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Python Projects
for Beginners
A Ten-Week Bootcamp Approach to
Python Programming
—
Connor P. Milliken
Python Projects for
Beginners
A Ten-Week Bootcamp Approach to
Python Programming
Connor P. Milliken
Python Projects for Beginners
Connor P. Milliken
Derry, NH, USA
Anytime I have a bad day, I know you’ll always be there for me.
I thought that I would only find you in my dreams, but here you are,
standing in front of me, looking beautiful as ever.
From the day I met you, I knew I wanted to give you everything.
Your dreams have become my dreams, and whatever you want in life,
I will always love you, past forever, with all my heart and soul.
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xix
About the Author
Connor P. Milliken Focused on helping others achieve their
goals through education and technology, Connor P. Milliken
brings a wealth of programming and business experience to
his classes.
He graduated with a computer science degree from
Daniel Webster College and is pursuing a master’s in
computer science with a focus in interactive intelligence
from Georgia Tech.
Before becoming an instructor at Coding Temple, he was
designing simulators in the video game industry for several
years. During that time, he took on a vast number of roles
from business to programming that he used to release a total of 11 different titles on PC
and co-created an award-winning football card game called “Masters of the Gridiron.”
Connor has experience in more than seven different languages and three frameworks.
He focuses primarily in web development and data analytics using Python. When this
book was written, he taught for a coding bootcamp in Boston, MA, where students
can learn Python, web development, and data analytics over a 10-week full-time course.
He is now a software engineer at Hubspot, Inc. in Cambridge, MA.
Github: Connor-SM
xxi
About the Technical Reviewer
Bharath Thiruveedula currently works for a major telco
service provider. He is core reviewer and key contributor to
various OpenStack/ONAP projects. Bharath is passionate
about open source technologies and is an evangelist who
is focused on making his mark in the Cloud/Container
domains. He has been working on distributed systems and
machine learning for a significant amount of time.
xxiii
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their generosity and help:
Jessica Boucher, who has been my rock this whole time. Your love
and support have continued to help me in all my endeavors. I’m
truly blessed to have you in my life.
Kirsten Arnold, who created all the art within this book. The work
you were able to create from my poor drawing skills was exactly
what I had imagined.
xxv
Acknowledgments
xxvi
CHAPTER 1
Getting Started
Hello there! Welcome to your first step toward becoming a Python developer. Exciting
isn’t it? Whether you’re just beginning to learn how to program, or have experience in
other languages, the lessons taught in this book will help to accelerate your goals. As a
Python instructor, I can guarantee you that it’s not about where you start, it’s about how
hard you’re willing to work.
At the time of writing this book, my daily job is a coding bootcamp instructor where I
teach students how to go from zero programming experience to professional developers
in just ten weeks. This book was designed with the intent to bring a bootcamp-based
approach to text. This book aims to help you learn subjects that are valuable to becoming
a professional developer with Python.
Each subsequent chapter will have an overview and a brief description of what we’ll
cover that week. This week we’ll be covering all the necessary basics to get us jump
started. Following the age old saying, “You must learn to walk before you can run,” we
must understand what our tools are and how to use them before we can begin coding.
Overview
1
© Connor P. Milliken 2020
C. P. Milliken, Python Projects for Beginners, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5355-7_1
Chapter 1 Getting Started
Monday: Introduction
Almost every programmer remembers that “Aha!” moment, when everything clicked
for them. For me that was when I picked up Python. After years of computer science
education, one of the best methods I found to learn was by building applications and
applying the knowledge you learn. That’s why this book will have you coding along
rather than reading about the theory behind programming. Python makes it simple to
pick up concepts otherwise difficult in other languages. This makes it a great language
for breaking into the development industry!
You may have already noticed that the structure of this book is different than most.
Instead of chapters, we have each topic separated by weeks or days. Notice the current
header for the section. This is part of the bootcamp-based approach, so that you may set
goals for each day. There will be two ways to follow along this book:
If you’d like to follow the 10-week approach, then think of each chapter as a weekly
goal. All chapters are broken up further into daily segments Monday to Friday. The
first four days, Monday through Thursday, will introduce new concepts to understand.
Friday, or better known as Project Day, is where we will create a program together
based on the lessons learned throughout the week. The focus is that you set aside 30–60
minutes each day to complete each daily task.
If you’re eager enough to try the bootcamp style, where you learn all the material
in ten days, then think of each chapter as a single day. Granted, you must know that in
order to complete this book in ten days, you will need to dedicate around 8 hours per
day, which is a typical day for coding bootcamp students. In bootcamps (like the one I
taught), we go over several concepts daily, and each subsequent day we reiterate the
topics learned from previous lessons. This helps to accelerate the process of learning
each concept.
What Is Python?
Python is an interpreted, high-level, general-purpose programming language. To
understand what each of these descriptions mean, let’s make a few comparisons:
2
Chapter 1 Getting Started
Python also emphasizes code readability and uses whitespace to separate snippets of
code. We’ll learn more about how whitespace in Python works as we get into our lessons,
but for now just know that Python is a great first language to break into the computer
science industry.
Why Python?
I could go on about why Python is so amazing, but a simple Google search would do
that for me. Python is one of the easier languages to learn. Notice I said “easier” and
not “easy”… that’s because programming is still difficult, but Python reads closer to
the English language than most other languages. This is one of the benefits of learning
Python, because concepts that you learn from this book are still applicable to other
languages. Python is also one of the most sought-after skills in the technology industry
today, used by companies such as Google, Facebook, IBM, etc. It’s been used to build
applications like Instagram, Pinterest, Dropbox, and much more!
3
Chapter 1 Getting Started
It’s also one of the fastest growing languages in 2019, climbing to the top 3 languages
to learn for the future.1 How well does it pay though? According to Indeed.com, the
average salary in 2018 was around $117,000 USD!2 That’s a lot of monopoly money!
One of the biggest reasons for learning Python, though, must be the use of the
language itself. It’s used in several different industries: front-end development, back-end
development, full-stack, testing, data analytics, data science, web design, etc., which
makes it a useful language.
1
w ww.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
2
www.indeed.com/salaries/Python-Developer-Salaries
4
Chapter 1 Getting Started
• Did you take computer science courses previously, but they just
didn’t help you learn how to create applications?
This book is designed for a wide array of readers, no matter your background. The
real question is on you, “How hard are you willing to work?” The concepts taught in
this book can benefit anyone willing to learn. Even if you’ve programmed in Python
before, this book can still help you become a stronger developer.
Tomorrow, we’ll find out how to install the necessary software that this book
uses. If you already have Anaconda and Python on your machine, you can skip to
Wednesday’s lesson.
5
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
march!). It may be that a Russian folktune which was popular in
Vienna between 1810 and 1820, which bears some resemblance to
this melody and on which, besides Gelinek and others, Beethoven
too made Variations (Op. 107, No. 3), gave rise to the confounding
of the two.” The Military March in F was designed for Archduke
Anton and was chosen for a “carrousel” at the court at Laxenburg. It
is the “horse music” of Beethoven’s correspondence with Archduke
Rudolph. The year also saw the beginning of the arrangements of
the Irish melodies for Thomson.
The publications of the year 1809 were:
1. The Fourth Symphony, in B-flat, Op. 60. “Dediée à Monsieur le Comte
Oppersdorff”; published in March by the Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir.
2. Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, D major, Op. 61. Dediée à son ami Monsieur
de Breuning, Sécrétaire aulique, etc. Vienna, Kunst- und Industrie-Comptoir, in
March.
3. Sonata for Pianoforte and Violoncello. A major, Op. 69. Dediée à Monsieur de
Gleichenstein. Leipsic, Breitkopf and Härtel, in April.
4. Two Trios for Pianoforte, Violin and Violoncello, D major, E-flat, Op. 70. Dediés
à Madame la Comtesse Marie d’Erdödy née Comtesse Niszky. Breitkopf and Härtel,
No. 1 in April, No. 2 in August.
5. Fifth Symphony, in C minor, Op. 67. Dediée à son Altesse Sérénissime
Monseigneur le Prince régnant de Lobkowitz, Duc de Raudnitz, et à son Excellence
Monsieur le Comte de Rasoumoffsky. Breitkopf and Härtel, in April.
6. Sixth Symphony (Sinfonia pastorale), F major, Op. 68. The same dedication as
the Fifth Symphony. Breitkopf and Härtel, in May.
7. Song: “Als die Geliebte sich trennen wollte.” Supplement No. II, to the “Allg.
Mus. Zeit.,” November 22. Breitkopf and Härtel.
