Beethoven as Seen by His Listeners
[The literature is rich in recollections concerning the impression Beethoven’s music made when it first appeared, and the way in which it was received by critics, musicians, and the public. Beethoven’s music did not need the judgment of later generations in order to be understood; Ludwig’s genius was widely recognized during his lifetime. To this immediate success contributed, at least initially, two particular characteristics of his audience.
The first group to become acquainted with his music—thanks to the contacts Beethoven established with this milieu from the moment of his arrival in Vienna—was the educated world and the aristocracy, in whose homes music‑making was customary, even if in the eighteenth century this was often only a superficial diversion. Many of these people, however, possessed refined musical taste and held important positions in the musical and extra‑musical life of Vienna.
The second favorable factor was that among those who heard Beethoven’s works at their first appearance there was a large number of highly trained amateurs who, in Vienna at the end of the 1700s and beginning of the 1800s, were sometimes recruited to reinforce theatre orchestras during performances of operas and the rarer concerts. It was therefore an audience with a basic musical culture sufficient to grasp the meaning of the new music.
It is certain that Beethoven’s early compositions had an immediate impact, especially among the young. Carl Czerny recounts in his memoirs how, from childhood, having come into contact with Beethoven, he begged his father to procure his compositions and became so fascinated by them that he eventually learned them all by heart. Czerny also left a judgment on the position of Viennese cultural circles toward the Master, saying that Beethoven “was always regarded and respected as an extraordinary being, and even those who did not understand him suspected his greatness.”
Moscheles recalled the effect Beethoven’s music had on him when he was still a young student—the impression made by the Sonata Op. 13 Pathétique, and how he secretly procured the Master’s music despite his teachers warning him against it.
The dissemination and understanding of Beethoven’s piano music was certainly aided by the formidable calling card of his keyboard ability—also as an improviser. Before being acclaimed as a composer, he was immediately hailed as one of the greatest virtuosos of the fortepiano. At his first public concert, on 29 and 30 March 1795 at the Burgtheater, the critic of the Wiener Zeitung could not help writing that “the famous Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven reaped the applause of the entire audience with a brand‑new piano concerto of his own [presumably the B‑flat major Concerto, Op. 19].”
However, at first hearing the critics were not favorable. As we read in the articles of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig, they lamented difficulties in invention and composition, lack of naturalness, weak melodic vein, harsh modulations, and disregard for tonal relationships. Yet even the dissenting critics could not avoid recognizing his originality, technical skill, commitment, and ingenuity.
In any case, only a few years were needed for the new Beethovenian musical world—at least that of chamber music—to be accepted. The critic of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1799 acknowledged that in the Pathétique Sonata Op. 13 “all the conditions of musical art are fulfilled, and this is a sign of its beauty.” A critic of the Sonatas Op. 26 and 27, in 1802, wrote that “these sonatas have enriched cultivated musicians,” “for they belong to the small group of works of art of today that will scarcely grow old,” even if “those who expect from music nothing more than pleasant entertainment will take an interest in these works in vain.”
In general, chamber and piano music was favorably received by the public and sold widely after publication.
Things went somewhat differently for orchestral music. The piano concertos were repeatedly performed and with success. As for the symphonies, they too were performed several times, but initially neither the public nor the critics were entirely enthusiastic: most often people complained of their length and the “wild heap of ideas,” or at times “the extravagant combination of them,” the bold use of harmony, and the scant [apparent] adherence to classical canons.
To convey the atmosphere, let us recall some comments on the symphonies. In the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig, the critic of the Second Symphony, though lamenting after the first performance its length and the harshness of its modulations, recognized its originality, and at a second hearing hailed it as a colossal work, rich in new ideas, original, which “will endure and be heard with renewed pleasure in time.”
The Eroica, on the other hand, provoked the most vivid reactions at its appearance. In the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung it was described as a work of “insuperable difficulty for listener and musician,” rich in “wild and brazen fantasy,” “dazzling and bizarre ideas,” and held up as an example of “musical anarchy.” The correspondent of the Freymüthige reported that the public had found it excessively long and difficult. Czerny recounts that at its first performance someone in the gallery shouted: “I’ll give another kreuzer if only it ends.” According to Schindler, it was banned from the Prague Conservatory because it “corrupted morals.”
The initial success of the vocal works was even smaller. The oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives was said to be “devoid of expressiveness,” though some recognized “admirable parts” and praised the Seraph’s aria; and like Fidelio, harshly attacked by critics, it soon disappeared from the playbills.
