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NLA News - home May 2002 Volume XII Number 8
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven
reproduced from Sonaten für
Pianoforte und Violine von L. van
Beethoven neue Ausgabe von
Joseph Joachim

(Leipzig: C.F. Peters, 1901)
Hince Collection 1/1480

Songs of Joy: Beethoven Connections at the National Library

Edward Duyker takes a look at the life of Beethoven as reflected in the material held in the Music Collection

He was small and plain-looking, with an ugly, red, pock-marked face. His hair was quite dark and hung almost shaggily around his face. His clothes were very commonplace … Moreover, he spoke in a strong dialect, and in a rather common manner. In general his whole being did not give the impression of any particular cultivation; in fact, he was unmannerly in both gesture and demeanour. He was very haughty.

With these unflattering words, which give no hint of the genius and passion which would irrevocably change the course of European music, a Viennese contemporary (Frau von Bernhard), recalled Ludwig van Beethoven as a young man. Born in Bonn in December 1770, Beethoven came from a Catholic family of Flemish descent. His grandfather and namesake, Ludwig, held the post of Kapellmeister in the service of the Archbishop and Elector of Cologne. His father Johann also served in the choir of the court chapel as a tenor, but is known to have had some ability on the violin and clavier. Beethoven gained his initial musical instruction from his father, and was then taught by the court organist, Christian Gottlieb Neefe (1748–1798). At the age of 12, on Neefe’s recommendation, he became ‘cembalist’ in the theatre orchestra—a position which gave him valuable experience in the production of numerous successful contemporary operas. His intellect and cultural horizons in Bonn would also be broadened by the performance of plays by Lessing and Schiller, and German translations of plays by Garrick, Voltaire, Beaumarchais, Molière, Sheridan and Shakespeare.

Death Mask of Ludwig van Beethoven [1827?]

Death Mask of Ludwig van Beethoven [1827?]
Plaster mask; 27.5 x 16.5 cm
Pictorial Collection OBJ A40000028

In 1787 Beethoven made a brief visit to the Hapsburg capital, Vienna, where he had the good fortune to meet Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), who was then working on Don Giovanni. The initial work Beethoven performed for Mozart was assumed to be a polished showpiece and received polite but indifferent praise from the master. However, when Beethoven pleaded for, and received, a theme for improvisation, Mozart was so impressed by the results that he declared prophetically to some of his friends: ‘Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to talk about.’ Young Beethoven’s visit to Vienna was cut short by the final illness of his beloved mother and the pitiful emotional state of his grieving, debt-ridden, alcoholic father Johann. Beethoven’s father’s dissipation ultimately led to his dismissal, but by this time Ludwig had made numerous influential friends among the local nobility who recognised his talents and helped him further his career. It seems likely Beethoven met Franz Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), for the first time, during the latter’s visit to Bonn in 1790. By this time he had begun to devote himself increasingly to composition. In November 1792 he left once again for Vienna and never returned to Bonn. In the Austrian capital he studied under Haydn, Johann Albrechtsberger (1736–1809) and Antonio Salieri (1750–1825). Despite his unkempt appearance, ungainly features, eccentricities and brusque disregard for Viennese ways, he soon found a receptive environment for his brilliance. Prominent members of the aristocracy offered him friendship and patronage.

Suffused with emotion and dramatic effect, Beethoven’s music has been traditionally divided by scholars into three periods. The first period (1792–1802) is characterised by his first two symphonies, the violin sonata in C minor and the ‘Pathétique’ and ‘Moonlight’ sonatas. His middle period (1803–1817) embraces his third ‘Eroica’ symphony, the Kreutzer sonata, the fourth and fifth symphonies, the violin concerto, the opera Fidelio, the sixth ‘Pastoral’ symphony, the music for Goethe’s Egmont, the first five quartets, and the seventh and eighth symphonies. In the final decade of his life (1817–1827), Beethoven’s major compositions include three piano sonatas, the ‘Diabelli’ variations, the ‘Missa Solemnis’, the stirring ninth ‘Choral’ symphony (based on Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’), and his last four quartets.

Cover reproduced from Souvenir Programme, Beethoven Festival 1920

Above: Cover reproduced from Souvenir Programme, Beethoven Festival 1920
(Sydney, NSW: Government Printer, 1920

 

Below: 'Fidelio' reproduced from Sämmtliche Ouverturen van Ludwig van Beethoven Für Piano zu 4 Händen Neue Ausgabe von Richard Kleinmichel (Leipzig: C.F. Peters, n.d.) Hince Collection 1/3178;
Cover reproduced Fidelio, Beethoven Opera for Voice and Pianoforte with English and German Words (London: Boosey and Sons, n.d.) Hince Collection 1/1923;
Title page reproduced from Leonore (Leipzig: bei Breitkopf & Hartel) Hince Collection 11/B50

'Fidelio' music, cover of 'Fidelio' and title page of Leonore

Beethoven died before the establishment of most Australian cities, but he does appear to have discussed Botany Bay and the British penal colony in New South Wales. Peter McCullum, of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, discovered this when he read one of over a hundred surviving ‘conversation books’ which Beethoven handed his visitors as his long-standing deafness worsened after 1818. DSB 98, now preserved in the Deutschen Staatsbibliotek in Berlin, contains the remarks of an unknown caller in December 1825: ‘Wir haben kein Botany Bay, wo die Verbrecher konten hingeschicht werden [We have no Botany Bay where criminals can be sent]’. Unfortunately we have neither a record of Beethoven’s verbal reply, nor do we know if New South Wales was raised again in other discussions, for two-thirds of Beethoven’s 400 ‘conversation books’ were destroyed by his early biographer, Anton Schindler. There can be no doubt, however, that Beethoven reflected on the experience of convicts, for he composed the music for the opera Fidelio, based on Jean-Nicolas Bouilly’s novel Leonora about a woman who disguises herself as a workman to enter a prison in the hope of finding and saving her missing husband. Although the opera was first performed in Vienna in 1805, the original libretto by Joseph Ferdinand Sonnleithner was rewritten by Georg Friedrich Treitschke in 1814. It is this final version which is held in the National Library of Australia’s Collection in a recent Italian edition. The Library also holds a facsimile edition of Beethoven’s autograph score held in the Deutschen Staatsbibliothek.

For much of the nineteenth century the performance of Beethoven’s music in Australia, particularly his symphonies, was limited by a dearth of professional, even amateur, orchestras. His Ninth ‘Choral’ Symphony appears to have been first performed in Australia at the Melbourne Exhibition of 1888, by a purposefully assembled orchestra of 68 musicians. The distinguished maestro Frederick Cowen was brought out from Britain especially to conduct. The Exhibition orchestra was accompanied by a choir with notable stars of the operatic circuit in Australia, Edward Armes Beaumont and the ‘Tasmanian Nightingale’ Amy Sherwin. Melburnians were so impressed by the performance that the Victorian Government voted funds for a subsidy to keep the orchestra in existence.

Beethoven’s work also engendered significant musical developments in New South Wales when Henri Verbrugghen, the first director of the Sydney Conservatorium, established a symphony orchestra (which grew to 96 members after three years) and a 74-voice ‘select choir’. Together they performed Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis’ 13 times between 1919 and 1921. Even in the dark days of 1943, when Australia was at war with Germany and the other Axis powers, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Heinze, sold out tickets to its Beethoven Festival in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. While other German composers may have suffered in popularity at this time, Beethoven was firmly associated in the public mind with the cause of liberty. Had he not revoked his dedication of his Third ‘Eroica’ Symphony to Bonaparte when the First Consul debased the democratic values of the French Revolution and crowned himself Emperor?

Aside from a facsimile edition of the score of Fidelio, the National Library of Australia holds several other facsimiles of Beethoven’s musical manuscripts including his Sonata for Violin and Piano no. 10, opus 96, in G major (the original of which is held in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York). Such facsimiles are very important to scholars and performers in search of unembellished authenticity and understanding of the composer’s original intentions. The Library’s printed music collection contains over 250 editions of works by Beethoven in different arrangements and editions. Many of these are held in special research collections of music such as the Hince Collection. The earliest, Twelve Waltzes for the piano forte, is believed to have been published in London sometime between 1800 and 1820—thus in Beethoven’s own lifetime. Many of the editions in the printed music collection are Australian and some, published by firms such as W.H. Paling and Allan & Co., also date from the nineteenth century. Perhaps the Library’s most unusual Beethoven treasure is a plaster cast of his death mask (27.5 x 16.5 cm) presented by B.E. Hungerford. It is presumably cast from the same mask made by Josef Danhauser, on Beethoven’s death on 26 March 1827, now in the Historisches Museum in Vienna.

Portrait of Madame Amy sherwin

Portrait of Madame Amy sherwin
reproduced from the cover of a concert program: Town Hall, Sydney, Grand Concert, Wednesday, 18th December, 1907
Ephemera Collection

The Library holds numerous critical studies of Beethoven’s work from the early nineteenth century to the present. Among those dealing with his religious music are William Drabkin’s 1991 study of the ‘Missa Solemnis’ and Wilfred Mellers’ Beethoven and the Voice of God (1983). Other valuable nineteenth-century studies of Beethoven’s symphonies in the Collection are those by Ernst von Elterlein (c.1876) and Alexander Teetgen (1879). Also noteworthy is a facsimile reprint of Hector Berlioz’s Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie (1844), which contains studies on Beethoven, Gluck and Weber. Two of Beethoven’s piano sonatas (no. 28, opus 101 in A major and no. 13, opus 27, in E-flat major) are examined in Emily Hughes’ A Key to Beethoven’s Tone-pictures published in Adelaide in 1901.

Although he loved deeply, Beethoven appears not to have experienced reciprocated love from either women or close family members in his adult life. Despite this, he is arguably one of the most passionate figures in the history of music. He is also a truly tragic figure, for he suffered the ultimate personal debilitation for his chosen art form: deafness. Yet in his anguish, he finally freed European music from the constraints of the baroque and brought the symphony to maturity. The breadth and beauty of his unique creative achievements are awe-inspiring. Former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, who wrote a thesis on the ‘Pastoral’ symphony, has described Beethoven’s music as ‘scintillating and superbly descriptive’. He would no doubt agree with Sir Charles Hubert Parry who observed that Beethoven was ‘one of the few great creators of art whom a man, though he be ever blessed with musical intelligence, may study for a lifetime and never exhaust’.

DR EDWARD DUYKER is a Sydney-based historian. His most recent book (with his mother Maryse Duyker) is the first English translation of Bruny d’Entrecasteaux’s journal: Voyage to Australia and the Pacific 1791–1793 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2001).

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