In April, 1803, a concert was given, the program of which included "The
Mount of Olives," the Symphony in D, and the pianoforte concerto in C
minor, with the composer as pianist. The so-called "Kreutzer Sonata" for
violin and pianoforte, written for the half-breed Bridgetower, was heard
this year; there was a quarrel, and the now famous work was dedicated to
R. Kreutzer, who was in the train of Bernadotte. In the summer, Beethoven
went to Baden near Vienna, and to Oberdöbling, but before he left the
city he talked with Schikaneder about an opera for the theatre "_An der
Wien_." He had also changed his lodgings again and moved to the said
theatre with Caspar. The rest of the year, however, was chiefly given to
the composition of the "Heroic" symphony, which was suggested to him in
1798 by Bernadotte. It is true that he went much in society, associating
with painters and officials, and with the Abbé Vogler; he also began
correspondence with Thomson, the music publisher of Edinburg, concerning
sonatas on Scotch themes. At the beginning of 1804, he was obliged to seek
new quarters, and he roomed with his old friend Stephen Breuning in the
Rothe Haus. At first they had separate sets of rooms; they then thought
it would be cheaper to live together. Beethoven neglected to notify the
landlord, and he was liable for the two suites. Hence hot words and a
rupture. The breach was afterwards healed, but Breuning, who apparently
behaved admirably, wrote in a letter to Wegeler of Beethoven's "excitable
temperament, his habit of distrusting his best friends, and his frequent
indecision. Rarely indeed, does his old true nature now allow itself to
be seen." At Döbling he worked at the Waldstein Sonata and the Op. 54.
The "Bonaparte" Symphony was finished, and, according to Lichnowsky, the
title-page bore simply the inscription "Buonaparte," and the name "Luigi
van Beethoven." Beethoven had unbounded admiration for Napoleon as long as
he was First Consul, and he compared him often with illustrious Romans,
but when the Corsican made himself Emperor of the French, the composer
burst into violent reproaches and tore in pieces the title page of the
Symphony. When the work was published in 1806, the title announced the
fact that it was written "to celebrate the memory of a great man"; and
when Napoleon was at St. Helena, Beethoven once cried out, "Did I not
foresee the catastrophe when I wrote the funeral march in the Symphony?"
When he went back to Vienna for the winter, he lodged in a house of Baron
Pasqualati on the Mölker-Bastion; these rooms were kept for him, even when
he occasionally moved for a season.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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