the nature of their office to pay none but strictly legal claims. Thus Beethoven became a loser in part of what was originally no debt, but a gift—or rather would have been so, but for the interference of Lobkowitz.

We have here another warning of the great caution to be exercised when using private correspondence for purposes of biography. In writing of Beethoven this is especially necessary, because so large a proportion of it consists of confidential notes and communications containing the ebullitions of splenetic moments, and not seldom hasty charges and mistaken accusations, such as he gladly withdrew on learning the truth. To accept all this without question is preposterous; to use it as authentic historic matter without scrupulous examination, is to do great injustice to the dead.

The proof is ample, that Beethoven was already fully convinced of the entire innocence of both Prince Kinsky and Prince Lobkowitz of all desire to escape any really just demands upon them: yet, probably, until the greater part of our present Beethoven literature has sunk into oblivion, the memory of those noble and generous personages will be made to suffer on the authority of Beethoven’s hasty expressions.

A letter written in English, probably by his friend HÄring, who had been much in England, and signed by Beethoven, marks the progress of his business with Thomson:

This naturally turns our attention to Beethoven’s English affairs. “Christus am Ölberg” (“The Mount of Olives,” as the oratorio is called in England and America) had been given for the first time in England on February 25, 1814, by Sir George Smart, who in 1861, in conversation with the author at his house (the one in which Weber died), related the circumstances of this production and of “Wellington’s Victory,” which was a consequence of the success of the oratorio, substantially as follows:

In the winter of 1812-1813, Smart undertook the Lenten oratorio season at Drury Lane Theatre, introducing at the first concert, January 30, 1813, Handel’s “Messiah” with Mozart’s additional accompaniments, but not noting this fact upon the programme. The audience was delighted with the new effects and Mozart’s name appeared on the next programme. During this season Smart heard the “Christus am Ölberg” spoken of. Desiring to find some novelty the next season and Beethoven having already a great name, he offered £50 to anyone who would procure him the score of that work published by Breitkopf and HÄrtel—an exceedingly difficult thing to get at that time, when Napoleon had almost hermetically sealed the Continent against England. The next winter (1813-14) Jack Morris, keeper of a tavern or eating-house of the better sort, a man who had free entry behind the scenes of the theatre and was continually there, came to Smart and put the score of the oratorio into his hands, to his (Smart’s) great astonishment.

“Well,” said Smart, “I’ll give you the £50.”

“No,” was the reply, “I’ll take only two guineas, for that’s what I paid for it.”

“How did you get it?” asked Smart.

“A friend of mine who is a King’s Messenger bought it for me in Leipsic.”

The only acknowledgment that Morris would take, beside the two guineas, was that Smart should accept an invitation from him to be present at a pugilistic exhibition and at the supper afterwards. The score bears the date of reception, January 7, 1814.

Now to bring it out.

Samuel J. Arnold translated the text, putting all the characters into the third person, so as not to shock English feelings of reverence by producing Christ and the Apostles on the stage, and Smart adapted the translation to the music. It was rehearsed at his house (“in this room,” said he), and very ill received by amateurs present, who told Smart, he was mad to produce such a thing! On February 25th, the first part of the programme of the “Oratorio,” a sacred concert, at Drury Lane Theatre, was selections from the “Messiah” in which Catalani sang; Part II, “The Mount of Olives,” solos by Mrs. Dickens, Mrs. Bland, Mr. Pyne and Mr. Bellamy; Part III, Musical selections. Parts I and II also closed with selections from “Paradise Lost” read by Miss Smith. The tenth, and last, performance was on May 28th.

