At the end of the chapter preceding the last, which recorded the doings of the year 1823, Beethoven was left in his lodgings in the Ungargasse, occupied with work upon the Ninth Symphony, which was approaching completion, oppressed with anxiety concerning his health and worried about his brother’s domestic affairs. As the story of his life is resumed with the year 1824, there has been no serious change in his physical condition, but complaints of ill health are frequent in his communications with his friends. His eyes continue to trouble him till late in March; Schindler cautions him not to rub them, as that might increase the inflammation; Karl suggests buying a shade to protect them from the glare of the light; and when Count Brunswick wants to take him along with him to Hungary, Schindler advises him to take the trip, as it might be beneficial for his eyes.

For a moment we have a glimpse at the gentler side of the composer’s nature in a letter which he sends when the year is about a week old to the widow of his brother, the wicked mother of his adopted son, in lieu of the New Year’s call which they had been prevented by work from making. He should have come to wish her happiness for the year, he says, had he been able: “but I know that, nevertheless, you expect nothing but the best of good wishes for your welfare from me as well as Karl.” She had complained of being in need, and he says he would gladly have helped her, but had himself too many expenditures, debts and delayed receipts to prove his willingness at the moment; but he would now give it to her “in writing” that thenceforth she might retain the portion of her pension which had been set apart for her son. If, in the future, he could give her money to better her condition, he would willingly do so; moreover, he had long before assumed the debt of 280 florins and 20 kreutzers which she owed Steiner. Manifestly a truce had been established between the woman and her brother-in-law, and in the absence of any evidence that she was in any way concerned in an escapade of Karl’s later in the year, it would appear that she never violated it; it was not the woman whom Beethoven hated, but the youth whom he loved, who brought grief and an almost broken heart into his last days. Nevertheless, there is more than passive contentment exhibited in this letter; there is also an active magnanimity which finds even warmer expression in a letter which he seems to have written at an earlier date to his friend Bernard. Bernard[116] had been helpful to Beethoven in drawing up the memorial to the court in the matter of the guardianship and was among the friends whom Beethoven consulted about Karl’s education and bringing up. To him Beethoven writes:

The nephew was now attending the philological lectures at the university and living in the winter and spring months with his uncle. He had left BlÖchlinger’s Institute in August 1823 and matriculated at the university. He was active in the service of Beethoven, doing work as his amanuensis, carrying messages, making purchases, and so on; in fact, Beethoven seems to have taken up more of his time than was good for his studies. He loved him tenderly and was unceasingly thoughtful of his welfare; but the jealousy of his affection led him to exercise a strictness of discipline over him which could not fail to become irksome to a growing stripling. He left him little liberty, and, yielding to a disposition prone to passion, he not seldom treated him with great severity. The youth appears in the Conversation Books as lively, clever and shrewd, and Beethoven, proud of his natural gifts of mind, was indulgent of his comments on others, permitting him apparently to speak lightly and discourteously of the men upon whose help and counsel he was obliged to depend. The result of Beethoven’s extremes of harsh rebuke and loving admonition, of violent accusation and tender solicitude, was to encourage him in his innate bent for disingenuousness and deception, and he continued the course which he had begun as a boy of repeating words of disparagement touching those against whom his uncle levelled his criticisms, and of reporting, no doubt with embellishments of his own invention, the speeches which told of the popular admiration in which the great composer was held. By this species of flattery he played upon the weakness of his uncle and actually obtained an influence over him in the course of time which he exploited to his own advantage in various directions. He was naturally inclined to indolence and self-indulgence, and it is not strange that Beethoven’s self-sacrifice in his behalf never awakened in him any deep sense of gratitude, while his unreasonable and ill-considered severity aroused a spirit of rebellion in him which grew with his advance towards adolescence. Beethoven never seems to have realized that he had outgrown the period when he could be treated as a child, and it was a child’s submission which he asked of him.