But in 1808 E. T. A. Hoffmann began, with his review of the Fifth Symphony, his critical activity in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. One may say that from this moment—also thanks to the success of the Sixth Symphony—the critical world changed its attitude. Hoffmann wrote a penetrating critique of the Fifth, grasping well the spirit of the work. Through his writings he contributed greatly to the nineteenth‑century conception of Beethoven as a “romantic” figure—heroic and endowed with magical powers.
At the basis of this conception lie certain of his descriptions of the effects of Beethoven’s music, such as this one concerning the Fifth Symphony: “Beethoven’s instrumental music opens to us the realm of the gigantic and the immeasurable. A flash of fiery rays rends the deep night of this realm, and we are enveloped by gigantic shadows that press ever closer and annihilate in us everything except the pain of infinite longing. … Beethoven is an authentically romantic composer; precisely for this reason he is a true composer of music.”
From this moment on, Beethoven’s work enjoyed great popularity: it was widely performed in Central Europe, but also in England and soon after in the United States. In England the symphonies were popular, and the Ninth Symphony received its first performance there already in 1825, though it was not immediately well received and was criticized for lacking “a comprehensible plan” and for its “noisy extravagance.” In France, on the other hand, Beethoven’s music became popular only after his death.]
Schindler wrote that, around 1814, Beethoven “had attained a fame never before reached by a musician still only halfway through his artistic journey.” The critic Amadeus Wentz, who in 1822 had taken Hoffmann’s place at the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig, although he found Beethoven’s works difficult to understand, recognized their genius and mastery, and wrote that they were being performed ever more frequently and repeatedly—“the true sign of the greatness of a work.”
Beethoven’s fame was so widespread that in the last ten years of his life many people—not only musicians but also writers, poets, and simple music lovers—undertook journeys to Vienna to meet him: the musicians Cipriani Potter and Edward Schulz, the poets Ludwig Rellstab and Johann Sporschil, the musicologist Friedrich Rochlitz, the traveller Sir John Russell. People came to Vienna almost on pilgrimage, for the sole purpose of approaching the now mythical and venerable figure of Beethoven, as some wrote.
In 1818 Cipriani Potter wrote that “Beethoven’s music is listened to with an attention and a pleasure that even his true friends could hardly have foreseen,” and in 1821 John Russell wrote: “Beethoven is the most celebrated of all living composers in Vienna, and in certain genres the finest of his time.”
Another demonstration of the Master’s fame is the fact that some of his works received their first performances outside Vienna. The Piano Concerto No. 5, the Emperor, was performed for the first time at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in 1811, and the first complete performance of the Missa solemnis was organized by Prince Galitzin in St. Petersburg. He wrote to Beethoven: “The effect of this music on the public was indescribable, and I do not exaggerate when I say that I have never heard anything so sublime. One may say that your genius has anticipated the centuries.”
As a conclusion to this overview of the fame and dissemination of Beethoven’s works, it is worth recalling that while Concertos and Symphonies were performed in public concerts, Beethoven’s sonatas were performed in his time only in private concerts. It seems that, during Beethoven’s lifetime, only one sonata was ever performed in a public concert in Vienna, and not before 1816 (Op. 90 according to some, Op. 101 according to others). Occasionally individual movements or sonatas were performed publicly outside Vienna: for example, the Funeral March of Op. 26 was performed publicly in Boston in 1816.
The late string quartets, on the other hand, were performed repeatedly in public or subscription concerts in Vienna and were fairly well received from the outset. One exception was Op. 127: it was not understood by the public, and even the first performers had difficulty grasping its meaning, as Schuppanzig’s words clearly indicate: “I would be lying if I said that there are passages too difficult for me from a technical point of view: it is the whole that is difficult.”
