Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (165 page)

20. Robinson,
Ludwig van Beethoven
, 2.

21. Dean, “Beethoven and Opera,” 29.

22. Thayer/Forbes, 1:346.

23. The influence of Cherubini on Beethoven's theatrical style was noted by critics of the time, including E. T. A. Hoffmann.

24. Dean, “Beethoven and Opera,” 32–33.

25. Thayer/Forbes, 1:381.

26. Wyn Jones,
Symphony
, 164.

27. Clive,
Beethoven and His World
, 342; Thayer/Forbes, 1:345.

28. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 88.

29. Thayer/Forbes, 1:352.

30. Senner,
Critical
Reception
, 1:190–92; Wallace,
Beethoven's Critics
, 11.

31. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
Compendium
, 137.

32. Wegeler/Ries, 68.

33. Solomon,
Beethoven
, 176.

34. The article “Napoleon's Coronation as Emperor of the French,” on the Georgian Index, at
http://www.georgianindex.net/Napoleon/coronation/coronation.html
, notes that Charlemagne's actual crown had been destroyed in the Revolution, so a new one was made in medieval style for the coronation.

35. Nicholls,
Napoleon
, 271–72.

36. Ibid., 58–60.

37. Thayer/Forbes, 1:355–56. Sketches for opp. 54 and 57 are shuffled into work on the opera.

38. Scholars have tended to brush aside the Triple Concerto, or to lavish on it assorted patronizing japes. Leon Plantinga calls it “an interlude in the French manner,” Lewis Lockwood a “curiously passive work,” Joseph Kerman a “Cinderella and ugly duckling.” There is little question that it is uneven, discursive, and stylistically anomalous. It is also too attractive, expressive, and generally interesting to deserve its neglect. Recall that when seen in a good light, Cinderella was also attractive, expressive, and interesting. The reliably unreliable Schindler said that the concerto was written for and premiered by Archduke Rudolph, but that Beethoven pupil was only sixteen when it was written and probably had not yet started taking lessons.

39. Thayer/Forbes, 1:352.

40. The two letters quoted are Anderson, vol. 1, nos. 93 and 94.

41. Ibid., no. 98.

42. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 90.

43. Thayer/Forbes, 1:356–57.

44. Wyn Jones,
Symphony
, 167. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:16n3, has a different chronology.

45. Thayer/Forbes, 1:350n9.

46. Ibid., 373.

47. Wegeler/Ries, 68–69.

48. Ibid., 104–6.

49. Rolland,
Beethoven the Creator
, 264.

50. Marek,
Beethoven
, 95.

51. Klapproth,
Beethoven's Only Beloved
, 22–23.

52. Clive,
Beethoven and His World
, 62; Anderson, vol. 1, no. 97n4.

53. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 97.

54. Thayer/Forbes, 1:358.

55. Quoted in Klapproth,
Beethoven's Only Beloved
, 21. Klapproth points out that Therese was in fact not beautiful and knew it; her “we” probably shows her intense closeness to Josephine, to whom she devoted herself.

56. Thayer/Forbes, 1:359.

57. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 103.

58. MacArdle, “Family van Beethoven,” 537.

59. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 146–47.

60. Thayer/Forbes, 1:377.

61. As Wyn Jones details in
The Symphony
, 167–68, the tryouts of the
Eroica
Lobkowitz arranged are not entirely documented, and Beethoven was not present at private performances of the piece Lobkowitz arranged in Bohemia—which the prince could arrange at will, since by contract he owned the piece for some months. Later he temporarily owned the Fifth and Six Symphonies.

62. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 98.

63. Landon,
Beethoven
, 97.

64. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 1:168.

65. Thayer/Forbes, 1:375.

66. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:15–16.

67. Ibid., 2:17.

68. Thayer/Forbes, 1:376.

69. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:18.

70. Ibid., 2:19.

71. Ibid., 2:20–24.

72. Ibid., 2:32–33.

73. Ibid., 2:35–36.

74. Ibid., 2:37.

 

19. Our Hearts Were Stirred

 

1. Beahrs, “Immortal Beloved,” 67. Beahrs and Klapproth (
Beethoven's Only Beloved
) believe Josephine Deym to be the “Immortal Beloved.”

2. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 110, some paragraph breaks added. The exact dates of their letters in this period are uncertain. As will be noted again later, the tone of Beethoven's letters to Josephine Deym in this period is close to that of the later letter to the “Immortal Beloved”—except that here he uses the formal
Sie
for “you” and in the I. B. letter he uses the intimate
du
.

3. Ibid., no. 112.

4. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 99.

5. Beahrs, “Immortal Beloved,” 67. Beahrs and Klapproth call Josephine's words of this time love letters—something of a stretch.

6. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 100. Beahrs (“Immortal Beloved,” 66) questions Thayer's translation of Josephine's
heilige Bande
as “holy vows.” She suggests “solemn obligations,” referring to her children, and I have used that. A more literal translation is “sacred ties”—also likely referring to her children, who would lose their aristocratic privileges if she married a commoner. In any case, as Beahrs points out, Thayer was far off the mark when he suggested Josephine had taken some kind of vow of chastity. She bore at least two children out of wedlock.

7. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 102. None in this exchange of letters between Beethoven and Deym of ca. spring 1805 have dates, the exact succession is conjectural, some letters exist in fragments, and likely some have been lost.

8. Ibid., no. 164.

9. Thayer/Forbes, 1:379.

10. B. Cooper,
Creative Process
, 51.

11. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:170.

12. Winter and Martin, “Quartets,” 35.

13. Rosen,
Classical Style
, 143.

14. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 104.

15. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 118.

16. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:224.

17. Thayer/Forbes, 1:400.

18. Franz Grillparzer reported that at the meeting, “Beethoven was full of attention and respect toward Cherubini” (quoted in Landon,
Beethoven
, 201).

19. Czerny,
Proper Performance
, 15.

20. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 119.

21. Landon,
Beethoven
unabridged, 202. This account from a Ries letter of roughly that time to critic and poet Heinrich Rellstab is significantly different from, and less dramatic than, the well-known later account in Ries's memoirs. I trust this one more because it was closer to the event (though Landon's date of 1804 for the letter is approximate).

22. Some details about the
Appassionata:
Like
The
Tempest
, the
Waldstein
, the Fifth Symphony, and other of Beethoven's most overwhelming pieces, the
Appassionata
is tight in material and taut in construction—powerful emotion under relentless control. As in the
Waldstein
, in this sonata sonority is tied to structure: each section is defined not only by its material but also by a distinctive color and texture. Performances on period pianos reveal how much the music was inspired by the contrasts in registers of those pianos, from booming low to silvery high (see Swafford, “In Search”). In general, the pianism here is as radically new as in the
Waldstein
. In regard to form, technically speaking, the A-flat-major and A-flat-minor themes are both part of the second group, but I think in practice there is a sense of three themes (the A-flat-major being a late addition). By this sonata the Neapolitan chord has been decisively promoted from a local harmonic event to a full-fledged motif: the beginning idea in F minor is immediately repeated in the Neapolitan key of G-flat. That in turn is linked to the D-flat–C tattoo, which implies N of V. The hopeful moments in the outer movements tend to be extinguished in one way or another. An example is the A-flat-major second theme from m. 35; at the point when we expect a firm cadence, it strays into N at m. 42, followed by an E-flat seventh that resolves not to A-flat major but, at length, into the driving A-flat-minor theme at m. 51. It is often noticed that the four-note tattoo here is the same as the one in the Fifth Symphony; in both cases it has a fateful cast. Recall Ries's experience hearing Beethoven working on bits of the finale, improvising variations. That process seems to me to persist in the final version, which is virtually monothematic, the “whirlwind” idea constantly varied and redefined, as if the finale were in part about the process of composition itself. Finally, in material and tone there are interesting links from the
Appassionata
to two other well-known works: Beethoven's String Quartet in F Minor, op. 90, and Brahms's Piano Quintet in F Minor (the latter is Brahms's response, I think, to both the
Appassionata
and op. 90).