Grillparzer’s opera-book was a frequent subject of conversation between Beethoven and his friends in the early months of 1824, but petitions and advice were alike unfruitful. He did not go to work upon it nor yet upon a composition which presented a more urgent obligation. This was the oratorio which he had agreed to write for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and on which he had received an advance of money in 1819. Here the fatal procrastination, though it may have been agreeable to Beethoven, was not altogether his fault. Bernard began the book, but seems to have put it aside after a few weeks. In April, 1820, he tells Beethoven in a Conversation Book, “I must finish the oratorio completely this month so that it may be handed to you in MÖdling.” In August, possibly, somebody writes: “I have put it seriously to Sanctus Bernardus that it is high time that it be done; that Hauschka was urging a completion. He will finish it this month, id est in 5 days, and see you this evening at Camehl’s.... When I told Bernard that Hauschka had come to you about it he was embarrassed and—it seems to me that he is throwing the blame on you. He does not want to show his poetical impotency.”

For four years after giving the commission, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde waited before it put any signs of impatience on record. Towards the close of October, 1823, Bernard gave a copy of the text of the oratorio, which was entitled “Der Sieg des Kreutzes” (“The Victory of the Cross”), to Beethoven and also one to Sonnleithner for the society. After waiting nearly three months, the directorate of the society at a meeting held on January 9, 1824, took action, the nature of which was notified to both Beethoven and Bernard. The latter was informed that as the society had left the choice of the text which he was to compose to Beethoven, it could not say whether or not the society would make use of the poem which he had sent until Beethoven had set it to music, and the censor had given it his sanction. He was also asked to coÖperate with the society in stimulating Beethoven to finish the work “so long expected by the musical world.” Beethoven was told that the choice of a book for the oratorio which the society had commissioned him to write four years before had been left to him; that it had been informed that Bernard had undertaken to write it; that its inquiries as to when the music would be completed had always been answered by the statement that the poem had not been received. Not presuming to ask a composer of his eminence to outline the plan of a musical composition before he had become familiar with the work as a whole and had satisfied himself touching its plan and execution, the society, therefore, had thitherto always directed its inquiries to Bernard, who had delivered the book in October. In view of the fact that the society could not use the text until it had been set and he (Beethoven) had repeatedly expressed his intention to write a work of the kind and confirmed the receipt of earnest money paid at his request, the society asked him explicitly to say whether or not he intended to compose Bernard’s poem, and, if so, when the work might be expected.

Beethoven answered the letter at great length. He said that he had not asked Bernard to write the text but had been told that the society had commissioned him to do so; Bernard being the editor of a newspaper it was impossible for him to consult him often; moreover, consultations of this character would be long drawn out and personally disagreeable, as Bernard had written nothing for music except “Libussa,” which had not been performed at the time, but which he had known since 1809 and which had required many alterations; he was compelled to be somewhat skeptical about the collaboration and have the book before him in its entirety. He had once received a portion of the book, but Bernard, to the best of his recollection, had said that it would have to be changed and he had given it back to him. At last he had received the whole text at the time that the society received it, but other obligations which illness had retarded had had to be fulfilled, since, as the society probably knew, he was compelled to live from his compositions. Many changes, some of which he had indicated to Bernard, would have to be made in the book. He would finish his suggestions and consult with Bernard, for,

It is interesting to note in connection with this letter that Beethoven resents the statement that he had asked for the money given as an earnest; that he was unwilling to assume responsibility for the selection of Bernard as his collaborator (though Bernard was among his friends and advisors and he had expressed satisfaction with his choice when he accepted the commission, only insisting that the poet be paid by the society); that he gave at least moderate approval to the book as a whole but insisted on some alterations which were essential; that he had been contemplating co-operation with the society in a concert, and that he had received an offer of assistance from it in a concert which he was to give. The letter was written on January 23, some time before the receipt of the memorial which was the first official step toward the great concerts of May 7 and 23. There is evidence of a kindly feeling between the society and him, and, indeed, that feeling was never interrupted, though the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde never got the oratorio nor received back the money advanced on its commission. The society afterward elected him to honorary membership.