Chapter IX
The Years 1807-09—A Retrospect—Beethoven’s Intellectual Attainments—Interest
in Exotic Literatures—His Religion.
A popular conception of Beethoven’s character, namely, that a predisposition to
gloom and melancholy formed its basis, appears to the present writer to be a
grave mistake. The question is not what he became in later years—tempora
mutantur et nos mutamur in illis—but what was the normal constitution of his
mind in this regard. Exaggerated reports of his sadness and infelicity during the
last third of his life became current even before its close, and prepared the public
to give undue importance to the melancholy letters and papers of earlier years,
which from time to time were exhumed and published. The reader upon
examination will be surprised to find how few in number they are, at what wide
intervals they were written, and how easy it is to account for their tone.
Beethoven’s childhood was excessively laborious, though not so cheerless as has
been represented; and, however flattering to occupy at the age of twelve years
the place of a man in theatre and chapel, his boyhood could not have been a
happy one. His brightest days up to the middle of his seventeenth year were
undoubtedly those spent in Vienna in 1787—the date of the earliest of those
papers from his own pen, on which the popular conception of his character is
founded. But the letter to Dr. Schaden, written to explain and excuse the non-
payment of a debt, takes its tone, not from any predisposition to gloom and
melancholy, but from the manifold troubles which just then beset him—the bitter
disappointment of his sudden recall from Vienna; the death of his mother; the
hopeless poverty of his family; hence, the pangs of wounded pride and self-
respect; the depression of spirits caused by asthmatic maladies, and his utter
hopelessness of any timely change for the better, such as, in fact, one short year
was to bring.
It is clear that Beethoven’s character could not develop itself normally, until he
had become to a considerable degree independent of his father; and,
consequently, that certain peculiarities related of him in his boyhood were
probably less the results of his natural tendencies than the consequence of these
being checked and obstructed by adverse circumstances. Soon after the letter to
Dr. Schaden came the turning-point in the boy’s fortunes. Beethoven was now
substantially emancipated from his father; his talents opened to him a higher and
finer-toned circle of society; a love for the best literature was cherished, if not
created; and no long time elapsed before his father’s increasing moral infirmities
made him virtually the head of the family. The nobler qualities of his head and
heart now received a culture impossible before. At last his character could and did
develop itself normally. In all the following fourteen years—during which the boy
organist of Bonn rises step by step to the position of first of pianists and most
promising of the young composers in Vienna—one seeks in vain for any trace of
the assumed constitutional tendency to melancholy. Now come the pathetic letters
to Wegeler and the “Testament” of 1802—dark, gloomy, despondent. But these
were all written under the first pressure of a malady which, he justly foreboded,
would in time unfit him for general society and debar him from every field of the
musician’s activity and ambition save that of composition. It is perhaps worthy of
remark, that among the well-known phenomena of mental action are the
intellectual prostration and the consequent depression of spirits which follow the
completion of any great work in literature or art that has been for some time
engrossing the attention, absorbing the thoughts and straining the faculties; and
that the “Testament” of 1802 belongs in the precise period of reaction after
completing that first of his great works, the Second Symphony. The “Testament”
is indeed a cry of agony; but, in the paroxysms of intense physical suffering, cries
of agony are not proofs of a naturally weak or defective constitution of the body;
that sort of patient suffers less—but dies. Had Beethoven’s temperament really
been of the gloomy and melancholy cast supposed, suicide, insanity or—through
seeking temporary alleviation of mental suffering in sensual indulgences—moral
shipwreck would soon have ended his career. “Strength is the morality of men
who distinguish themselves above others, and it is also mine,” he wrote to his
“Dearest Baron Muck Carter”:—“Beethoven was, in fact, the personification of
strength,” said the aged poet Castelli to the present writer. The thought of suicide
is alluded to in both the “Testament” and the letter to Wegeler; but with him the
“To be or not to be?” was only a momentary, a passing, question; not because
“conscience does make cowards of us all,” but by reason of innate manliness to
bear “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” with courage and fortitude,
until time and patience should bring resignation. How bravely he sustained his
heavy burden to the end of 1806, has been amply recorded in this work. The
famous love-letter affords its own sufficient explanation of whatever degree of
melancholy it exhibits in the bitterness of parting and separation—the wretched
life in Vienna, the uncertainty of his pecuniary resources, the impossibility of
marriage without some decided change for the better in his condition and
prospects. When, a few months later, the question of the possession of the
theatres was decided against Braun, Beethoven had reason to hope that this
change was assured; since the position of Lobkowitz, both socially and in
connection with the theatres, gave to his hint, that the composer should apply for
a permanent engagement, almost the force of a promise that he should receive it.
In view of Beethoven’s abhorrence of all restrictions on his personal freedom, it is
by no means certain that the final non-acceptance of his proposals caused him
any very severe and lasting disappointment.
Whether so or not, and notwithstanding the prolonged
uncertainty of his future prospects and the occasional A Happy Period in the
Composer’s Life
characteristic complaints in his letters, still these three years—
1807-8-9—were unquestionably the happiest in the last half of his life. That it was
a period of extraordinary activity and productiveness, of a corresponding
augmentation and extension of his fame, of animated and joyous social
intercourse, and was brightly tinted with so much of the romance of love as a
man of middle-age is apt to indulge in—all this the reader knows.
The coming of Reichardt to Vienna and the recording of his observations on the
musical life of the Austrian capital in his book entitled “Confidential Letters, etc.,”
were fortunate incidents for the lovers of Beethoven. Reichardt’s was one of the
great names in music. He stood in the front rank both as composer and writer on
the art. His personal character was unspotted; his intellectual powers great and
highly cultivated in other fields than music; nor had his dismissal from his position
of Royal Chapelmaster by Frederick William II been founded upon reasons which
injured his reputation abroad. He therefore found all, even the highest, musical
salons of Vienna open to him, and he received attention which under the
circumstances was doubly grateful. A colossal self-esteem, a vanity almost
boundless alone could have sent such pages as his “Letters” to the press without
a more thorough expurgation. But this is nothing to the present generation, which
owes him a large debt of gratitude for the most lively and complete picture
existing of the musical life at Vienna at that period, and especially for his notices
of Beethoven, the date of which (winter of 1808-09) adds doubly to their value.
They should be read in connection with this biography.[76]
And here a word upon the compositions of these years. The notion, that the
beauties of the opera “Leonore” were in great measure the offspring of an old,
unfortunate affection for Fräulein von Breuning and of a still more unlucky recent
passion for Julia Guicciardi, was treated in its place as unworthy of serious
refutation; but nowhere in this work has anything been said affirming or implying
that the moral and mental condition of the man Beethoven would not produce its
natural and legitimate effect upon Beethoven the composer. Now, examine the
lists of compositions which terminate the preceding chapters, and say whether
any but a strong, healthy, sound, elastic mind could have produced them? To
specify only the very greatest; there are in the last months of 1806, after the visit
to the Brunswicks, the placid and serene Fourth Symphony—the most perfect in
form of them all—and the noble Violin Concerto; in 1807, the Mass in C and the C
minor Symphony; in 1808, the “Pastoral” Symphony and the Choral Fantasia; and
in 1809, the conception and partial execution of the Seventh, perhaps also the
Eighth, Symphony and the glorious “Egmont” music.
Are such the works of a melancholy, gloomy temperament or of a forlorn,
sentimental lover, sighing like a furnace and making “a woeful ballad to his
mistress’ eyebrow?”
Beethoven, during the fifteen years since Wegeler’s vain effort
to induce him to attend lectures on Kant, had become to Appreciation of
Serious Literature
some considerable degree a self-taught man; he had read and
studied much, and had acquired a knowledge of the ordinary literary topics of the
time, which justified that fine passage in the letter to Breitkopf and Härtel,
touching his ability to acquire knowledge from even the most learned treatises.
Strikingly in point is the interest which he exhibits during these and following
years in the Oriental researches of Hammer and his associates. His notes and
excerpts prove a very extensive knowledge of their translations, both published
and in manuscript; and, moreover, that this strange literature was perhaps even
more attractive to him in its religious, than in its lyric and dramatic aspects. In
these excerpts—indeed, generally in extracts from books and in his underscoring
of favorite passages in them—Beethoven exhibits a keen perception and taste for
the lofty and sublime, far beyond the grasp of any common or uncultivated mind.
