Ludwig Van Beethoven. Leben Und Schaffen

Herausgegeben von Adolph Bernhard Marx. 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1899. pp. 379, 339.

THE English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has been the translation of Schindler’s work by Moscheles, will be pleased to find scattered through Marx’s two volumes a number of interesting extracts from the “ Conversation-Books,” These are not always given exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact. For instance, (Vol. I. p. 311,} speaking of the original overture to “ Leonore,” — afterwards printed as Op. 138, — Marx says, “ It shows us, as in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the following : —

“‘Aristotle, in his “Poetics,” remarks, ‘ Tragic heroes must at first live in great happiness and splendor.’ This we see in Egmont. Wenn sie nun [so] recht glücklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [über ihren Haupte] den sie nicht mehr zu lösen vermogen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug’.’ ”

The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are slight, but will soon be seen to have significance.

Again, Marx says, (Vol. II, p. 214, note,) “ In one of the Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, ‘ Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die Characterizirung [der Sätze] der B dur Trio...... Der erste Satz träumt von lauter Glückseligheit [Glück und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille, heiteres Tändeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission — Beethovenscher) ist darin.’” [Should be “ und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) ist darin, mit Permission.”]

On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven’s own hand, “March and April, 1820.”

But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx kuows nothing of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in the second edition of Schindler’s “Biography; ” 2d, all the variations from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts ; 3d, the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an expression of Beethoven’s views, was written by Schindler himself, for his master’s perusal!

But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work is Irving’s “ Goldsmith.” Such a work is not Marx’s “ Beethoven.” It is neither one thing nor another,— neither a biography nor a critical examination of the master’s works. It is a little of both, — an attempt to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together, — anecdotes of different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition, — chronology so oddly abused, — that one can obtain a far better idea of the man Beethoven by reading Marx’s authorities than his digest of them; and as to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and discussion for a whole generation, — on these he has little or nothing to say.

But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is worthy of notice ; here are a few examples.

Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the wellknown anecdote of Beethoven’s playing several variations upon Righini’s air, “ Vieni Amore,” from memory, and improvising others, before the Abbé Sterkel. Wegeler is the original authority for the anecdote, the poiut of which depends upon the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven. Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel!

Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven’s playing of Bach’s fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being urged to play, Marx quotes as follows : “ He came then (relates Ries, who became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of temper,” etc. To me, — Ries, — a boy of sixteen, — and Beethoven already the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to take at any prices he chose to fix ! — Ries relates no such thing. Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna ; moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven’s dislike to being urged to play in mixed companies, — the fact having no redation whatever to Van Swieten’s weekly music-parties.

Ib. p. 83. Beethoven is now twentyfive. “At this time, as it seems, there has been no talk of ill health.” Directly against the statement of Wegeler.

Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, “ Probably composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801.” He relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next line, “I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies,” and not associate it with Wegeler’s statement that he himself left Vienna “in the middle of 1796 ” ? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years earlier than Marx’s probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5, 1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19.

Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, “ Out of the year 1802.” If Marx will turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata offered for publication with the Concerto.

Ib. p. 341. “ Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in 1813.” Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. “It was in the year 1814 that I first became personally acquainted with Beethoven.” In 1808 Schindler was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to Vienna.

Vol. II. p. 30. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was begotten in a night of storm ”; and on this text Marx discourses through a page or two. Ries relates no such thing.

Ib. p. 179. “ Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and Beethoven) met each other,” etc. For Schindler, read Lenz.

Ib. p. 191. “ The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him . . . . . a magnificent grand-pianoforte of Broadwood’s manufacture.” Schindler says expressly, “ Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George Smart.” Cannot Marx read German ?

lb. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx’s method of citing authorities, — a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an account of Beethoven’s last hours, and published in the “ Cäcilia” in full. Here is the passage : —

“ When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates Anselm Hüttenbrenner, a musical friend and composer, of Grätz, who had hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words.” Anselm Hüttenbrenner !

Throughout these volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopädia, for which he wrote so many biographies, and “ indeed all the articles signed A. B. M.” ? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. For instance,— in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso” to Sterlcel,— that is, in 173d or ’80. At that date, (see Schilling,) Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen ; moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck “the to him [Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the ‘ Dorfbarbier,’ ” — which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815 died Beethoven’s “friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in London.” It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as 1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry’s chapel in Berlin.