Beethoven was frequently urged to set to work on the music of “The Victory of the Cross”; but he was also advised not to compose it. Archduke Rudolph accepted the dedication of the poem and wrote to Beethoven telling him of the fact and expressing a wish that he would set it to music. But Schikh said to him: “If I were Beethoven I would never compose the extremely tiresome text of this oratorio.” Beethoven had expressed satisfaction with the subject and the quality of the lines; he discussed changes which he wished to have made with Bernard after he had had time to consider the work as a whole; he promised Hauschka in September that he would compose it as soon as he returned to the city, and asked him to pay Bernard his fee; but he never set seriously to work upon it, though at the end of the letter to Hauschka (which bears date September 23, 1824) he reiterated his promise so that he might, with mock solemnity, attest it by affixing his hand and seal.

The book of “The Victory of the Cross” was based upon the ancient story of the apparition of the cross and the legend “In hoc signo vinces” to Constantine the Great. Constantine has crossed the Alps into Italy and lies encamped confronting his enemy Maxentius before Rome. His daughter Julia, who is represented as wife to Maxentius, attempts to avert the battle, but the vision strengthens Constantine’s resolve. Julia hears the angelic canticles which accompany the apparition and is converted to the true faith, persisting in it to martyrdom, to which she is condemned by her husband. Maxentius also hears the voices, but his augurs (allegorical figures representing Hate and Discord) interpret them to his advantage, whereas similar figures (Faith, Hope and Charity) inspire the Christian army. Pious canticles on the one hand, harsh songs on the other, precede the battle, the progress of which is related by a solo voice. Constantine promises to raise the cross on the forum in Rome; the victory is won and celebrated with Christian hymns, “Hosanna!” and “Glory to God!” Beethoven’s copy of the libretto has been preserved, and in it there are indications that he made some heroic excisions. He permitted Faith, Hope and Charity to remain, but banished Hate and Discord. It is pretty plain that Beethoven found nothing inspiring in the work. Holz told Jahn that he said to him, “How could I get up any enthusiasm about it?” Schindler says that Beethoven’s failure to set the book caused a rupture of the friendship which existed between him and Bernard. The directors of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde dropped the matter, neither importuning Beethoven more nor taking any steps to recover the money paid on account.

One outcome of the concerts of May was the appearance of a new portrait of Beethoven. It was a lithographic reproduction of a crayon drawing made by Stephen Decker and was printed as a supplement to the “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung” edited by F. A. Kanne, on June 6, 1824. In this and two subsequent numbers of the journal (June 9 and 16) Kanne reviewed the concerts with discriminating appreciation, ending with an enthusiastic encomium of the composer. In 1827 SteinmÜller made a plate of Decker’s drawing for Artaria. Schindler and Frimmel agree in saying that the well-known portrait by Kriehuber is an imitation of Decker’s drawing, which was made, as Kanne’s journal stated, “a few days after his great concert in May, 1824.”[117]

During the preparations for the concerts, thought was also given to the usual summer sojourn, and various places—Grinzing, Heiligenstadt, Penzing, Breitensee, Hietzing, Hetzendorf—were canvassed in consultation with Beethoven by his friends. His brother had again offered him a home on his estate and it was expected that Count Brunswick would come for the concert and take Beethoven back with him to Hungary. In all of the excursions which were made in the vicinity of SchÖnbrunn in search of a summer home, Schindler accompanied the composer to see, to advise, to negotiate. The choice fell upon Penzing, where an apartment was found in the first storey of the house numbered 43 belonging to a tailor in Vienna named Johann HÖrr, who was rejoiced to have so distinguished a tenant. Beethoven took it for the summer beginning on May 1, for a rental of 180 florins, C. M. The receipt is in existence, with a characteristic memorial of Beethoven’s violent and abrupt change of mind concerning men and things. The lodgings were in all things adapted to his needs and Beethoven, entirely satisfied, moved into them soon after the second concert. An old couple lived in the parterre, but otherwise he was the only tenant of the house. But the house lay close to a foot-bridge over the little stream called the Wien Fluss and people crossing it frequently stopped to gaze into his rooms. He could have saved himself the annoyance by drawing the curtains, but instead he flew into a rage, quarrelled with his landlord, against whom he recorded his anger by scrawling the epithet “Schurke” (rogue, wretch, scoundrel, etc.) under his name on the receipt, and removing to Baden (Gutenbrunn). He had been in the house six weeks; in Baden he staid from about the 1st of August till some time in November; and thus was again paying rent for three lodgings at the same time.

