The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
entire audience and at once gave me a standing among the artists.
Afterward, while expressing his satisfaction he added: “But all the
same you are willful! If you had made a slip in the passage I would
never have given you another lesson.”
A little farther on in his book Ries writes (p. 115):
The pianoforte part of the C minor Concerto was ~never completely
written out~ in the score; Beethoven wrote it down on separate
sheets of paper expressly for me.
This confirms Seyfried, as quoted on a preceding page.
“Not on my life would I have believed that I could be so lazy as I am
here. If it is followed by an outburst of industry, something worth
while may be accomplished,” Beethoven wrote at the end of his letter
of July 24. He was right. His brother Johann secured for him the
lodging at Döbling where he passed the rest of the summer, and where
the two Sonatas Op. 53 and 54, certainly “something worth while,” were
composed. In one of the long walks, previously described by Ries,
in which we went so far astray that we did not get back to Döbling,
where Beethoven lived, until nearly 8 o’clock, he had been all the
time humming and sometimes howling, always up and down, without
singing any definite notes. In answer to my question what it
was he said: “A theme for the last movement of the sonata has
occurred to me.” When we entered the room he ran to the pianoforte
without taking off his hat. I took a seat in a corner and he soon
forgot all about me. Now he stormed for at least an hour with the
beautiful finale of the sonata. Finally he got up, was surprised
still to see me and said: “I cannot give you a lesson to-day, I
must do some more work.”
[Sidenote: THE F MINOR SONATA, OP. 57]
The Sonata in question was that in F minor, Op. 57. Ries had in the
meantime fulfilled Beethoven’s wish for a new lodging on the ramparts,
by engaging for him one on the Mölkerbastei three or four houses only
from Prince Lichnowsky in the Pasqualati house--“from the fourth
storey of which there was a beautiful view,” namely, over the broad
Glacis, the northwestern suburb of the city and the mountains in the
distance. “He moved out of this several times,” says Ries, “but always
returned to it, so that, as I afterwards heard, Baron Pasqualati was
good-natured enough to say: ‘The lodging will not be rented; Beethoven
will come back.’” To what extent Ries was correctly informed in this
we will not now conjecture. The lessons of Förster’s little boy had
been interrupted so long as his teacher dwelt in the distant theatre
buildings; they were now renewed, the first being particularly
impressed upon his memory by a severe reproof from Beethoven for
ascending the four lofty flights of stairs too rapidly, and entering
out of breath: “Youngster, you will ruin your lungs if you are not more
careful,” said he in substance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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