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crysania4Some of you might recall my posting a bunch of quotes from the book here.
Here are two great accounts of Beethoven from near the end of his life.
Beethoven and a Copyist
(according to Thayer)
An amusing illustration of how Beethoven could work himself into a rage even when alone is preserved at the Beethoven Museum in Bonn, in the shape of some extraordinary glosses on a letter from a copyist named Wolanek, who was in his employ in the spring of the year (1825). Wolanek was a Bohemian. Beethoven had railed against him whenever sending corrections to a publisher or apologizing for delays, and it is not difficult to imagine what the poor fellow had to endure from the composer's voluble tongue and fecund imagination in the invention and application of epithets.
In delivering some manuscripts by messenger some time before Easter, Wolanek ventured a defence of his dignity in a letter which, though couched in polite phrases, was nevertheless decidedly ironical and cutting. He said that he was inclined to overlook Beethoven's conduct toward him with a smile; since there were so many dissonances in the ideal world of tones, why not also in the world of reality? For him there was comfort in the reflection that if Beethoven had been copyist to "those celebrated artists, Mozart and Haydn," he would have received similar treatment. He requested that he be not associated with those wretches of copyists who were willing to be treated as slaves simply for the sake of a livelihood, and concluded by saying that nothing he had done would cause him to blush in the slightest degree in the presence of Beethoven.
It did not suffice Beethoven to dismiss the man from his employ; such an outcome seemed anticipated in the letter. He must make him feel that his incompetence was wholly to blame and realize how contemptible he looked in the eyes of the composer. The reference to Mozart and Haydn was particularly galling. Beethoven read the letter and drew lines across its face from corner to corner. Then in letters two inches long he scrawled over the writing the words: "Dummer, Eingebildeter, Eselhafter Kerl" ("Stupid, Conceited, Asinine Fellow"). That was not enough. There was a wide margin at the bottom of tghe sheet, just large enough to hold Beethoven's next ebullition: "Compliments for such a good-for-nothing, who pilfers one's money?--better to pull his asinine ears!" Then he turned the sheet over. A whole page invited him--and he filled it, margin and all. "Dirty Scribbler! Stupid Fellow! Correct the blunders which you have made in your ignorance, insolence, conceit and stupidity--this would be more to the purpose than trying to teach me, which is as if a Sow were to try to give lessons to Minerva!" "Do YOU do honour to Mozart and Hayden by never mentioning their names." It was decided yesterday and even before then not to have you write any more for me.
An account by Karl Gottlieb Freudenberg
...Soon after, a stout person of medium height, benevolent in appearance and with a friendly expression in his eyes, came out and beckoned to me to enter his room. Here I was given a seat on the sofa and we spent an hour in pleasant conversation, over a cup of black coffee. The art of music and its disciples, of course, provided the subject for our conversation. I believe that Beethoven would deride Rossini, idolized at the time: not at all, he acknowledged that Rossini was a talented and melodious composer, that his music was suitable for the frivolous, sensual character of the age and that his productivity was such that he needed as many weeks as teh Germans needed years to compose an opera. Spontini had many good points, he was an adept in theatrical effects and the uproar of battle. Spohr was too full of dissonances, and his chromatic melody lost him much of the public's approval. As for Sebastian Bach, Beethoven honoured him greatly: "Not Bach (brook), but Meer (sea) should be his name, because of his infinite, inexhaustible wealth of melodic combinations and harmonies." Bach, he said, was the ideal of all organists. "I, too," Beethoven told me, "played the organ frequently in my youth, but my nerves could not stand up to the power of this gigantic instrument. I should place an organist who is a master of his instrument at the very head of all virtuosi."
Beethoven was very incensed against the organists in Vienna: these posts were filled by favouritism or according to old, traditional observances. Such a post is accorded those who have given the longest service, and in this way the organ-grinders were the ones who profited most. He criticized the organs with inadequate pedals and, last, the exalted and rich of this earth, who will not do anything for art or other good causes, because they know nothing about them.
As for my questions about some of his works, for example, why his "Fidelio" was not appreciated everywhere, he answered them in these words: "We Germans have too few singers with a dramatic training which would enable them to sing the part of Leonora; they're too cold and unfeeling, while the Italians sing and act with all their bodies and souls."
Beethoven uttered many truths about church music. Pure church music should be performed only by voices, with the exception of a Gloria or a similar text. For that reason he preferred Palestrina; yes it was nonsense to imitate him without sharing his spirit and religious attitude; also, it might well be impossible for contemporary singers to sing the long-sustained notes purely and clearly. He would not express any opinion about the famous Miserere by Allegri, because he had not heard it; many listeners had been enchanted by it, many, too, had been left quite cold. The exemplary artists, to him, were those who combined nature and art in their works.
