BEETHOVEN'S LIFE STORY.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 296, 18 June 1909, Page 3

BEETHOVEN'S LIFE STORY.

Belief in poverty as the proper i stimulus of genius is hardly likely to survive the careful perusal of the ; twelve hundred letters of Beethoven, j recently published in., two volumes, j Eiglny-two yours ago Beethoven died j ]"nVi*n>"'« at th'tf'age »i' Miuy-seven, aged and broken before his time by the petty miseries of the world. From his nr.st letters, to those written from ; his duath-bed begging the- English Philharmonic Society to send him material help,, we have a long and bitter story of genius thwarted and preyed upon by poverty. Part of the* story is written between the lines, part in direct outbursts of rebellion against the sordid tyranny of need. "You yourself know," he writes in 1814 to a friend, "that the creative spirit ought not to be fettered by wretched, wants." But -more . poignant are such diary entries as these: "Oh, what a difference an in- ■ dependent life such as I have often pictured to myself! Oh, terrible circumstances, which cannot suppress by longing' for a home life; but how • to bring it about ! ■ Oh, God, God, look down upon the unhappy Beethoven!, Do .not let it continue so!" —The Selfish City.— ; f Vienna had no excuse. It knew ; Beethoven was a man of genius whose presence conferred distinction; *ut , it wanted this honor without paying for it. Beethoven demanded but little. In 1806 he appealed for an • official post at the Opera ; he appealed in vain. Two years later, however, he received an invitation to become capellmeister to the King of Westphalia. Vienna intervened. It had no desire to lose its man of i genius, so three of its magnates '\ ' agreed to guarantee the composer a ; small annuity if he- would remain. ] Beethoven accepted— and in a few j years was plunged into desperate ] monetary difficulties and long-drawn legal complications through default ■ of two of the guarantors. To Beeth- ' oven, the mechanical details of business were real torture, and the energy be consumed in this affair was enough to have produced a Tenth Symphony. • " "What a business," he exclaims, "for an artist to whom nothing is so dear as his art" ; and he says bitterly of his alleged benefactors, "In all the newspapers this affair was pompously lauded to the skies, while I was near to beggary." That poets' learn ,in suffering what they teach in song is no reason for inflicting upon them entirely gratuitous evils, the soul-destroy-ing 'evil of poverty. Beethoven had sorrows enough that no riches could cure.. He longed for love, for sympathy, for the beautiful protection a laving woman could have given to such a sensitive, child-like soul ; but no woman took him to her arms and ..comforted him. . In vain, Beethoven, do you long for love. . Not for you is Giulietta, or Therese, or Amalic. or Bettina! — A Rejected Heart. — /.This at last he recognised: "Your news hurled me from the regions of rapture into the lowest dephths. . . Am I then nothing more than a musician to you and to the other? . . . Friendship, or feelings similar to it. has nothing but wounds for me. So be it then ; for thyself, - poor Beethoven, no happiness comes from without, thou must create everything from. within; only in the ideal world canst thou find friends." Then there was the ever-present tragedy of his deafness. Think, a deaf musician — one who could create

but could never hear, as we hear, those mightiest of tone-epics. As early as 1801 he writes: "You can scarcely imagine what a dreary, sad life I have led during the past two [ years. My weak hearing always s'-i-'ire:! to im; like a ghost, and I ran iiway from people — was forced to appear a misanthrope, though not at all in my character." I And later, expressing^! wish like Hamlet's that the Almighty had not set his canon against self-slaughter, he says : "Had I not read that a man ought not of his own free will to take aAvay'his life- so long as he could still perform a good action, I should long ago have been dead — indeed; by my own band. Oh, how beautiful life is, but for me it is for ever poisoned." In later years he found someone upon whom he poured out his pentup stream of affection — a boy, child of his dead 'brother. The result was a clouding— nay, even a shortening of his life by the endless troubles, legal, financial, and personal, incurred through this nephew, who proved .to be a wretched creature •with criminal propensities. — Pain and Anguish. — Listen to one cry from this great heart: "For God's sake, do come homo again to-day! "Who knows what danger may be threatening you — hasten, hasten!' My dear son! Only nothing further — only come to my arms, you shall hear no harsh word. For Heaven's sake : do not (Continued on page 6.)

1 (Continued from page 3.) . ' rush to destruction— you will be received as ever with affection. As to considering what is to be done in future, we will talk this over in a friendly way, no reproaches, on my word of honor, for they are of no use. You need only expect from me the most loving help and care. Only come — come to the faithful heart of your father.— Beethoven." But not all the letters are in the key of tragedy. There are scores of. humorous little notes, full of deand boyish puns; and there are letters from which one gleans such obiter dicta as these — the first recalling the famous "Mehr Ausdruck tier Empfindung als Malerei'' of the Pastoral- Smyphony: "Descriptions of a picture belong to painting ; even ill© poet in this matter may, in comparison with my art, esteem himself lucky, for* his domain in this respect is not so limited „as mine, yet the latter extends further into other fegions — and to attain to our kingdom j,s not easy, , . Power is tlie niofality of men who stand out from the rest." . Beethoven was a mighty master, a god in his power of creation ; but above all he was human, and it is his humanity that cries out in these pages. To us he gave an incalculable treasure of tone with all the mystery of its appeal ; to him we gave, not honest hatred or noble opposition, but the mean insults of contempt, , neglect, and petty miseries. Great wronged soul, have yoit forgiven us? — George. Sampson, in "the Daily Chronicle.