BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, July 20, 1825

Beethoven writes an undated letter to Karl, probably today. “The Old Goose [housekeeper Barbara Holzmann, who seems to have gone to Vienna today for shopping] follows here. She gave you the pens, and you lied again — oh dear — Farewell, I’m just waiting for your report on the book. [Presumably the book Brother Johann had failed to return.] She’s going to the table [at St. Marx’s Spital] today, so she has little time to play stupid pranks.”

“God will surely free me, libera me domine de illis, etc.” [The Latin is derived from the Office of the Dead, and a text commonly included in Requiem Masses. “Deliver me, Lord, from them, etc.” Beethoven does not sign the note.]

Brandenburg Letter 2016; Anderson Letter 1399. The original is in the Krakow Biblioteka Jagiellonska (Mus. ep. autogr. Beethoven 31). In his July 18th letter to Karl, Beethoven had indicated that Holzmann might be coming to Vienna today.

Karl Gottlieb Freudenberg left an account of a visit to Beethoven in Baden roughly about now in his Erinnerungen aus dem Leben eines alten Organisten, Hg. Wilhelm Viol, Breslau: Leuckart 1870, pp.39-44. There is no trace of Freudenberg’s visit in the surviving conversation books, so the pages in question may be from a lost book, or he may have been given the pages as a souvenir. The details he gives about his visit ring true, especially since they are not particularly flattering to Freudenberg himself.

Freudenberg mentions that he visited Beethoven in Baden on a hot day in July [believed to be in 1825.] The likeliest dates are July 17-20, which were some of the persistently hottest days of the month. According to the Wiener Zeitung, the afternoon temperatures those days in Vienna, not all that far away, were in the upper 80s/low 90s Fahrenheit, and even in the mornings were above 75 F. Even adjusting the temperature a few degrees for the difference between the city and the country, those would still be quite hot days. Today, for instance, the temperature in Vienna was over 78 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning, and by 3 p.m. was over 90. July 21 and 24 through 27 can be definitely eliminated as possibilities since they were cold and/or rainy days.

Freudenberg, a poor music teacher from Breslau, has walked to Vienna and from there to Baden to find Beethoven, whom he says he worships. To make himself presentable, he first visits the first-class baths, and there embarrasses himself badly by not understanding how to wear the flimsy bathing suit he is given. He inquires with those there the best time of day to visit Beethoven. The following excerpt is from pages 40-44 of Freudenberg’s memoir.

“In St. Helenenthal, the quiet, romantic, magical place, crisscrossed by lonely mountain and forest paths, where one can gather one’s inner self far from people and closer to God, and keep oneself at bay from the hustle and bustle of the world, Beethoven had settled down in a homely and comfortable place.”

“It was around 2 p.m. on a hot July day when I approached his apartment with quickened steps. Beethoven had already noticed me from the balcony of his rural residence. He immediately withdrew at my approach, perhaps anticipating one of the many visiting, so-called musical geniuses, who, in the summer, swarmed and harassed him like a noble steed plagued by flies.”

“In my outrageous gymnastic outfit, unkempt and wrinkled, the old landlady [presumably housekeeper Barbara Holzmann] refused to let me into his apartment at first sight. When I addressed her, ‘I wish to speak to Beethoven,’ she replied angrily, with her arms akimbo: ‘What, you foot-slapper, you want to speak to my dear master, Beethoven? Anyone could come. Barons, counts, even princes are often denied entry. A warm greeting—and it’s nothing!’ ‘But, dear little golden madam, I have come here on foot from Breslau in Silesia, a poor musician who, without having seen Beethoven, his earthly idol, would have no rest day or night. I feel like the elderly Simeon, who, when he wanted to see the dear Christ Child once more before his death, cried out after his longing had been satisfied, “Lord now let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your Savior!”‘ ‘Look, Your Grace, you are not as bad as you look; now I have respect for you. Such a long journey on foot, it must be 20 or 30 miles!’ ‘No, my dear little mother, almost 100!’ ‘Oh, dear God, Jesus Mary, that would be the greatest mercy of my dear Lord to let you go on without your longing being satisfied.'”

