Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (157 page)

37. Thayer/Forbes, 1:120.

38. Translation of the cantata text is on the website of the Raptus Association for Music Appreciation,
http://www.raptusassociation.org/cantatas.html
.

39. Brahms, when he examined the
Joseph
Cantata after its rediscovery in the 1880s, exclaimed in one of the most rhapsodic passages in all his letters, “Even if there were no name on the title page none other could be conjectured!—It is Beethoven through and through! The beautiful and noble pathos, sublime in its feeling and imagination, the intensity, perhaps violent in its expression, moreover the voice leading and declamation, and in the two outside sections all the characteristics which we may observe and associate with his later works” (quoted in Thayer/Forbes, 1:120). All the same, Brahms went on to say that he believed the cantata, because of its youthful excesses, should not be published.

40. Of the beginning of the
Joseph
Cantata, Barry Cooper writes, in
Beethoven
, 28, “No previous composer had exploited register as a compositional parameter to anything like the same extent, and the opening bars . . . provide a highly prophetic and striking example of his use of the technique.”

41. In
The Classical Style
, 96, Charles Rosen makes the point that the style of the period of Haydn and Mozart was closer to comedy than tragedy: “The classical style . . . was, in its origins, basically a comic one . . . the pacing of classical rhythm is the pacing of comic opera, its phrasing is the phrasing of dance music, and its large structures are these phrases dramatized.”

42. The chromaticism of the
Joseph
Cantata is complex and rambling, though mostly theoretically correct. It is based less on chromatic voice leading than on a steady diet of rapid modulation, altered chords, diminished sevenths, and the like. In other words, in the cantata Beethoven is thinking from chord to chord. Later, after he had studied counterpoint, he thought in terms of lines, which produce the harmony.

 

8. Stem and Book

 

1. Albrecht, vol. 1, nos. 10–11.

2. Thayer/Forbes, 1:111.

3. Mai,
Diagnosing Genius
, 20, notes that the apparent smallpox scars on Beethoven's face as an adult might have been from acne.

4. See the entry on Eulogius Schneider in the
Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon
, at
http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/s/s1/schneider_eu.shtml
. It is not recorded whether Beethoven knew Schneider personally, but it seems likely that they met and even lifted a glass together in the small confines of Bonn, where nearly everybody artistic and politically progressive frequented the Zehrgarten.

5. Quoted in the
Wikipedia
entry for Eulogius Schneider, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulogius_Schneider
.

6. Sipe,
Beethoven
, 3.

7. Saint-Just and Lebas, quoted in the
Wikipedia
entry for Eulogius Schneider, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulogius_Schneider
.

8. Joseph Haydn, quoted in Gartenberg,
Vienna
, 46.

9. Landon,
Haydn
, 62.

10. Wyn Jones,
Life of Beethoven
, 20. Thayer/Forbes called March 6 Karneval Sunday, Schiedermair called it Shrove Tuesday. In fact it was a Friday.

11. Quoted in Thayer/Forbes, 1:98.

12. Maybe most startling of the Beethoven thumbprints in the
Righini
Variations is variation no. 4, its train of trills resembling the shimmering, uncanny textures in the late piano sonatas. The fading-into-the-distance ending sounds like a sketch for the coda of the first movement of the
Lebewohl
Sonata of nearly twenty years later. The contrapuntal variation no. 7 recalls his ongoing experience with Bach's
Well-Tempered Clavier
.

13. Thayer/Forbes, 1:125, notes that Czerny recalled that Beethoven used the
Righini
s to introduce himself in Vienna, which suggests that Beethoven intended them for a personal showpiece.

14. In 1809 Napoleon officially dissolved the Teutonic Knights and distributed their land to his allies, though the order lingered on.

15. The accounts of the trip are in Thayer/Forbes, 1:101–5; Wegeler/Ries, 23–24; and the Simrock account in Landon,
Beethoven
unabridged, 51. For his not being impressed, see the subsequent Junker account in the text.

16. Schiedermair, 213.

17. Nikolaus Simrock, quoted in Thayer/Forbes, 1:106.

18. Karl Ludwig Junker, quoted in Schiedermair, 90.

19. Ibid., 88–89; translation in Scherman and Biancolli, 30–31.

20. B. Cooper,
Beethoven Compendium
, 13.

21. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 36–37.

