BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, March 22, 1826 (approximately)
Beethoven writes an undated letter to violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh sometime around now (but after the premiere of the Quartet op.130 yesterday, March 21). “Dear Friend, It pleases me from the bottom of my heart to be able to do you a service, and my wish is thus fulfilled. If the composition has some merit, then Schuppanzig[h] has even greater merit in its performance. As often as you need the quartet, it is at your service from the bottom of my heart. No one else shall have it. I hope that the financial aspect [of the Akademie concert] has also turned out well for you. Unfortunately, there is little I can do about it. I embrace you, best and most esteemed Mylord, and I will gladly receive you tomorrow.”
“Your friend Beethoven.”
Brandenburg Letter 2135; Anderson Letter 1464. The whereabouts of the original letter are unknown. According to the General-Anzeiger für Bonn und Umgegend of June 1, 1939, the letter was allegedly once in the possession of the Academy of Music in Brno. The letter must refer to the premiere of the op.130 Quartet, however. Beethoven only allowed Schuppanzigh to premiere op.127 and 130 of the late quartets, and the premiere of op.127 was a disaster to the point that Beethoven in his anger had other quartets perform it almost immediately. Thus by elimination the letter must relate to the op.130 Quartet. Unfortunately the conversation books for this period are lost, preventing a more certain dating from Schuppanzigh’s intended visit to Beethoven planned for the next day.
Today’s Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Nr.12) at 93-94 gives details about a performance of Beethoven’s incidental music for Egmont, op.84, held in Leipzig earlier this concert season, which was alluded to in a previous installment. “You may have already heard or read that the esteemed poet, Consistory Councillor Friedrich Mosengeil, has written a poetic explanation of this music in Meiningen, through which the individual pieces by Beethoven for this tragedy may also be performed in a concert setting, and brought more closely together. All that is needed is a good reciter who can expressively declaim these words, and with them give the impressions that the composer and poet aroused in the author.”
“This was certainly a good idea, since one is rarely able to hear this wonderful music at theatrical performances, precisely because Egmont rarely is seen on the stage, and because of the tension that the serious poetry creates in the audience. One cannot come fresh and sufficiently receptive to listening to such deep and powerful music, especially since the usual noise of those who change their seats during the intervals, or who carry on conversations with their neighbors, or who run in and out again, cause great annoyance to the eager listener. Thus our audience—although Egmont as accompanied by Beethoven’s music has also appeared on our stage within the last several years—nevertheless listened to the special performance of those pieces of music in concert with great, extraordinary participation.”
“Previously, Herr Stein, a member of our stage and particularly excellent as a reciter, spoke the aforementioned connecting words. Now the theater management has banned all members of the stage from making public appearances outside of it, so Herr Solbrig, known as a recitative speaker, therefore took his place. His seriousness and his agility cannot be overlooked, but he lacked the expression of youthful feeling, and his talents were particularly developed in comedy.”
“As always, the music found hearts that absorbed in themselves the mightiest and the most tender elements, which it unites and thus were carried upwards to the highest enthusiasm of victorious joy, the rejoicing of the finale.
“I recently heard—imagine—in the inn of a village near Leipzig the Overture to Beethoven’s Egmont, arranged for about 10 voices, performed quite finished and correctly by the company of dance musicians. Is this not proof of the culture of music in our time?”
“‘Follow culture, of course.’ But I think that music and culture will turn into unculture, and fall from their heights if the proportions and forms in which one listens to great and truly sacred music are not taken seriously. In my opinion, it is profanation to listen to such music while clinking coffee cups, drinking thick or thin beer, enveloped in the tobacco smoke that covers a restless and noisy crowd of people, in an arrangement that is too pretentious to be compared to a piano score, and too little to absorb the great nuances of a full orchestra, such as those contained in a Beethoven instrumental work.”
The incidental music to Egmont is here performed by Herbert von Karajan, conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, in a 1969 recording:
Among the other Beethoven works performed this concert season in Leipzig, according to today’s Berliner AMZ on page 94, are Beethoven’s Symphony Nr.2 in D major; Sinfonia Eroica, Nr.3; Symphony Nr.8; and Symphony Nr.4 in B-flat major. Also performed was the new Symphony Nr.3 op.90 by Beethoven’s former pupil, Ferdinand Ries [the symphony actually was ten years old, but was being heard in Leipzig for the first time, having just been published by Simrock in Bonn.] “Ries’ symphony did not quite live up to expectations. It is brilliantly executed, but does not impress itself on the memory with interesting melodies.”