“The moral law in us and the starry heavens above us. Kant!!!” is one of the brief
notes from his hand, which now and then enliven the tedious and thankless task
of deciphering the Conversation Books. The following, given here from his own
manuscript, is perhaps the finest of his transcriptions from Hindu literature:
God is immaterial; since he is invisible he can have no form, but from what we
observe in his works we may conclude that he is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient
and omnipresent—The mighty one is he who is free from all desire; he alone;
there is no greater than he.
Brahma; his spirit is enwrapped in himself. He, the mighty one, is present in every
part of space—his omniscience is in spirit by himself and the conception of him
comprehends every other one; of all comprehensive attributes that of omniscience
is the greatest. For it there is no threefold existence. It is independent of
everything. O God, thou art the true, eternal, blessed, immutable light of all times
and all spaces. Thy wisdom embraces thousands upon thousands of laws, and yet
thou dost always act freely and for thy honor. Thou wert before all that we revere.
To thee be praise and adoration. Thou alone art the truly blessed one (Bhagavan);
thou, the essence of all laws, the image of all wisdom, present throughout the
universe, thou upholdest all things.
Sun, ether, Brahma [these words are crossed out].
Beethoven’s enjoyment of Persian literature as revealed to him in the translations
and essays of Herder and von Hammer will now readily be conceived by the
reader; as also the delight with which he read that collection of exquisite
imitations of Persian poetry with its long series of (then) fresh notices of the
manners, customs, books and authors of Persia, which some years later Goethe
published with the title “West-Östlicher Divan.” Even that long essay, apparently
so out of place in the work—“Israel in der Wüste”—in which the character of
Moses is handled so unmercifully, was upon a topic already of curious interest to
Beethoven. This appears from one of his copied papers—one which, as Schindler
avers, “he considered to be the sum of the loftiest and purest religion.” The
history of this paper is this: The Hebrew chronicler describes the great lawgiver of
his nation as being “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” This leads
Schiller, in his fine essay on “Die Sendung Moses,” into a discussion of the nature
and character of this wisdom. The following sentences are from his account:
The epoptæ (Egyptian priests) recognized a single, highest cause of all things, a
primeval force, natural force, the essence of all essences, which was the same as
the demiurgos of the Greek philosophers. There is nothing more elevated than the
simple grandeur with which they spoke of the creator of the universe. In order to
distinguish him the more emphatically they gave him no name. A name, said they,
is only a need for pointing a difference; he who is only, has no need of a name,
for there is no one with whom he could be confounded. Under an ancient
monument of Isis were to be read the words: “I AM THAT WHICH IS,” and upon a
pyramid at Sais the strange primeval inscription: “I AM ALL, WHAT IS, WHAT
WAS, WHAT WILL BE; NO MORTAL MAN HAS EVER LIFTED MY VEIL.” No one was
permitted to enter the temple of Serapis who did not bear upon his breast or
forehead the name Iao, or I-ha-ho—a name similar in sound to the Hebrew
Jehovah and in all likelihood of the same meaning; and no name was uttered with
greater reverence in Egypt than this name Iao. In the hymn which the hierophant,
or guardian of the sanctuary, sang to the candidate for initiation, this was the first
division in the instruction concerning the nature of the divinity: “HE IS ONLY AND
SOLELY OF HIMSELF, AND TO THIS ONLY ONE ALL THINGS OWE THEIR
EXISTENCE.”
The sentences here printed in capital letters “Beethoven copied with his own hand
and kept (them), framed and under glass, always before him on his writing-table.”
Beethoven was now at an age when men of thoughtful and
independent minds have settled opinions on such important The Composer’s
Attitude towards the
subjects as have received their attention, among which, to all Church
men, religion stands preëminent. Few change their faith after
forty; there is no reason to suppose that Beethoven did; no place, therefore, more
fit than this will be found to remark upon a topic to which the preceding pages
directly lead—his religious views. Schindler writes in the appendix to his biography
of Beethoven:
Beethoven was brought up in the Catholic religion. That he was truly religious is
proved by his whole life, and many evidences were brought forward in the
biographical part (of this work). It was one of his peculiarities that he never spoke
on religious topics or concerning the dogmas of the various Christian churches in
order to give his opinion about them. It may be said with considerable certainty,
however, that his religious views rested less upon the creed of the church, than
that they had their origin in deism. Without having a manufactured theory before
him he plainly recognized the existence of God in the world as well as the world in
God. This theory he found in the whole of Nature, and his guides seem to have
been the oft-mentioned book, Christian Sturm’s “Betrachtungen der Werke Gottes
in der Natur,” and the philosophical systems of the Greek wise men. It would be
difficult for anybody to assert the contrary, who had seen how he applied the
contents of those writings in his own internal life.
As an argument against Schindler and to prove Beethoven’s orthodoxy in respect
to the Roman Catholic tenets, the fervid sentiment and sublime devotion
expressed in the music of the “Missa Solemnis” have been urged; but the words
of the Mass were simply a text on which he could lavish all the resources of his art
in the expression of his religious feelings. It should not be forgotten that the only
Mass which can be ranked with Beethoven’s in D, was the composition of the
sturdy Lutheran, J. S. Bach, and that the great epic poem of trinitarian Christianity
was by the Arian, John Milton. Perhaps Schindler would have his readers
understand more than is clearly expressed. If he means, that Beethoven rejected
the trinitarian dogma; that the Deity of his faith is a personal God, a universal
Father, to whom his human children may hopefully appeal for mercy in time of
temptation, for aid in time of need, for consolation in time of sorrow—if this be
Schindler’s “deism,” it may be affirmed unhesitatingly, that everything known to
the present writer, which bears at all on the subject, confirms his view. Beethoven
had the habit in moments of temptation and distress, of writing down short
prayers for divine support and assistance, many of which are preserved; but
neither in them, nor in any of his memoranda or conversations, is there the
remotest indication that he believed in the necessity of any mediator between the
soul of man and the Divine Father, under whatsoever name known—priest,
prophet, saint, virgin or Messiah; but an even stronger religious sentiment, a
more ardent spirit of devotion, a firmer reliance on the goodness and mercy of
God are revealed in them, than Schindler seems to have apprehended.
Chapter X
The Year 1810—Decrease in Productivity—Beethoven’s Project of Marriage—
Therese Malfatti—Bettina von Arnim and Her Correspondence with Goethe—The
Music to “Egmont”—Productions of the Year.
The topics last under notice have carried us far onward, even to the last years of
Beethoven. We now return to the end of 1809—to the master in the full vigor and
maturity of his powers. The last months of this year had been marked by an
untiring and efficient industry; his sketchbooks abounded in the noblest themes,
hints and protracted studies for orchestral, chamber and vocal compositions; and
several important works—among them the Seventh Symphony—were well
advanced. The princes, whose generosity had just placed him, for the present at
least, beyond the reach of pecuniary anxieties, may well have expected the
immediate fulfillment of “the desire that he surpass the great expectations which
are justified by his past achievements.” They were bitterly disappointed. Kinsky
did not live to hear any new orchestral work from that recently so prolific pen;
Lobkowitz, whose dissatisfaction is upon record, heard but three; while the
Archduke saw the years pass away comparatively fruitless, hardly more being
accomplished in ten, than formerly in two—the marvellous year 1814 excepted.
The close of 1809 terminated a decade (1800-1809) during which—if quality be
considered, as well as number, variety, extent and originality—Beethoven’s works
offer a more splendid exhibition of intellectual power than those of any other
composer produced within a like term of years; and New Year, 1810, began
another (1810-19), which, compared with the preceding, exhibits an astonishing
decrease in the composer’s productiveness. The contrast is rendered more striking
by the fact that many of the principal works completed in the second decade
belong in plan and partly in execution to the first.
Schindler’s division of Beethoven’s life into three distinctly marked periods appears
forced—rather fanciful than real; but whoever makes himself even moderately
conversant with the subject, soon perceives that a change in the man did take
place too great and sudden to be attributed to the ordinary effect of advancing
years; but when? The abrupt pause in his triumphant career as composer just
mentioned, would seem to determine the time; and, if so, the natural inference is,
that both were effects of the same cause. There was a point in the life of Handel
when his indefatigable pen dropped from his hand and many weary months
passed before he could resume it. The failure of his operas, his disastrous
theatrical speculation, consequent bankruptcy, and the culmination of his
distresses in a partial paralysis of his physical powers, were the causes. The
cessation of Beethoven’s labors, though less absolute than in Handel’s case, is
even more remarkable, as it continued longer and was not produced by any such
natural and obvious causes. The fact is certain, and will probably find a sufficient
explanation when we come to the details of the master’s private history during
this period; if not, it is another question the solution of which must await the
accident of time or the keener penetration and wider knowledge of some other
investigator.