22. Landon,
Haydn
, 73.

23. Schloßmacher, “Die Redoute in Bad Godesberg,” 108. Schloßmacher points out that the details of Haydn and Beethoven's encounters in Bonn are hazy, including whether they met at the beginning or end of Haydn's trip to England, and what music Beethoven showed Haydn. (Wegeler/Ries say it included one of the
Imperial
Cantatas.) Most scholars vote for the meeting on Haydn's return, because it had dramatic effects that were not seen earlier. The usual surmise is that of the cantatas it was most likely the
Joseph
that Beethoven showed Haydn, because he would have known it was the stronger of the two works, and its chief glory is the opening movement: he wanted to put his best foot forward. Schloßmacher notes that the Elector, who was fond of Godesberg, bought a house there and gave it to Count Waldstein as a sign of his favor and affection. Eventually, court concertmaster Franz Ries had a house on the main street; his son Ferdinand, Beethoven's pupil, retired there.

24. From Fischenich letter in Thayer/Forbes, 1:121.

25. Friedenthal,
Goethe
, 313.

26. The Beethovenhaus publication of the Beethoven
Stammbuch
(Braubach,
Die Stammbücher
) includes the one made for Babette Koch, which has far more and warmer entries than Beethoven's, each enlivened by a silhouette of the writer perhaps made by Babette. Given that the entries in the Beethoven
Stammbuch
are fewer and that some of his closest friends and mentors do not appear, I suspect the book was a last-minute affair at the time. Still, Beethoven thought enough of the
Stammbuch
to preserve it, in quite good condition.

27. Translations from Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 13 and 13n. Descriptions are based on Beethoven's
Stammbuch
in Braubach,
Die Stammbücher
.

28. Mark Evan Bonds, cited in Sisman, “Spirit of Mozart,” 311n16.

29. Wetzstein/Fischer, 118.

30. Bartolomäus Ludwig Fischenich, quoted in Thayer/Forbes, 1:121.

31. Thayer/Forbes, 1:113.

 

9. Unreal City

 

1. Quoted in Knight,
Beethoven
, 24.

2. Wetzstein/Fischer, 124n456; Thayer/Forbes, 1:115–17; Guzmer,
Chronik der Stadt Bonn
, 84.

3. Thayer/Forbes, 1:258.

4. Specht,
Beethoven as He Lived
, 21.

5. Thayer/Forbes, 1:135.

6. Brion,
Daily Life
, 9.

7. Barry Cooper's
Beethoven
Compendium
, 69, notes that the average income for a middle-class bachelor in Vienna in 1804 was 967 florins for basics, around 1,200 with luxuries and amusements. In calculating the practical value of Beethoven's earnings in this period, I'm assuming a round 1,000 florins as a minimal workable middle-class income.

8. Thayer/Forbes, 1:135 and 137.

9. As a doctor, Davies, in
Character of a Genius
, 14, interprets Johann's death as most likely alcoholic cardiomyopathy, though it could have been cirrhosis of the liver.

10. Wetzstein/Fischer, 132.

11. Thayer/Forbes, 1:136.

12. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 14.

13. Quoted in Kaufmann, “Architecture and Sculpture,” 146.

14. Marek,
Beethoven
, 194.

15. Knight,
Beethoven
, 33; Erickson, “Vienna,” 16.

16. Landon,
Beethoven
, 67.

17. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 12.

18. Gartenberg,
Vienna
, 69.

19. Aldrich, “Social Dancing,” passim.

20. Solomon,
Beethoven
, 124.

21. Marek,
Beethoven
, 89.

22. Madame de Staël, quoted in Lockwood,
Beethoven: Music
, 77.

23. Quoted in Knight,
Beethoven
, 26–27.

24. Quoted in Solomon,
Beethoven
, 124.

25. Quoted in Landon,
Beethoven
unabridged, 52.

26. Solomon,
Beethoven
, 78.

27. Pestelli,
Age of Mozart and Beethoven
, 114.

28. Quoted in Biba, “Concert Life,” 78.

29. Marek,
Beethoven
, 94. The statue of Schikaneder as Papageno remains today above the entrance of the Theater an der Wien.