One day Beethoven was at the inn All’Agnello d’Oro, where some musicians and men of letters were engaged in a lively discussion. At that time Beethoven had already received clear demonstrations of esteem and recognition from England. He therefore asked what they were discussing. The violinist Mayseder replied: “These gentlemen believe that the English are incapable of making good music or even of judging it properly. But I am of a different opinion.” Beethoven commented sarcastically: “The English have ordered several of my compositions for their concerts, and have paid for them most handsomely. The Germans—apart from the Viennese—are only now beginning to perform them in public, while the French find my music unplayable. So it is evident that the English understand nothing about music! Ah! Ah!” And he burst into a loud laugh. Griesinger (from Seyfried)
While Beethoven’s music was quickly well received in England, in France there was far less interest. During his lifetime only the early symphonies, a few trios, a few quartets, and the Septet were well known there. After a performance of the first two symphonies in 1811, G. B. Cambini wrote in Tablettes de Polymnie: “The composer Beethoven, often bizarre and baroque, sometimes shines with extraordinary beauties. At times he takes the majestic flight of the eagle; at others he drags himself along grotesque paths. After penetrating the soul with a gentle melancholy, he immediately tears it apart with barbarous chords. He seems to feed doves and crocodiles at the same time.” The performance of the Eroica was interrupted after the audience burst out laughing. It was not until 1820 that a new symphony—the Fifth—was favorably received in Paris. Coldicott [a]
You will be glorified even if you do not believe, for your music is religion. Peters, Conversation Books
Chancellor Bismarck preferred Beethoven to every other musician. Speaking of the Appassionata, which had been played for him on 30 October 1870 by Robert von Kaudel at Versailles, he said: “If I listened to it often, I would feel stronger.” Rolland [a]
Your music, however, remains for us entirely incomprehensible. Grillparzer, Conversation Books, July 1823
In his review of C. Canisius’s book Goethe und die Musik (Piper, Munich–Zurich, 1999, p. 266), Q. Principe reports that in 1814, when Beethoven proposed to Goethe that he set Faust to music, Goethe replied that there was only one man who could have done it—Mozart, but he was dead.
The prophetic idea of the founding of the kingdom of God on earth among men of good will—already hoped for by Kant—Beethoven had solemnly celebrated in the Finale of the Ninth Symphony, where he exalts the realm of human brotherhood, the victory of man over what physically and morally oppresses him, his victory over political tyranny and over the tyranny of the passions, his freedom. Magnani [a]
[Bettina Brentano—though fanciful, intriguing, and superficial—an admirer of Goethe and Beethoven, who saw Beethoven in 1812, wrote to Goethe saying:] “No emperor, no king had such consciousness of his own strength. When I saw him for the first time the entire universe disappeared for me. Beethoven made me forget the world and even you, O Goethe. I believe I am not mistaken in saying that this man is far ahead of our modern civilization.” Brentano [a]
In a letter to Zelter, 2 September 1812, Goethe says that the transports of joy and fury, the unexpected contrasts, the disconcerting and grandiose outbursts found in the Seventh and Eighth threw him into a state of fright, and made him think that the Seventh Symphony in A major Op. 92 was the work of a drunkard. And Zelter replied to Goethe on 14 September 1812: “I too admire him with terror,” and again in 1819, “they say he is a madman.” Rolland [a]
[As we know, Goethe’s attitude toward Beethoven was almost one of repulsion. From the testimonies that have come down to us, it seems clear that he admired but feared Beethoven’s music, because it disturbed him. Moreover, he believed that in the Lied the music should serve the word alone—something that certainly cannot be said of Beethoven’s way of setting poetry. He did nothing against Beethoven, but he did nothing for him either when Beethoven wrote to him about his works, and he did not even answer his letters. In a letter of 1830, after passing through Weimar, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy wrote: “At first Goethe did not want to hear anything about Beethoven. Then he had to listen to the first movement of the Fifth Symphony Op. 67 in C minor, which shook him deeply. Yet he did not want to let it be seen and limited himself to saying: ‘This stuff does not hit the mark; it does nothing but astonish,’ and then: ‘It is grand, insane; one would say the house is about to collapse.’ We went to lunch. There the poet remained silent and thoughtful until, returning to the subject of Beethoven, he began to question me. The effect had therefore been produced.”] Mendelssohn Bartholdy
It seems that around 1816, when musical taste had been seduced by Rossini, this judgment circulated in the Viennese salons: “Mozart and Beethoven are two old pedants, whose works delighted the stupidity of the previous age; but only after Rossini does one know what melody is. Fidelio is filth, and one cannot understand how there are people who take the trouble to go and be bored by it.” Rolland [b]
[From the memoirs of the poet Ignaz F. Castelli:] The giant Beethoven appeared with his gigantic creations, but the instrumentalists were not able to perform them and the public did not understand them. How many times, while attending the performance of one of the Master’s magnificent symphonies, did I happen to hear people say: “It is complete absurdity,” and to see how quickly—especially at the end of a symphony—the audience emptied out, as if it had suddenly begun to pour; but it was not water that was falling, rather pure spirit. Beethoven even had to withdraw the magnificent, extraordinary masterpiece, the overture to the opera Leonore, because it was considered unplayable. But now the instrumentalists have studied these masterpieces thoroughly, they know them by heart and perform them with the utmost precision, and in this way the public too has learned to understand and admire them. Robbins Landon [a]
Goethe judged Beethoven’s music not as an ordinary listener, but as a very involved one, also because he was the author of verses and texts that Beethoven had set to music—texts that for Goethe had a particular meaning, since in them he had expressed his own intentions. For example, Goethe said that he could not understand how Beethoven could have completely misunderstood his intention in the lyric “Kennst du das Land.” For Goethe, jealous of his poetry, music ought to be “not the mistress, but the servant of the oration.”
