Threatening Clouds on the Horizon

As Beethoven may have feared several days earlier, Duport, the resident manager of the Kärntnertor Theater, must have assumed that Beethoven would give his Akademie there1 and seems to have threatened reprisals if soprano Henriette Sontag and mezzo soprano Caroline Unger sang with Beethoven if he held it at the Theater an der Wien. Probably during the afternoon of Maundy Thursday, April 15, 1824, Schindler came to Beethoven's apartment at the corner of Ungargasse and Bockgasse (today's Beatrixgasse) and reported briefly, “Unger is quite indignant about Duport. Both girls [Unger and Sontag] are going together to see him today. She doesn't doubt a successful outcome.”3 Nephew Karl commented that in public, Duport always spoke highly of Beethoven and that he was curious to learn what he would say to the girls.

But Beethoven had never felt comfortable with Count Palffy, the current owner of the Theater an der Wien. Possibly encouraged by the publishers Steiner and Haslinger, whose shop in the Paternoster Gässchen he visited frequently, the composer started exploring the feasibility of holding his Akademie on Sunday, April 25, at the relatively small Landständischer Saal, where he could employ a composite orchestra drawn from the Kärntnertor Theater, the Burgtheater, and the Theater an der Wien, all under Ignaz Schuppanzigh as concertmaster, the way he had in the Aula of the University of Vienna and the Grosser Redoutensaal in 1813–1814. Again, nephew Karl chuckled, “Count [Moritz] Lichnowsky is really an old lady. He chanced to learn from your brother your decision to give the Akademie in the Landständischer Saal. He lamented terribly about the enmity that Palffy is developing toward you.”

That evening, Count Lichnowsky arrived with a carriage and invited Beethoven, with Schindler in tow, to spend the evening at his apartment in the Bauernmarkt, basically to reason with the composer about the venue for his concert. Before leaving, through Karl, he informed Beethoven that Sontag and Preisinger could sing at the concert if it was on April 25, but that Unger could not.

In January, 1823, Anton Schindler (1795–1864), a former university student and law clerk who had recently turned professional violinist as concertmaster at the theater in suburban Josephstadt, began serving as Beethoven's part-time and unpaid secretary for the purpose of soliciting subscriptions to the Missa solemnis, and soon for other functions as well. Schindler's musical background and his earlier acquaintance with Beethoven have often been misunderstood or misrepresented, and so a review of them, in light of recent research concerning Vienna's orchestras and concert life in Beethoven's time, seems warranted here. For the first years, a relatively simple chronology may serve objectivity the best.

Various “Associations” through November, 1822

1795 (June 13): Schindler was born in Meedl (today Medlov), Moravia, ca. 16 miles northwest of Olmütz. His Counter-Reformation schoolteacher father initially taught him violin. He became a Sängerknabe at the St. Mauritz Church (1492) in Olmütz, where he also continued his study of the violin and keyboard, and entered the Gymnasium there.

1813 (fall): Schindler went to Vienna to study law at the university.

1813–1814 (winter): Schindler joined an amateur orchestra that rehearsed in the home of Anton Pettenkofer. Future jurist Leopold Sonnleithner (1797–1873) also played there and confirmed Schindler's participation.

1813 (December 8 and 12), attendance: On December 8 and 12, 1813, Beethoven and mechanic Johann Nepomuk Maelzel organized two gigantic war benefit concerts in the Aula of the university. The almost fully professional orchestra consisted of ca. 113 musicians from most of Vienna's theaters and private ensembles. The programs included the premieres of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Wellington's Victory, the latter especially popular with the patriotic audiences. Schindler must have attended at least one of these concerts in the Aula in order to make his comparison with the Grosser Redoutensaal below.

1814 (January 2), attendance: On January 2, 1814, Beethoven gave a third performance for his own benefit in the more spacious Grosser Redoutensaal. The program included Symphony No. 7, excerpts from The Ruins of Athens, and the popular Wellington's Victory. Schindler attended this third concert and commented how Wellington's Victory gained from having opposing corridors in which to place the bands representing the advancing armies.

Preliminary work and first movement

Having achieved considerable success with his Akademie (benefit concert) of April 1800, which a reviewer described as ‘probably the most interesting Akademie for a long time’, it was natural that Beethoven should want to repeat his success with a new symphony the following spring, which was almost the only time when theatres in Vienna were available for such concerts. Accordingly he set to work on his Second Symphony towards the end of 1800. In contrast to his First Symphony, numerous sketches survive for the Second, and they have been discussed in considerable detail by Gustav Nottebohm, Kurt Westphal, Cecil Hill and Nicholas Marston, in addition to brief accounts elsewhere. These authors, however, do not provide the full biographical context, which must be obtained from other sources.

The first surviving sketches for the symphony appear in the sketchbook Landsberg 7. This book was begun around September 1800, though no very precise date is available and it could have been a month or two earlier or later. The first part of the book is devoted mainly to two violin sonatas, Opp. 23 and 24, which had apparently been commissioned by Count Moritz Fries, but Beethoven suddenly left off work on them, with Op. 24 far from finished, to work on the new symphony, starting on what is now page 38. Something, perhaps a proposal for a new Akademie the following spring, may therefore have prompted him to make this rapid change of direction. The earliest sketches seem far from tentative, for page 38 includes an extended continuity draft covering virtually the whole of an introduction and ensuing exposition, albeit in a somewhat compressed form of only about fifty-five bars altogether (the final version of this section occupies 133 bars). It must be suspected, therefore, that either some earlier sketches are lost, or that Beethoven worked on the movement at the piano and in his head for some time before writing anything down. Another possibility is that, just as he could improvise a piece fluently without preparation, the draft is a written-down improvisation, where what came into his head was written rather than played on the piano.

There are several striking features in this initial draft.

After the Ninth: A Tenth?

Although Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony proved to be his last, this was not his intention or expectation when he composed it. As noted in the previous chapter, he had been commissioned in 1817 to write two new symphonies, and while he was drafting the Ninth he noted down occasional ideas about its successor. The first known idea in 1818 was purely verbal and proposed adding voices to the finale of this second symphony, but this plan became absorbed into the Ninth, and it seems hardly probable that he would have wanted to use the idea in both new symphonies. In 1819 he implied to Ferdinand Ries that the two symphonies were at least partially written, saying that he would bring them with him to London the following winter. Then in July 1820, when Franz Xaver Gebauer visited Breslau (now Wrocław), he heard that Beethoven had two new symphonies in progress, and reported this in Beethoven’s conversation book the following month. The earliest known musical sketches for the work, however, are those noted previously that date from about October 1822, appearing near the end of Artaria 201 (pages 124–5) and on a separate bifolio now in Bonn. They show a slow introduction in E flat major leading to a fast section in C minor, plus ideas for three possible later movements. Beethoven considered incorporating both main themes from the first movement into the Ninth Symphony (see Chapter 9), as he had done with the plan for a vocal finale, but he quickly abandoned this idea, leaving them available for future development as the Tenth.

In the theme of the slow introduction the first five notes – even the first seven in some sketches – are identical to the Adagio theme in the Pathétique Sonata, apart from the key (see Example 9.9 above, which shows both versions of the theme at a time when they were being considered for the Ninth Symphony). Beethoven must have noticed this similarity, and may well have had some poetic reason for reusing this theme so conspicuously.

The requirement for music that moved the emotions that was articulated by both Cirillo and Spada resonates across the medical and religious remit of the Hospital. Affecting the passions was more critical than simple enter-tainment, it was the means of regaining wellbeing, both bodily and in spirit. A healthy soul was the gateway to a healthy body, and both could be reached by music. While the desire to move public emotions towards a renewal of devotion and piety is especially evident in the celebration of Pentecost, it also surfaces in other music written in response to Tridentine liturgy and doctrine.

Pius V not only revised the breviary and missal in order to clarify and unify the liturgy, which as noted in Chapter 5 transformed the celebration of Pentecost, he also issued a Bull that would have an impact in hospitals. This Bull, dated 1566, and titled Super gregem dominicum, forbade doctors to treat patients who refused confession for more than three days. Several sessions of the Council of Trent had discussed the sacramental process as ‘medicamentum’. The underlying assumption was held that disease was caused by sin, and that confession and taking Communion were in themselves a medicine.

From earliest times the Eucharist – the re-enactment of the Last Supper in which Jesus shared bread and wine with his disciples before his crucifix-ion, instructing them to take and eat it as it was his body and blood – was deemed a ‘mystery’, but it was, and is, central to Catholic belief. The conse-crated bread and wine was regarded as holy food as it contained the truth of the Word of God. Any fraudulent use of it was a crime that resulted in a grue-some death. The doctrine of transubstantiation, first conceived by theologians in the twelfth century, was formalised into an official statement by the Council of Trent. This doctrine insisted that at the moment of consecration, the bread and wine became the actual body and blood of Christ and were not just sacred symbols or representations as declared by Protestants. Further, that if anyone denied this, he should be ‘anathema’.

Genesis and context

Beethoven had originally planned the Eroica Symphony as one of two that were to be offered to Breitkopf & Härtel. After completing it in autumn 1803, however, he turned to other works: first the opera Vestas Feuer, which he quickly abandoned, and then to piano sonatas, the Triple Concerto and most notably the opera Leonore or Fidelio. These occupied much of the remainder of the sketchbook Landsberg 6, which was finished around the end of March 1804; but at a stage when plans for the opera were held up or in abeyance, he inserted a few new ideas for what was intended to be his next symphony. They are in C minor and eventually emerged in the Fifth (see the next chapter). He also noted down in the sketchbook a few tentative ideas that were later absorbed into the Sixth (Pastoral), but there is no sign of the Fourth here. His next known sketchbook, Mendelssohn 15, contains no confirmed sketches for any symphony. It was probably begun about July 1804, for there is a significant gap in the sketch record for Leonore between the sketches for its earliest numbers (up to No. 5) in Landsberg 6 and sketches for No. 12 onwards in Mendelssohn 15. Although the latter contains sketches for the Triple Concerto, which had been performed on or before 11 June, as noted in the previous chapter, these sketches must postdate the original performance and reflect a very thorough revision that the concerto received thereafter. Such a revision is confirmed by a violin part for the original version, which differs markedly from the one eventually published.

Between Landsberg 6 and Mendelssohn 15 there may be a lost sketchbook containing Nos. 6-11 of Leonore, but Beethoven also used loose leaves, including a batch of ten that has since been split up and resides in four different locations. The batch has been dated to around April–June 1804, since it includes sketches for two Petrarch sonnets in a translation that was not published until 24 May 1804. Late May–July would seem more likely, however, since there are no sketches for the Triple Concerto.

Initial plans

After the concert that included public premieres of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies in December 1808, it was nearly three years before he embarked on the Seventh. In the meantime, much had changed. He had been offered a permanent position as Kapellmeister at Kassel in late 1808, but this had prompted several noblemen in Vienna to make a counter-proposal early in 1809, consisting of an annuity of 4,000 florins per year, designed to keep him in the capital city. They had surely been impressed by Beethoven’s extraordinary concert of 22 December 1808 in which so many new works, including the two symphonies, had been performed. The contract, drawn up by Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein, with funds to be provided by Archduke Rudolph, Prince Ferdinand Kinsky and Prince Franz Lobkowitz, recognised Beethoven’s ‘extraordinary talents and genius’ (‘ausserordentlichen Talente und Genie’), and that he should be freed from financial anxiety so as to enable him to produce ‘great, exalted works that ennoble art’ (‘grosse, erhabene, und die Kunst veredelnde Werke’). Beethoven received the contract from Archduke Rudolph on 26 February, and it was signed by the sponsors on 1 March.

The implied expectation was, therefore, that Beethoven would continue composing more symphonies, among other great works, but the next symphony was delayed by various factors; the invasion of Vienna by the French in May 1809 disrupted society so much that Beethoven felt unable to compose anything significant for several months; and inflation reduced the value of his annuity almost immediately. He was also asked to fulfil several commissions – two piano sonatas and a fantasia for Clementi, incidental music to Egmont for the court theatre, fifty-three folksong settings for George Thomson, and in spring to summer 1811 two one-act singspiels, König Stephan and Die Ruinen von Athen, for Pest – plus some works that were probably commissioned, including the Fifth Piano Concerto, two string quartets (Opp. 74 and 95) and the ‘Archduke’ Trio. As soon as he had finished sketching the two singspiels, he began work on his Seventh Symphony, and the final sketches for Die Ruinen von Athen actually appear on the same leaf as some of the first known sketches for the symphony (BNba, BH 105), directly above them.

Monday, May 3, 1824—Tabbing the Scherzo

On Monday, May 3, copyist Peter Gläser (possibly accompanied by a member of his staff) arrived at Beethoven's apartment in the Ungargasse by 10 o’clock in the morning. Schindler had presumably arrived prior to that time to set up the assembly line for pasting tabs into the orchestral parts for the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony to facilitate page turning. Beethoven probably indicated where they should be placed; Gläser tipped them in; and Beethoven double-checked their placement.

Assuming two players per stand in the strings, this would have entailed work on at least 6 first violin parts, 6 seconds, 5 violas, and a total of at least 6 violoncello/contrabass parts; plus 2 flute parts, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trombones, 2 trumpets, and 1 timpani part, for a total of at least 41 orchestral parts. The project probably took several hours.

There are no conversation book entries from this session. Probably Beethoven was busy checking the work, possibly because there were plenty of cut or leftover slips of paper to use in writing questions, but more likely they simply spoke loudly among themselves when they needed to. Schindler presumably worked along with the others but evidently took some time out in the afternoon to run various errands, including going to the Kärntnertor Theater to remind stage director Gottdank and manager Duport to call the orchestra for a rehearsal the next morning.

With the orchestral parts for the Scherzo tied up in revisions, it would have been difficult to hold an orchestral rehearsal during this period. It is also questionable whether Beethoven would have been able to get away long enough to walk the ca. 35 minutes to the Kärntnertor Theater, where Dirzka's choral rehearsal was being held in the afternoon.

In any case, nephew Karl attended that choral rehearsal, returned home, and reported, “For a first time, it went very well. The basses got going like blazes. It will be splendid when all the participants are present for the whole thing. I’m going to the general rehearsal on Thursday [May 6] in any case.”