These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance, mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We refer to Bettine’s letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer’s letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned. Marx gives them, Vol. IIpp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them, expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in the same city with the authoress, the questio vexata fully put to rest. Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with Schindler’s remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx says,— “These letters, — one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them outright creations of fancy ; at all events, there is no judicial proof of this, no more than of their authenticity,— if they are not imagined, they are certainly translated . . . from Beethoven into the Bettine speech. Never — compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which are known with these Bettine epistles — never did Beethoven so write..... If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [überdichtet] his letters,— and she has not done even this well; we have in them Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine.” He adds in a note, “In the highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these constant repetitions: ‘liebe, liebste,— liebe, liebe,— liebe, gute,— bald, bald ’! ”

What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,—“ Jeden Tag schwebte mir burner folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor ” ? Or to these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Töplitz in the summer of 1812? “Leben Sie wohl, liebe, gute A.” “Liebe. gute A., seit ich gestern,” etc. “ Scheint der Mond . . . . so sehen Sie den kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich,” etc.

And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before. There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for publication in the English translation of Schindler’s “Biography.” We refer to Mr. Chorley, of the “London Athenæum.” Meantime we venture to give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx.

Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims to our applause.

On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the author “ Chorische Werke.” In previous chapters, Beethoven’s pianoforte compositions —sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54, exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra—have been treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the grand symphony.

“The composer Beethoven,” says Marx, “ was, as we have seen, also a virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without the accompaniment of solo instruments ; and to them others, which may just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these we give the general name of ‘ choral ’ works, for want of a better,— a term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the orchestra to Beethoven.”

Marx’s theory of Beethoven’s progress, taking continually bolder and loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be based upon the chronology of the works in question,— a basis which he adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly thrown aside.

We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question.

From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were published (herausgegeben) during these years, selecting only those which he calls “ aus dem Jahre,” — belonging to such a year.

Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 et seq.) shows us that the works above mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the “ first months ” of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which unfitted him for labor throughout the season.

We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett, a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for great works ; and for minor productions,— by-play,— nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the “Adelaide,” and the “ Christ on the Mount of Olives,” —a productiveness (and such a productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and most marvellous years.

But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of 1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As this — the “Prometheus” — was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time took place between the execution of the order for and the production of the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz’s notices of the publication of the works in the above lists, for the dates which he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first of our lists in that order ; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 43 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read, “ Each of the compositions here noticed” (namely, those in the first list down to the septett) “is a step away from the pianoforte to the orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,— ‘Gli Uomini di Prometeo.’ ” Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus: “ On the ‘ Prometheus’ he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the first symphony, ‘ Grande Sinfonie,’ Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested.”

No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis. Chronology, “the eye of History.” makes sad work of your theory. Pity that in your “ researches ’’ you met not one of those lists of the members of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all schools, the orchestra itself!

Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled “Helden Weihe,” (Consecration of the Hero,) “Die Sinfonie Eroica und die ideale Musik,” (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and “Die Zukunft vor dem Richterstuld der Vergangenheit” (The Future before the Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are given to Beethoven’s sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at that time, and some remarks upon the “ Christ on the Mount of Olives,” these chapters are devoted to the “ Heroic Symphony,”—its history, its explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others.

The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting out of the path, even when it lies directly before him.

“ When, therefore, Bernadette,” says he, “at that time French Ambassador at Vienna, and sharer in the admiration which the Lichnowskis and others of high rank felt for Beethoven, proposed to him to pay his homage to the hero [Napoleon] in a grand instrumental work, he found the artist in the best disposition thereto; perhaps such thoughts had already occurred to his mind. In the year 1802, in autumn, he put his hand already to the work, began first in the following year earnestly to labor upon it, and, with many interruptions, and the production of various compositions in the mean time, completed it in 1804.”

From this passage, and from remarks in connection with it, it is clear that Professor Marx supposes Bernadotte to have been in Vienna in 1802-3, and to have ordered this symphony of Beethoven. Schindler’s words, when speaking of his conversation with the composer in 1823, on this topic, are, — “ Beethoven erinnerte sich lebhaft, dass Bernadotte wirklich zuerst die Idee zur Sinfonie Eroica in ihm rege gemacht hat” (Beethoven remembered distinctly that it really was Bernadotte who first awakened in him the idea of the “ Heroic Symphony ”). On turning to the article on Bernadotte in the “ Conversations-Lexicon,” we find that the period of his embassy embraced but a few months of the year 1798.

It seems to us a very suggestive and important fact toward the comprehension of Beethoven’s design in this work, that the conception of it had been floating before his mind and slowly assuming definite form during the space of four years, before he put hand to the composition. Six years passed from the date of its conception before it lay complete upon his table, with the single word “ Bonaparte ” in large letters at the top of the title-page, and “ L. Beethoven” at the bottom, with nothing between. And what, according to Marx, is this product of so much study and labor ? A musical description of a battle ; a funeral march to the memory of the fallen ; the gathering of the armies for their homeward march ; a description of the blessings of peace. A most lame and impotent interpretation! Marx somewhere says, that Beethoven never wrought twice upon the same idea; hence the funeral march of the Symphony cannot have been originally intended in honor of a hero, — we agree with him so far, — for this task he had once already accomplished in the Sonata, Op. 20. But then, if the first movement of the Symphony be a battle-piece, how came its author to compose another, and one so entirely different, in 1812?