Beethoven’s studies were now, for the third time, diverted
from important works in hand to an order from the directors First Performance of
the “Egmont” Music
of the theatres—the “Egmont” music. The persevering
diligence of the last months, of which he speaks in his letters, was evidently for
the purpose of clearing his desk of a mass of manuscript compositions sold to
Breitkopf and Härtel, before attacking Goethe’s tragedy—as decks are cleared for
action before a naval battle. If so, he could hardly have seriously engaged upon
the “Egmont” before the new year; but nothing is known, which fixes the exact
date of either the beginning or completion of the work. Its overture bears the
composer’s own date “1810”; its first performance was on the evening of
Thursday, May 24. The Clärchen was played by Antonie Adamberger—a young
actress alike distinguished for her beauty, her genius and her virtues—whose
marriage in 1817 to the distinguished archæologist von Arneth was a distinct loss
to the Vienna stage. The two songs which Clärchen has to sing, necessarily
brought Fräulein Adamberger for the moment into personal relations with
Beethoven, of which she wrote to the present author the following simple and
pleasing account under date January 5, 1867:
... I approached him (Beethoven) without embarrassment when my aunt of
blessed memory, my teacher and benefactress, called me to her room and
presented me to him. To his question: “Can you sing?” I replied without
embarrassment with a decided “No!” Beethoven regarded me with amazement
and said laughingly: “No? But I am to compose the songs in ‘Egmont’ for you.” I
answered very simply that I had sung only four months and had then ceased
because of hoarseness and the fear that continued exertion in the practice of
declamation might injure my voice. Then he said jovially with an adoption of the
Viennese dialect: “That will be a pretty how do you do!”—but on his part it turned
out to be something glorious.
We went to the pianoforte and rummaging around in my music ... he found on
top of the pile the well-known rondo with recitative from Zingarelli’s “Romeo and
Juliet.” “Do you sing that?” he asked with a laugh which shook him as he sat
down hesitatingly to play the accompaniment. Just as innocently and
unsuspiciously as I had chatted with him and laughed, I now reeled off the air.
Then a kind look came into his eye, he stroked my forehead with his hand and
said: “Very well, now I know”—came back in three days and sang the songs for
me a few times. After I had memorized them in a few days he left me with the
words: “There, that’s right. So, so that’s the way, now sing thus, don’t let anybody
persuade you to do differently and see that you do not put a mortant in it.” He
went; I never saw him again in my room. Only at the rehearsal when conducting
he frequently nodded to me pleasantly and benevolently. One of the old
gentlemen expressed the opinion that the songs which the master, counting on
certain effects, had set for orchestra, ought to be accompanied on a guitar. Then
he turned his head most comically and, with his eyes flaming, said, “He knows!”...
Long afterwards, in a Conversation Book, an unknown hand writes: “I remember
still the torment you had with the kettledrums at the rehearsal of ‘Egmont’.”
Nothing more is known of the history of this work. Beethoven’s name appears on
both this year’s concerts for the Theatrical Poor Fund—March 25, with the first
movements of the Fourth Symphony; April 17, with the “Coriolan” Overture; but it
does not appear that he conducted on either occasion; it is, however, probable
that he did conduct the rehearsals and performance of a symphony in
Schuppanzigh’s first Augarten concert in May.
Add to the above the subsequent notices of a few songs and the Quartet, Op. 95,
and the meagre history of Beethoven as composer for 1810 is exhausted; what
remains is of purely private and personal nature. Kinsky’s active service in the
campaign of 1809 and his subsequent duties in Bohemia had prevented him
hitherto from discharging his obligations under the annuity contract; but the
Archduke, perhaps Lobkowitz also, was promptly meeting his; and these
payments, together with the honorable remuneration granted by Breitkopf and
Härtel for manuscripts, supplied Beethoven with ample means for comfort, even
for luxury. He had at this time no grounds for complaint upon that score.
It was in 1810 that Beethoven received from Clementi and Co. the long-deferred
honorarium for the British copyrights bought in April, 1807. Exactly when this
money was received by Beethoven cannot be determined from the existing
evidence, but it seems to have been before February 4, 1810, on which date
Beethoven wrote to Breitkopf and Härtel offering them the compositions from Op.
73 to 83 (exclusive of 75), and remarking that he was about to send the same
works to London. He would scarcely have had such a purpose in mind unless he
had had a settlement with his London publishers. Additional evidence, though of
little weight, is provided by the circumstance that at the same time he was
contemplating a change of lodgings, as a letter to Professor Loeb, written on
February 8, shows; it was to his old home in the house of Baron Pasqualati, which
he had occupied two years before and which he now took again at an annual
rental of 500 florins.
A number of letters to Gleichenstein and Zmeskall to which
attention must now be called seem to show us Beethoven in Thoughts Hymeneal
and Sartorial
the character of a man so deeply smitten with the charms of
a newly-acquired lady friend that he turns his attention seriously to his wardrobe
and personal appearance and thinks unusually long and frequently of the social
pleasures enjoyed at the home of his charmer. A desire to save space alone
prevents the publication of the letters in full, but the reader may find them in the
published Collections of the composer’s letters.[77] In the first of these he sends
Gleichenstein 300 florins which the Count was to expend for him in the purchase
of linen and nankeen for shirts and “at least half a dozen neckties.” On the same
day, he informs his correspondent that acting on his advice he had paid Lind 300
florins. Henickstein had paid him twenty-seven and a half florins for a pound
sterling and invited him and Gleichenstein to dine the next day with Clementi.
Very significantly the letter ends with: “Greet everything that is dear to you and
me. How gladly would I like to add to whom we are dear????” Lind was a tailor
and Henickstein the son of a banker. The next day he writes that on the previous
evening the Archduke had requested his presence on the day set for the dinner
and he had been obliged to send Henickstein a declination. The day after that he
concludes a note telling about the meeting at the Archduke’s with “Farewell. This
evening I will come to the dear Malfattis.” Here is the next letter in full:
As I shall have enough time this morning, I shall come to the Savage (zum wilden
Mann—a restaurant) in the Prater. I fancy that I shall find no savages there but
beautiful Graces, and for them I must don my armor. I know you will not think me
a sponge because I come only for dinner, and so I will come straight. If I find you
at home, well and good; if not, I’ll hurry to the Prater to embrace you.
On the day after that he sends Gleichenstein an S. (a sonata, doubtless) which he
had “promised Therese” and adds: “Give my compliments to all of them. It seems
as if the wounds with which wicked men have pierced my soul might be healed by
them”; he sends 50 florins more for cravats and makes a boast of it that Gigons,
Malfatti’s little dog, had supped with him and accompanied him home. This is the
first of the only two allusions which Beethoven makes in all the papers, printed or
written, relating to him, of a domestic pet animal. Another letter reads: “I beg of
you to let me know when the M. remain at home of an evening. You surely had a
pleasant sleep—I slept little, but I prefer such an awaking to all sleep.” Again he
writes to say that he wished “Madame M.” would give him permission to pick out a
pianoforte for her which she wished to buy “at Schanz’s.” Though it was his rule
never to accept commissions on such sales, he wanted to save money for the lady
on this purchase.
Now we reach the notes to Zmeskall, the first of which is endorsed by the
recipient as having been received on April 18, 1810. From Beethoven’s lodgings in
the Walfischgasse it was but a few steps around the corner in the
Kärnthnerthorstrasse to an entrance of the Bürgerspital where Zmeskall lived, of
whose readiness to oblige him he could and did avail himself to an extent which
at length excited misgivings in his own mind that he was really going too far and
abusing his friend’s kindness. This time Beethoven’s want was of a very peculiar
nature, namely a looking-glass; that it was not for shaving purposes but for a
more general control of his toilet is indicated by the second note:
(April 18, 1810.)
Dear Zmeskall do send me your looking-glass which hangs beside your window
for a few hours, mine is broken, if you would be so kind as to buy me one like it
to-day it would be a great favor, I’ll recoup you for your expenditure at once—
forgive my importunity dear Z.
Dear Z. do not get angry at my little note—think of the situation which I am in,
like Hercules once at Queen Omphale’s??? I asked you to buy me a looking-glass
like yours, and beg you as soon as you are not using yours which I am returning
to send it back to me for mine is broken—farewell and don’t again write to me
about the great man—for I never felt the strength or weakness of human nature
as I feel it just now.
