Beethoven, the Man and the Artist Part 8

(Conversation-book of 1840.)

103. "A musician is also a poet; he also can feel himself transported by a pair of eyes into another and more beautiful world where greater souls make sport of him and set him right difficult tasks."

(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)

104. "I told Goethe my opinion as to how applause affects men like us, and that we want our equals to hear us understandingly! Emotion suits women only; music ought to strike fire from the soul of a man."

(August 15, 1810, to Bettina von Arnim.)

105. "Most people are touched by anything good; but they do not partake of the artist's nature; artists are ardent, they do not weep."

(Reported to Goethe by Bettina von Arnim, May 28, 1810.)

106. "L'art unit tout le monde,--how much more the true artist!"

(March 15, 1823, to Cherubini, in Paris.)

107. "Only the artist, or the free scholar, carries his happiness within him."

(Reported by Karl von Bursy as part of a conversation in 1816.)

108. "There ought to be only one large art warehouse in the world, to which the artist could carry his art-works and from which he could carry away whatever he needed. As it is one must be half a tradesman."

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)

BEETHOVEN AS CRITIC

The opinion of artist on artists is a dubious quant.i.ty. Recall the startling criticisms of Bocklin on his a.s.sociates in art made public by the memoirs of his friends after his death. Such judgments are often one-sided, not without prejudice, and mostly the expression of impulse.

It is a different matter when the artist speaks about the disciples of another art than his own, even if the opinions which Bocklin and Wagner held of each other are not a favorable example. Where Beethoven speaks of other composers we must read with clear and open eyes; but even here there will be much with which we can be in accord, especially his judgment on Rossini, whom he hated so intensely, and whose airy, sense-bewitching art seduced the Viennese from Beethoven. Interesting and also characteristic of the man is the att.i.tude which he adopted towards the poets of his time. In general he estimated his contemporaries as highly as they deserved.

109. "Do not tear the laurel wreaths from the heads of Handel, Haydn and Mozart; they belong to them,--not yet to me."

(Teplitz, July 17, 1852, to his ten-year-old admirer, Emilie M., who had given him a portfolio made by herself.)

110. "Pure church music ought to be performed by voices only, except a 'Gloria,' or some similar text. For this reason I prefer Palestrina; but it is folly to imitate him without having his genius and religious views; it would be difficult, if not impossible, too, for the singers of today to sing his long notes in a sustained and pure manner."

(To Freudenberg, in 1824.)

111. "Handel is the unattained master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means."

(Reported by Seyfried. On his death-bed, about the middle of February, 1827, he said to young Gerhard von Breuning, on receiving Handel's works: "Handel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I can still learn. Bring me the books!")

112. "Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel on his grave."

(Fall of 1823, to J. A. Stumpff, harp maker of London, who acted very n.o.bly toward Beethoven in his last days. It was he who rejoiced the dying composer by sending him the forty volumes of Handel's works (see 111).)

["Cipriani Potter, to A. W. T., February 27, 1861. Beethoven used to walk across the fields to Vienna very often. B. would stop, look about and express his love for nature. One day Potter asked: 'Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?' Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, and then exclaimed: 'Cherubini!' Potter went on: 'And of dead authors?' B.--He had always considered Mozart as such, but since he had been made acquainted with Handel he put him at the head." From A.

W. Thayer's notebook, reprinted in "Music and Manners in the Cla.s.sical Period," page 208. H.E.K.]

113. "Heaven forbid that I should take a journal in which sport is made of the manes of such a revered one."

(Conversation-book of 1825, in reference to a criticism of Handel.)

114. "That you are going to publish Sebastian Bach's works is something which does good to my heart, which beats in love of the great and lofty art of this ancestral father of harmony; I want to see them soon."

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, in Leipzig.)

115. "Of Emanuel Bach's clavier works I have only a few, yet they must be not only a real delight to every true artist, but also serve him for study purposes; and it is for me a great pleasure to play works that I have never seen, or seldom see, for real art lovers."

(July 26, 1809, to Gottfried Hartel, of Leipzig in ordering all the scores of Haydn, Mozart and the two Bachs.)

116. "See, my dear Hummel, the birthplace of Haydn. I received it as a gift today, and it gives me great pleasure. A mean peasant hut, in which so great a man was born!"

(Remarked on his death-bed to his friend Hummel.)