23. This is Donald Francis Tovey's memorable phrase for the
Appassionata
finale.

24. Hearing the
Appassionata
recorded by Stephen Porter on an 1827 Graf instrument from the Frederick Historic Piano Collection is unforgettable—in how the music utilizes the distinctive registers of the Viennese pianos of that time (lost on modern pianos), and in how the ending seems almost like an assault on the instrument, which struggles to contain the music.

25. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:168.

26. Thayer/Forbes, 1:380.

27. Heinrich Heine, quoted in Knight,
Beethoven
, 61. Napoleonic-era military garb, up to the plumed shakoes, survives in the uniforms of American marching bands. (The word for the hat came from the Hungarian
csákó
, “peaked cap.”)

28. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 121.

29. Hill,
Ferdinand Ries
, 23; Thayer/Forbes, 1:382.

30. Wegeler/Ries, 90.

31. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 125.

32. Wyn Jones,
Life of Beethoven
, 87.

33. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 105.

34. Ibid., no. 110.

35. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 124. “Colic” means fits of vomiting.

36. Knight,
Beethoven
, 62.

37. Landon,
Beethoven
, 107.

38. Knight,
Beethoven
, 61–62.

39. Thayer/Forbes, 1:384.

40. Ibid., 1:383. When Milder sang for Haydn in her teens, he exclaimed, “My dear child! You have a voice like a house!” It is reported that her age and inexperience showed at the premiere, but she later became a splendid Leonore.

41. Wyn Jones,
Life of Beethoven
, 89.

42. For a view of the final version of
Leonore
/
Fidelio
, see chapter 26. The overture for the original production was the one later known as
Leonore
No. 2. There is no surviving full score of the opera's first version.

43. Wegeler/Ries, 59–60.

44. Wyn Jones,
Life of
Beethoven
, 90.

45. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:231.

46. Ibid., 2:173.

47. Thayer/Forbes, 1:399.

48. Joseph Röckel, cited in Landon,
Beethoven
, 107–8, and in Sonneck,
Beethoven
, 60–64. These are two accounts by Röckel that differ in details. I am mainly relying on the fuller account in Sonneck.

49. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 128.

50. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 153.

51. Czerny,
Proper Performance
, 14.

52. Röckel, in Sonneck,
Beethoven
, 64–65.

53. Senner,
Critical Reception
, 2:178.

54. Knight,
Beethoven
, 65.

55. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 130.

56. Robinson,
Ludwig van Beethoven
, 27–28.

57. Sonneck,
Beethoven
, 66–67.

58. Albrecht, vol. 1, no. 116.

59. Rev. Christian Sturm, quoted in Thayer/Forbes, 1:391–92. Though in theory Beethoven did not believe in miracles or a God who intervened to change our lives, he was at least as inconsistent as most people in the details of his beliefs. In any case, these words come from Sturm, not Beethoven.

60. Thayer/Forbes, 1:399.

61. Ibid., 1:408.

62. Ibid., 1:400.

63. Winter and Martin, “Quartets,” 36.

64. Thayer/Forbes, 1:401.

65. Specht's characterization (
Beethoven as He Lived
, 146).

66. Landon,
Beethoven
, 112.

67. Specht,
Beethoven as He Lived
, 147.

68. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 132. As is noted earlier, Beethoven apparently began the first Razumovsky at the end of May 1806. He declared it finished to Härtel at the beginning of July—which was not likely.

69. B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 158.

70. Clive,
Beethoven and His World
, 252.

71. Anderson, vol. 1, no. 125.

72. Ibid., no. 178. Oppersdorff was present for the blowup at Lichnowsky's in autumn 1806.

73. Various versions of the story are found in Thayer/Forbes, 1:403; and Landon,
Beethoven
, 115–18. The servant's story appears in Specht,
Beethoven as He Lived
, 20; Solomon,
Beethoven
, 190; and B. Cooper,
Beethoven
, 159.

74. Clive,
Beethoven and His World
, 365–66.

75. Quoted in Stowell,
Beethoven
, 22.

76. Ibid., 6–10; Schwartz, “French Violin School,” 432, 446.

77. Winds are used prominently in the Violin Concerto, often scored with oboes rather than flute on top, producing a distinctively eighteenth-century sound.