The matter of the subscriptions for the Mass being disposed of (except so far as the deliveries of some of the scores was concerned), and the Symphony completed, Beethoven now had time, while getting ready for their performance, to think also of their publication. As he had promised to deliver the Mass to Simrock long before, so also he had contracted to give exclusive possession of the Symphony for eighteen months to the Philharmonic Society of London, in March, 1823. It was eleven months after that date that the score was finished and thirteen months before it was placed in the hands of the Philharmonic Society’s agent in Vienna. Hogarth in his history of the Philharmonic Society is only technically correct when he says that it was not “received” by the society until “after it had been performed at Vienna.” It was handed to Ries’s representative on April 26 or 27, 1824; the first concert took place on May 7th. When Beethoven took up the matter of publication again he ignored Simrock, Peters, Schlesinger and the Vienna publishers and turned to Schott and Sons of Mayence and H. A. Probst of Leipsic. Schott and Sons had sent him their journal “CÄcilia” with the request that he recommend a correspondent in the Austrian capital, and also send them some compositions for publication. He answered on March 10, 1824, that he would gladly serve the paper if it were not that he felt it to be a higher and more natural calling to manifest himself through his musical compositions; but he had instigated a search for a fit man to act as Viennese reviewer. Of his compositions he offered “a new Grand Mass with solo and chorus and full orchestra” which he considered his “greatest work,” and a new Grand Symphony with a finale in the style of his Pianoforte Fantasia with chorus “but on a much larger scale”; also a new quartet for strings.[118] The fees demanded were 1000 florins C. M. for the Mass, 600 florins for the Symphony and 50 ducats for the Quartet. “This business only to oblige you.” On the same day he wrote to H. A. Probst offering the Mass and Symphony at the same prices but stipulating that the latter should not be published before July, 1825, though, to recompense the publisher for the delay, he would let him have the pianoforte arrangement gratis. Only a portion of this letter has been preserved, but the contents of the lost fragment can be gathered from Probst’s answer under date March 22, in which he promises to deposit at once with Joseph Loydl and Co. 100 imperial ducats to Beethoven’s account, to be paid over on delivery of three songs with pianoforte accompaniment (two of them to have parts for other instruments, the third to be an arietta), six bagatelles for pianoforte solo, and a grand overture with pianoforte arrangement for 2 and 4 hands. What these works were may easily be guessed. After this business had been arranged to the satisfaction of both parties, Probst said, he would communicate his decision respecting the Mass. Beethoven wrote, probably on July 3, explaining his delay on the score that the compositions “had just been finished” but were now ready for delivery at any moment to Herrn GlÖggl, to whom he requested that the money be sent. On August 9, Probst informed Beethoven that the 100 ducats had already been sent to Loydl and Co., in Vienna. A letter written by Beethoven on the same day has been lost, but a portion of its contents can be deduced from Probst’s reply a week later—August 16. The Leipsic publisher admitted that his action in depositing the money to be delivered in exchange for the manuscripts had been due to reports which had reached him touching difficulties which another publisher had had with the composer. In purchasing manuscripts without examination he was departing from his established rule of action and he