Part 12

His friend and pupil, the Archduke Rudolph, was appointed Archbishop of Olmütz in 1818, and Beethoven began in the autumn a grand Mass for the Installation. The ceremony was in March, 1820; the Mass was not finished until 1822; it was published in 1827, and there were seven subscribers at about $115 a copy; among them were the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the King of France. The summer and autumn of 1818 and '19 were spent at Mödling in the composition of the Mass, relieved only by anxious thoughts about his nephew. Sketches for the 9th symphony date back to 1817, and the theme of the scherzo is found in 1815. This colossal work was in his mind together with a tenth, which should be choral in the adagio and the finale, even when he wrote the overture in C for the opening of the Josephstadt Theatre in Vienna and watched with fiery eyes Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, the Leonora of the revival in 1822. In this same year Rossini, sweeping all before him, visited Vienna, and tried to call on Beethoven. According to Azevedo the interview was painful between the young man flushed with success and the deaf and "almost blind" composer of the Heroic Symphony. But Schindler affirms that Beethoven succeeded in escaping the visits. The operatic triumphs of Rossini and the thought of the Schröder-Devrient again led him to meditate opera. There were discussions concerning music to Goethe's "Faust," not in set operatic form, but incidental airs, choruses, symphonic pieces and melodrama. In June, 1823, he was hard at work on the Ninth Symphony. He passed whole days in the open air at Hetzendorf, but his host, a baron, was too obsequiously civil, and he moved to Baden, where in the fall he received a visit from Weber. The Philharmonic Society of London in 1822 passed a resolution offering Beethoven £50 for a MS. symphony; the money was advanced, and the work was to be delivered in the March following. Ries was in London in the fall of 1823, and in September he heard from Beethoven that the manuscript was finished, nevertheless there was additional work on it after the return to Vienna; and according to Wilder, who quotes Schindler, the finale was not written until Beethoven was in his new lodgings in town, and the use of the voices in Schiller's Ode was then first definitely determined, although the intention was of earlier date.

The Italians still tickled the ears of the Viennese, who apparently cared not for German music, vocal or instrumental. Beethoven looked toward Berlin as the city where his solemn Mass and Ninth Symphony (in spite of his arrangement with the Philharmonic society of London) should be produced, and he negotiated with Count Brühl. This drove finally the noble friends of Beethoven in Vienna to send him an address praying him to allow the first production of these new works to be in the city in which he lived. Beethoven was moved deeply; he found the address "noble and great." There were the unfortunate misunderstandings that accompany so often such an occasion. Beethoven was suspicious, the manager of the Kärnthnerthor theatre where the concert was given was greedy, and the music perplexed the singers and the players. Sontag and Ungher, who sang the female solo parts, begged him to change certain passages, but he would not listen to them. The 7th of May, 1824, the theatre was crowded, with the exception of the Imperial box; no one of the Imperial family was present, no one sent a ducat to the composer. The program was as follows: Overture in C (Op. 124); the Kyrie, Credo, Agnus and Dona Nobis of the mass in D arranged in the form of three hymns and sung in German, on account of the interference of the Censure, as the word "mass" could not appear on a theatre program; the Ninth Symphony. The public enthusiasm was extraordinary. As Beethoven could not hear the plaudits Caroline Ungher took him by the shoulders and turned him about that he might see the waving of hats and the beating together of hands. He bowed, and then the storm of applause was redoubled. After the expenses of the concert there were about 400 florins for Beethoven--about $200. The concert was repeated and the manager guaranteed 500 florins. The hall was half-empty. The composer was angry; he at first refused to accept the guarantee; and he accused his friends whom he had invited to eat with him of conspiring to cheat him.

[Illustration: LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

From a lithographic reproduction of a painting made by Stieler, in April, 1820.]

[Illustration: BEETHOVEN'S STUDIO

In the Schwarz-Spanier house. From an engraving by G. Leybold of a drawing made three days after his death.]

Meanwhile his nephew, for whom he was willing to make any sacrifice and for whose benefit he labored incessantly and sold his manuscripts, neglected his studies and became an expert at the game of billiards. On the return of Beethoven from Baden to Vienna in 1824, the nephew entered the University as a student of philology; he failed in a subsequent examination; he thought of trade; he failed in an examination for admission into the Polytechnic school; and although in despair he pulled the triggers of two pistols which he had applied to his head, he failed to kill himself. He then fell into the hands of the police, was ordered out of Vienna, and joined the Austrian army. After he was obliged to quit Vienna, the uncle and the nephew in 1826 lived with Johann at Gneixendorf. The surroundings were dreary; the stingy sister-in-law of Beethoven refused him a fire; the brother found that he must charge him for board and lodging; and the nephew was insolent. He left the house in an open chaise and caught a cold which settled in his abdomen. The result of the journey was a sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs and dropsy. For the sake of his nephew Beethoven offered his manuscripts to publishers. Schott bought the Mass in D for 1,000 florins and the Ninth Symphony for 600 florins. A young man named Holtz helped the composer in his business calculations and gained a strange influence over him; he even induced him to abandon occasionally his customary sobriety. And yet these days of business and anxiety saw the composition of the last Quartets. Prince Nicholas de Galitzin of Saint Petersburg begged three string-quartets with dedications from him; he wrote to him in flattering terms; he named his bankers. Beethoven fixed the price at $115 a quartet. The Prince acknowledged the receipt of two (E-flat Op. 127 and A minor Op. 132) and regretted his delay in answering; "I now live in the depths of Russia and in a few days I shall go to Persia to fight." He promised again to send the money. Beethoven never received it, and the quartets were sold to publishers. The third, B-flat Op. 130, originally ended with a long fugue which was afterward published separately, and the new finale was written at the dreary house of his brother, where he also finished the quartet in F.

[Illustration: THE "SCHWARZ-SPANIER" HOUSE, IN VIENNA, IN WHICH BEETHOVEN DIED.

From a photograph.]

When he arrived at Vienna in December, 1826, he went immediately to bed in his lodgings in the Schwarzspanierhaus. He had dismissed rudely two eminent physicians who had treated him for a former illness, and they would not now attend him. His nephew, who was charged with the errand of finding a doctor, played billiards and forgot the condition of his uncle, so that two days went by without medical assistance. Finally Dr. Andreas Wawruch was told by a billiard-marker of the suffering of the sick man. He went to him and dosed him with decoctions. In a few days the patient was worse, in spite of the great array of empty bottles of medicine. Dropsy declared itself. He was tapped by Dr. Seibert, and during one of the operations he said, "I would rather see the water flow from my belly than from my pen." Schindler and Breuning came to his bedside, and with them young Gerhard Breuning, the son of Stephen. This lad now dwelled in the house with Beethoven as his constant companion. Dr. Malfatti was persuaded to forget his quarrels with the composer, and he consented to act in consultation with Dr. Wawruch. Beethoven saw his old friend gladly; but he would turn his back to Wawruch with the remark, "Oh, the ass!" Malfatti administered iced punch; for a short time the patient seemed stronger, and he talked of the 10th symphony. But in February, 1827, he was tapped for the fourth time; his aristocratic friends were forgetful of him, and even the Archduke Rudolph did not interest himself by cheap inquiry. In this same month Beethoven wrote to Moscheles and Sir George Smart telling them of his strait, and begging them to arrange for a concert for his benefit. All this time he had the seven bank shares of one thousand florins each that were found with the two mysterious love letters in a secret drawer of his writing desk, the day after his death; these shares he held for his scape-grace nephew, whom he made his sole heir, although by a codicil the capital was placed beyond his nephew's control. The Philharmonic Society promptly sent through Moscheles £100 on account of the future concert, and promised more if it were necessary. Unable to compose, Beethoven tried to read Sir Walter Scott's "Kenilworth," but he threw it aside and said, "The man writes only for money." He saw "the divine fire" in some of Schubert's songs. He wrote many letters, he arranged certain dedications of his works, and he found pleasure in a lithograph of Haydn's birthplace, and in a set of Handel's compositions in forty volumes, which had been given him. The Rhine wine that he had asked of Schott came too late. Hummel called on him in March and introduced his pupil Ferdinand Hiller. On the 19th of this month Beethoven felt the end, and he said to Breuning and Schindler, "_Plaudite, amici, comoedia finita est_." On the 23d he made with his own hand the codicil above mentioned. Several people called, among them Schubert, who saw him but could not speak with him. The last Sacraments of the Roman Catholic church were administered to the dying man the 24th. Then Beethoven wrestled with death until a quarter to six on the evening of the 26th, when he gave up the ghost. His sufferings were atrocious; the final agony was terrible. Just as he was delivered from his earthly ills a tempest, a great storm of hail and snow, burst over the roofs of Vienna. There was a dazzling flash of lightning; and the roaring thunder roused Beethoven. He pulled himself up in his bed, shook his fist at the sky, and fell back dead. Anselm Hüttenbrenner and the wife of Johann Beethoven were by his side.

The post mortem examination was made by Doctors Wagner and Rokitansky. Wagner cut and preserved the temporal muscles and the organs of hearing. The body was dressed and exposed in the room of the death. The lower jaw was not sustained, and the face with its long hair and its beard of three months' growth was savage.

The funeral was the 29th at three o'clock in the afternoon. It was attended by an immense crowd. Dr. Breuning estimated the number of persons on the glacis and in the neighboring streets at 20,000. The coffin was placed on the shoulders of eight members of the Imperial Opera. Eybler, Hummel, Kreutzer, Weigl, Gyrowetz, Seyfried, Gänsbacher and Würfel held the streamers of the canopy. There were thirty-two torch bearers, whose left arms were wrapped in crape ornamented by lilies and white roses. Among these torch bearers were Czerny, Schubert and the giant Lablache. At the head, after the crucifix, four trombone players marched, and played alternately with the singing of a choir of sixteen men the two Equali of the dead composer. The crowd that followed was so enormous that soldiers were summoned to force a way. The ceremonies were held at the Church of the Minorites, and the body was then put in a hearse which was drawn by four horses to the Währinger cemetery. The gate was reached at the falling of night, and the play-actor Anschütz delivered an address written by Grillparzer. Other poems were read and distributed. Flowers and laurel wreaths were heaped on the coffin when it was lowered to its resting place.

The 3d of April the furniture, clothes and the Graf and Broadwood pianofortes were sold at auction. The same day Mozart's Requiem was sung in the Hofpfarrkirche of the Augustines, and Lablache not only sang the solo bass but paid about $80 for the cost of the singers. In November the musical effects were sold at auction, and they brought about 1200 florins. The total amount of money then was about $5,000.

In 1863 the Gesellschaft der Musik-Freunde opened the tombs of Beethoven and Schubert and reburied their bodies in leaden coffins. The 21st of June, 1888, the body of Beethoven was removed from the Währinger cemetery and transferred to the central cemetery of Vienna at Simmering. A monument was raised in Bonn in 1845, chiefly through the generosity and enthusiasm of Liszt. It is by Höhnel, and it represents Beethoven standing, draped in a mantle. A colossal statue by Zurnbusch stands in one of the public places in Vienna, in front of the Academic Gymnasium.

[Illustration: BEETHOVEN'S TOMB IN VIENNA CEMETERY.

From a photograph.]

When the body of Beethoven was exhumed in 1863 an impression and a photograph of his skull were taken. The head was remarkable. The box of bone was unusually thick; the dimensions of the forehead were extraordinary; in height the forehead came next to that of Napoleon, and in breadth it surpassed it. His face was strong and sombre, and while it was not without ugliness, it was expressive. The head was built stoutly throughout. The complexion was red and highly accented; though Schindler tells us that it grew yellow in summer. The hair was thick and rebellious; it was originally black, and in later years turned white. He shaved cheeks, chin and upper lip, and he was as awkward as Lord Macaulay with a razor. The eyes were black, not large, and they shot forth a piercing flame when he was excited. The nose was thick; the jaw was broad; the mouth was firm, and with protruding lips; the teeth were white, well-shaped, and sound, and when he laughed he showed them freely; the square chin rested on a white cravat. The greater number of pictures of Beethoven are idealized. The most faithful likenesses are the miniature by Hornemann, taken in 1802, and sent by Beethoven to Breuning in token of reconciliation; the drawing by Letronne, a French artist who was in Vienna in 1814; and the portrait by Schimon in 1819. Two plaster masks were made; one by Klein in 1812; the other, a death-mask, by the sculptor Dannhauser, from which Fortuny made an etching.

Beethoven was below the middle height, not more than five feet five inches; he was broad-shouldered, sturdy, with legs like columns. He had hairy hands, short fingers, with square ends as though they had been chopped. His movements were without grace but they were marked by their quickness. He was awkward in holding playing cards; he dropped everything that he took in his hands. When he first went about in Vienna he dressed in the fashion, with silken stockings, a peruke, long boots and a sword. In later years he wore a blue or dark green coat with copper buttons, a white waistcoat and a white cravat; and he carried an eyeglass. His felt hat was on the back of his head so that it touched his coat collar, as in the sketch of him by Lyser. His hat was often shabby and it excited the attention of loungers as he amused himself by strolling aimlessly in the streets, and by peering into the shop windows. The skirts of the coat were heavy laden; there would be within them an ear-trumpet, a carpenter's pencil, a stitched-book for use in his written conversation, a thick blank-book in quarto form, in which he jotted down vagrant thoughts and musical ideas. A pocket handkerchief would hang down to the calves of his legs, and the pockets bulged until they showed the lining. He would walk in deep meditation; talk with himself; at times make extravagant gestures.

He was simple in certain ways, easily gulled; so absent-minded that he once forgot he was the owner of a horse. He could appreciate wit, although he preferred rough jokes and horse play. He enjoyed pranks at the expense of others. He threw eggs at his cook and poured the contents of dishes over the heads of waiters. He was often brutal and rude in his speech to unoffending friends and strangers. The reproach of his being absurdly suspicious may be laid perhaps to his deafness. The son of a drunkard, he was on the whole abstemious; at the tavern he would sit apart with a glass of beer and a long pipe, and there he would brood. Of restless nature, he shifted constantly his lodgings, often with a whimsical excuse. He was fond of washing himself. He ate greedily badly cooked food whenever it occurred to him that he was hungry; and his digestion suffered thereby. He was fond of a panada with fresh eggs, macaroni sprinkled thickly with cheese of Parma, and fish. His favorite drinks were cool and pure water, and coffee which he prepared in a glass machine with extreme care, with sixty beans in a cup. It is said that in later years his table manners were beyond endurance. When he tried housekeeping for the sake of his nephew he was in continual trouble with his servants. He had little or no sense of order.

[Illustration: LIFE MASK OF BEETHOVEN

Taken in 1812 by Franz Klein, Beethoven being then in his forty-second year. This mask and the bust made after it by the same artist (see page 341) are of the first importance in forming a correct judgment of the value of all portraits of Beethoven.]

But the life of Beethoven, the man, was not merely a chronicle of small-beer, a record of shifting of lodgings, quarrels, rude sayings and personal discomforts. His character was a strange compound of greatness and triviality. The influence of heredity, the early unfortunate surroundings, the physical infirmity that was probably due to the sins of his fathers, the natural impatience of a man whose head was in the clouds with the petty cares of daily life:--all these unfitted him for social intercourse with the gallant world in which he was, however, a welcomed guest. He was afraid of elegance or he disdained it. Frankness, that was often another name for brutality, was dear to him, and he saw no wrong in calling men and women who talked when he played "hogs." He was proud, and his pride was offended easily. He was sure of his own work, he would therefore brook no contradiction; irritable, he was inclined to quarrel. He preferred nature to man, and was never so happy as when walking and composing in the open. In fields and woods he meditated his great compositions. Winter and summer he rose at the breaking of day and began to write, but in heat or cold, rain or sunshine, he would rush out suddenly for air. Yet dear as light and air were to him, the twilight was his favorite hour for improvising.

[Illustration: DEATH MASK OF BEETHOVEN

Taken by Dannhauser, March 28, 1827, two days after Beethoven's death.]

He used to read the Augsburg newspaper, and he was fond of talking of politics. It was a time of political unrest. Beethoven revered the heroes of Plutarch; the leaders in the American revolution; Napoleon Bonaparte as long as he was First Consul. A bronze statue of Brutus was on his work-table. It is not necessary, then, to add that he was a republican by sentiment. He dreamed of a future when all men should be brothers, and the finale of the Ninth Symphony is the musical expression of the dream and the wish. We have seen his fondness for women. There is no proof however that he was ever under the spell of an unworthy passion. A wife was to him a sacred being; and in an age when unlimited gallantry was regarded as an indispensable characteristic of a polished gentleman, Beethoven was pure in speech and in life. He was even prudish in his desire to find an untainted libretto for his music, and he could not understand how Mozart was willing to accept the text of "Don Giovanni." He was born in the Roman Catholic faith, and just before his death he took the Sacrament; but in his life he was rather a speculative deist. His prayer book was "Thoughts on the works of God in Nature," by Sturm. It was difficult for him to separate God from Nature. Many passages in his letters show his sense of religious duty to man and God, and his trust and his humility. He copied out and kept constantly on his work-table these lines found by Champollion Figeac on an Egyptian temple:

I am that which is, I am all that is, that has been, and that shall be; no mortal hand has lifted my veil. He is by himself and it is to him that everything owes existence.