Subsequently, Kramer, master of the Prince Regent’s band, told Smart that the Prince had the score of a Battle Symphony by Beethoven, and he was welcome to the use of it, if he desired to produce it. Smart, encouraged by the success of the “Christus,” was delighted, notwithstanding the musicians called the work a piece of musical quackery. On examining it, Sir George saw that it would never do with his audience to end with the fugue on “God save the King,” and consulted with Ferdinand Ries as to what kind of close to make. Ries added to the score a short passage of modulation, which led from the fugue into the plain, simple tune. The work was copied, rehearsed, and produced on the 10th of February, 1815, as Part II of a Drury Lane “Oratorio”—the word being used then for a sacred concert, like “Akademie” in Vienna for a secular one. As the orchestra ended Ries’ passage of modulation, the hymn was taken up and sung by the principal solo singers, and the full chorus. The audience used also to join in and make the old theatre ring again. The success was immense; it was performed several seasons, and Smart cleared £1000 by it.[147]

There is a sketchbook in the Mendelssohn collection, which shows in part what compositions employed Beethoven’s thoughts about this time. It contains sketches to marches; for a “Symphony in B minor”; a “Sonata ’cello pastorale”; a chorus, “Meeresstille”; a song, “Merkenstein.” This confirms a statement of Czerny’s: “On ‘Merkenstein,’ Beethoven composed two little songs, both, I think, for almanacs.” The one published by Steiner and Co., however, does not appear to have come out in that manner. The date of these sketches is fixed by a memorandum of Beethoven’s on the seventh leaf, of Smart’s production in London of “Wellington’s Victory”: “In Drurylane Theatre on February 10th, and repeated by general request on the 13th, ‘Wiener Zeitung’ of March 2d.” This led to inquiry, and Sir George Smart’s name, as leader of the Lenten concerts in London, became known to Beethoven, who engaged his friend HÄring, who knew Smart intimately, to write the following English letter in his behalf:

HÄring now writes the following for Beethoven to sign:

The works enumerated in this letter, taking them in the same order, are Op. 95, 91, 92, 93, 97, 113, 115, 117 and 96. HÄring was evidently ignorant that all of Beethoven’s new works were even then sold, except for England. Steiner had purchased them. The precise terms of the contract between the composer and this publisher are not known; for, although the transaction was too important to have been left to a mere parole agreement, no written instrument has been discovered. Jahn had no copy of any; and Nottebohm writes (November 19, 1875): “I was yesterday in the comptoir of Haslinger, but there nothing is to be found.” The earliest reference to the business yet discovered is a letter to Steiner, from which it is to be inferred that Karl van Beethoven was in some manner interested—perhaps as arranger, under his brother’s inspection, of the editions for pianoforte of the orchestral works:

The works purchased by Steiner are named in a list sent by Nottebohm with the letter above cited. It is the copy of an unsigned memorandum, evidently proceeding from Beethoven, which, except the omission of the works mentioned in the HÄring letter, runs thus:

Whatever may have been the proposed interest of Karl van Beethoven in the contract, his failing health soon prevented him from performing any labor under it. The correspondence with Steiner and Co. indicates that the task of arranging the orchestral works for the pianoforte was performed by Haslinger and Anton Diabelli, with occasional assistance from Carl Czerny, under Beethoven’s superintendence.

Diabelli, born near Salzburg in 1781, had now been for some years one of the more prolific composers of light and pleasing music, and one of the best and most popular teachers in Vienna. He was much employed by Steiner and Co., as copyist and corrector, and in this capacity enjoyed much of Beethoven’s confidence, who also heartily liked him as a man. In the composer’s comical military staff, he was the “General Profoss,” and in the correspondence his name becomes “Diabolus”—for Beethoven could never resist the temptation to a play upon words. About the 1st of April Beethoven received a package which proved to be an opera text by Rudolph von Berge, sent to him with a letter by his old friend Amenda from Courland. While this letter was under way Beethoven received a visit from a friend of Amenda’s who, on his departure from Vienna, carried with him a letter in which he said:

The opera book sent by Amenda was entitled, “‘Bacchus,’ Grand Lyric Opera in Three Acts.” The libretto was preserved among Schindler’s papers in the Royal Library in Berlin. It seems likely that Beethoven gave some thought to the opera and experimented with some themes. There are interesting notes on a work with a classical subject, the words apparently the beginning of an invocation to Pan, in a sketchbook of 1815, which Nottebohm describes in his “Zweite Beethoveniana” (p. 329 et seq.) without saying whether they belong to Treitschke’s “Romulus” or von Berge’s “Bacchus.” Dr. Riemann assumes without hesitation that the sketches were made for “Bacchus” and sees a premonition of Wagner’s methods in the following:

On the approach of warm weather the ErdÖdys removed for the summer to Jedlersee, never to return to the Schottenbastei; and as Lichnowsky was dead, Beethoven had no inducement longer to remain in that vicinity and therefore departed from the MÖlkerbastei—also never to return. The new lodging was in the third storey of a house then belonging to Count Lamberti, in the SailerstÄtte, with a double number 1055, 1056, near which he had lived a dozen years before, having the same sunny aspect and the glorious view across the Glacis from the Karlkirche and the Belvidere Gardens, away across the Danube to the blue Carpathian mountains in the distance. In this house, about the first of June, HÄring introduced to Beethoven the very fine English pianist and enthusiastic musician Charles Neate, who after five months’ study with Winter in Munich had come to Vienna in the hope of obtaining instruction from the great symphonist. To his application, Beethoven replied in substance: “I cannot teach, but I will give you an introduction to my master, FÖrster” (which he did by letter), “and you may bring your compositions to me for my inspection, and I will examine and remark upon them.” In consequence of this permission Neate saw him almost daily. Beethoven spent a part of this summer in Baden, and Neate took a room very near him. There the composer was in the habit of working all the forenoon, dining early at twelve or one o’clock, and, towards evening, walking with Neate—sometimes up the Helenen-Thal, oftener through the fields. Neate, in the course of his long life—he was nearly eighty when he related these things to the author[151]—had never met a man who so enjoyed nature; he took intense delight in flowers, in the clouds, in everything—“nature was like food to him, he seemed really to live in it.” Walking in the fields, he would sit down on any green bank that offered a good seat, and give his thoughts free course. He was then full of the idea of going to England, but the death of his brother and adoption of his nephew put an end to the project. Neate remembered the boy as a very beautiful, intelligent lad. Beethoven, at that time, and as Neate knew him, was charmingly good-tempered to those whom he liked—but his dislikes were so strong, that to avoid speaking to persons to whom he was not well affected, he would actually increase his pace in the street to a run. At this time, his dark complexion was very ruddy and extremely animated. His abundant hair was in an admirable disorder. He was always laughing, when in good humor, which he for the most part was, as Neate saw him.

One day Neate spoke to him about the popularity of his Sonatas, Trios, etc., in England and added that his Septet was very much admired:—“That’s damned stuff” (or “a damned thing”), said Beethoven, “I wish it were burned!” or words to this effect, to Neate’s great discomfiture. Another time, walking in the fields near Baden, Neate spoke of the “Pastoral Symphony” and of Beethoven’s power of painting pictures in music. Beethoven said: “I have always a picture in my mind, when I am composing, and work up to it.”

Neate conversed with him in German and had no difficulty in making him understand, when speaking into his left ear. He brought to Beethoven an order from the Philharmonic Society of London—obtained by the exertions of Ries—for three concert overtures, of which we shall hear more hereafter.[152]

The destruction of Rasoumowsky’s palace suspended his quartets, and Linke, the violoncellist, passed the summer with the ErdÖdys at Jedlersee. This gave the impulse to Beethoven to write the principal works of this year: the two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102. The first bears his date: “Towards the end of July”; the second: “Beginning of August.” While he was employed upon them, Treitschke called upon him for a closing chorus, “Es ist vollbracht,” to a little dramatic piece similar to the “Gute Nachricht,” entitled “Die Ehrenpforten,” and prepared to celebrate the second capitulation of Paris. It was performed July 15, 16 and 23; and, on the occasion of the Emperor’s nameday, was revived “with appropriate changes” October 3rd and 4th; but (according to the theatre bills) with the chorus “Germania” substituted for “Es ist vollbracht.”

