Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph

by Swafford, Jan

  Listeners found the Marcia funèbre easier to grasp. If the form is unusual, it is not as complex as the first movement, and anyway they would recognize it as a French-style funeral march. Those who knew the op. 26 Piano Sonata might recall the funeral march in that piece and surmise that this symphony was a similar sort of thing, a set of character pieces. The manifestly delightful scherzo might have garnered some applause. For those ears, though, the finale variations with their tone of mingled ballet music and heroic perorations would have been the strangest of all. At the end, Beethoven was visibly piqued by the scanty applause and refused to acknowledge it.

  Then he waited to see what the world would make of it. The initial reviews were surprising only in their attempts at balance and generosity. First came an extensive, skeptical, but respectful notice in Der Freymüthige:

  A new symphony in E♭ by Beethoven was performed here, over which the musical connoisseurs and amateurs were divided into several parties. One group, Beethoven’s very special friends, maintains that precisely this symphony is a masterpiece, that it is in exactly the true style for more elevated music, and that if it does not please at present, it is because the public is not sufficiently educated in art to be able to grasp all of these elevated beauties. After a few thousand years, however, they will not fail to have their effect. The other group utterly denies this work any artistic value and feels that it manifests a completely unbounded striving for distinction and oddity, which, however, has produced neither beauty nor true sublimity and power. Through strange modulations and violent transitions, by placing together the most heterogeneous things, as when for example a pastorale is played through in the grandest style, with abundant scratchings in the bass, with three horns and so forth, a true if not desirable originality can indeed be gained without much effort. However, genius does not proclaim itself by simply bringing forth the unusual and the fantastic, but rather by creating the beautiful and sublime. Beethoven himself has demonstrated the truth of this statement in his earlier works. The third, very small group stands in the middle; they admit that the symphony contains many beautiful qualities, but admit that the context often seems completely disjointed, and that the endless duration of this longest and perhaps also most difficult of all symphonies exhausts even connoisseurs, becoming unbearable to the mere amateur. They wish that Mr. v. B. would use his well-known great talent to give us works that resemble his first two Symphonies in C and D, his graceful Septet in E♭, the spirited Quintet in D Major, and others of his earlier compositions, which will place B. forever in the ranks of the foremost instrumental composers. They fear, however, that if Beethoven continues on this path, both he and music will come off badly . . . The public and Herr v. Beethoven, who conducted the work himself, were not satisfied with each other this evening. To the public the symphony was too difficult, too long, and B. himself was too impolite, since he did not nod in acknowledgement of those who did applaud.66

  Really, for a review of the premiere, Beethoven could hardly have hoped for anything better. But he would not have seen the review that way, and neither would the next generations who read it. In later times critics like this one would stoke the Romantic myth that genius and revolution are never understood in their own time. But the evolution of the symphony’s reviews over the next few years shows the opposite. (After 1806, critics could study the printed parts, which were now titled Eroica.) The second Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung notice was by the same critic:

  At this concert I heard the new Beethoven symphony in E♭ . . . conducted by the composer himself, and performed by a very well-comprised orchestra. But this time as well I found no reason at all to change the judgment that I had already formed about it. To be sure, this new work of B. has great and daring ideas, and, as one can expect from the genius of this composer, great power in the way it is worked out; but the symphony would improve immeasurably (it lasts an entire hour) if B. could bring himself to shorten it, and to bring more light, clarity, and unity into the whole.67

  It is actually 40–45 minutes. Beethoven was said to observe, “If I wrote a symphony an hour long it will be found short enough.”68He means he will write pieces as long as he likes, and the public will accept it—as, on the whole, it did.

  The incomprehension was repeated in other cities. The Berlinische Musikalische Zeitung wrote in May 1805, “A new Beethoven Symphony in E♭ is so shrill and complicated that only those who worship the failings and merits of this composer with equal fire, which at times borders on the ridiculous, could find pleasure in it.”69 But critical perceptions began to evolve quickly. A January 1807 AMZ review after a Mannheim performance and publication of the parts: “The first movement is impressive and full of power and sublimity . . . The funeral march is new and bears the character of noble melancholy. As long as it is, even in relation to the other movements, we are still glad to linger in the emotion it arouses . . . The scherzo menuetto is a piece full of lively, restless motion, against which the sustained tones of the three horns in the trio contrast exceptionally well . . . The finale has much value . . . however, it cannot very well escape from the charge of great bizarrerie.”70 Only a month later, the AMZ was calling the second movement a “triumph” that could not “be conceived, born, and raised with such perfection by any person without true genius.”71 In the AMZ, April 1807, after a Leipzig performance:

  The most educated friends of art in the city were assembled in great numbers, a truly solemn attentiveness and deathlike silence reigned . . . Each movement unmistakably had the effect that it should have, and each time at the end of the entire piece loud demonstrations of applause gave vent to well-founded enthusiasm. The orchestra had voluntarily gathered for extra rehearsals without recompense, except for the honor and special enjoyment of the work itself . . . And so this most difficult of all symphonies . . . was performed not only with the greatest accuracy and precision . . . After this study, and after hearing the work repeatedly at rehearsals and public performances, we would simply like to add to this that the first, fiery, magnificent allegro, in its astounding many-sidedness within the greatest unity, in its clarity and purity within the most extensive complications, and its irresistible enchantment throughout its great length, has become and remained our favorite of all the movements.72

  That complete reversal of opinion evolved in two years. Critics and often audiences responded with mounting enthusiasm for this most difficult of symphonies, one that for the first time in history demanded to be heard in multiple performances and perhaps even to be studied on the page to be properly understood. But in its style and scope and unprecedented ambition, the Eroica resonated with the Napoleonic era, and the era was quick to understand that and to embrace it. In 1807, the magazine of trend and fashion Journal des Luxus und der Moden (Journal of the Luxurious and the Fashionable) echoed fashionable opinion in calling it “the greatest, most original, most artistic and, at the same time, most interesting of all symphonies.”73 A few years later, the Third Symphony had become a byword. The AMZ, February 1810: “It would be superfluous here to say anything about the value of this artistically rich and colossal work.”74 The repercussions of the Eroica would roll through the rest of the century and into the next. Ferdinand Ries had said he thought heaven and earth would tremble when the symphony was played. Metaphorically speaking, his prophecy was correct.

  For Beethoven, the repercussions were more immediate and personal. He would always have enemies, and bitter ones—though he always believed them to be more numerous and bitter than they actually were. But if triumphs are never complete, this could still only be called a triumph of the highest order, exactly as he had hoped, exactly as he deserved. At least until the Ninth, he would name the Eroica his favorite of his symphonies. But it was still not good enough, never good enough. He did not know whether he could surpass the Eroica, but he intended to try, and in quite different directions.

  19

  Our Hearts Were Stirred

  BY THE TIME the Third Symphony had
its public premiere in April 1805, Beethoven’s art and life had heated up to what would seem an unbearable degree. But he was capable of bearing extraordinary burdens, including the ones he heaped on himself. One of them was the height of the bar the new symphony set in his work. Another was the maddening and often debilitating state of his health: recurring fevers, painful and frightening abscesses, headaches that assaulted him for months, on top of his long-standing episodes of vomiting and diarrhea and the ongoing deterioration of his hearing. In spring 1805, the opera Leonore and other projects demanded attention. Amid it all, he was boiling with passion for Countess Josephine Deym.

  This newly widowed woman with four children had welcomed the kindness and attention of a person she profoundly admired. Josephine soon learned what kind of whirlwind she had opened her door to. Beethoven went at love the way he went at music, with implacable determination. Beyond the question of what Josephine and her children would lose if she married a commoner, beyond his temperament, his utter self-absorption, his ugliness of face and unpleasant chronic ailments, his passion itself became frightening to her.

  After writing a paean to love in Leonore, he yearned with all his heart for his own devoted wife, his own Retterin: his savior. He had written Josephine the song An die Hoffnung (To Hope) and dedicated it to her. The song became one more misery for both of them. She learned that Prince Lichnowsky had seen it and its dedication, and that alarmed her. If word got out about it, she could be compromised. She refused to accept the dedication and likewise the proffered Andante favori.1 In spring 1805, Beethoven wrote her a rambling attempt at reassurance, his letter full of echoes of the Heiligenstadt Testament. It begins rationally and ends in ecstasy:

  As I said, the affair with L, my beloved J, is not as bad as was made out to you—Quite by chance L had seen the song “An die Hoffnung” lying about at my place . . . And he said nothing about it. But he gathered from this that I must surely have some affection for you. And then when Zmeskall went to him . . . he asked him if he knew whether I went to see you fairly often. Zmeskall said neither yes nor no. After all, there was nothing he could say, for I had dodged his vigilance as much as possible . . .

  L himself said that so far as he was concerned he had far too great a feeling of delicacy to mention a single word, even if he had assumed with certainty the existence of a more intimate association between us—On the contrary, there was nothing which he desired more than the formation of such an association between you and me, if it were possible. For [given] what had been reported to him about your character, such a friendship could not but be advantageous to me . . .

  Well, it is true that I have not been as diligent as I ought to have been—but a private grief—robbed me for a long time—of my usual intense energy. And for some time after the feeling of love for you, my adored J, began to stir within me, this grief increased even more—As soon as we are together again . . . you shall hear all about my real sorrows and the struggle with myself between death and life . . . for a long period a certain event made me despair of ever achieving any happiness during my life on this earth—but now things are no longer so bad. I have won your heart. O, I certainly know what value I ought to attach to this. My activity will again increase and—here I give you a solemn promise that in a short time I shall stand before you more worthy of myself and of you . . .