30. Lockwood,
Beethoven: Music
, 74.

31. Landon,
Beethoven
unabridged, 52–53.

32. Geiringer,
Haydn
, 58 and 65; Raynor,
Social History
, 312.

33. Leopold Mozart, quoted in Scherer,
Quarter Notes
, 107.

 

10. Chains of Craftsmanship

 

1. Thayer/Forbes, 1:138.

2. DeNora,
Beethoven
, 96.

3. Copying music of other composers was a common way of studying in those days, as was demonstrated by J. S. Bach's copying and arranging of Vivaldi—which also handily produced scores to be used in performance. Among a great number of pieces, Beethoven twice copied out the contrapuntal development in Haydn's Symphony No. 99 (Walter, “Die biographischen Beziehungen,” 116).

4. In various adaptations, the study of species counterpoint flourishes to this day in schools of music. For aspiring composers, it remains as difficult and as stimulating as ever.

5. Walter, “Die biographischen Beziehungen,” 116.

6. Geiringer,
Haydn
, 121.

7. Ibid., 131.

8. Thayer/Forbes, 1:138.

9. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 44; Webster, “Falling-Out,” 11–14. Cooper writes that it has not been determined who made the corrections on Beethoven's exercises, Haydn or somebody else, but most people assume the corrections are Haydn's. Later, Anton Schindler colluded with Schenk in the story, including forging entries about it in Beethoven's conversation books.

10. Walter, “Die biographischen Beziehungen,” 116. Haydn did take a break from Eisenstadt in August; he and Beethoven may have gotten together then.

11. Solomon,
Beethoven
, 92.

12. Ibid., 89.

13. Anderson,
Mozart's Letters
, 169. One of the pianos in that duel was lent to Mozart by his friend Countess Thun, mother of Princess Christiane Lichnowsky.

14. Quoted in DeNora,
Beethoven
, 119–20. The Gelinek–Beethoven duel is generally agreed to have taken place in 1793, but the chronology of Gelinek's encounter is muddled in the elder Czerny's recall. He has Gelinek saying Beethoven was already a protégé of Karl Lichnowsky and had already studied with Johann Albrechtsberger. It's possible the duel took place later, but after 1793 it's hard to imagine Gelinek would not have known about Beethoven. Carl Czerny would have been told the story by his father years later; in 1793, the younger Czerny was only two.

15. Irmen, “Beethoven, Bach,” 32. A French visitor, quoted in Landon,
Beethoven
unabridged, 68, notes his surprise to find that Lichnowsky, along with much of the high nobility in Austria, was sympathetic to the French Revolution.

16. Thayer/Forbes, 1:157.

17. Quoted in Marek,
Beethoven
, 107.

18. Irmen, “Beethoven, Bach,” 32.

19. Wegeler/Ries, 33–34.

20. Landon,
Beethoven
, 46.

21. DeNora,
Beethoven
, 200n2.

22. Landon,
Beethoven
unabridged, 67.

23. Wegeler/Ries, 35–36.

24. Ibid., 32.

25. Thayer/Forbes, 1:220–22 and 262.

26. Irmen, “Beethoven, Bach,” 40–41.

27. Solomon,
Beethoven
, 81.

28. Irmen, “Beethoven, Bach,” 44.

29. Ibid., 40.

30. Thayer/Forbes, 1:157.

31. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 18.

32. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 7.

33. Ibid., no. 9.

34. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 16. Which pieces Beethoven sent to Bonn are uncertain, and the Oboe Concerto has not survived. The “Parthie” was probably the minor Wind Octet eventually published as op. 103. Haydn's citing the opinion of “connoisseurs and nonconnoisseurs” reflects the attitude of his time, that music should be written to appeal to all levels of taste and knowledge.

35. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 17.

36. This point is made in Webster, “Falling-Out,” 22. The gist of that article is that there is no reliable evidence for any significant break between Haydn and Beethoven, though Webster concedes that there was unquestionably tension and rivalry between them.

37. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 52. Beethoven jotted down this comment, which may have come from Haydn.

38. Ibid., 50.

39. Ibid., 50–51.

40. Kirkendale, “Great Fugue,” 17. Kirkendale compares Beethoven's
Grosse Fuge
to Bach's
Art of Fugue
, which is also a compendium of fugal devices, such as combining a fugue subject with its mirror image and with faster and slower forms of itself.

41. Solomon,
Beethoven
, 98.

42. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 4.

43. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 49.

44. Quoted in ibid., 51.

 

11. Generalissimo