The key-note for much that must occupy us in a survey of the year 1819 is sounded by A New Year’s Greeting to Archduke Rudolph. Beethoven invokes all manner of blessings on the head of his pupil and patron and, begging a continuance of gracious benevolences for himself, sets forth a picture of his unhappy plight.

A little boy of eleven years runs away from his uncle to his indulgent mother whom he, for months at a time, has not been allowed to see, although both live within the same city limits. What else could be expected than that this should now and then occur? What should be thought of the child’s heart if it did not? And when it did, who but Beethoven would have felt more than a passing disturbance of his equanimity at an offense so natural under the circumstances? But to him it was a “terrible occurrence” which for a space robbed him of his reason. No one of ordinary sensibilities can read the story without strong feelings of compassion for him—not that the boy’s freak was in any sense in itself a grievous misfortune, but because the uncle’s sufferings occasioned by it were so real and intense.

There is no reason to doubt the mother’s assertion that she sent the child back through the intervention of the police, for this was clearly her best policy, more especially because she and her advisers found in the incident a wished-for occasion to renew her petition to have her son admitted into the R. I. Convict. It was this petition, enforced by Hotschevar’s long paper and its accompanying documents, which had led to the question of Beethoven’s right to have his case tried by the tribunal of the nobility, and the negative decision which transferred the whole matter to the City Magistracy. At this point a few official data are wanting, and the suspension of Beethoven from the guardianship of his nephew can only be stated as having been determined by the magistrates immediately after the beginning of the new year, and that, in consequence of this, the boy was for a few weeks with his mother. On January 10, Fanny Giannatasio writes in her diary: “What MÜller tells me about Beethoven pains me deeply. The wicked woman has finally succeeded in triumphing over him. He has been removed from the guardianship[1] and the wicked son returns to the source of his wickedness. I can imagine Beethoven’s grief. It is said that since yesterday he has been entirely alone and eats apart from the others. He ought to know that Karl is glad to be with his mother; it would ease the pain of the separation.”

On January 7 the magistrates summoned Beethoven (who still lived in the GÄrtnergasse), the boy, the mother, Hotschevar and the curator, Dr. SchÖnauer, to appear before them on January 11. Of what action was taken that day there is no record, but Hotschevar’s attack brought out a vigorous defense in the shape of a letter sent by Beethoven to the Magistracy,[2] in which he maintained the superiority of the educational plan which he was pursuing over that which had been proposed by the mother, proclaimed the magnanimity and virtuousness of all his acts and discharged a broadside of accusation and insinuation against Madame van Beethoven and the priest who had come to her help. We can make room for only a few passages:

Beethoven accompanied this address with a private letter presumably to Dr. Tschiska (or Tschischka), an official of the Magistracy, in which he said:

We do not know the particulars, but for the present Beethoven retained the right to look after the further education of the boy; the right, at least, was not judicially taken away from him or given to another. He did not send him again to a public school, but engaged a private tutor under whose care he continued his studies in an institute conducted by Joseph Kudlich, of whom he spoke in great praise. Besides the ordinary subjects, he received instruction in French, drawing and music; his religious training was entrusted to a priest. This state of affairs lasted till the end of March, when he announced a desire to resign the guardianship—persuaded to take this step, it is fair to presume, by the magistrates who, in the end, would have been obliged to remove him. Karl was living with his mother at the time. According to the court records, Beethoven left the matter of education “entirely to Kudlich,” with whom (if a passage in one of the Conversation Books is read correctly) he seems also to have lived temporarily, and it was given to him to propose the name of a guardian, either in place of himself or as an associate. He consulted earnestly with his friends as to what was to be done with the boy and who should be his guardian, and those friends were sorely tried by his constitutional indecision. In these consultations, the project of sending the boy away from Vienna, and the name of Sailer, were mooted.[3] “What must be done,” Bernard says, “is to select as guardian a man who has your entire confidence both as respects morality and pedagogical skill, and with whom you may always remain on friendly terms concerning the affair. Since Kudlich has more influence on Karl than Giannatasio, it is my opinion that you seek no further for someone who would meet every requirement.—It would merely be very troublesome for you.” Beethoven seems to be in doubt; he had a preference for his friend the magisterial Councillor Tuscher, and the project of sending him to Sailer in Landshut appealed to him. Bernard says again: “If you want peace of mind I think it wise that you name a guardian as you were willing to do yesterday. But if it is possible to send the boy to Sailer at Landshut,[4] it would, of course, be better still, since then you could feel assured that he was in the best of hands. Even if you have Tuscher as co-guardian, your case will not be bettered, inasmuch as all cares will still rest on you. Perhaps Tuscher and Kudlich might jointly assume the guardianship—this might be very advantageous. All the same, everything will remain as heretofore, even if you send him away he will remain with Kudlich until a change has been made. So long as you are guardian and Karl remains here, you will not only have all the cares as heretofore, but also be compelled to fight the mother and all her intrigues. Have Karl sent for the present again to Kudlich, meanwhile the matter may be straightened out.”[5]