There was no understanding on Goethe’s part toward Beethoven, and Beethoven’s hope that the poet might give him a text to set to music came to nothing. Many times Goethe did not reply to Beethoven’s letters in which he asked the great poet for a judgment, nor did he make any comment in his diary when receiving a score dedicated to him by the Master.
Although Goethe had perceived in Beethoven a troubled and sorrowful state of mind, but also the indomitable strength of his character, and a mysterious, almost symbolic correspondence between his physical condition—his deafness—and his musical destiny, their encounter, once the mutual impulse of curiosity that had drawn them together was exhausted, revealed the irreconcilability of two characters and two worlds obeying different laws.
If Beethoven’s realm, as he affirmed, “is in the air,” populated by phantoms and dream‑creatures, Goethe’s realm is on the earth, inhabited by an active and passionate humanity, which stands in opposition to the floating world of sonic appearances.
Nevertheless, despite his diffidence, Goethe could not help acknowledging that Beethoven, in the prison monologue of Egmont, had penetrated with admirable genius into his intention—the highest praise with which Goethe could honor an artist. Magnani [a]
[In A. Pasolini Zanelli’s book Il genocidio dimenticato. La Cina da Mao a Deng (Ideazione, Rome, 1996, p. 152) the disasters caused by the Maoist Cultural Revolution are described: undesirable intellectuals killed; books considered aristocratic burned; perfumes, cosmetics, shoes and clothing deemed “non‑proletarian” banned.]
Even Mozart and Beethoven were “purged”: their performers had their hands smashed. And above all this, a few million deaths that few remember—or that certain politicians do not take into account.]
The end of the Heiligenstadt crisis, in the final months of 1802, ushered in a long period of extremely high creativity that lasted for eight full years and did not truly close until 1813. Beethoven’s productivity during those years reached an astonishing level: an Opera, six Symphonies, four Concertos, five String Quartets, three Trios, three String Sonatas, six Piano Sonatas, as well as incidental music, numerous Lieder, four sets of piano Variations, and several symphonic Overtures. This … was accompanied by an ever‑growing reputation and an already international fame.
It was inevitable that such an innovative composer would encounter some opposition in circles attached to more familiar musical styles, but even these resistances were overcome by what Moscheles called “the Beethoven fever,” which raged especially among connoisseurs, musicians, and music‑lovers of the younger generation. Many older composers and music teachers could not immediately accept what, to their eyes, appeared as “extravagant” (Haydn) and “absurd” (Dionis Weber, Moscheles’s teacher) deviations from tradition. Czerny reports that the Eroica Symphony was “considered too long, elaborate, incomprehensible, and far too noisy,” and the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung wrote that it contained “excessive extravagances and novelties.” Solomon [a]
Beethoven is the supreme example of an artist whose greatness was recognized not only during his lifetime, but fully recognized in the years following his death. Individual works have entered and left public favor; individual critics have condemned and misinterpreted; individual composers have found his music unpleasant and to be avoided. Despite this, there has never been a moment in which the majority of the public did not understand his achievements. As Berlioz emphasized, it was the public rather than the musicians who discovered the real meaning of his music. E. and D. Arnold [a]
Goethe, who was awaiting the score of Egmont, invited the bearer of Beethoven’s letter, Franz Oliva, to play at the piano some composition of the Master (perhaps the Variations Op. 76 or the Fantasia Op. 77). Goethe walked about the room, his eyes turned toward the Runge paintings hanging on the walls, and gave vent to his ill‑humor: “What kind of devilry is this! And here again, with all that this fellow [der Kerl, meaning Beethoven] has poured into it of grace and magnificence, but the unfortunate man could not resist; he is already on the ground. Whoever stands in such precarious balance can only fall or go mad. There is no escape.” And almost as if to justify the annoyance and irritation provoked in him by what he judged to be “rising barbarism,” a deformation of the Beautiful, a regression to the formless against which he set up a defensive attitude, he added: “For us old men, one could go mad when one sees around this world in dissolution returning to its elements, until—God knows when—there comes a return to reason.” Magnani [a]
Beethoven’s Mass [in C major, Op. 86] is unbearably ridiculous and detestable; I am not even convinced that it can be properly performed: I am angry and confused. [Letter from Prince Esterházy to Countess Henriette von Zelinska] Robbins Landon [a]
I often played for Goethe in the morning hours. He wanted to have an idea of how music had developed and wished to hear music by various composers in chronological order. He seemed to me particularly distrustful toward Beethoven; but I could not spare him this acquaintance, because he had to hear “where music has changed direction,” and so I played for him the first movement of the Symphony in C minor (the Fifth), which he liked very much.
