The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
Thus I saw the composer, now so famous, for the first time and
heard him play. After the customary courtesies he offered to
improvise on the pianoforte. He asked me to sit beside him. Having
struck a few chords and tossed off a few figures as if they were
of no significance, the creative genius gradually unveiled his
profound psychological pictures. My ear was continually charmed
by the beauty of the many and varied motives which he wove
with wonderful clarity and loveliness into each other, and I
surrendered my heart to the impressions made upon it while he gave
himself wholly up to his creative imagination, and anon, leaving
the field of mere tonal charm, boldly stormed the most distant
keys in order to give expression to violent passions....
The first thing that I did the next day was to visit the still
unknown artist who had so brilliantly disclosed his mastership.
On his writing desk I found a few passages from his first lesson
in counterpoint. A cursory glance disclosed the fact that, brief
as it was, there were mistakes in every key. Gelinek’s utterances
were thus verified. Feeling sure that my pupil was unfamiliar with
the preliminary rules of counterpoint, I gave him the familiar
textbook of Joseph Fux, “Gradus ad Parnassum,” and asked him
to look at the exercises that followed. Joseph Haydn, who had
returned to Vienna towards the end of the preceding year,[66]
was intent on utilizing his muse in the composition of large
masterworks, and thus laudably occupied could not well devote
himself to the rules of grammar. I was now eagerly desirous to
become the helper of the zealous student. But before beginning
the instruction I made him understand that our coöperation would
have to be kept secret. In view of this I recommended that he
copy every exercise which I corrected in order that Haydn should
not recognize the handwriting of a stranger when the exercise
was submitted to him. After a year, Beethoven and Gelinek had a
falling out for a reason that has escaped me; both, it seemed to
me, were at fault. As a result Gelinek got angry and betrayed my
secret. Beethoven and his brothers made no secret of it longer.
I began my honorable office with my good Louis in the beginning
of August, 1792,[67] and filled it uninterruptedly until May,
1793,[67] by which time he finished double counterpoint in the
octave and went to Eisenstadt. If His Royal Highness had sent his
charge at once to Albrechtsberger his studies would never have
been interrupted and he would have completed them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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