  O, beloved J. It is no desire for the other sex that draws me to you, no, it is just you, your whole self with all your individual qualities—that has compelled my regard . . .

  Long—long—of long duration—may our love become—For it is so noble—so firmly founded upon mutual regard and friendship . . . Oh, you, you make me hope that your heart will long—beat for me—Mine can only—cease—to beat for you—when—it no longer beats.2

  His letter crescendos to a breathless climax, words and phrases blurted between dashes like gasps. The line about standing “before you more worthy of myself and of you” carries the old Bonn tone: the duty of self-improvement to make himself worthy. His raptus on the page reached its climax in another letter, which survives in a fragment copied by Josephine. Here his passion makes him virtually incoherent, his words gushing into rhythm and sound, into music:

  Why is there no language which can express what is far above all mere regard—far above everything—that we can ever describe—Oh, who can name you—and not feel that however much he could speak about you—that would never attain—to you—only in music—Alas, am I not too proud when I believe that music is more at my command than words—You, you, my all, my happiness—alas, no—even in my music I cannot do so, although in this respect thou, Nature, hast not stinted me with thy gifts. Yet there is too little for you. Beat, though in silence, poor heart—that is all you can do, nothing more—for you—always for you—only you—eternally you until I sink into the grave—My refreshment—my all. Oh, Creator, watch over her—bless her days—rather let all calamities fall upon me—

  Even if you had not fettered me again to life, yet you would have meant everything to me—3

  How could Josephine answer this delirium? How reply when a man like Beethoven says she is saving his life? (In the Heiligenstadt Testament it had been his art. Now it is Josephine.) His art and his well-being meant a great deal to her. At the same time, her morals, her position in the aristocracy, her children, her lack of attraction to him all made an affair unthinkable. Marrying him could be disastrous, not only personally but legally. She had to keep him at bay. At first she tried an affectionate but firm tack:

  You have long had my heart, dear Beethoven; if this assurance can give you joy, then receive it—from the purest heart. Take care that it is also entrusted into the purest bosom. You receive the greatest proof of my love [and] of my esteem through this confession, through this confidence! . . . I herewith [give] you—of the . . . possession of the noblest of my Self . . . will you indicate to me if you are satisfied with it[?] Do not tear my heart apart—do not try to persuade me further. I love you inexpressibly, as one gentle soul does another. Are you not capable of this covenant? I am not receptive to other [forms of] love for the present.4

  This got her nowhere. His passion was more than words on paper. There were anger, accusations, probably wretched fumbling moments with her having to push him away. His accusations had to do with a shadowy count who had been courting her—egregiously enough to prompt sister Therese to warn her about “keeping two cavaliers on a string.”5 Later, Therese would write that the relationship deteriorated because Beethoven “did not know how to act” with women. She may not have understood that he never really knew how to act with anyone.

  When notes resisted him or life resisted him, Beethoven’s response was anger and attack—and when it came to people, suspicion and accusation. All this trouble broke over Josephine in a time when she was trying to recover from a nervous breakdown in the wake of losing her husband, having to assume his debts and run his business and rear their children. She became desperate herself: “Even before I knew you, your music made me enthusiastic for you—the goodness of your character, your affection increased it. This preference that you granted me, the pleasure of your acquaintance, would have been the finest jewel of my life if you could have loved me less sensually. That I cannot satisfy this sensual love makes you angry with me, [but] I would have had to violate solemn obligations if I gave heed to your longings.”6

  His longings did not ebb. Finally Josephine was also at her wit’s end:

  You do not know how you wound my heart—you treat me entirely wrong—

  You do not know what you often do!—How deeply I feel—If my life is dear to you, then treat me with more consideration, and above all, do not doubt me. I cannot express how deeply hurtful it is, with my inner consciousness, with so much sacrifice for virtue and duty, to be compared to lowly creatures, if only in [your] thoughts and quiet suspicion.

  Believe me, d[ear] k[ind] B, that I suffer much more, much more than you do—much more!

  It is this suspicion
that you so often, so hurtfully intimate to me, that pains me beyond all expression. Let this be far from me—I abhor these low, extremely low devices of our species. They are far below me . . .7

  I love you and value your moral character. You have shown much love and kindness to me and my children; I shall never forget that, and as long as I live, I shall constantly take interest in your destiny, and contribute what I can to your success.8

  Beethoven may not have understood the last letter for what it was, a respectful fare-thee-well. There, apparently, for the moment, it rested. In the fall Josephine left Vienna at the approach of the French and spent the winter in Budapest, out of reach.9 None of this appears to have interrupted his work on Leonore, his concern with publication, his other initiatives. Nothing in love or war or illness, nothing short of death could slow the tide of his art in those years.