“She quickly tripped off, announced my arrival, and brought me a parchment tablet with a pencil. When I asked her what I should do with it, she replied, ‘Well, you know that Beethoven can’t hear at all, so the visitor must communicate his questions and answers to him in writing.’ Beethoven’s extreme hardness of hearing was unknown to me. How should I begin the first greeting? I wrote, ‘The music teacher Freudenberg from Breslau wishes to make the acquaintance of the great genius Beethoven!'”

“Soon after, a squat, medium-sized figure with a friendly gesture and a loving look came out and forced me into his room. There, I was shown a seat on the sofa, and we chatted comfortably for an hour over a cup of black coffee. That this conversation was an hour of the highest consecration, of the most ardent devotion to art, and of heartfelt bliss for me, everyone will surely believe, even if I lack the words to express it.”

“The subject of our conversation, of course, was musical art and its disciples. I thought Beethoven would mock Rossini, who was idolized at the time; not at all. He admitted that Rossini was a talented and melodious composer, that his music suited the frivolous, sensual spirit of the times, and that his productivity required as many weeks to compose an opera as the Germans needed years. [Gaspare] Spontini had many good qualities; he had a splendid understanding of theatrical effects and the musical din of war. [Louis] Spohr was too full of dissonance, and his chromatic melodies spoiled the pleasure of his music.”

“Seb. Bach was held in high esteem by Beethoven; he should not be called Bach [brook] but Meer [sea], because of his infinite, inexhaustible wealth of tonal combinations and harmonies. [This was a sentiment that Beethoven also expressed to Friedrich Wähner.] Bach was the ideal of organists. ‘I too,’ Beethoven told me, ‘played the organ a lot in my youth, but my nerves could not bear the power of this giant instrument. I place an organist, if he is a master of his instrument, at the top of the list of virtuosos.'”

“Beethoven was very critical of the Viennese organists, for the filling of positions was based on favor or on observation of old customs. Whoever served the longest received such a position, and thus the hurdy-gurdy players came out on top. He criticized organs with defective pedals and, finally, also the great and rich of the earth, who do nothing for art and good because they understand nothing about it.”

“To my questions about some of his works, such as, e.g., when I asked why his opera, Fidelio, was not universally acclaimed, he replied ‘We Germans have too few dramatically trained singers for Leonore; they are too cold and unfeeling. The Italians sing and play with body and soul.’ “

“Beethoven said much that was true about church music. Pure church music should be performed only by singing voices, except for a Gloria or another similar text. That is why he preferred Palestrina, but it was nonsense to imitate him without possessing his spirit and religious outlook, and it might be impossible for contemporary singers to sing his long-held notes sustainedly and clearly. He passed no judgment on [Gregorio] Allegri’s famous Miserere because he had not heard it. Many listeners were enchanted by it, some remained cold. He held up composers who unite nature and art in their works as models.”

“He did not grant my repeated request to play some musical fantasia for me on the piano; he was always ill and practiced too little to be able to satisfy me, he said, although I replied that it was not his dexterity but his train of thought that prompted me to make this request.”

“From his facial expressions and distracted demeanor, I noticed that he lived in his sublime world of sound and made it clear to me through his gestures not to rob him any further of his precious time. Otherwise, he was friendly and mild; but once he made a terribly grim face when I declared his last symphonies incomprehensible and baroque. His eyes and expression answered me: ‘What do you understand, you fool, and all you clever people who criticize my works? You lack the momentum, the bold eagle’s wings, to be able to follow me.’ “

“Even then, Beethoven may have been of extra-large sized stature to mindless reviewers or musically sensual dilettantes who toss bouquets of flowers. This great Beethoven, of rather small stature, with a wild and somewhat disturbed appearance, gray, shaggy hair, standing upright like a bristle, dismissed me with the words, ‘Give my regards to old Joseph Schnabel, who is looking after me!'” [Joseph Ignaz Schnabel (1767-1831) was the Breslau Cathedral Kapellmeister and University musical director, and he had performed numerous Beethoven works in Breslau.]

Our thanks to Patricia Stroh of the Ira F. Brilliant Beethoven Center at San Jose State University for providing us with the original text of Freudenberg’s memoir.

Today’s Wiener Zeitung (Nr.165) at 696 repeats publisher Sauer & Leidesdorf’s advertisement for Beethoven’s “Variations favorites pour le Pianoforte à 4 mains.” Again, this is an unauthorized arrangement of the third movement Allegretto con Variazioni from Beethoven’s Violin Sonata op.30/1 for piano duet.