A little cantata, written in honor of Prince Lobkowitz, belongs to this month of December. An autograph copy was given some forty years afterwards to Dr. Ottokar Zeithammer, of Prague, by the aged widow of Beethoven's friend Peters, who gives this account of its origin:

The copy of a little cantata which he (Beethoven) wrote for me to be performed on the birthday of the Prince, now long dead, and which—as he himself says-reached me after his death, was in reality written by him and most daintily tied together with blue ribbon.... The cantata consists only of a few reiterated words, we can hardly say composed by himself, and originated when he heard of the approaching birthday festival of the Prince when visiting us. "And is there to be no celebration?" he asked, and I answered him, "No." "That will not do," he replied; "I'll hurriedly write you a cantata, which you must sing for him." But the performance was never reached.1

The intended performance never took place, because Lobkowitz, born on December 7, 1772, died on December 16, 1816. And so he, too, disappears from our history. The foregoing receives all needful confirmation in this letter:

(To Peters.)

January 8, 1816.
[Should be 1817.]

Only yesterday did I hear from Hrn. von Bernard, who met me, that you are here and therefore I send you these two copies, which unfortunately were not finished until just at the time when the death of our dear Prince Lobkowitz was reported. Do me the favor to hand them to His Serene Highness, the first-born Prince Lobkowitz, together with this writing, it was just to-day, I intended to look up the cashier to ask him to undertake its delivery in Bohemia, not having, in truth, believed anyone here.

I, if I may speak of myself, am in a state of tolerably good health and wish you the same. I dare not ask you to come to me for I should be obliged to tell you why, and that I should not presume to do as little as why you would not or would not desire to come. I beg you to write the inscription to the Prince as I do not know his given name-the 3rd copy please keep for your wife.

This composition, solo and chorus, E-flat major, 4-4, forty-three measures long, had for a text only these words:

A copy of this, received many years ago from Dr. Edmund Schebek, is inscribed "Evening of April 12, 1822, before the birthday of His Ser. Prince Ferdinand Lobkowitz." This young Prince completed his 25th year on April 13, 1822. It is clear, therefore, that this inscription refers to a performance, not to the composition of the little work.

THE COMING OF ANSELM HÜTTENBRENNER

355

To the few names which this year have appeared in our narrative, there is still to be added one worthy of a paragraph: that of a wealthy young man from Gratz, an amateur musician and composer of that class whose idol was Beethoven-Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who came to Vienna in 1815 to study with Salieri, and formed an intimate friendship with Franz Schubert. His enthusiasm for Beethoven was not abated when the present writer, in 1860, had the good fortune to enjoy a period of familiar intercourse with him, to learn his great and noble qualities of mind and heart, and to hear his reminiscences from his own lips. That these, in relation to Beethoven, were numerous, no one will expect; since no young man of twenty-two years, and a stranger, could at the period before us be much with the master except as a pupil-and he took none or in the position lately occupied by Oliva and soon to be assumed by Schindler; which of course was all out of the question with Hüttenbrenner.

I learned to know Beethoven [he relates] through the kindness of Hrn. Dr. Joseph Eppinger, Israelite. The first time Beethoven was not X at home; his housekeeper opened to us his living-room and study. There everything lay in confusion-scores, shirts, socks, books. The second time he was at home, locked in with two copyists. At the name "Eppinger" he opened the door and excused himself, having a great deal to do, and asked us to come at another time. But, seeing in my hand a roll of music-overture to Schiller's "Robbers" and a vocal quartet with pianoforte accompaniment, text by Schiller-he took it, sat himself down to the pianoforte and turned all the leaves carefully. Thereupon he jumped up, pounded me on the right shoulder with all his might, and spoke to me the following words which humiliated me because I cannot yet explain them: "I am not worthy that you should visit me!" Was it humility? If so it was divine; if it was irony it was pardonable.

And again:

A few times a week Beethoven came to the publishing house of Steiner and Co. in the forenoon between 11 and 12 o'clock. Nearly every time there was held there a composers' meeting to exchange musical opinions. Schubert frequently took me there. We regaled ourselves with the pithy, often sarcastic remarks of Beethoven particularly when the talk was about Italian music.

Hüttenbrenner remembered as a common remark in Vienna in those days that what first gave Beethoven his reputation on coming there twenty-four years before, was his superb playing of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord."

Two or three minor notes will close the story of the year. In the concert for the Theatrical Poor Fund, in the Theater-ander-Wien, September 8th, one of the finales to Beethoven's

"Prometheus" music was revived: "A glorious piece worked out in a masterly manner," says a reporter; and the concert for the Hospital of St. Mark, on December 25, opened with his "Symphony in A, one difficult of execution, which was performed with the greatest precision under the direction of this brilliant composer.' More important was a proposition made early in the year by his old friend Hoffmeister in Leipsic, for a complete edition of his pianoforte works, which came to nothing and concerning which more in another connection. In July he received another series of songs from Thomson which, according to a letter in French to Thomson, dated January 18, 1817, he had already finished by the end of September.