Beethoven seems to have expressed a doubt as to Tuscher’s willingness to serve as guardian. Bernard continues: “Perhaps he might be more easily persuaded if a co-guardian like Kudlich were appointed.—It is not necessary to settle everything by to-morrow. If we go to Omeyer to-morrow morning, then to Tuscher and Kudlich, we can come to an understanding as to what will be the best thing to do.” Tuscher, if we are correct in recognizing his handwriting, permitted himself to be persuaded, though a bit under protest; he foresaw difficulties. The Magistracy at the suggestion of Beethoven thereupon appointed the Magisterial Councillor Matthias von Tuscher guardian of the boy on March 26. He was commanded to place his ward, then “living with his mother, Johanna van Beethoven,” in another place for bringing up and education under proper care, and submit his opinion touching the proposition of the mother and Hotschevar that he be entered in a public institute of learning before the expiration of the second school semester, that Beethoven contribute to the cost and that the share of the mother’s pension and the interest on the money deposited for the boy be applied to this end. Tuscher was decidedly of the opinion that the boy must be sent away for a time and was agreed with the plan of placing him with Prof. Sailer in Landshut after it had been broached to him. For this the consent of the Magistracy and the police authorities and a passport were necessary. In the opinion of one of Beethoven’s advisers (Bach) Tuscher was to be informed of the plan only after the passport had been obtained, but before the mother, who had already found “a channel,” could take steps to communicate with Tuscher. Beethoven applied to the city authorities for a passport for two years for his ward. On April 23, the authorities asked of the Magistracy if there were any objections to the proposed step. The Magistracy objected to the boy’s being sent into a foreign country, but asked Tuscher if he were not willing to withdraw his application and name an institute in Austria. Tuscher declined and set forth the great hopes which he placed in the training to be had of a man like Sailer, who, “because of his reverence for the talents of the composer, Beethoven, was especially bound to him,” and hence would bestow upon his charge the strictest oversight and care, which was of great importance in the case of a boy who was “extremely cunning and an adept in every sort of craftiness.” In replying to the municipal authorities the Magistracy (on May 7) conceded the necessity of withdrawing the boy from his mother’s influence, but thought it unnecessary to send him out of the country on this account, against which the mother had protested and the curator of the ward, Dr. SchÖnauer, had declared himself. The passport was therefore refused. Beethoven had taken a step which seems to have been made to prevent the widow from securing help for her plans from a source higher than any that had yet been invoked and to enlist that higher power in his own behalf. He appealed to Archduke Rudolph to use his influence with Archduke Ludwig, the youngest brother of Emperor Franz I, to aid him in his project of sending his nephew far away from the mother’s influence. In the letter written to the Archduke[6] he states that it had been his intention to petition Archduke Ludwig in the premises, but there had thitherto appeared to be no occasion for so doing for the reason that all the authorities who had jurisdiction in the matter were convinced of the advisability of the step, viz.: the Police, the Supervisory Guardianship Court and the guardian. He had heard, however, that the mother intended to seek an audience of Archduke Ludwig to prevent the execution of his plan. Convinced that she would stop at nothing in the way of calumination, he expressed the hope that his reputation for morality would suffice as a refutation of her slanders, and that Archduke Rudolph would bear testimony in his behalf.

The plan to send the nephew out of the country had been frustrated and had to be abandoned. His mind being filled with artistic projects of the greatest magnitude, Beethoven was desirous to pass the summer months again in MÖdling, and after the experiences of the preceding year nothing could be hoped for his nephew in that quarter. He came to a realization of the advantages which Giannatasio’s institute had offered and in a letter to Giannatasio asked him again to take the lad till other arrangements had been made. The Giannatasio family were fearful lest such a proceeding might work harm to their institution, and on June 17 visited Beethoven at MÖdling to tell him that his wishes could not be complied with. “Grievously as it pained us,” Fanny writes in her diary, “to refuse Beethoven anything, I am yet so convinced of the necessity of the step and that it could do us no good, but on the contrary harm, that I prefer to have it so.” Thereupon the lad was sent to the institute of Joseph BlÖchlinger. Claudius Artaria, who was one of the teachers there (1821-1824), recalled in later years that Karl was one of the older scholars, “naturally talented, but somewhat conceited because he was the nephew of Beethoven.” He also saw the mother there a few times, but remembered nothing in particular in connection with her visits. The lad appears to have prospered during the early part of his stay at this school. In December, 1819, an unknown hand writes in a Conversation Book:

Tuscher, a member of the Magistracy, was compelled to recognize that his colleagues were wholly under the influence of Madame van Beethoven and Hotschevar, and that he could do no service to his friend or his friend’s ward; on July 5, he applied to be relieved of the guardianship which, he said, had become “in every respect burdensome and vexatious,” on the ground that “the multiplicity of official duties as well as various other considerations would not permit him longer to administer the office.” Beethoven took this action in very bad part, and Tuscher shared the fate of many others of being for a space an object of the composer’s critical ill will. Beethoven now served notice on the Magistracy that he would resume the guardianship under the testamentary appointment and that he had placed his ward in BlÖchlinger’s institution. On July 15 he writes to Archduke Rudolph, lamenting that confusion still reigns in his domestic affairs, no hope or comfort is in sight, all his structures are blown away, as if by the wind. “The present proprietor of the institute in which I have placed my nephew, a pupil of Pestalozzi, is of the opinion that it will be difficult to achieve a desirable outcome in the boy’s training—and also that there could be nothing more profitable to my nephew than absence from the country.” In a letter of September 14 to BlÖchlinger he writes: “Only the following individuals have free access to my nephew, Mr. v. Bernard, Mr. v. Oliva, Mr. v. Piuk, Recording Secretary.... My nephew is not to go out of the house without my written permission—from which it is plain what course is to be followed toward the mother—I insist that in this respect strict obedience be given to what the authorities and I have ordained.”

It is not known whether the Magistracy was immediately informed of the new steps which Beethoven had taken, or whether Madame van Beethoven made a presentment of some sort on the subject. Be that as it may, as chief guardian it determined if possible to put an end to the continual friction and undertook an investigation of all the educational experiments which had been made, arriving at the conclusion that the boy had been “subject to the whims of Beethoven and had been tossed back and forth like a ball from one educational institution to another.” For this reason it decreed, on September 17, that Tuscher’s request be granted, but that the guardianship should not again be entrusted to Beethoven but to the mother, the natural guardian under the law, with a capable and honest man as co-guardian. To this office Leopold NussbÖck, municipal Sequestrator, was appointed. Beethoven protested against the action in a letter which the Magistracy received on October 31.[7] Having been absent from the city at the time, “on a matter of business,” he had made no objection to the appointment of Herr NussbÖck as guardian of his nephew, but returning with the intention of remaining in Vienna he wished to resume the guardianship, as this was essential to the welfare of the boy, the mother having neither the will nor the strength to look after his training. He was the more insistent on a resumption of this duty since he had learned that owing to lack of money the boy was to be removed from the institution which he had selected for him, and he charged that the mother wished to take her son to her home so that she might be able to expend his income, including the half of her pension which she was obliged to devote to his education, upon herself. He asked that the intermediary guardianship be taken from NussbÖck and be restored to him without delay. About the same time (October 23) he wrote at great length to Dr. Bach, who had now become his lawyer.[8] From this it appears that Madame van Beethoven had addressed another communication to the Magistrates’ Court, in which she apparently said or intimated that Beethoven would, in consequence of the elevation of the Archduke to the Archbishopric, be obliged to spend the greater part of his time in OlmÜtz, and had renewed her attacks upon his moral character. “His Imperial Highness, Eminence and Cardinal” would unhesitatingly bear witness to his morality, and, as to the twaddle about OlmÜtz, the Archduke would probably spend not more than six weeks of the year there.

In a postscript he accuses the mother of wishing to gain possession of her son in order to enjoy all of her pension. In view of this he had taken counsel as to whether or not he should let her keep the money and make it good from his own pocket. He had been advised not to do so, however, because she would make bad use of the money. “I have decided, therefore, to set aside the sum in time. You see again how foolishly the Magistracy is acting in trying to tear my son wholly from me, since when she dies the boy will lose this share of the pension and would get along very poorly without my aid.” A few days later Beethoven wrote to Dr. Bach again, this time to suggest that legal steps be taken to attach the widow’s pension, he having a suspicion that she was trying to evade payment of her son’s share because she had permitted nine months to pass without drawing the pension from the exchequer.

The Magistracy disposed of Beethoven’s protest and application on November 4, by curtly referring him to the disposition made of his petition of September 17. Beethoven asked for a reconsideration of the matter, but without avail, and the only recourse remaining to him was the appeal to the higher court which had already been suggested to Dr. Bach. The story of that appeal belongs to the year 1820. Meanwhile the association of Councillor Peters with him in the guardianship had been broached and was the subject of discussion with his friends. In December Bernard writes in a Conversation Book:

Bach seems to have advised that the mother be accepted as co-guardian. He writes: “As co-guardian she will have no authority, only the honor of being associated in the guardianship. She will be a mere figurehead.” Whether the conversations noted at the time referred to the case on appeal or to the application still pending before the Magistracy, or some to the one, some to the other, it is impossible to determine. The record of the refusal of the Magistracy has not been procured, but the decree of the Appellate Court gives December 20 as its date.

Frequent citations from the so-called “Conversation Books” made in the course of the narrative touching the later phases of the controversy over the guardianship call for some remarks upon this new source of information opened in this year. In the “Niederrheinische Musikzeitung,” No. 28 of 1854, Schindler wrote:

That he was able, partly by the ear and partly by the eye, to judge of the correctness of the performance of his music, Schindler states in the same article—a fact also known from many other sources; this was the case even to his last year. When, after the death of Beethoven, such of his manuscripts and papers as were thought to be salable were set apart, there remained in the hands of von Breuning a lot of letters, documents and Conversation Books. The estimated value in the inventory of the manuscripts and the price obtained for them at the auction sale, indicate how utterly worthless from a pecuniary point of view that other collection was thought to be; as, however, they might be of use to some future biographer, it was well to have them preserved, and doubtless a small gratification to Schindler for his great sacrifices and very valuable services to Beethoven in these last months, the only one which he as guardian to the absent nephew could make; so Breuning gave them to him. The Conversation Books, counting in as such those which were really nothing but a sheet or two of paper loosely folded, were only about 400 in number, or less than fifty per annum for the last eight and a half years of Beethoven’s life—that being the period which they cover. Schindler, who spoke on this as on so many other topics frankly and without reserve, said that he long preserved the books and papers intact, but not finding any person but himself who placed any value upon them, their weight and bulk had led him in the course of his long unsettled life by degrees to destroy those which he deemed to be of little or no importance. The remainder were, in 1845, transferred to the Royal Library in Berlin, and, in 1855, when they were examined for this work, numbered 138. It was but natural that those preserved are such as place Schindler’s relation to the master in the strongest light and those deemed by him essential to the full understanding of the more important events of Beethoven’s last years. Most of them bear evidence of the deep interest with which Schindler, while they remained in his possession, lived over the past in them. In many cases he appended the names of the principal writers; so that one soon learns to distinguish their hands without difficulty; and occasionally he enriched them with valuable annotations.[9] The larger of them—ordinary blank note-books—are only of a size and thickness fitted to be carried in the coat-pocket. It is obvious, therefore, on a moment’s reflection, that at a single sitting with a few friends in an inn or coffee-house, the pages must have filled rapidly as the book passed from hand to hand and one or another wrote question or reply, remark or statement, a bit of news or a piece of advice. A few such conversations, one sees, would fill a book, all the sooner as there is no thought of economizing space and each new sentence is usually also a new paragraph. It strikes one, therefore, that the whole 400 could have contained but a small portion of the conversations of the period they covered. This was so. At home a slate or any loose scraps of paper were commonly used, thus saving a heavy item of expense; moreover, many who conversed with Beethoven would only write upon the slate in order to obliterate it immediately, that nothing should remain exposed to the eyes of others. The books, therefore, were for the most part for use when the composer was away from home, although there were occasions when, it being desirable to preserve what was written, they were also used there. Hence, the collection in Berlin can be viewed as little more than scattered specimens of the conversations of the master’s friends and companions, most unequally distributed as to time. For months together there is nothing or hardly anything; and then again a few days will fill many scores of leaves. In a few instances Beethoven has himself written—that is, when in some public place he did not trust his voice; and memoranda of divers kinds, even of musical ideas from his pen, are not infrequent. One is surprised to find so few distinguished names in literature, science and art—Grillparzer’s forms an exception and he appears only in the later years; as for the rest, they are for the most part of local Vienna celebrities.