trusted to the admiration which he felt for the composer’s genius that the latter had set apart works of excellence for him. He would gladly have published the Symphony, but was deterred by the danger of piracy which was peculiarly great in Austria. He promised a speedy and handsome publication of the works purchased. A memorandum by Beethoven indicates that he answered this letter, but the nature of his reply is not known. It is to be presumed that he withdrew his offer of the Symphony. The correspondence with Probst ended and the negotiations, which had again reached the point of a deposit of the fee against the delivery of the manuscripts, came to nothing; Schott and Sons secured not only the Mass, Symphony and Quartet, but the smaller pieces also. Schott and Sons Buy the Mass The firm accepted the offer of the Quartet at once, but asked either a reduction of the fees for the Symphony and Mass, or permission to pay the money in installments at intervals of six months. Subsequently the firm offered to provide a guaranty for the deferred payments and to consider any proposition which Beethoven had to make. The two letters, dated respectively March 24 and April 10, remaining unanswered, Schott and Sons again wrote on April 19 and still again on April 27; introducing with the former letter Christian Rummel, Chapelmaster of the Duke of Nassau, and asking a contribution to “CÄcilia” in the latter. In the midst of his preparations for the concert, Beethoven replied and repeated his offer of the Mass and Symphony, but held the matter of the Quartet in abeyance. He asked that payment for the other works be made by bills drawn on a Vienna bank payable 600 florins in one month, 500 florins in two months and 600 florins in four months. On July 3 he also conceded the Quartet, which he promised to deliver inside of six weeks. With this the business was concluded and, as an undated letter of Beethoven’s shows, much to his gratification; the business methods of Schott and Sons were extremely satisfactory to him. But the year came to an end, and the Mayence publishers were still waiting for their manuscripts, while Beethoven was kept busy writing explanations in answer to their questions and requests. On September 17 Beethoven says he will attend to the copying of the works as soon as he has returned to Vienna, and send the Quartet by the middle of October; in November he is obliged to give two lessons a day to Archduke Rudolph and has no time to look after the matter; on December 5 the works are most certainly to be delivered to Fries and Co. within the current week; on December 17 it will be another week before the works can be delivered—the Archduke has but gone and he must look through the copy of the score several times—and he begs his correspondents not to think ill of him, for he had “never done anything wrong,” intimating that a certain publisher in Vienna was trying to seduce him from the Mayence firm and to that end was seeking to make them suspicious, etc.; meanwhile he offers for publication the overture which had been performed at his concert, six bagatelles and three songs in behalf of his brother to whom they belong, the price 130 ducats in gold. These were the works which Probst had agreed to purchase for 100 ducats and the money for which had been sent to Vienna. Schott agreed to buy them for 130 ducats and Beethoven wrote to his brother in Gneixendorf on December 24: “I inform you that Mayence will give 130 ducats in gold for your works: if Herr Probst will not pay as much, give them to Mayence, who will at once send you a cheque; these are really honest, not mean, business men.” Johann promptly put himself in communication with Schott and Sons and graciously confirmed the sale of the works at 130 florins, “out of respect” for his brother.