The works composed in 1816 are:

I. Pianoforte Sonata in A major, Op. 101, dedicated to Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann.1 Nottebohm's researches place all the sketches for the sonata in the years 1815 and 1816. (See, "Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 340 and 552 et seq.)

II. Song: "Der Mann von Wort," Op. 99.

III. Song-cycle: "An die ferne Geliebte," Op. 98. The autograph bears the inscription "1816 in the month of April." Sketches from 1815 and 1816 are described by Nottebohm in "Zweit. Beeth.," p. 334 et seq. IV. March in D major, for military band; the autograph bears the inscription in Beethoven's hand: "March for the grand parade of the Guard, by L. v. Beethoven, June 3, 1816."

V. Cantata for the birthday of Prince Lobkowitz, composed for Peters.

VI. Song: "Ruf vom Berge," dated "December 13, 1816."

The publications for the year were:

I. Song: "Das Geheimniss,' as a supplement for the "Wiener Modenzeitung," February 29, 1816.

II. Song: "An die Hoffnung," Op. 94; by Steiner and Co., in February.

III. "Wellington's Sieg, oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria, in Musik gesetzt von Ludwig van Beethoven. 91stes Werk"; by Steiner and Co., Vienna, in March.

IV. Canon: “Glück zum neuen Jahr"; by J. Riedel, Vienna, in May.

The anecdote told by Mendelssohn of Beethoven's playing to relieve the sorrow of the Baroness has a complement in a document found among the posthumous papers of Thayer. On December 25, 1864, Thayer received a poem from Frau von Arneth (Antonie Adamberger) written by Gustav Frank, a production of no literary value but based upon an incident thus told in a note attached to it: After the burial of Baroness von Ertmann's only child, the grief-stricken woman was unable to find the consolation which comes with tears. Greatly concerned thereat, her husband, General von Ertmann, took her to Beethoven, who without a word sat down to the pianoforte and played until the Baroness's sobs testified that relief had come. Thayer endorsed on the copy of the poem which he made: "It is a fact in Beethoven's and Frau Dorothea v. Ertmann's intercourse.'

WORKS COMPOSED AND PUBLISHED IN 1816 357

V. Song: "Die Sehnsucht," words by Reissig; by Artaria in a collection which appeared in June.

VI. Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin, Op. 96; dedicated to Archduke Rudolph; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in July.

VII. Trio for Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, Op. 97; dedicated to Archduke Rudolph; published by Steiner and Co., Vienna, on July 16. VIII. Song: "Merkenstein," Op. 100; dedicated to Count Dietrichstein; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in September.

IX. Song: "Der Mann von Wort," Op. 99; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in November.

X. Song-Cycle: "An die ferne Geliebte," Op. 98; dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in December.

XI. Symphony, No. 7, in A major, Op. 92; dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in December.

XII. Symphony, No. 8, in F major, Op. 93; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in December.

XIII. Quartet for Strings, F minor, Op. 95; dedicated to Zmeskall; Vienna, Steiner and Co., in December.

XIV. Two Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violoncello, Op. 102. According to a letter of Zmeskall's dated January 20, 1817, these sonatas were not published later than the works last mentioned, that is, December, 1816. They were published by Simrock without dedication. In the later edition published by Artaria in 1819, they are dedicated to Countess Erdödy.

J

Chapter XVII

The Year 1817-Beethoven and the Public Journals of Vienna-Fanny Giannatasio's Diary-The Philharmonic Society of London-Cipriani Potter-Marschner-Marie Pachler-Koschak - Beethoven's Opinion of Mälzel's Metronome.

B

EETHOVEN'S splenetic remarks to strangers in his last years upon the music, musicians and public of Vienna have given rise to widely diffused but utterly false conceptions as to the facts. Thus William Henry Fry, a leading American writer on music in the middle of the nineteenth century,1 did but express a common opinion in the following:

That composer [Beethoven] worked hard for thirty years. At his death, after the cup of glory had overflowed, his name resounding through Christendom, he left in all a beggarly sum of two or three thousand dollars, having lived as any one acquainted with his career knows, a penurious life, fitted to his poverty and servile position in Vienna.

The popular want of appreciation of his merits "doomed Beethoven to a garret, which no Irish emigrant would live in." It is altogether unnecessary to argue against such statements, as the whole tenor of this biography refutes them; but the public press of Vienna deserves a vindication, and the appearance of a new "Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung" on January 2nd, 1817, affords a suitable opportunity for the little that need be said on the subject. This journal, conducted "with particular reference to the Austrian Empire," and published by Steiner and Co., was, during the first two years, without the name of any responsible editor; the volumes for 1819 and 1820 announce Ignaz von Seyfried as holding that position; the others, from 1821 to 1824, bear the name of Friedrich August Kanne. A leading writer in the earlier volumes was Hofrath Ignaz von Mosel, who already had some local celebrity

'Mr. Fry was for many years editorial writer and music critic of the "New York Tribune," with which Mr. Thayer was also associated for a time.