Remain fond of me.
(Without date—the original in Boston.)
Do not get vexed, dear Z. because of my continued demands upon you—let me
know how much you paid for the looking-glass?
Farewell we shall see each other soon in the Swan as the food is daily growing
worse in the (illegible)—I have had another violent attack of colic since day before
yesterday, but it is better to-day.
Your friend
Beethoven.
The date of the first note (April 18) is important as showing
that at the time Beethoven was not in the country but still in Intercourse with the
Malfatti Family
Vienna and that, consequently, the 8th mentioned in the letter
to Therese Malfatti which follows, was not the 8th of April, but of May. From this
letter we deduce that Beethoven’s intercourse with the Malfatti family in Vienna
had become more animated and intimate, that Beethoven improvised at the
pianoforte and that at the punchbowl his spirits rose rather high (“forget the
nonsense”). The conclusion points pretty plainly towards a desire to be united
with the family in closer bonds. The Malfattis had probably gone to their country
home towards the end of April or beginning of May. The following letter to
Gleichenstein was probably written on the day after the merry evening of which
the letter to Therese speaks:
Your report plunged me from the regions of happiness into the depths. Why the
adjunction, You would let me know when there would be another musicale, am I
nothing more than your musician or that of the others?—that at least is the
interpretation, I can therefore seek support only in my own breast, there is none
for me outside of it; no, nothing but wounds has friendship and kindred feelings
for me. So be it then, for you, poor B. there is no happiness in the outer world,
you must create it in yourself, only in the world of ideality will you find friends.
I beg of you to set my mind at rest as to whether I was guilty of any impropriety
yesterday, or if you cannot do that then tell me the truth, I hear it as willingly as I
speak it—there is still time, the truth may yet help me. Farewell—don’t let your
only friend Dorner know anything of this.
The letter to Therese reads:
With this you are receiving, honored Therese, what I promised, and if there were
not the best of reasons against it, you would receive more in order to show that I
always do more for my friends than I promise—I hope and have no doubt that
you keep yourself as well occupied as pleasantly entertained—but not so much
that you cannot also think of me. It would perhaps be presuming upon your
kindness or placing too high a value upon myself if I were to write you: “people
are only together when they are in each other’s company, even the distant one,
the absent one lives for us,” who would dare to write such a sentiment to the
volatile T. who handles everything in this world so lightly? Do not forget, in laying
out your occupation, the pianoforte, or music generally; you have so beautiful a
talent for it, why not cultivate it exclusively, you who have so much feeling for
everything that is beautiful and good, why will you not make use of it in order to
learn the more perfect things in so beautiful an art, which always reflects its light
upon us—I live very solitarily and quietly, although now and then lights try to
arouse me there is still for me a void which cannot be filled since you are all gone
and which defies even my art which has always been so faithful to me—your
pianoforte is ordered and you will have it soon—explain for yourself the difference
between the treatment of a theme which I invented one evening and the manner
in which I finally wrote it down, but don’t get the punch to help you—how lucky
you were to be able to go to the country so soon, I shall not have this pleasure
until the 8th, I rejoice in the prospect like a child, how joyous I am when I can
walk amongst bushes and trees, herbs, rocks, nobody can love the country as I
do—since woods, trees, rocks, return the answer which man wants to hear.
(Four lines stricken out).
You will soon receive four of my compositions whereat you should not have to
complain too much about the difficulties—have you read Goethe’s “Wilhelm
Meister,” Shakespeare translated by Schlegel, one has so much leisure in the
country it might be agreeable if I were to send you these works. Chance has
brought it about that I have an acquaintance in your neighborhood, perhaps you
will see me at your home early some morning for half an hour and then away, you
see I wish to be as little tedious as possible. Commend me to the good will of
your father, your mother, although I have no right as yet to ask it of them, also to
your aunt M. Farewell, honored T. I wish you all that is good and beautiful in life,
think of me and willingly—forget the nonsense—be convinced no one can wish
that your life may be more joyous and more happy than I, even if you have no
sympathy for
Your devoted servant and friend
Beethoven.
N. B. It would really be very nice of you if you were to write a few lines to say
what I can do for you here?
Under such circumstances Beethoven wrote the famous letter Preparations for
of May 2, 1810 to Wegeler in Coblenz, asking him to procure Marriage
a copy of his baptismal certificate for him. In this letter he
says:
A few years ago my quiet, retired mode of life ceased, and I was forcibly drawn
into activities of the world; I have not yet formed a favorable opinion of it but
rather one against it—but who is there could escape the influence of the external
storms? Yet I should be happy, perhaps one of the happiest of men, if the demon
had not taken possession of my ears. If I had not read somewhere that a man
may not voluntarily part with his life so long as a good deed remains for him to
perform, I should long ago have been no more—and indeed by my own hands. O,
life is so beautiful, but to me it is poisoned.
You will not decline to accede to my friendly request if I beg of you to secure my
baptismal certificate for me. Whatever expense may attach to the matter, since
you have an account with Steffen Breuning, you can recoup yourself at once from
that source and I will make it good at once to Steffen here. If you should yourself
think it worth while to investigate the matter and make the trip from Coblenz to
Bonn, charge everything to me. But one thing must be borne in mind, namely,
that there was a brother born before I was, who was also named Ludwig with the
addition Maria, but who died. To fix my age beyond doubt, this brother must first
be found, inasmuch as I already know that in this respect a mistake has been
made by others, and I have been said to be older than I am. Unfortunately I
myself lived for a time without knowing my age. I had a family register but it has
been lost heaven knows how. Therefore do not be bored if I urge you to attend to
this matter, to find Maria and the present Ludwig who was born after him. The
sooner you send me the baptismal certificate the greater will be my obligation.
To the “Notizen” (1838) Wegeler published a few pages of appendix on the
occasion of the Beethoven festival at Bonn (1845), giving therein a most valuable
paragraph explanatory of this important letter:
It seems that Beethoven, once in his life, entertained the idea of marrying, after
having been in love many times, as is related in the “Notizen” (pp. 40, 42 et seq.
and 117 et seq.). Many persons as well as myself were impressed by the urgency
with which in his letter of May 10 [sic] he besought me to secure his baptismal
certificate for him. He wants to pay all the expenditures, even a journey from
Coblenz to Bonn. And then he adds explicit instructions which I was to observe in
looking up the certificate in order to get the right one. I found the solution of the
riddle in a letter written to me three months later by my brother-in-law St. v.
Breuning. In this he says: “Beethoven tells me at least once a week that he
intends to write to you; but I believe his marriage project has fallen through, and
for this reason he no longer feels the lively desire to thank you for your trouble in
getting him the baptismal certificate.” In the thirty-ninth year of his life Beethoven
had not given up thoughts of marriage.
We know now that the marriage project fell through early in May, soon after he
had written the letter to Wegeler. Two short letters to Gleichenstein instruct us
slightly touching the conclusion of this psychological drama which, no doubt, tore
the heart of Beethoven. It would seem as if at first Beethoven wanted to visit the
Malfattis at their country home, but at the last preferred to send a formal proposal
of marriage by the hands of Gleichenstein. We have no testimony concerning the
refusal beyond the utterance of the niece and the cessation of all correspondence
on the subject. Here are the letters:
You are living on a calm and peaceful sea or, possibly, are already in a safe harbor
—you do not feel the distress of the friend who is still in the storm—or you dare
not feel it—what will they think of me in the star Venus Urania, how will they
judge me without seeing me—my pride is so humbled, I would go there with you
uninvited—let me see you at my lodging to-morrow morning, I shall expect you at
about 9 o’clock at breakfast—Dorner can come with you at another time—if you
were but franker with me, you are certainly concealing something from me, you
want to spare me and this uncertainty is more painful than the most fatal
certainty—Farewell if you cannot come let me know in advance—think and act for
me—I cannot entrust to paper more of what is going on within me.
Dear friend, so cursedly late—press them all warmly to your heart—why can I not
be with you? Farewell, I will be with you on Wednesday morning—the letter is
written so that the whole world may read it—if you find that the paper covering is
not clean enough, put another one on, I cannot tell at night whether it is clean—
farewell, dear friend, think and act also for your faithful friend.
