BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, January 25, 1826 (approximately)
Beethoven writes several undated letters about now. The first is to piano builder Conrad Graf, who has Beethoven’s Broadwood in for repairs and loaned him one of Graf’s newest pianos. “My very dearest! I am very sorry to know that you are unwell. I thank you for your courteous kindness towards me, and I am certain that harmonies will arise within me thanks to your instrument. If possible, I will visit you again with Holz.”
“Regarding the paternostergäßlerische musical beer-hall, it is truly self-contained and built for all time—With this message, I remain yours sincerely, your friend Beethoven.”
Brandenburg Letter 2108; Anderson Letter 1069. The instrument Beethoven refers to is the four-stringed piano that was mentioned in the conversation books on January 21, which was given to Beethoven yesterday while the Broadwood piano is being repaired again. The last line is another reference to the boozy New Year’s Eve party at the Steiner music shop; it has been mentioned several times so it must have created quite a stir. It’s regrettable that the conversation book for that day is missing.
Today’s Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.4) contains a lengthy essay by Gottfried Wilhelm Fink, On the Question: Has the time come that our music has fallen so far that it can no longer be compared to the old music? There are several striking contemporary mentions of Beethoven, starting midway through the article at 56:
“We must pass over here much that is great, that is making preparations for the new. Then Haydn brought a great people into his new, friendly path. Mozart shone. His light is clear, like the light of reason, which, like a good father, lets all the children of the heart play, cry, rejoice and praise in well-bred joy and undisguised individuality. Beethoven rose up, adorned like youth with all the colors of spring. He sits atop mountains. The horses roar wildly around: withdrawn and firm, he holds the reins so that they rear up on the slope. But he stares into the depths as if he had buried something down there. Then he swings over the gaping crevices and, playing as if in mockery, or noisily as if in a frenzy, he rides home. And you, from the depths, look after him strangely. — That also is life. And I think that our time can in many ways boldly stand up to the struggle of art.”
Later on, at 58: “In this field [of instrumental Trios, Quartets, and Quintets], J. Haydn is the actual author of the true instrumental quartets, and many of his works will remain masterpieces forever. Here too, his inexhaustible flow of good-natured humor sets him apart from all others. No one with a musical mind is able to listen to Beethoven’s trios for string instruments without delight, provided – as one must assume everywhere and in every type of music – that they are played well. The genius of Mozart deserves a great deal of honor here too. What works could I not describe if it were my intention to be more extensive here?”
Finally, at 59: “And although I cannot wish that larger musical institutions, yielding to the general, only natural preference, would declare only Beethoven’s works to be the sole wondrous ones, and sometimes even mockingly fantastic, to the neglect of all other masters in the field of symphony, and would make them available for listening almost exclusively – I can just as little, with appropriate variation, including symphonies by Haydn, Mozart, and others, agree with the concerns that many people carry in their hearts, even if they do not dare to express them clearly out of fear of the general voice. Beethoven is great, but he is not one who storms the heavens. And the sky is too solid and too high for him and us to have anything to fear. The mists are gathering, the horizon is darkening, the weather is getting stronger and everything is bright again; nature is breathing out tenfold balm, refreshed. I don’t understand why one cannot enjoy something where there is something rightfully worth measuring. Cypresses are beautiful, and so are myrtles and oaks; and where there are fruit trees, it is as delightful as in the forest. In short, our symphonies do our time as much honor as the masses of Palestrina’s time.”
In the Intelligenzblatt supplement to today’s AMZ, at 3, Breitkopf & Härtel advertises the newly published full score of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, for 3 thalers each.
Fifteen-year-old Franz Liszt has embarked on a highly successful tour of the French provinces, accompanied by his father, Adam Liszt. After his concert in Bordeaux today, Liszt is presented with the gold medallion of the Philharmonic Society, inscribed, “La Societé Philharmonique de Bordeaux à Fçois Liszt XXV Janvier 1826.”