This was the last year of Beethoven’s personal intercourse with the ErdÖdys, a very interesting memorial of which, namely, a series of notes and letters, has been preserved and made public by the coolness and decision of Otto Jahn. Being in Munich in 1852, or about that time, he learned that this correspondence was in the hands—if our memory serve—of the widow Brauchle, and obtained permission to read it in the presence of the possessor. Suddenly starting up he exclaimed (in effect): “I will copy this at the hotel,” and before the lady, in her amazement and perplexity, could refuse or prevent, he was away, and made the only copy known to be in existence, except transcripts made from it.[153] Several of these papers are only Beethoven’s apologies for not coming to Jedlersee “to-day” or “to-morrow”—but all are interesting in the glimpse which they give of the affectionate intimacy which they show as existing between Beethoven and the family.

A letter to Brauchle is important from a biographical point of view. It reads:

Neate and the ErdÖdys have carried us forward quite out of the strict order of time, to which we now return, beginning with letters to our old Bonn and London acquaintance, Johann Peter Salomon and others:

Some time about October 15th, Beethoven returned to Vienna. And now another bitter parting: The ErdÖdys, accompanied by Brauchle, Sperl and Linke, departed to Croatia never to return.

The letters to Smart, Salomon and Ries were not in vain; through their efforts, especially Salomon’s, Mr. Robert Birchall, Music Publisher of No. 133 New Bond St., was induced to purchase four of the works enumerated by HÄring, viz: the pianoforte arrangements of the “Wellington’s Victory,” Op. 91, and Symphony in A, Op. 92; the Trio in B-flat, Op. 97, and the Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 96, for “the sum of one hundred and thirty-five gold Dutch ducats—value in English currency, sixty-five pounds.” The correspondence between the composer and publisher as presented by Mr. Birchall’s successors begins with a paper in extraordinary English which has hitherto passed as a note received from Vienna, but which, it is obvious, is nothing but the effort of some resident German to interpret the contents of the following letter from Beethoven:[155]

We now reach one of the most important and at the same time most melancholy events in Beethoven’s life—an event which exerted the profoundest influence on the rest of his life—the death of his brother Karl. We introduce it with that brother’s last will and testament:

On November 20, 1815, the “Wiener Zeitung” printed the announcement: “Died on November 16, Hr. Karl van Beethoven, Cashier in the R. I. Bank and Chief Treasury, aged 38 years,[156] of consumption.” And so in his own house died the brother Karl whose last moments came with a suddenness which aroused his brother’s suspicions that the end had been hastened by poison! Nor would he be satisfied upon the matter until his friend Bertolini had made a post mortem examination “whereby the lack of foundation for the suspicion was proved.”

A few weeks before his death, Karl had applied for leave of absence from his office on the score of his feeble condition; but his petition was harshly refused in a document on which Beethoven afterwards wrote: “This miserable financial product caused the death of my brother.” In fact, however, it made probably little difference; his was evidently one of those common cases of phthisis, where the patient, except to the experienced eye, shows no signs of immediate danger; who at the last moments finds himself free from pain and blessed with a buoyancy of spirit that gives him vain hopes of prolonged life. It is the last flickering of the flame, as the skillful physician well knows.