Beethoven’s relations with another fair friend now demand attention. In the
Vienna suburban road Erdbeergasse stands the lofty house then numbered 98, its
rear windows overlooking Rasoumowsky’s gardens, the Donau canal and the
Prater, whence on May 15, 1810, Elizabeth Brentano (Bettina) wrote to Goethe:
Here I live in the house of the deceased Birkenstock, surrounded by two thousand
copperplate engravings, as many hand-drawings, as many hundred old ash urns
and Etruscan lamps, marble vases, antique fragments of hands and feet,
paintings, Chinese garments, coins, geological collections, sea insects, telescopes
and numberless maps, plans of ancient empires and cities sunk in ruin, artistically
carved walking-sticks, precious documents, and finally the sword of Emperor
Carolus.
Joseph Melchior von Birkenstock (born in 1738), the honored, trusted and valued
servant of Maria Theresia and Kaiser Joseph, the friend and brother-in-law of the
celebrated Sonnenfels—the esteemed correspondent of so many of the noblest
men of his time, including the American philosopher Franklin and the Scotch
historian Robertson, the reformer of the Austrian school system, the promoter of
all liberal ideas so long as in those days progress was allowed—was pensioned in
1803, and thenceforth lived for science, art and literature until his death, October
30, 1809. His house, filled almost to repletion with the artistic, archæological,
scientific collections of which Bettina speaks, was one of those truly noble seats of
learning, high culture and refinement, where Beethoven, to his manifest
intellectual gain, was a welcome guest.
Sophie Brentano, older than Bettina, very beautiful
notwithstanding the loss of an eye, and, like all the members Intimate Relations
with the Brentanos
of that remarkable family, very highly talented and
accomplished, had made a long visit to Vienna as Count Heberstein’s bride—their
marriage being prevented by her untimely death. “She brought about the
marriage of her brother Franz with Antonie von Birkenstock,” says Jahn. “The
young wife, who did not feel at home in Frankfort”—and also because of the
precarious health of her father, we may add—“persuaded Brentano to remove to
Vienna, where for several years she occupied a home in the Birkenstock house
which Bettina describes so beautifully. In this house, where music was cultivated,
Beethoven came and went in friendly fashion. His ‘little friend,’ for whose
encouragement in pianoforte playing he wrote the little trio in a single movement
in 1812, was her daughter Maximiliane Brentano, later Madame Plittersdorf, to
whom ten years later he dedicated the Sonata in E major (Op. 109). After
Birkenstock’s death he tried to give a practical turn to his friendship by seeking to
persuade Archduke Rudolph to buy a part of his collection. More effective,
evidently was the help which Brentano extended to him, who, when he came into
financial straits and needed a loan, always found an open purse. Madame Antonie
Brentano was frequently ill for weeks at a time during her sojourn in Vienna, so
that she had to remain in her room inaccessible to all visitors. At such times
Beethoven used to come regularly, seat himself at a pianoforte in her anteroom
without a word and improvise; after he had finished ‘telling her everything and
bringing comfort,’ in his language, he would go as he had come without taking
notice of another person.”
The credibility of Madame von Arnim’s contribution to Beethoven literature has
been questioned in all degrees of severity, from simple doubts as to particular
passages to broad denunciation of the whole as gross distortions of fact, or even
as figments of the imagination. Dogmatism is rarely in proportion to knowledge,
unless, perhaps, in inverse ratio. The bitterest attacks upon the veracity of Mme.
von Arnim have been made by those whose ignorance of the subject is most
conspicuous; but among the doubters are people of candor, good judgment and
wide knowledge of Beethoven’s history; and a decent respect for the opinions of
such renders it just and proper to explain why so much of these contributions has
been admitted into the text as being substantially true.
At the very outset we are met by a statement in Schindler’s book (Ed. 1840)
which if correct destroys at once the credibility of Mme. von Arnim’s account of
her first interview with Beethoven. It is this: “Beethoven became acquainted with
the Brentano family in Frankfort through her [Bettina].” A later writer, Ludwig
Nohl, supports the assertion on the authority of “Frau Brentano, now 87 years
old”—Birkenstock’s daughter. But Schindler, after his long residence in and near
Frankfort, writes (1860): “There still lives one of the oldest friends of our master
during life, with whom he became acquainted already on his arrival in Vienna
(1792) in the house of her father.” This was the above-mentioned lady “now 87
years old.” The other writer also withdraws his statement in a later publication
where he speaks of this aged lady’s daughter, “Maxe, who as a child in 1808 [?] in
Vienna, often sat at Birkenstock’s on his (Beethoven’s) knees.”
Any possible doubt on the subject is dispelled by a communication made to this
author in 1872, by the then head of the Brentano family living in Frankfort, who
wrote:
The friendly relations between Beethoven and the family Brentano in Frankfort
already existed when Frau von Brentano (Antonie) visited her father in Vienna,
whither she went with her older children for an extended period because her
father, Court Councillor Birkenstock, had been ailing for a considerable time. This
friendly intercourse was continued after the death of Councillor Birkenstock on
October 30, 1809, and during the three years’ sojourn of the Brentano family in
Vienna. Beethoven often came to the house of Birkenstock, later of Brentano,
attended the quartet concerts which were given there by the best musicians of
Vienna, and often rejoiced his friends with his glorious pianoforte playing. The
Brentano children occasionally carried fruit and flowers to him in his lodging; he in
return gave them bonbons and always exhibited great friendship for them.
Beethoven, through his familiar intercourse with the
Brentanos, must, of course, have known of the expected visit Mme. von Arnim’s
of Bettina and of her relations to Goethe. Her account of their Letter to Goethe
first meeting, therefore, is in all respects credible; nor has it
been, so far as is known, questioned. It is twice given by her own pen in the
“Briefwechsel” with Goethe under date 1810, and in the Pückler-Muskau
correspondence as belonging to 1832. At this last-named date she had not yet
received from Chancellor von Müller her letter to Goethe, and wrote from memory,
confining her narrative to the minor incidents of the meeting. The two accounts
differ, but they do not contradict, they only supplement each other.
The present writer had the honor of an interview or two with
Mme. von Arnim in 1849-50, and heard the story from her Authenticity of the
Bettina Letters
lips; in 1854-5, it was his good fortune to meet her often in
two charming family circles—her own and that of the brothers Grimm. Thus at an
interval of five years he had the opportunity of comparing her statements, of
questioning her freely and of convincing himself, up to this point, of her simple
honesty and truth.
But the rock of offense does not lie here; it is in the long discourse of Beethoven
which will presently be given in these pages. Schindler objects to this, both in its
matter and form, on the ground that he had never heard “the master” talk in this
manner. But the Beethoven whom Schindler knew in his last years was not the
Beethoven of 1810, and Anton Schindler certainly was not an Elizabeth Brentano.
There happens to be proof that just in the former period the composer could talk
freely and eloquently. Jahn says: “Beethoven’s personality and nature, moreover,
were calculated to make a significant but winning impression upon women,” and
cites Mme. Hummel (Elizabeth Röckel) in proof. “As a matron advanced in years,”
says he, “and still winning because of her charming graciousness, she spoke with
ingratiating warmth of the good fortune of having been observed by Beethoven
and to have been on friendly relations with him. ‘Whoever saw him in good
humor, intellectually animated, when he gave utterance to his thoughts in such a
mood,’ said she with glowing eyes, ‘can never forget the impression which he
made.’”
There are two hypotheses as to the genesis of this letter to Goethe. The one: that
Mme. von Arnim in preparing the “Briefwechsel” for publication wrote out her own
crude and nebulous thoughts and gave them to the public in the form of a
fictitious report of a conversation of Beethoven. The other: that she found
Beethoven fresh from the composition of the “Egmont” music, full of enthusiasm
for Goethe and vehemently desirous that his, the great composer’s, views upon
music should be known and comprehended by the great poet; that he, happening
to get upon this topic at their first interview, imparted those views to her with that
express purpose; and that she, so far as she was able to follow and understand
the speaker, and so far as her memory could recall his words a few hours after,
correctly records and reports them.
The first hypothesis rests now on precisely the same foundation as when
Schindler wrote, namely, on the presumption that Beethoven could not have
spoken thus; but a discourse uttered under such circumstances and with such a
purpose, poured into the willing ear of a beautiful, highly cultivated and
remarkably fascinating young woman, one who possessed the higher artistic and
intellectual qualities of character in an extraordinary degree—such a discourse
might well abound in thoughts and expressions which the prosaic Schindler in the
most prosaic period of his master’s life never drew from him.
Two significant minor points may be noted: there was a Latin word in use by the
Breuning family in the old Bonn days with a meaning not given in the dictionaries.