Peters, who had been informed of the state of affairs concerning the Mass, evidently sent a complaint, or protest, to Beethoven, for on December 12, 1824, the latter informs the publisher that the case has been closed by his promise of the work to another publisher. He (Peters) should have received a quartet had the publishers who took the Mass not made the Quartet a condition of his acceptance. But he should surely have another quartet soon, or he was ready to make him a proposition for a larger work, in which case the sum which had been paid might be deducted from the new fee. Let Peters but be patient and he should be completely satisfied. Then follows this rebuke:

In September of this year the interest of Beethoven’s old friend Andreas Streicher, whose wife was a visitor at Baden, seems to have been awakened in a marked degree, and he gave himself to the devising of plans to ameliorate the composer’s financial position. He revived the project for a complete edition of the compositions which, as he outlines it, he thinks might yield a profit of 10,000 florins, good money; proposes six high-class subscription concerts in the approaching winter, which, with 600 subscribers, would yield 4,800 florins; finally he suggests that manuscript copies of the Mass in D with pianoforte or organ accompaniment be sold to a number of singing societies. Though this project had in a measure been attempted in the case of the Singverein of Berlin and achieved in that of the CÄcilienverein of Frankfort, Beethoven seems to have authorized Streicher to make an effort in the direction proposed, for two copies of a letter evidently written to be communicated to singing societies or representative members have been found. In the letter Beethoven suggests that owing to the cost of copying, etc., the price be 50 ducats—just as much as he had asked of his royal subscribers for the full orchestral score. None of the projects came to execution, though the first, which lay close to Beethoven’s heart, came up for attention at a later date.

Towards the end of September, Johann Stumpff, a native of Thuringia but a resident of London, was among the visitors at Baden who were admitted to intimate association with Beethoven. This was another Stumpff, not the one who came to Vienna in 1818 with a letter from Thomas Broadwood, and who tuned the new English pianoforte. He was a manufacturer of harps and an enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven’s music. Anticipating a meeting with the composer, he had provided himself with a letter of introduction to Haslinger, whose help to that end he asked. He had also gotten a letter from Streicher, whose acquaintance he had made in London. He accomplished his end and wrote a long and enthusiastic account of his intercourse with Beethoven at Baden, whither Haslinger had accompanied him on his first visit.[120] He was received by Beethoven with extraordinary cordiality. The composer accepted an invitation to dinner, entertained his host at dinner in return, played for him on his Broadwood pianoforte (after Stein, at Stumpff’s request, had restored its ruins), and at parting gave him a print of one of his portraits and promised to alight at his house if ever he came to London. Much of his conversation, which Stumpff records, is devoted to a condemnation of the frivolity and bad musical taste of the Viennese, and excessive laudation of everything English. “Beethoven,” Stumpff remarks, “had an exaggerated opinion of London and its highly cultured inhabitants,” and he quotes Beethoven as saying: “England stands high in culture. In London everybody knows something and knows it well; but the man of Vienna can only talk of eating and drinking, and sings and pounds away at music of little significance or of his own making.” He spoke a great deal about sending his nephew to London to make a man of him, asked questions about the cost of living there and, in short, gave proof that an English visit was filling a large part of his thoughts. The incidents of the conclusion of the dinner which he gave to Stumpff may be told in the latter’s words:

Stumpff relates that Beethoven’s brother, who came into the room during his visit, seemed glad to greet him and begged him most amiably to call on him, as he desired to talk with him about a number of things. In saying farewell Beethoven accompanied him to the door and said: “That is my brother—have nothing to do with him—he is not an honest man. You will hear me accused of many wrong actions of which he has been guilty.” Stumpff returned to London on December 6. He fulfilled his vow touching the gift of Handel’s works two years later.

On November 17, 1824, as the autograph attests, Beethoven wrote a four-part canon on the words “Schwenke dich ohne SchwÄnke,” which he sent to Schott and Sons for publication in the “CÄcilia,” where it appeared in April, 1825. There the title is “Canon on one who was called Schwenke.” The person whose name has thus been perpetuated was Carl Schwenke, son of Christian Friedrich Gottlieb Schwenke, Director of Church Music and Cantor at the Johanneum in Hamburg. Of the acquaintanceship between Beethoven and him, the canon is the only relic.

In the latter part of the summer Beethoven accepted a commission from Diabelli for “a Sonata in F for pianoforte, four hands.” The project seems to have originated with the publisher, who asked for such a composition and specified the key in a letter dated August 7, 1824. Beethoven waited a fortnight before replying and then agreed to compose the work for a fee of 80 ducats in gold, although a sonata for four hands was not in his line. He mentioned the composition and the fee which he was to receive for it in the draft for a letter to Schlesinger next year, but never wrote the work; nor have any certain traces of it been found in the sketchbooks.

There is only one other work which calls for attention as having largely occupied Beethoven’s mind this year. It is the Quartet for Strings in E-flat, Op. 127. When Beethoven in January, 1823, accepted the invitation of Prince Galitzin to write three quartets for him, he had for some time been contemplating a return to the field which he had cultivated so successfully but had permitted to lie fallow after the completion of the quartet in F minor, Op. 95, in October, 1810. He had held out a promise for speedy delivery of a quartet to Peters on June 5, 1822, but Peters declined the work in his next letter. Galitzin sent the stipulated fee of 50 ducats promptly to his bankers in Vienna, but subsequently yielded to Beethoven’s request and permitted the money to be applied to his subscription for the Mass. On March 10, 1824, Beethoven offered “a new quartet” to Schott and Sons for 50 ducats and the publishers promptly notified their acceptance of the offer to him. Neate was informed by a letter dated March 19 that the Quartet was finished; but, as usual, the word was used in a Pickwickian sense. The correspondence with Schott and Sons sings the same tune with respect to the Quartet that it does regarding Mass and Symphony. On May 20 Beethoven cannot positively promise it; on July 3 he is sure that the publishers will receive it in six weeks; on September 17 the time of delivery is postponed to the middle of October; in November to the beginning of December; and on December 17 he says there is still something to be written on it. All the works which Schott and Sons have bought are to be delivered at one time, yet when they receive the Mass and Symphony on January 16, 1825, the Quartet is withheld but promised in another week, and, after a month has passed, in still another week. The Quartet is performed for the first time by Schuppanzigh on March 6, 1825. At last Beethoven writes to Schott and Sons on May 7, 1825: “You will have received the Quartet by this time—it is the one promised to you.” In March, 1826, its publication is announced in the “CÄcilia.” The autograph of the first movement is dated “1824” and no doubt the bulk of the work upon it was done in the latter part of the year, though it must have existed at least in a fragmentary form in Beethoven’s head when he wrote to Neate in March that it was finished.

At the close of the year Beethoven’s nephew Karl is still pursuing his philological studies at the university and living with his uncle. During the summer his holidays are spent in the country with Beethoven, to whom he is the cause of no little anxiety, especially when towards the end of the year he repeats his youthful escapade of running away from home. Beethoven, thinking of his foster-child’s welfare and apparently made ill at ease by symptoms which made him apprehend that he was likely to die suddenly of an apoplectic stroke (“like my good grandfather, whom I resemble,” he wrote), sent a letter to Dr. Bach on August 1, begging him to draw up a formal will and reiterating his intention to make his nephew inheritor of all his property. He also directed: “As it is customary to make a bequest to relatives even if they are in no wise related,” that his French pianoforte be given to his brother. “As regards Steiner, let him be content with the assurance that he shall be paid in full by the end of September—for if anything comes of the Mayence business it will not be before then and the first 600 florins must go to two of the noblest of mankind who, when I was almost helpless, most kindly and disinterestedly came to my assistance with this sum.” No doubt the Brentanos were meant; Steiner had evidently been dunning him for the old debt.

About the beginning of November, Beethoven returned again to Vienna, where he took up a new residence—probably at No. 969 Johannesgasse, a house owned by a family named Kletschka. He did not remain there long, however, as the other tenants complained of his pianoforte playing and the disturbance caused by his quarrels with his nephew and the housekeeper. He received notice to quit and removed, presumably, to apartments in the second storey of a house in the KrÜgerstrasse, now known as No. 13.

Thoughts of a visit to England had been revived early in the year by a letter from Neate and, while the plans of the concert were making, it had been determined, so far as it was possible to do so, that the visit should be undertaken in the fall and that Schindler should accompany him. This is the key to Schindler’s forceful observation after the financial fiasco of the concert. A second letter bearing on the subject was written by Neate on December 20. Consideration of it belongs in the next chapter.