There is no source of information for the biography of Beethoven which at first sight appears so rich and productive and yet, to the conscientious writer, proves so provokingly defective and requires such extreme caution in its use as these Conversation Books. The oldest of them belongs to the time before us (1819) and was evidently preserved by Schindler on account of the protracted conversations on the topic of the nephew. We have already made several citations from it and shall have frequent occasion to have recourse to it in the progress of this narrative. The period in which it was used is approximately fixed by a reference to a concert given by the violinist Franz Clement, at which he played an introduction and variations on a theme by Beethoven. This concert took place on April 4, 1819.[10] The last conversations in the book took place about the time of Beethoven’s removal to MÖdling—shortly before and after.

This explanatory digression may serve as a modulation to more cheerful themes than that which has occupied us of late.

Though Karl was no longer a member of the Giannatasio household or pupil of the institute, and though there were, in consequence, fewer meetings between Beethoven and his self-sacrificing friends, their relations remained pleasant, and early in 1819 Beethoven found occasion to supplement his verbal protestations of gratitude with a deed. Nanni, the younger daughter of Giannatasio, was married on February 6, 1819, to Leopold Schmerling. When the young couple returned to the house after the ceremony they were greeted by a wedding hymn for tenor solo, men’s voices and pianoforte accompaniment. The performers were hidden in a corner of the room. When they had finished they stepped forth from their place of concealment. Beethoven was among them and he handed the manuscript of the music which he had written to words of Prof. Stein, who occupied a chair of philosophy at the University and was also tutor in the imperial household,[11] to the bride.

Beethoven made a single appearance as conductor in this year. It was on January 17 at a concert given for the benefit of the Widows and Orphans of the Juridical Faculty of the University. The orchestra was largely composed of amateurs and the programme began with the overture to “Prometheus” and ended with the Seventh Symphony. Among the listeners was P. D. A. Atterbom, the Swedish poet, who wrote a sympathetic account of it.

In the midst of the worries occasioned by the guardianship, Beethoven was elected Honorary Member of the Philharmonic Society of Laibach, an institution which had been founded in 1702 and revived, after repeated interruptions, in 1816. The project of giving him the distinction had been broached in the councils of the society in 1808, but Anton Schmith, a physician in Vienna, whose opinion had been asked, had advised against it, saying: “Beethoven is as freakish as he is unserviceable.” Eleven years later the men of Laibach had more knowledge or better counsel, and they sent him a diploma on March 15 through von Tuscher. Acknowledging the honor on May 4, Beethoven stated that as a mark of appreciation he was sending, also through the magistrate, an “unpublished” composition and would hold himself in readiness to serve the society should it ever need him. There is no direct evidence as to what composition he had in mind; but in the archives of the Laibach society there is a manuscript copy of the Sixth Symphony. It is not an autograph except as to its title, Beethoven having written “Sinfonia pastorale” on the cover in red crayon, and corrections in lead pencil in the music.[12]

The time for Beethoven’s annual summer flitting had come. MÖdling was chosen again for the country sojourn and Beethoven arrived there on May 12, taking lodgings as before in the Hafner house in the Hauptstrasse. He had, evidently, brought a housekeeper with him and now engaged a housemaid. The former endured two months.[13] Karl was placed under the tuition of BlÖchlinger on June 22. Beethoven, as letters to the Archduke dated July 15 and August 31[14] show, was not in the best of health, but was hard at work on the mass, with an excursion now and then into the symphony (Ninth). Schindler presents us with a pathetic, impressive, almost terrifying picture of the state to which his labors lifted him (Ed. of 1860, I, 270):

Towards the end of August, accompanied by the musician Johann Horsalka still living in Vienna, I arrived at the master’s home in MÖdling. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon. As soon as we entered we learned that in the morning both servants had gone away, and that there had been a quarrel after midnight which had disturbed all the neighbors, because as a consequence of a long vigil both had gone to sleep and the food which had been prepared had become unpalatable. In the living-room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue in the Credo—singing, howling, stamping. After we had been listening a long time to this almost awful scene, and were about to go away, the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole host of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies. His first utterances were confused, as if he had been disagreeably surprised at our having overheard him. Then he reached the day’s happenings and with obvious restraint he remarked: “Pretty doings, these! (Saubere Wirthschaft.) Everybody has run away and I haven’t had anything to eat since yesternoon!” I tried to calm him and helped him to make his toilet. My companion hurried on in advance to the restaurant of the bathing establishment to have something made ready for the famished master. Then he complained about the wretched state of his domestic affairs, but here, for reasons already stated, there was nothing to be done. Never, it may be said, did so great an artwork as is the Missa Solemnis see its creation under more adverse circumstances.[15]