This we learn from Wegeler’s “Notizen,” and only there. Yet Mme. v. Arnim puts
this word, raptus, in precisely this local sense into Beethoven’s mouth several
years before the publication of the “Notizen”! Again: when the discoveries of
Galvani and Volta were still a novel topic of general interest, when, through them,
physiologists, as Dubois-Raymond expressed it, “believed that at length they
should realize their visions of a vital power”; and when the semi-scientific world
was full of the theories of Mesmer and his disciples—at that time, the first years
of the nineteenth century, custom gave the word elektrisch (electrical) a
significance long since lost, which well conveyed the thought Beethoven is made
to express. But in 1834-5, to introduce this word in that sense, retrospectively,
into a fictitious conversation purporting to be of the year 1810, shows, no less
than the raptus, an exquisite tact so rare, that it might well be termed a most
felicitous stroke of genius, one of which any writer of romance might be vain.
Julius Merz, in his “Athenæum für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben” (Nuremberg,
January, 1839), printed for the opening article “Drei Briefe von Beethoven an
Bettina.” The third of these letters was copied the next July into Schilling’s
ephemeral musical periodical the “Jahrbücher” (Carlsruhe), with remarks by the
editor expressing doubts of its authenticity. But Schindler, whose book was just
then going to press, copied a large portion of it as genuine; and in his second
edition (1845) reprinted all three entire, without adding a word of doubt or
misgiving. They had appeared in English in 1841, from a copy given to Mr. Henry
F. Chorley by Mme. von Arnim; and since then have been reprinted in various
languages probably more frequently, and become more universally known, than
any other chapter in Beethoven literature. Here and there a reader shared in
Schilling’s doubts; but twenty years elapsed before these doubts were put into
such form, and by an author of such position, that a reasonable self-respect could
allow Mme. von Arnim to take notice of them; and then it was too late—she lay
upon her death-bed. Her silence under the attacks made upon her veracity is
therefore no evidence against her.
A. B. Marx, the author here referred to, produces but one argument which
demands notice here, and this is the occurrence of certain “repetitions”: “liebe,
liebste,” “liebe, gute,” “bald, bald” which he declared to be “very womanish and
very un-Beethovenian.” Now, on the contrary, in the text of this volume there is
abundant proof that just these expressions are very Beethovenian and
characteristic of his letters to favorite women at the precise period in question.
It is true, as he says, that when Marx wrote, nothing of the kind had ever been
published; a fortiori, nothing twenty years before; but this fact, on which he laid
such stress, instead of supporting really demolishes his argument. It was in the
autumn of 1838 that Mr. Merz received the letters. At that time specimens of
Beethoven’s correspondence had been published by Seyfried in the
pseudo-“Studien,” by Schumann in the “Neue Zeitschrift,” by Gottfried Weber in
the “Cäcilia,” by Wegeler in the “Notizen”; and a few others were scattered in
books and periodicals. Imitators, counterfeiters, fabricators of false documents,
must have samples, patterns, models; but all the Beethoven letters then in print
were so far from being the patterns or models of the Bettina letters that the
contrast between them was the main argument against the authenticity of the
latter. If, then, Mme. von Arnim introduced so many expressions which we know
(but she could not) are not “very womanish and very un-Beethovenian” into a
fictitious correspondence, she did so not only without a pattern or model, but
against all patterns and models. Credat Judæeus Apella, non ego.
There are points of doubt and difficulty in the third letter which the warmest
advocates of its authenticity have not been able fully to overcome; but as Marx
had not sufficient knowledge of his subject to perceive them, and the question of
the acceptance or rejection of this letter will rest upon grounds to be given in the
text, these points need not be noticed here. Another one must be, namely:
suppose that letter should be proved counterfeit, does it follow that the others are
so? Not at all; but that they are the authentic letters whose manner and style are
imitated.
In 1848, Mme. von Arnim published two volumes of characteristic correspondence
with Herr Nathusius under the title: “Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia.” In one of
his letters Pamphilius requests autographs of Goethe’s mother and Beethoven, for
a collection which he is making. This gives her occasion in various letters to
express her admiration and reverence for the composer in terms which come
warm from the heart. At length (Vol. II, p. 205) she writes: “Herewith I am
sending you the letters of Goethe and Beethoven for your autograph collection.”
She prints all three in the pages following; but a comparison of the several
passages relating to them leads to the inference, that only one autograph was
sent. Is all this a mystification? Was there no Pamphilius? No autograph
collection? No contribution of a letter in Beethoven’s hand to it? Herr Nathusius
knows.
Mme. von Arnim, then, gave the letters to the public three times; in the
“Athenæum,” January, 1839; in English translation, through Chorley, 1841; in the
“Pamphilius und Ambrosia,” in 1848. It is patent to the feeblest common sense,
that, if not genuine, either the same copy, or copies carefully collated so as to
avoid all suspicious variations, would have been sent to the printer; and that the
two German publications would differ only by such small errors as compositors
make and proof-readers overlook—such as are found in Schindler’s reprint from
the “Athenæum,” and in Marx’s from Schindler. But the variations of the
“Pamphilius” copy from that in the “Athenæum” are such as cannot be printer’s
errors, but precisely such as two persons, inexperienced in the task, would make
in deciphering Beethoven’s very illegible writing; one (Mr. Merz) correcting the
punctuation and faults in the use of capital letters (as Wegeler has evidently
done), and the other (Mme. von Arnim) retaining these striking characteristics of
the composer’s letters. The change of the familiar “Bettine,” which Beethoven
learned in her brother’s family, to the more formal “Freundin,” can hardly be made
a point of objection. Marx’s argument had been so completely upset, that, in
renewing (1863) his attack upon the then deceased Mme. von Arnim, he was
compelled to base it upon other considerations. It was then that the present
writer compared the letters printed in the “Athenæum” with the copies in the
“Pamphilius,” which convinced him, on the grounds above noted, of their
authenticity, at least in part, and led to a correspondence, of which an abstract
here follows: On July 9, 1863, the present author requested Mr. Wheeler,
American Consul at Nuremberg, to see Mr. Merz, learn from him the
circumstances under which he obtained the letters, and whether he printed from
Beethoven’s autograph. Mr. Wheeler replied on August 9th: “He [Mr. Merz] states,
that he enjoyed the personal acquaintance of that lady (Mme. von Arnim), and
was at the time in Berlin on a visit; and being at her residence on a certain
occasion, she gave him these letters, remarking: ‘There is something for the
Athenæum.’ After publishing the letters, Mr. Merz feels confident, he returned the
letters to Mme. v. Arnim.” The author now, on August 25th, requested Mr. Wheeler
if possible to obtain from Mr. Merz his written statement that he had printed the
letters from the original autographs. Mr. Wheeler, on September 24th, replied....
“Yesterday he [Merz] was good enough to write me the note you requested; I
trust it may be found of the tenor wished.” The note which was enclosed in this
letter is this: “I can certify that at the time in question I had in my possession the
letters referred to in the January number of the ‘Athenæum,’ but gave them back
again. Nuremberg, September 23, 1863. Julius Merz, book publisher.” It may be
said that this note does not explicitly cover the whole ground. True, it is the
testimony of a conscientious man who, after the lapse of twenty-five years,
remembers deciphering certain letters of Beethoven which he printed, but does
not venture to declare that all that he printed lay before him in the handwriting of
the master. There is another witness who is reported to have been less distrustful
of his memory. Herr Ludwig Nohl, in a note to these letters (“Briefe Beethoven’s,”
p. 71), says: “Their authenticity (barring, perhaps, a few words in the middle of
the third letter) was never doubtful in my mind and will not be now after
Beethoven’s letters have been made public. Though superfluous, it may yet be
said for the benefit of such as are not wholly willing to accept internal evidence,
that Prof. Moriz Carriere, in a conversation on the subject of Beethoven’s letters in
December, 1864, expressly stated that the three letters to Bettina were genuine;
he saw them himself in her house in Berlin in 1839, read them through with the
greatest interest and care, and because of their significant contents had urged
their immediate publication. When they were printed a short time afterward, no
changes in the reprint struck his attention; on the contrary, he could still
remember that the much controverted terms, particularly the anecdote about
Goethe in the third letter, were precisely so in the original.”