As above noted, Karl van Beethoven’s will was deposited with the proper authorities on the 17th, and “the R. I. L. Austrian Landrecht (General Court) on November 22, 1815, appointed the widow of the deceased, Johanna van Beethoven, guardian, the brother of the deceased, Ludwig van Beethoven, associate guardian of the minor son Karl.” And so, for the present, we will leave the matter.[157]

And Breuning? Why during these years and especially in this time of sorrow does his name nowhere meet us? His son answers the question in that extremely interesting little volume “Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause.”[158]

Jacob RÖsgen, an employee in the office of the Minister of War in which Breuning was a Secretary, had learned certain facts, or suspicions, in relation to Karl van Beethoven’s integrity, which he thought should be communicated to Ludwig as a warning “not to have anything to do with him in financial matters.” To this end he, having obtained Breuning’s word of honor not to make known the source of the information, imparted to him the whole matter. “Breuning faithfully performed the task which he had assumed; but Ludwig, in his tireless endeavor to better his brother, hastened to take him to task for his conduct and charge him with the acts which had been reported to him; he went so far, when pressed by his brother for the source of his information, as to mention the name of his friend Steffen. Kaspar (Karl) then appealed directly to my father and asked the name of the author of the ‘denunciation,’ and when my father resolutely declined to give the name (RÖsgen) Kaspar indulged himself in abuse to such an extent that he left insulting letters addressed to him and unsealed with the portier of the Ministry of War. My father, angered and pained at this impertinence and Ludwig’s breach of confidence, read the latter a sharp lecture which ended with the declaration that because of such unreliability it would be impossible longer to hold association with him.”[159] It will be long before we meet Breuning again.

There is a striking incongruity between Beethoven’s pleas of poverty in his letters to correspondents in England at this period and the facts drawn from official and other authentic sources. Let us tarry a moment on this point.

He was now, at the end of 1815, in the regular receipt of his annuity, 3400 florins in notes of redemption; in March and April the arrears, 4987 florins in such notes, had been paid him; the profits of his concerts since January 1, 1814, with presents from crowned heads and others were, if we may trust Schindler, who appears to speak from accurate knowledge, sufficient in amount to purchase somewhat later the seven bank-shares, which at his death, “according to the price current on the day of his death,” had a value in convention-coin of 7441 florins; Neate had paid him 75 guineas; for the works sold to Steiner and Co. he had “been wholly compensated”; in March (1816) he received from Mr. Birchall 65 pounds sterling; and there were payments to him from Thomson and others, the aggregate of which cannot be determined.

This incongruity is not essentially diminished either by his taxes—sixty pounds for 1814, he tells Thomson—nor by the 10,000 florins W. W. expended for the benefit of his brother, whether the “Wiener WÄhrung” in the letter to Ries be understood as the old five for one, or the new in notes of redemption; for this fraternal charity extended back over a series of years. In this letter to Ries, the reader will observe also a remarkable instance of its writer’s occasional great carelessness of statement, where he speaks of his “entire loss of salary” for several years; for the Archduke’s share had throughout been punctually paid; not to mention again the receipt of what had for a time been withheld of the Kinsky and Lobkowitz subscriptions. The omission of these facts in this and other letters, imparted to Ries an utterly false impression; and on their publication in 1838, to the public also. Hence the general belief that Beethoven was now in very straitened circumstances, and that Karl’s widow and child had been left in abject poverty; the truth as to them being this: that the property left them produced an annual income, which with the widow’s pension amounted at this time to above 1500 florins. From the day that Beethoven assumed the office of guardian and took possession of the child, he had a valid claim upon the mother for a part of the costs of maintaining him—a claim soon made good by legal process. If he afterward elected to suffer in his own finances rather than press his sister-in-law, this is no justification of the heedless statements in some of his letters now—a truth to be held in mind. And now the letter to Ferdinand Ries:

On the same day he wrote to Birchall:

The Trio and Sonata, however, were not forwarded until the 3d of the next February—a decidedly long “fortnight.”

In those days £65 was no small sum for the mere right of republication in England of these pianoforte works and arrangements, and Ries richly merited these words of his old master: “And now my heartiest thanks, dear Ries, for all the kindness you have shown to me, and particularly for the corrections. Heaven bless you and make your progress even greater, in which I take a cordial interest.”

