Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (78 page)

Jérôme's offer to Beethoven was not a sign of his musical sophistication. It was designed to bring luster to a puppet court. He already had the services of the finest painters in Napoleonic France to glorify himself and his queen, and he had extravagant architectural plans for his capital. As the offer to Beethoven stated, the only duties of the court
Kapellmeister
were to conduct a few concerts and play occasionally for the king. Beethoven would have unlimited access to the court orchestra and freedom to travel and pursue his own projects. The proffered salary was a handsome 600 gold ducats, around 2,700 florins, plus 1,000 more for travel expenses.
²⁹
Perhaps Beethoven knew and approved that the court's religious commissar, one Wuerschmidt, was a proud Freemason and former Illuminatus.
³⁰
Such things on an official's resume were unthinkable in Vienna.

Now Beethoven had an escape route from Vienna, if he chose to take it. At the beginning of November he wrote Count Oppersdorff, commissioner of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, “I have been offered an appointment as Kapellmeister to the King of Westphalia and it may well be that I shall accept this offer.” With that he left the door open to a better offer. It is entirely possible that he kept Jérôme Bonaparte on the line as a bargaining chip. Did he really believe he could be happy as a servant in a gaudy French puppet court? Did he consider the job a way of reaching Napoleon himself?

In March he had written Oppersdorff a jovial letter about “
your symphony
”: “
The last movement of the symphony
has three trombones and a piccolo—and, although, it is true, there are not three kettledrums, yet this combination of instruments will make a more pleasing noise than six kettledrums.”
³¹
Then he began putting off Oppersdorff concerning the disposal and dedication of the symphonies the count had commissioned. He wrote in the November letter, “You will probably have formed an unfavorable impression of me. But necessity drove me to hand over to someone else the symphony which I composed for you [the Fifth], and another one as well [the Sixth]—Rest assured, however, that you will soon receive the symphony which is specially intended for you [the Fourth].”
³²
Oppersdorff naturally expected dedications for the Fourth and Fifth in return for commissioning them. In the end both Fifth and Sixth ended up dedicated to older and more generous patrons, Princes Lobkowitz and Razumovsky, and the Fourth to Oppersdorff. He may have formed the unfavorable impression Beethoven was concerned about, because there is no indication of further business or communication between them.
³³

 

By early November Beethoven had agreed to conduct an orchestral concert of his works—including the popular
Coriolan
but none of the new pieces—for a benefit at the Theater an der Wien. There commenced the hectic slate of arrangements and complaints and threats that accompanied all his public endeavors. During the month he wrote promoter and friend Count Moritz Dietrichstein:

 

I could not get the concerto. And even if I had got it, it would have been no good. For at the Theater . . . I have had the experience of hearing performers play from rough copies. You cannot ask me to expose my compositions to the uncertainty of a performance which is likely to fail. I will come to the meeting on Monday, although indeed I know that my presence is quite unnecessary, because people never pay any attention to what I say . . .

[A few days later:] If I have to experience a repetition of what happened at the rehearsal on Saturday, nobody will ever persuade me to have anything more to do in the slightest way with this unfortunate concert.
³⁴

 

But he did conduct at the unfortunate charity concert, and the upshot of it was that the “Worshipful Direction” of the Theater an der Wien finally, after he had spent two years begging them, allowed him a concert on December 22—just over a month from the charity concert. Both programs were a testament to the speed at which orchestral programs could be pulled together in those days.

To add to the frenzy, as he had done in his earlier Vienna benefits Beethoven decided to compose a new work to make a grand finale for the concert. The previous hasty productions had been the First Symphony and
Christus am Ölberge
. Why he needed a splashy finish for a program that already was to include the premieres of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and Fourth Piano Concerto is hard to conceive. But as always, his resolve once made was implacable. He began to cobble together a fantasia for solo piano, orchestra, and chorus using an old tune from the sketchbooks, and found a poet to whip up a text about the splendors of music. The opening of the piece would be a piano solo he would improvise on the spot.

His letters in this month of frantic labors are some of the cheeriest he had written in years. As part of his attempt to secure soprano Anna Milder, his first Leonore, he wrote his old Florestan, Joseph August Röckel, “Be sure to make a very good arrangement with Milder . . . tomorrow I will come myself to kiss the hem of her garment.” He was still promising Collin to compose the playwright's libretto
Bradamante:
“Great and Enraged Poet!!!!! Give up Reichardt—and use my notes for your poetry. I promise that . . . immediately after my concert which, to counterbalance its purpose of putting some money into my pocket, is robbing me of a good deal of my time, I will go to you, and then we will start work on the opera at once.” He deplored the magical elements in
Bradamante
and had no real intention of setting it. But he liked Collin and probably considered him the best available prospect to produce a workable libretto.

Beethoven knew that Collin, frustrated with being put off, had shown the libretto to visiting composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt, who was anxious to set it (and eventually did, with no success). Reichardt, then fifty-six and well known, had just arrived in Vienna eager to take in its musical atmosphere and perhaps to make himself part of it. One of his first endeavors was to seek out Beethoven at Countess Erdödy's. (As his letter shows, they had met before at some point.) Reichardt was a sharp observer of people and events, and his letters, which he soon got in print, paint a vivid portrait of Beethoven and Vienna in the months Reichardt visited there:

 

I have also sought out and visited the good Beethoven. People pay so little attention to him here that no one could tell me where he lives, and it entailed quite a lot of trouble on my part to locate him. [The difficulty was more likely due to Beethoven's constant relocations.] Finally I found him in a large, desolate and lonely apartment. At first he looked as dark as his own lodgings, but soon became more cheerful and even seemed as pleased to see me again as I was heartily glad to see him. He also told me a lot of things which were important for me to know, all in a very frank and agreeable manner. His is a powerful nature, like a Cyclops in appearance but at the same time very intimate, hearty, and good. He lives and spends a good deal of time with a Hungarian Countess Erdödy who lives in the front part of the large house. But he has become quite estranged from Prince Lichnowsky who lives in the upper part of the same house.
³⁵

 

Among the things Beethoven told Reichardt about was the offer from Cassel. This was a considerable shock to the visitor, because as far as Reichardt knew he currently occupied that position himself.
³⁶
Though he had not been happy in Cassel and may have had no intention of going back, he did not appreciate being replaced without notice. Reichardt advised Beethoven in the strongest terms not to take the job.