And now to the matter, the discussion of which has detained
us so long. One day in May, Beethoven, sitting at the First Meeting with
Bettina
pianoforte with a song just composed before him, was
surprised by a pair of hands being placed upon his shoulders. He looked up
“gloomily” but his face brightened as he saw a beautiful young woman who,
putting her mouth to his ear said: “My name is Brentano.” She needed no further
introduction. He smiled, gave her his hand without rising and said: “I have just
made a beautiful song for you; do you want to hear it?” Thereupon he sang—
raspingly, incisively, not gently or sweetly (the voice was hard), but transcending
training and agreeableness by reason of the cry of passion which reacted on the
hearer—“Kennst du das Land?” He asked: “Well, how do you like it?” She nodded.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically, “marvellously beautiful; I’ll sing it
again.” He sang it again, looked at her with a triumphant expression, and seeing
her cheeks and eyes glow, rejoiced over her happy approval. “Aha!” said he,
“most people are touched by a good thing; but they are not artist-natures. Artists
are fiery; they do not weep.” He then sang another song of Goethe’s, “Trocknet
nicht Thränen der ewigen Liebe.”
There was a large dinner party that day at Franz Brentano’s in the Birkenstock
house and Bettina—for it was she—told Beethoven he must change his old coat
for a better, and accompany her thither. “Oh,” said he jokingly, “I have several
good coats,” and took her to the wardrobe to see them. Changing his coat he
went down with her to the street, but stopped there and said he must return for a
moment. He came down again laughing with the old coat on. She remonstrated;
he went up again, dressed himself properly and went with her.[78] But,
notwithstanding his rather clumsy drollery, she soon discovered a greatness in the
man for which she was wholly unprepared. His genius burst upon her with a
splendor of which she had formed no previous conception, and the sudden
revelation astonished, dazzled, enraptured her. It is just this, which gives the tone
to her letter upon Beethoven addressed to Goethe. In fact, the Beethoven of our
conceptions was not then known; the first attempt to describe or convey in words,
what the finer appreciative spirits had begun to feel in his music, was E. T. A.
Hoffmann’s article on the C minor Symphony, in the “Allg. Mus. Zeit.” of July 21st
—five weeks later.
The essential parts of Bettina’s long communication are these:
Bettina’s Letter to
(To Goethe) Goethe
No lovelier spring than this, that say I and feel it, too, because I have made your
acquaintance. You must have seen for yourself that in society I am like a frog on
the sand which flounders about and cannot get away until some benevolent
Galatea puts him into the mighty sea again. I was right high and dry, dearest
Bettine, I was surprised by you at a moment when ill-humor had complete control
of me; but of a truth it vanished at sight of you, I knew at once that you belonged
to another world than this absurd one to which with the best of wills one cannot
open his ears. I am a miserable man and am complaining about the others!!—
Surely you will pardon this with your good heart which looks out of your eyes and
your sense which lies in your ears—at least your ears know how to flatter when
they give heed. My ears, unfortunately, are a barrier through which I cannot easily
have friendly intercourse with mankind—otherwise!—Perhaps!—I should have had
more confidence in you. As it is I could only understand the big, wise look of your
eyes, which did for me what I shall never forget. Dear Bettine, dearest girl! Art!—
who understands it, with whom can one converse about this great goddess!—How
dear to me are the few days in which we chatted, or rather corresponded with
each other, I have preserved all the little bits of paper on which your bright, dear,
dearest answers are written. And so I owe it to my bad ears that the best portion
of these fleeting conversations is written down. Since you have been gone I have
had vexatious hours, hours of shadow, in which nothing can be done; I walked
about in the Schönbrunn Alley for fully three hours after you were gone, and on
the bastion; but no angel who might fascinate me as you do, Angel. Pardon,
dearest Bettine, this departure from the key. I must have such intervals in which
to unburden my heart. You have written to Goethe, haven’t you?—would that I
might put my head in a bag so that I could see and hear nothing of what is going
on in the world. Since you, dearest angel, cannot meet me. But I shall get a letter
from you, shall I not?—Hope sustains me, it sustains half of the world, and I have
had her as neighbor all my life, if I had not what would have become of me?—I
am sending you herewith, written with my own hand, “Kennst du das Land,” as a
souvenir of the hour in which I learned to know you, I am sending also the other
which I have composed since I parted with you dear, dearest heart!
Herz, mein Herz, was soll das geben,
Was bedränget dich so sehr?
Welch ein fremdes, neues Leben!
Ich erkenne dich nicht mehr.
Yes, dearest Bettine, answer this, write me what it is shall happen to me since my
heart has become such a rebel. Write to your most faithful friend—
Beethoven.
The cessation in Beethoven’s productiveness in this period is partly explained by
the vast amount of labor entailed by the preparation of manuscripts for
publication, the correction of proofs, etc. Of this there is evidence in a number of
letters to Breitkopf and Härtel. On July 2 he wrote demanding an honorarium of
250 florins for works that he had specified, and sending the first installment, two
sonatas for pianoforte, five variations for pianoforte and six ariettas (probably Op.
75). The second installment, he said, should be a Concerto in E-flat, the Choral
Fantasia and three Ariettas. The third, the Characteristic Sonata “Farewell,
Absence and Return,” five Italian ariettas and the score of “Egmont.” On August
21, 1810, he wrote to the firm at great length. He sends a draft of a plan for a
complete edition of his works, in which Breitkopf and Härtel were to figure as the
principal publishers. He asks what they are willing to pay for “a concerto, quartet,
etc., and then you will be able to see that 250 ducats is a small honorarium.”... “I
do not aim at being a musical usurer, as you think, who composes only in order to
get rich, by no means, but I love a life of independence and cannot achieve this
without a little fortune, and then the honorarium must, like everything else that
he undertakes, bring some honor to the artist.” He gives directions as to the
dedications. Of the “Egmont” he says: “As soon as you have received the score
you will best know what use to make of it and how to direct the attention of the
public to it—I wrote it purely out of love for the poet, and to show this I accepted
nothing from the theatre directors who accepted it, and as a reward, as ever and
always, have treated my work with great indifference. There is nothing smaller
than our great folk, but I make an exception in favor of the archdukes—give me
your opinion as to a complete edition of my works, one of the chief obstacles
seems to be in the case of new works which I shall continue to bring into the
world I shall have to suffer in the matter of publication.”...
Without date, but endorsed by the firm as of August 21st, is the following little
note containing an important correction in the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony:
... I have found another error in the Symphony in C minor, namely, in the third
movement in ¾ time where, after the ♮ ♮ ♮ the minor returns again, it reads (I
just take the bass part) thus:
The two measures marked by a X are redundant and must be stricken out, of
course also in all the parts that are pausing.
If the correspondence in this chapter seems in tone and
character at variance with the assumption that, for some Sorrows Borne in
Silence
reason or other, this was a disastrous year to Beethoven, it
must not be forgotten that there are troubles and sorrows which must be borne in
silence—when to complain and lament is apter to excite ridicule than compassion.
Though the burden be almost insupportable, the sufferer must perform his duties
and pursue the business of life with a serene countenance, and permit no
outward sign to reveal the secret pain. “The setting of a great hope is like the
setting of the sun,” says Longfellow. “The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows
of evening fall around us and the world seems but a dim reflection—itself a
broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul
withdraws into itself.” When “surprised” by Bettina, Beethoven’s great hope had
set and “ill humor had complete control” of him. His “marriage project had fallen
through.” Whoever the lady was, the blow had now fallen and must be borne in
silence. Its disastrous effect upon Beethoven’s professional energies is therefore
for us the only measure of its severity. True, he writes to Zmeskall and talks of his
art as if great things were in prospect; but he had no heart for such labor, and not
until October did he take up and finish the Quartetto Serioso for his friend. The
long bright summer days, that in other years had awakened his powers to new
and joyous activity and added annually one at least to the list of his grandest
works, came and departed, leaving no memorial but a few songs and minor
instrumental works—the latter apparently composed to order. He took no country
lodging this summer—alternating between Baden and Vienna, and indulging in
lonely rambles among the hills and forests. We think it must have been in this
period of song composition and oriental studies that, on such an excursion, he
had with him the undated paper containing a selection from the songs in Herder’s
“Morgenländische Blumenlese” and wrote upon it in pencil:
My decree [meaning the annuity contract] says only “to remain in the country”—
perhaps this would be complied with by any spot. My unhappy ears do not
torment me here. It seems as if in the country every tree said to me “Holy! Holy!”
Who can give complete expression to the ecstasy of the woods? If everything else
fails the country remains even in winter—such as Gaden, Unterer Brühl, etc.—
easy to hire a lodging from a peasant, certainly cheap at this time.
Another half-sheet in the Library of the Musikfreunde in Vienna, mostly covered
with rude musical sketches, is a suitable pendant to the above, as it contains
these words: “Without the society of some loved person it would not be possible
to live even in the country.”
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