Here in Munich, musicians think that good music is a gift from heaven. Even the best pianists have no idea that Mozart and Haydn also wrote for the piano; they have the vaguest notions of Beethoven and consider the music of Kalkbrenner, Field, and Hummel to be classical and cultivated. On the other hand, having played several times, I found the audience very receptive and open‑minded, so that I felt doubly annoyed by these frivolities.
Recently, at an evening hosted by a countess who is considered a leader of taste, I had an outburst of anger. The young ladies, truly capable of playing skillfully, tried to break their fingers with the juggler’s tricks and acrobatic virtuosity of Herz. When I was asked to play, I thought: well, if you get bored, so be it—and I immediately began with Beethoven’s Sonata in C‑sharp minor (Op. 27 No. 2, Moonlight). When I finished, I realized that the impression had been enormous; the ladies were crying, the men were discussing animatedly the importance of the work. I then had to transcribe many Beethoven sonatas for the lady pianists who wished to play them. (Letter from Mendelssohn to Zelter, from Munich, 22 June 1830.) Mendelssohn Bartholdy
The extraordinary violinist Klement [sic] played, besides other splendid pieces, a Violin Concerto by Beethofen [sic], which was greeted with exceptional applause for its originality and its many beautiful pages. A loud “Bravo!” greeted in particular Klement’s consummate artistry and grace, his energy and assurance in playing the violin, which in his hands becomes a slave. Concerning Beethofen’s concerto, the judgment of connoisseurs is unanimous: they recognize in it some beautiful passages, but admit that the whole often appears very fragmentary, and that the endless repetition of certain ordinary passages can easily become tiring. In general, the public found this concerto and Klement’s improvisations extraordinarily pleasing. [From an article in Wiener Theaterzeitung, 1806, by Johann Nepomuk Moeser, Austrian government official and music critic]
Dear Beethoven! Many have praised your artistic greatness, but you are something more than the supreme among musicians. You are the most heroic force of modern art; you are the greatest and best friend of those who suffer and struggle. When we are saddened by the miseries of the world, Beethoven comes to our side, as he would sit beside a mourning mother and, without uttering a word, console her with the song of his resigned melancholy.
When we are seized by weariness from the eternal battle fought in vain against the mediocrity of vices and virtues, it is an indescribable blessing to plunge again into that ocean of faith and will. From him radiates an irresistible example of courage, of the genuine happiness of struggling, the intoxication of a consciousness that feels within itself the presence of God. One would say that in his continual communion with nature he ended by assimilating its profound energies.
Grillparzer, who admired Beethoven with a kind of awe, says of him: “He reached the dangerous point at which art merges with wild and capricious elements.” Schumann writes of the Symphony in C minor [the Fifth]: “However often one listens to it, it exerts upon us an invisible power, like those phenomena of nature which, however frequent, fill us each time with fear and wonder.” And Schindler, his confidant: “He seized the spirit of nature.”
It is true: Beethoven is a force of nature. The spectacle he presents has a Homeric grandeur; it is the combat between an elemental power and the rest of nature. What conquest can stand beside his, what sun of Austerlitz reaches the glory of this superhuman effort, of this victory—the most resplendent ever won by the spirit?
A wretched being, poor, infirm, solitary, sorrow made man, an outcast from the joy of the world, creates Joy itself in order to give it to his fellow men! He fashions it with his own misery, as he himself said in those proud words that sum up his life: Durch Leiden Freude — Joy through suffering. Rolland [b]
To understand the meaning of what we now say, one must recall the depressing characteristics of the state of music in Vienna during this period [1823–1824]. The enthusiasm for Italian opera had turned into true fanaticism. All appreciation for the value of German vocal music had vanished, and the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung lamented that for years no serious and significant musical work had been published.
