Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Volume I Part 13

76.

TO ZMESKALL.

Jan. 19, 1812.

I shall be at the "Swan" to-day, dear Z. I have, alas! _too much_ leisure, and you _none_! Your

BEETHOVEN.

77.

TO ZMESKALL.[1]

1812.

CONFOUNDED LITTLE QUONDAM MUSICAL COUNT!

What the deuce has become of you? Are you to be at the "Swan" to-day? No?

... Yes! See from this enclosure what I have done for Hungary. When a German undertakes a thing, even without pledging his word, he acts very differently from one of those Hungarian Counts, such as B. [Brunswick], who allowed me to travel by myself--from what paltry, miserable motive who can tell?--and kept me waiting, though he did not wait for me!

My excellent little quondam musical Count,

I am now, as ever, your attached

BEETHoVERL.

Return the enclosure, for we wish to bring it, and something else, pretty forcibly under the notice of the Count.

[Footnote 1: The date of this and the following note is decided by the allusion to his compositions written for Hungary (Pesth). See the subsequent letter to Varenna.]

78.

TO ZMESKALL.

You are summoned to appear to-day at the "Swan;" Brunswick also comes. If you do not appear, you are henceforth excluded from all that concerns us.

Excuses _per excellentiam_ cannot be accepted. Obedience is enjoined, knowing that we are acting for your benefit, and that our motive is to guard you against temptations and faithlessness _per excellentiam--dixi_.

BEETHOVEN.

79.

TO ZMESKALL.

DEAR ZMESKALL,--

The well-known watchmaker who lives close to the Freiung is to call on you.

I want a first-rate repeater, for which he asks forty ducats. As you like that kind of thing, I beg you will exert yourself on my behalf, and select a really good watch for me.

With the most enthusiastic admiration for a man like yourself, who is soon to give me an opportunity of displaying in his favor my particular knowledge of horn-playing, I am your

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

80.

TO KAMMERPROCURATOR VARENNA,--GRATZ.[1]

1812.

If the wish to benefit the poor were not so evident in your letter, I should have felt not a little offended by your accompanying your request to me by the offer of payment. From my childhood, whenever my art could be serviceable to poor suffering humanity, I have never allowed any other motive to influence me, and never required anything beyond the heartfelt gratification that it always caused me. With this you will receive an Oratorio--(A), the performance of which occupies half an evening, also an Overture and a Fantasia with Chorus--(B). If in your benevolent inst.i.tution you possess a _depot_ for such things, I beg you will deposit these three works there, as a mark of my sympathy for the dest.i.tute; to be considered as their property, and to be given at any concerts intended for their sole benefit. In addition to these, you will receive an Introduction to the "Ruins of Athens," the score of which shall be written out for you as soon as possible. Likewise a Grand Overture to "Ungarn's erste Wohlthater"

[Hungary's First Benefactors].

Both form part of two works that I wrote for the Hungarians at the opening of their new theatre [in Pesth]. Pray give me, however, your written a.s.surance that these works shall not be performed elsewhere, as they are not published, nor likely to be so for some time to come. You shall receive the latter Grand Overture as soon as it is returned to me from Hungary, which it will be in the course of a few days.

The engraved Fantasia with Chorus could no doubt be executed by a lady, an amateur, mentioned to me here by Professor Schneller.[2] The words after the Chorus No. 4, in C major, were altered by the publishers, and are now quite contrary to the musical expression; those written in _pencil_, therefore, on the music must be sung. If you can make use of the Oratorio, I can send you _all the parts written out_, so that the outlay may be less for the poor. Write to me about this.

Your obedient

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN.

[Footnote 1: The correspondence with Varenna, consisting of fourteen letters and four notes, was purchased some years ago by a collector of autographs in Leipzig, and sold again by public auction, probably to different persons. It would be like pursuing leaves scattered by the wind to try to recover these letters. Those here given have for the most part appeared in newspapers; I cannot, therefore, be responsible for the text, farther than their publication goes, which, however, has evidently been conducted by a clever hand. The date of the first letter is to be gleaned from the second, and we also learn from them that _The Ruins of Athens_ and _King Stephen_ (or at all events the Overture) were already finished in January, 1812.]

[Footnote 2: This _dilettante_ was Mdlle. Marie Koschak, subsequently the wife of Dr. Pachler, an advocate in Gratz, from whom two letters are given by Schindler of the dates of August 15th, 1825, and November 5th, 1826, in which she invites Beethoven to visit her in Gratz. Schindler considers as applicable to this lady the words of a note in Beethoven's writing of which he has given a fac-simile in his _Biography_, I. 95; the date 1817 or 1818.

They are as follows:--"Love alone, yes! love alone can make your life happier. O G.o.d! grant that I may at last find her who can strengthen me in virtue, whom I can legitimately call my own. On July 27th, when she drove past me in Baden, she seemed to gaze at me." This lady also plays a friendly part in Franz Schubert's _Life_. See her _Biography_ by Dr.

Kreissle.]

81.

TO ZMESKALL.

Feb. 2, 1812.

By no means _extraordinary_, but _very ordinary_ mender of pens! whose talent has failed on this occasion (for those I send require to be fresh mended), when do you intend at last to cast off your fetters?--when? You never for a moment think of me; accursed to me is life amid this Austrian barbarism. I shall go now chiefly to the "Swan," as in other taverns I cannot defend myself against intrusion. Farewell! that is, _fare as well_ as I wish you to do without

Your friend,

BEETHOVEN.

Most wonderful of men! We beg that your servant will engage a person to fit up my apartment; as he is acquainted with the lodgings, he can fix the proper price at once. Do this soon, you Carnival scamp!!!!!!!

The enclosed note is at least a week old.