About the first of December, “a magisterial deputation solemnly delivered” into the hands of Beethoven a certificate conferring upon him the citizenship of Vienna in acknowledgment of his benevolent services in behalf of St. Mark’s Hospital. Ries, writing on September 29th for Salomon, who had broken his right shoulder in a fall from his horse, informs Beethoven that at that date the three overtures purchased by Neate for the Philharmonic Society had not reached London. Beethoven, in December, repeats this to Neate, who was still in Vienna, adding, in substance, his readiness to make any desired written agreement about these things in England. Salomon’s misfortune occurred in August; he lingered only until the 25th of November. No higher proof of his reputation in England can be given than the fact that the remains of this Bonn violinist rest near those of Handel in Westminster Abbey.

Schindler somewhere censures the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde for its long delay in making Beethoven an honorary member. It did what was better. Hardly was it organized, when its directors turned their attention to him; and, in the second year of its legal existence, proposed to him through Zmeskall to compose an oratorio for its use. On the 22d of December, Count Appony reported: “that Hr. L. v. Beethoven, through Hrn. v. Zmeskall, had declared his readiness to deliver a large work to the society and that the Board of Management were awaiting his conditions.” It was but the course of common propriety—of ordinary delicacy—to leave him free of all obligation to the society until this matter of business should be settled; indeed, that Streicher was one of the principal founders and most influential members of the society is a sufficient pledge, that no disrespect for, nor indifference to, his great merits, had aught to do with the delay, which Schindler blames. We shall find that, so soon as it was certain that Beethoven could not live to fulfill his engagement, the society sent him its honorary diploma. Could it well do this before?

Of noteworthy new friends and acquaintances may be mentioned here Peters, tutor of the young Princes Lobkowitz, and Carl Joseph Bernard, a young literateur and poet—the reviser of Weissenbach’s poem—a great admirer of Beethoven’s music, soon to be appointed Editor of the official “Wiener Zeitung.” He is the “Bernardus non Sanctus” of the Conversation Books; and the two are the friends whom Beethoven set to music in the text:

Another was Anton Halm, “in whose fresh military nature Master Ludwig took delight,” says Schindler. He was a native of Styria, and now but twenty-six years of age. After some years’ service against Napoleon, he had resigned (1812) his lieutenancy in the 44th Regiment. He was a pianoforte player of very respectable rank, and even before entering the army had appeared in public in Beethoven’s C minor Trio, Op. 1, and the C major Pianoforte Concerto, Op. 15. He had now been three years in Hungary, living during the third with his friend, Brunswick, who gave him a letter to Beethoven upon his departure for Vienna, whither he had come to be tutor in a Greek family named Gyike. “Halm once brought a sonata of his own composition to him,” says Czerny, “and when Beethoven pointed out a few errors, Halm retorted that he (B.) had also permitted himself many violations of the rules, Beethoven answered: ‘I may do it, but not you.’”

Young Schindler’s acquaintance with Beethoven had now advanced a step:

But Schindler’s intimacy with Beethoven was not yet such as to save him from errors when writing of this time. Thus he gravely assures us that a concert which took place on the 25th of December “provided the impulse which led the Magistracy of Vienna to elect our master to honorary citizenship.” And yet the “solemn delivery” of the diploma is already an item of news in the Vienna newspapers of December 15. This concert, in the large Ridotto room, conducted by Beethoven was for the benefit of the BÜrgerspitalfond (Citizens’ Hospital Fund) and the works performed were “an entirely new overture” (that in C, known as the “Namensfeier”); “a new chorus on Goethe’s poem ‘Die Meeresstille’”; “Christus am Ölberg.” Between the cantata and the oratorio, Franz Stauffer, “the twelve-year-old son of a citizen of Vienna,” played a “Rondo brillant” by Hummel.

The compositions which are known or, on good grounds, are supposed to belong to the year 1815 are:

The ascertained publications of the year are: