LIFE OF BEETHOVEN.

NEITHER the name of the author of this life nor that of the trans- lator appears in the titlepage ; which, as well as the lettered cover, is intended to convey the impression that the work is the produc- tion of MOSCHELES. This is a mere bookseller's ruse, with which that accomplished artist has nothing to do ; and be has thought it right to protest against having any greater " amount of editorial re- sponsibility than the addition to an English translation of Schind- ler's Biography of Beethoven, of such explanatory notes, charac- teristics, and letters, as might tend more fully to illustrate and complete the whole." This English edition of SCHINDLER'S work is the best of the several lives of BEETHOVEN that have appeared. Its author was long and intimately acquainted with the great composer ; and MosenELEs is eminently qualified by personal knowledge of him, and more by an intimate acquaintance with his compositions, to enrich his biography with many valuable facts, documents, and criticisms.

" My impressions," says Mr. MOSCHELES, " of reverence for Beethoven's genius are not things of yesterday. I began early to follow him in his glorious creations, and to study his personal as well as his artistical cha- racter with an enthusiasm which years and experience have done nothing to diminish. To satisfy the craving which I felt, when a boy nine or ten years old, at Prague, for the best musical productions of the time, I subscribed to a library which afforded me the compositions of Dussek, Steibelt, Woelffi, Kozelucb, and Eberl—works of no insurmountable dif- ficulty to me; though, indeed, so far from mastering them, I only ran through them, without particular attention to finish, enjoying in each its pecu- liar style. I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysiva Weber, the founder and present Director of the Prague Musical Conservatory: and he, fearing that in my eagerness to read new music I might injure the systematic development of my pianoforte-playing, prohibited the library ; and in a plan for my musical education which he laid before my parents, made it an express condition, that for three years I should study no other authors but Mozart, Clementi, and S. Bach. 1 must confess, however, that in spite of such prohibitions, I visited the library, gaining access to it through my pocket- money. It was about this time that I learned from some schoolfellows that a young composer had appeared at Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff possible— such as no one could tither play or understand—crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this composer's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there Beethoven's Sonate Pathetique. This was in the year 1804. My pocket-money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it. The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to mention my new acqui- sition to my master ; who reminded me of his injunction, and warned me not to play or study any ecceentric productions until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, minding his injunctions, I seized upon the pianoforte works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and a delight such as no other composer aforded me."

The change of opinion with regard to BEETHOVEN'S music which Mr. MOSCHELES thus recordh, has, we doubt not, been felt by the most accomplished musicians of his standing throughout Europe. The concluding sentences contain a fit rebuke to such as affect to take him for a model, and, when they have produced a chaos of chords, parade their shapeless abortion as something formed in the school of BEETHOVEN- " My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no varia- tion, save to become warmer. In the first half-score of years of my acquaint- ance with his works, he was repulsive to me as well as attractive. In each of them, while 1 felt my mind fascinated by the prominent idea, and my enthu- siasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, his unlooked-for episodes, shrill dis- sonances, and bold modulations, gave me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to them ! All that had appeared hard, I soon found indispensable. The gnome-like pleasantries, which at first appeared too distorted—the stormy masses of sound, which I found too chaotic—I have in after-times learned to love. But, while retracting my early critical exceptions, 1 must still maintain as my creed, that eccentricities like those of Beethoven are reconcileable with his works alone, and are dangerous models to other com- posers, many of whom have been wrecked in their attempts at imitation. Whether the musical world can ever recognize the most modern examples of effort to outdo Beethoven in boldness and originality of conception, I leave to future generations to decide." As a man, BEETHOVEN possessed the elements of greatness : he was high-principled, just, truthful, unawed by frowns, unseduced by smiles, kind, affectionate, and sincere ; but, withal, irascible, dogmatic, capricious, and intolerant. His life was embittered by family feuds and broils, his temper soured, and " pleasure at one inlet quite shut out " by the incurable malady which so long afflicted him, his ppirit broken by disappointment, and vexations both musi- cal and domestic.

BEETHOVEN was unfortunately placed. A sturdy, avowed Repub- lican, he fixed himself in Vienna : a despiser of rank and title, he

• lived in a place where such distinctions bear the highest premium : among princes and nobles he asserted the true nobility of genius. This was his language, (almost in the words of Buass,) and this his conduct in the Austrian capital-

" Kings and princes can, to be sure, make professors, privy councillors, &c., and confer titles and orders; but they cannot make great men, minds which rise above the common herd—these they must not pretend to make ; and there- fore must these be held in honour. When two men such as Goethe and 1 come together, even the high and mighty perceive what is to be considered as gra.. t in men like us. Yesterday, on our way home, we met the whole Imperial Family. We saw them coming from a distance, and Goethe separated from me to stand aside: say what I would, I could not make him advance another step. I pressed my hat down upon my head, buttoned up my greatcoat, and walked with folded arms through the thickest of the throng. Princes and pages formed . a line, the Archduke Rudolph took off his hat, and the Empress made the first salutation. Those gentry know me. I saw to my real amusement the pro-

' cession-file past Goethe. He stood aside, with his hat off, and bending lowly. I rallied him smartly for it ; I gave him no quarter."

The neglect of the Austrian Court is thus admitted and vindi- cated by Mr. SetirynLea; whose apology may pass for what it is worth- " The Court of Austria has very frequently been reproached by admirers of Beethoven with having never done any thing for him. The charge is true : but if we examine this point more closely, and search for the motives, we shall Reshape find some that may excuse the Imperial Court for this backwardness. We have already shown in the second period, when treating of the Sin- Ionia Eroica, what were Beethoven's political sentiments. There needs, then, no further explanation to enable the reader to draw the certain conclusion, that a man, in whose head so thoroughly. Republican a spirit had established itself; could not feel comfortable in the vicinity of a court, and that this would not do any thing to serve him."

The early period of BEETHOVEN'S residence at Vienna, whither he went in 1786, was the most favourable to the development of his powers. Here he formed that acquaintance with the works of the older German masters, and their remote Italian predecessors, which no musician has yet risen to eminence without having dili- gently studied— Van Swieten (the physician to the Empress) was, as it were, the cice- rone of the new corner, and attached young Beethoven to his person and to his house, where indeed the latter soon found himself at home. The musical treats in Van Swieten's house consisted chiefly of compositions by Handel, Sebastian Bach, and the greatest masters of Italy up to Palestrina, . performed with a full band ; and they were so truly exquisite as to be long re- membered by all who had been so fortunate as to partake of them. For Beethoven those meetings had this peculiar interest, that he not only gained an intimate acquaintance with those classics, but also that he was obliged to stay longest, because the old gentleman had an insatiable appetite for music, so that the night was often pretty far advanced before be would suffer him to depart ; nay, frequently he would not suffer him to go at all ; for to all that he had heard before, Beethoven was obliged to add half-a-down fugues by

Bach, by way of a "

At this time, also, the public taste at Vienna was good ; just the opposite of what it is now-

" In all Germany, and particularly in Vienna, music was much cultivated, and that chiefly good music, because then there was not so much bad produced as succeeding years have brought forth; for the lower classes, among whom there had previously been many attentive auditors, began to pay more and more attention to the divine art, but at the same time rarely possessed high mental cultivation, or had a just conception of the nature of music and its sublimest object, and the whole was still full of prejudices against every art ; when the number of composers was not yet swollen to legion, and was confined to those who were really qualified by nature, though not always endowed with the lofty powers of .genius. But all these persons meant honestly by art, which, now-a-days, is too rarely the case ; and, to mean honestly by a matter to which one dedicates one's abilities, tends greatly to promote its success. The magicians of those days, Herder, Wieland, Leasing, Goethe, and many more, together with Gluck, Sebastian Bach and his sons, Mozart, Haydn, Salieri, and the aspiring Beethoven, had exercised such a beneficial influence on the nobler, the intellectual cultivation, especially of the superior classes, that art and science were reckoned by very many among the highest, the chief re- quisites of intellectual existence. In the German opera, which, through Gluck and Mozart, had attained its acme, and arrived at the same degree of perfec- tion and estimation as the Italian, troth of expression, dignity, and sublimity in every point, were far more highly prized than the mere fluency of throat, hollow pathos, and excitements of sense, studied in that of the present day. These two institutions operated powerfully on all who were susceptible of what is truly beautiful and noble. Haydn's Creation, and Handel's Oratorios, at- tracted unprecedented anditories, and afforded the highest gratification, with bands of one hundred and fifty or at most two hundred performers ; whereas, in our over-refined times, from six to eight hundred, nay, even upwards of a thousand, are required by people in order to enjoy the din which this legion produces, while httle or no attention is paid to the main point. In short, at that time people thankfully accepted great things offered with small means, sought mind and soul in music as the highest gratification, and had no concep- tion of that materialism which now-a-days presides over musical matters, any more than they had of the tendency of the gradual improvements in the me- chanism of musical instruments and their abuse to lower taste. The dilettan- tism of that period remained modestly in its place, and did not offer itself for hire, as at the present day, in every province and in every country ; paid sincere respect to art and artists, and arrogated to itself no position which the accom- plished professional man alone should have occupied—a malepractice now so common in many places. In a word, people really loved music without osten- tation ; they allowed it to operate upon them with its magic charms, no matter whether it was executed by four performers or by four hundred, and employed it in general as the surest medium for improving heart and mind, and thus giving a noble direction to the ,feelings. The German nation could still derive the inspiration of simple greatness, genuine sensibility, and humane feelings from its music : it still thoroughly understood the art of drawing down from the magic sphere of harmony the inexpressible and the spiritually sublime, and securing them for itself. " In and with those times, and among their noblest and best, lived Beethoven, in cheerful Vienna; where his genius found thousandfold encouragement to exert its power, free and unfettered, and exposed to no other misrepresentations and enmity than those of envy. alone. " This was a splendid sera of art—such an ara as may perhaps never recur, and with special reference to Beethoven, the golden age."

The change in the musical taste of Vienna is thus described by Mr. SCHINDLER- " The Italian Opera has now possessed itself of the theatres which in the time of Gluck had been wholly devoted to German music. The violence of the current carried every thing before it. No one asked in what direction he was borne, for all were intoxicated with the roulades of the Rossini school Beethoven was as much forgotten by the crowd as if he had never existed."

His proud spirit and irritable temper smarted under the reverse : he became suspicious of his best friends, disgusted with the society in which he had placed himself, improvident, and poor. The his- tory of his application to the London Philharmonic Society, and their prompt relief of his necessities, are well known ; together with the circumstances of his death and his pompous funeral, at which the mockery of adulation and grief, here detailed at full length, was perfectly nauseous. On the 22d February he made his application, through MOSCRELES, to the Philharmonic Society, prompted by the apprehension if not the immediate prospect of "being reduced to want" in Vienna. Within five weeks, March 29th, his body was there committed to the grave in the presence of twenty thou- sand spectators, bedecked with all " the trappings and the suits of wo."

BEETHOVEN'S character, like that of every great writer, is legibly inscribed on his works : his independence of thought—his impe- tuosity—his disdain, not of rule, but of precedent—his proud self-reliance—his caprice—his impassioned fervour of spirit—are all poured out in his compositions; which are, in truth, the very mirror of his mind. No wonder that they contain much that is " hard to be understood." In the spirit of TERTIILLIAN (" credo quia impossibile est ") many of his affected admirers and thoroughgoing partisans in this country fall into especial raptures with BEET- HOVEN'S incomprehensibilities. We have never been afraid to admit our occasional deficiency of comprehension, and have often re- gretted the want of some key to a design which, though plain to the composer, is yet concealed from willing and not untutored ears. This fact is abundantly confirmed by SCHINDLER. " All foreign professional men and connoisseurs," says he, " could gain but obscure notions of the spirit of Beethoven's music ; but here" (that is, in a small party formed and trained by him at Vienna) " we found ourselves at the fountain-head of the purest poetry." His warmest admirers, and those who were in immediate contact with him, felt the want of a clue to his thoughts, and prevailed upon him in 1816, " after repeated entreaties," to undertake the republication of his Sonatas, with a view " to indicate the poetic ideas which form the groundwork of many of them—an object necessary to the comprehension of the music."

" Touching the poetic idea, it is well known that Beethoven did not, in his musical writings, confine himself to the rules established by preceding com- posers ; and that he, indeed, frequently disregarded those rules when the exist- ing idea on which he worked demanded another sort of treatment, or rather an entirely new mode of development. This style of composition adopted by Beethoven has frequently called forth the remark that his Sonatas are mere operas in disguise. " Ries, in his ' Notices,' p. 77, observes that Beethoven, in composing, frequently imagined for himself a definite subject,'—which is merely saying, that Beethoven imbued his mind with poetic ideas, and under the influence of their inspiration his musical compositions were created.

" That the great master did not execute the important task he undertook in 1816, was, it must be acknowledged, an irreparable loss to the musical art, and in particular to his own music. How much would the Pastoral Symphony suffer, or even the Eroica, if heard without any comprehension of the ideas which the composer adopted as his themes! How gratifying both to per- former and hearer is the light cast on the design of the composition, by the mere hint of the sentiments Beethoven has, in his Sonata Op. 81, thus expressed- ' Les adieux,' L'absence,' and 'Le retour.'" Our space will not admit of further extracts from a work which is pregnant with interest and instruction ; and which we have no doubt accomplishes BEETHOVEN'S expressed wish, that " whatever might be said of him after death, should be strictly consonant with truth, no matter how hard it might bear upon others or even upon himself."