How any one — with the recollection of Beethoven’s fondness for describing character in music, even in youth upon the pianoforte, — with the “Coriolanus Overture” before him, and the “ Wellington’s Victory at Vittoria” at hand,—and, above all, with any knowledge of the composer’s love for the universal, the all-embracing, and his contempt for minute musical painting, as shown by his sarcasms upon passages in Haydn’s “Creation” — can suppose the first movement of the “ Heroic Symphony ” to be in the main intended as a battle-picture, passes our comprehension. It may be so. It is but a matter of opinion. We have nothing from Beethoven himself upon the point, unless we may suppose, that, when, four years later, he printed upon the programme, at the first performance of the “Pastoral Symphony,” “Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting,” he was guarding against a mistake which had been made as to the intent of the “ Eroica.”

We have no space to waste in following Marx, either through his exposition of his battle theory, his explanations of the other movements of the Symphony, or his polemics against previous writers. His programme seems to us little, if at all, better than those which he controverts. Instead of this, we venture to offer our own to the reader’s common sense, which, if it does not satisfy, at least shows that Marx has not put the question forever at rest.

“ Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting ” seems to us a key to the understanding of this, as well as of the “ Pastoral Symphony.” Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to order,—as is proved by the “ Wellington’s Victory,” the “Coriolanus Overture,” the music to “ Prometheus,” to the “ Ruins of Athens,” the “ Glorreiche Augenblick,” to say nothing of minor works, such as the First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc., — Beethoven could and did despatch with extreme rapidity ; but works of a different order, for which he could take his own time, and which were to he the expression of the grand feelings of his own great heart, — the composition of these was no light holiday-task. He could “ make music ” with all ease and rapidity ; and had this been his aim, the extreme productiveness of the first years in Vienna shows that he might, perhaps, have rivalled Father Haydn himself in the number of his instrumental compositions. His difficulty was not in writing music, but in mastering the poetic conception, and finding that tone-speech which should express in epic progress, yet in obedience to the laws of musical form, the emotions, feelings, sentiments to be depicted. Hence the great length of time during which many of his works were subjects of meditation and study. Hence the six years which elapsed between the conception and completion of the “ Heroic Symphony.”

Beethoven passed his youth near the borders of France, under a government which allowed a republican personal freedom to its subjects. He was himself a strong republican, and old enough, when the crushed people over the border at length arose in their terrible energy against the King, to sympathize with them in their woe, perhaps in their vengeance. What to us is the horrible history of those years was to him the exciting news of the day; and it is not difficult to imagine the changes of feeling with which he would follow the political changes in France, the hopes of humanity now apparently lost in the gloom of the Reign of Terror, and now the rising of the day-star, precursor of a glorious day of republican freedom, in the marvellous successes of the cool, determined, energetic, stoical young conqueror of Italy, living, when Bernadotte fired his imagination by his descriptions of him, with his wife, the widow of Beauharnais, in a small house in an obscure street of the capital.

To us, then, the first movement of the “Heroic Symphony ” is a study of character. In the “ Coriolanus Overture ” we have one side of a hero depicted: here we see him in all his aspects ; we behold him in sorrow and in joy, in weakness and in strength, in the struggle and in victory,— overcoming opposition, and reducing all elements of discord to harmony and order by the force of his energetic will. It may be either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood his character, — we are inclined to this opinion, — or it may be a more general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of despotism, — France under the old régime, — France in the Reign of Terror, — France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of how the hero comes and saves; nor is this necessary ; it has been sufficiently indicated in the first movement. We hear in it the awakening to new life, from the first whispers of hope, uttered mysteriously and with trembling lips, to the bright and cheering expression of a nation’s joy, — not loudly and boisterously, — (Beethoven never gives such a language to the depths of happiness,)—in the exquisite passages for the horns in the trio. We agree with Marx in feeling the finale to be a picture of the blessings of that peace and quiet which the hero once more restores, — but peace and quiet where liberty and law, justice and order reign.

One fact in relation to the finale of this symphony has caused Professor Marx no little trouble. The movement is a theme and variations, with a fugue, and was also published by Beethoven as a “ Theme and Variations for the Pianoforte,” Op. 35, dedicated to Moritz Lichnowsky. The theme is from the finale of the “ Prometheus.” Now what could induce Beethoven to make this use of so important a work, as such a finale to such a symphony, is to our Professor a puzzle. It troubles him on page 70, (Vol. I.,) again on page 212, and finally on page 274. The same theme three times employed, —he may say four, for it is one of the six “ Contredanses ” by Beethoven, which appeared about that time, — and the third time so employed ! Lenz happens to have overlooked the fact, — and so has Marx, —that the Variations for the Pianoforte, Op. 35, were advertised in the “Leipziger Musikalische Zeitung,” already in November, 1803. How long Beethoven had kept them by him, how long it had taken them to make the then slow journey from Vienna to Leipzig, to be engraved, corrected, and made ready for sale, we are not informed. A very simple theory will account for all the phenomena in this case.