In early December Reichardt attended a house concert:

 

The whole pleasant impression was once more destroyed by Bee­thoven's overwhelming, gigantic overture to Collin's
Coriolan
. My brain and my heart almost burst from the hammer blows and shrillness within the narrow rooms, especially as everyone tried . . . to increase the noise in view of the fact that the composer was present. It gave me great pleasure to see dear Beethoven being much fêted, particularly because he has the unfortunate, hypochondriac whim that everyone here persecutes and despises him. His highly obstinate character may well scare off many of the kind-hearted and gay Viennese . . . It really upsets me very deeply when I see this basically good and remarkable man looking gloomy and suffering. Although I am convinced, on the other hand, that his best and most original works can only be produced when he is in a stubborn and deeply morose state of mind.
³⁷

 

A couple of weeks later, on December 22, 1808, Reichardt was sitting in Prince Lobkowitz's box when, at 6:30 p.m., in the unheated Theater an der Wien, Beethoven gave the downbeat for the premiere of the Sixth Symphony, commencing one of the most remarkable and outlandish concerts in the history of music. Reichardt and Lobkowitz were among the shivering survivors still in their seats when the concert ended at 10:30.

22

N
EAR THE END
of 1808, the
Weiner Zeitung
ran an advertisement for a “musical
Akademie
” whose scope and ambition were extraordinary to the point of absurd:

 

On Thursday, December 22, Ludwig van Beethoven will have the honor to give a musical
Akademie
in the R. I. Priv. Theater-an-der-Wien. All the pieces are of his composition, entirely new, and not yet heard in public . . . First Part: 1, A Symphony, entitled: “A Recollection of Country Life,” in F major (No. 5). 2, Aria. 3, Hymn with Latin text, composed in the church style with chorus and solos. 4, Pianoforte Concerto, played by himself.

Second part. Grand Symphony in C minor (no. 6). 2, Hymn, with Latin text composed in the church style with chorus and solos. 3, Fantasia for Pianoforte alone. 4, Fantasia for the Pianoforte which ends with the gradual entrance of the entire orchestra and the introduction of choruses as a finale.
¹

 

Beethoven placed the notice himself. The program was only the third he had mounted for his benefit since he arrived in Vienna, and it had been five years since the most recent concert. For the last two of those years, his creativity had burned at white heat while the Viennese bureaucracy kept him waiting for a venue. The result was an overstuffed program, compounded by his decision to present solo and choral pieces to contrast the orchestral ones, and his determination to whip up the stem-winding
Choral Fantasy
to end the evening.

His claim that all the pieces were “entirely new” is, of course, not entirely true. Four were premieres and three not. The numbering of the symphonies is the reverse of the order in which he finally published them. The two movements of the Mass in C are called “hymns,” because music from the Latin liturgy was not allowed in secular concerts; the texts had to be translated into German. In all that planning Beethoven paid no attention to the time and the season. The concert amounted to some four hours of what was doomed to be underrehearsed music in an unheated hall in the dark of winter.

The run-up to the program had witnessed more Beethovenian sound and fury. In the charity program of the previous month at the Theater an der Wien he managed to offend the house orchestra. Concertmaster Franz Clement and conductor Ignaz Seyfried took his side, but in December the rank and file at first refused to play under his baton. Striding up and down in rage and anxiety, Beethoven “listened” to the rehearsals from an anteroom (given his hearing, he heard very little). He had also somehow alienated the brilliant young soprano Anna Milder, his first Leonore, who declined to sing the aria. Her replacement in
Ah! perfido
was the inexperienced Josephine Killitschgy, sister-in-law of concertmaster Ignaz Schuppanzigh.

At the last minute the orchestra relented and allowed Beethoven onstage for the concert. It was a stressful evening for all. Unnerved by the difficult and unvocal solo part, Killitschgy succumbed to stage fright and muffed the performance. During the
Choral Fantasy
Beethoven realized some players had miscounted rests and a crash was imminent. He stopped the music, shouting angrily, “Quiet, quiet, this isn't working! Once again!”
²
He probably had no choice, but the orchestra was once again furious. (This time he took the political route and apologized to the players.)

Those not used to Beethoven's singular conducting style had much to enjoy outside the music, what with his leaping and crouching and wild gesticulations on the podium. The month before, conducting one of his concertos from the keyboard, to mark a
sforzando
in the orchestra he swept his arms wide and knocked off the candles that were lighting his music stand. The audience was much amused. To forestall that sort of thing two choirboys were sent to stand at the sides of the piano and hold the candles. The orchestra started again. In the same spot Beethoven made the same gesture and smacked one of the boys in the face while the other one ducked. This inspired general hilarity. Beethoven was so furious that when he tried to start again at the piano, he broke several strings on the first chord.
³

At the December concert visiting composer Johann Reichardt was marooned in Prince Lobkowitz's box. While many of the audience trickled away, neither of them could decently leave even if they wanted to, because the box was in front of the hall, in view of the audience. The performing forces were heterogeneous, he noted, all the pieces difficult and unusual, and there had never been a complete rehearsal. Reichardt experienced, he wrote, “that one can easily have too much of a good thing—and still more of a loud.”
⁴