Here are two great accounts of Beethoven from near the end of his life.
Beethoven and a Copyist
(according to Thayer)
An amusing illustration of how Beethoven could work himself into a rage even when alone is preserved at the Beethoven Museum in Bonn, in the shape of some extraordinary glosses on a letter from a copyist named Wolanek, who was in his employ in the spring of the year (1825). Wolanek was a Bohemian. Beethoven had railed against him whenever sending corrections to a publisher or apologizing for delays, and it is not difficult to imagine what the poor fellow had to endure from the composer's voluble tongue and fecund imagination in the invention and application of epithets.
In delivering some manuscripts by messenger some time before Easter, Wolanek ventured a defence of his dignity in a letter which, though couched in polite phrases, was nevertheless decidedly ironical and cutting. He said that he was inclined to overlook Beethoven's conduct toward him with a smile; since there were so many dissonances in the ideal world of tones, why not also in the world of reality? For him there was comfort in the reflection that if Beethoven had been copyist to "those celebrated artists, Mozart and Haydn," he would have received similar treatment. He requested that he be not associated with those wretches of copyists who were willing to be treated as slaves simply for the sake of a livelihood, and concluded by saying that nothing he had done would cause him to blush in the slightest degree in the presence of Beethoven.
It did not suffice Beethoven to dismiss the man from his employ; such an outcome seemed anticipated in the letter. He must make him feel that his incompetence was wholly to blame and realize how contemptible he looked in the eyes of the composer. The reference to Mozart and Haydn was particularly galling. Beethoven read the letter and drew lines across its face from corner to corner. Then in letters two inches long he scrawled over the writing the words: "Dummer, Eingebildeter, Eselhafter Kerl" ("Stupid, Conceited, Asinine Fellow"). That was not enough. There was a wide margin at the bottom of tghe sheet, just large enough to hold Beethoven's next ebullition: "Compliments for such a good-for-nothing, who pilfers one's money?--better to pull his asinine ears!" Then he turned the sheet over. A whole page invited him--and he filled it, margin and all. "Dirty Scribbler! Stupid Fellow! Correct the blunders which you have made in your ignorance, insolence, conceit and stupidity--this would be more to the purpose than trying to teach me, which is as if a Sow were to try to give lessons to Minerva!" "Do YOU do honour to Mozart and Hayden by never mentioning their names." It was decided yesterday and even before then not to have you write any more for me.
An account by Karl Gottlieb Freudenberg
...Soon after, a stout person of medium height, benevolent in appearance and with a friendly expression in his eyes, came out and beckoned to me to enter his room. Here I was given a seat on the sofa and we spent an hour in pleasant conversation, over a cup of black coffee. The art of music and its disciples, of course, provided the subject for our conversation. I believe that Beethoven would deride Rossini, idolized at the time: not at all, he acknowledged that Rossini was a talented and melodious composer, that his music was suitable for the frivolous, sensual character of the age and that his productivity was such that he needed as many weeks as teh Germans needed years to compose an opera. Spontini had many good points, he was an adept in theatrical effects and the uproar of battle. Spohr was too full of dissonances, and his chromatic melody lost him much of the public's approval. As for Sebastian Bach, Beethoven honoured him greatly: "Not Bach (brook), but Meer (sea) should be his name, because of his infinite, inexhaustible wealth of melodic combinations and harmonies." Bach, he said, was the ideal of all organists. "I, too," Beethoven told me, "played the organ frequently in my youth, but my nerves could not stand up to the power of this gigantic instrument. I should place an organist who is a master of his instrument at the very head of all virtuosi."
Beethoven was very incensed against the organists in Vienna: these posts were filled by favouritism or according to old, traditional observances. Such a post is accorded those who have given the longest service, and in this way the organ-grinders were the ones who profited most. He criticized the organs with inadequate pedals and, last, the exalted and rich of this earth, who will not do anything for art or other good causes, because they know nothing about them.
As for my questions about some of his works, for example, why his "Fidelio" was not appreciated everywhere, he answered them in these words: "We Germans have too few singers with a dramatic training which would enable them to sing the part of Leonora; they're too cold and unfeeling, while the Italians sing and act with all their bodies and souls."
Beethoven uttered many truths about church music. Pure church music should be performed only by voices, with the exception of a Gloria or a similar text. For that reason he preferred Palestrina; yes it was nonsense to imitate him without sharing his spirit and religious attitude; also, it might well be impossible for contemporary singers to sing the long-sustained notes purely and clearly. He would not express any opinion about the famous Miserere by Allegri, because he had not heard it; many listeners had been enchanted by it, many, too, had been left quite cold. The exemplary artists, to him, were those who combined nature and art in their works.
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Date: 2009-12-30 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 03:10 am (UTC)