A very beautiful theme in the finale of “ Prometheus ” is admired. Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue. The work becomes a favorite, and, the theme being originally descriptive of the happiness of man in a slate of culture and refinement, he decides to arrange it for orchestra, and give it a place in the new symphony. How if Lichnowsky proposed it !

A large proportion of the three chapters under consideration, as, indeed, of many others, is directed against Oulibichef,— “ Oulibichef-Thersites,” as he names him in the Table of Contents. The very different manner in which he treats this gentleman, throughout his work, from that in which he speaks of Berlioz, Wagner, Lenz, is striking; but Oulibiclief is dead, and cannot reply. Some of the Russian’s contrapuntal objections to the “ Heroic Symphony ” are well answered ; but, as we are satisfied with the poetic explanation of the work by neither, we must confess, that, after the crystalline clearness of Oulibichef, the muddy wordiness of Marx is not to edification.

We turn now to the chapters devoted to the opera “Xeonore,” afterwards “Fidelio,” — one of the most interesting topics in Beethoven’s musical history. Here, at length, we do find something beyond what Ries and Schindler have recorded, — no longer the close coincidence in matters of fact with Lenz; indeed, the account of the changes made in transforming the threeact “ Leonore ” into the two-act “ Fidelio ” we consider the best piece of historic writing in the volumes,— the one which gives us the greatest number of new facts, and most clearly and chronologically arranged. It is really quite unfortunate for Professor Marx, that Professor Otto Jahn of Bonn gave us, some years since, in his preface to the Leipzig edition of “Leonore,” precisely the same facts, from precisely the same sources, and in some cases, we had almost said, in precisely the same words. The “coincidence” here is striking,— as we cannot suppose Marx ever saw Jahn’s publication, since be makes no reference to it. In the errors with which Marx spices his narrative occasionally, the coincidence ceases. Here are some instances. — According to Marx, one reason of the ill success of the opera at Vienna, in 1805-6, was the popularity of that upon the same subject by Paer. The Viennese first heard the latter in 1809. — Again, at the first production of the “ Fidelio,” in 1814, Marx says, the Leonore Overture No. 3 was played because that in E flat was not finished. Seyfried says expressly, the overture to the “Ruins of Athens,”—Marx speaks of the proposals made to Beethoven in 1823 to compose the “ Melusine,” and still another text,—and so speaks as to leave the impression, that, from the “fall of the opera ” in 1806, the composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor know nothing of Beethoven’s application in 1807 to the Theater-Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular operatic composer ?— of the opera “Romulus?”—of his correspondence with Koerner, Rellstab, and still others ? It appears not.

We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long ; we add, therefore, but a general remark or two.

To many readers Marx’s discussions of Beethoven’s last works will be found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague, confused style — “ words, words, words” — which the Germans denominate by the expressive term, Geschwätz. This is especially the case with his essays upon the great “ Missa Solemnis.” and the “ Ninth Symphony.”

We cannot rise from the perusal of this “ Life of Beethoven ” without feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition, we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,—and, indeed, in some such manner as this : The labors of Lenz taken without acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work ; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler, and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical discussion ; a few periodicals and papers, which have comb accidentally into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter ; the works of Professor A. B. Marx supplying the necessary authorities upon points in musical science. As for any original research, that is out of the question. Why stop to verify a fact, to decide a disputed point, to search out new matter? The market waits, — the publisher presses,— so, hurry-skurry, away we go,—and the book is done! Seriously, such a book, from one with such opportunities at command, is a disgrace to the institution in which its author occupies the station of Professor.

When Schindler wrote, Johann van Beethoven, the brother, and Carl van Beethoven, the nephew, were still alive, and feelings of delicacy led him to do little more than hint at those domestic and family relations and sorrows which for several years rendered the great composer much of the time unfit for labor, and which at last brought him to the grave. When Marx wrote, all had passed away, who could be wounded by a plain statement of the facts in the case. Until we have such a statement, none but he who has gone through the labor of studying the original authorities, as they exist in Berlin, can know the real greatness, perhaps also the weaknesses, of Beethoven in those last years. None can know how his heart was torn, — how he poured out, concentrated all the love of his great heart upon his adopted son, but to learn “ how sharper than the serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” Nothing of all this in Marx. He quotes Schindler, and therewith enough.

Long as this article has become, we have referred to but the more important of the passages which in reading we marked for comment, — enough, however, we judge, to show that the biography of Ludwig van Beethoven still remains to be written.