Our great Master was sorely tried by this state of affairs. The Missa solemnis had already been completed for two years, and the Ninth Symphony had been drafted in its smallest details. But in such a state of decadence, how could a performance of these two works be realized with both artistic and financial success, given the expenses required to organize it?
For this reason Beethoven contacted Count Brühl to see whether, with his support, a performance in Berlin might be possible. Count Brühl encouraged the Master and promised a favorable outcome. When the news spread in Vienna, a small group of music lovers and artists—who had preserved their discernment and seriousness—gathered to prevent this misfortune that threatened the city. They wrote a letter, and a small delegation delivered it to the Master. Here is an exact transcription of the message [reported here in slightly abbreviated form]:
To Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven
From the wide circle of those who in this, your second native city, gather around you in reverent admiration of your genius, a small group of disciples and lovers of art comes today to express long‑cherished wishes and humbly present long‑restrained supplications.
The number of spokesmen represents only a small part of those who joyfully recognize your worth and what you have become for the present and the future… They speak in the name of all those for whom art and the realization of their ideals is something more than a pastime, and what they implore is repeated aloud or in silence by all in whose breast lives a sense of the divine in music.
These are chiefly the desires of the art‑lovers of our homeland that we express here, for although the name and creations of Beethoven belong to the whole world… it is above all Austria that may call him its own.
In its people there still lives the admiration for the great and immortal works created within its bosom by Mozart and Haydn for eternity, and with joyful pride it is conscious that the sacred triad in which their names and yours shine as symbols of the sublime in music arose from the heart of the homeland.
Painfully one feels that an alien power has infiltrated this citadel of the noblest spirits; that upon the tombs of the departed and upon the dwelling of the one of the three who still lives among us, spectres direct events that can have nothing to do with the princely spirits of this royal house; that emptiness defiles the name and instruments of art; that the sense for what is pure and eternally beautiful grows dim.
For this reason they feel more strongly and earnestly than before that what is most needed at this moment is a new impulse given by a powerful hand, the reappearance of the sovereign in his realm. This is the need that brings them to you today, and these are the supplications they present to you in the name of all those to whom these sentiments are dear in the name of the art of the homeland.
Do not withhold from the enjoyment of the public… the most recent masterpieces of your hand.
We know that a great sacred composition has been added to the first in which you immortalized the emotions of a soul permeated and suffused with the strength of faith and divine light. We know that a new flower shines in the garland of your symphonies.
For years, since the thunder of the Battle of Vittoria has faded, we have waited and hoped to see you again in the circle of your friends… Do not disappoint the expectations of all any longer! Increase the effect of your recent creations by giving us the joy of hearing them from you in person.
Must we tell you of the deep bitterness your withdrawal from public life has caused us? Must we tell you… how all saw with sorrow that the man whom we must call the greatest among the living in his field stood by in silence while foreign art invaded German soil, the place of honor of German art?…
From you the Society of Artists of this homeland and the German opera expect new flowers, a new life, a new supremacy of the true and the beautiful over the dominion to which the spirit of the age would subject even the eternal law of art.
Let us hope that the wishes of all those to whom the sounds of your harmonies have reached may soon be fulfilled. This is our second prayer.
May the year just begun not end without gladdening us with the fruits of our prayers; may the coming spring, if it sees one of the gifts we desire bloom, become the moment of a double flowering for us and for the entire world of art.
Vienna, February 1824.
The letter was signed by many Viennese personalities, friends and admirers of Beethoven, among them Princes Carl and Moritz Lichnowsky; the publisher Artaria; Counts Ferdinand von Pálffy, Moritz von Dietrichstein, Moritz von Fries; the poet I. F. Castelli; Abbé Stadler.
They hoped Beethoven would read the letter immediately, in the presence of the two delegates who had brought it—Court Secretary von Felsburg and J. N. Bihler—hoping to induce him to make a definite commitment. But Beethoven wished to read it alone…
One may imagine with what anxiety I [Schindler] awaited the effect of this appeal. I rushed to the Master immediately after the delivery and found him with the sheet in his hand. He told me what had happened, handed me the paper with complete calm, and I understood that he was deeply moved by its content.
While I read what I already knew well, he went to the window, looking at the clouds passing across the sky. I laid the letter down in silence…
Finally he turned toward me and spoke in a lower voice than usual: “It is truly very beautiful; it gives me great joy.” I used the same words, naturally in writing, to express my own joy to him. He read them and quickly said: “Let us go out!”
Outside he was particularly silent—a sure sign that he was profoundly moved. Schindler