Whether Beethoven had talents for operatic composition, no one could yet know; but his works had already spread to Paris, London, Edinburgh, and had gained him the fame of being the greatest living instrumental composer--Father Haydn of course excepted--and this much might be accepted as certain: viz., that his name alone, like Vogler’s, would secure the theatre from pecuniary loss in the production of ~one~ work; and, perhaps--who could foretell?--he might develop powers in this new field which would raise him to the level of even Cherubini! He was personally known to Schikaneder, having played in the old theatre, and his “Prometheus” music was a success at the Court Theatre. So he, too, was engaged. The correspondent of the “Zeitung für die Elegante Welt” positively states, under date of June 29th: “Beethoven is composing an opera by Schikaneder.” There is nothing very improbable in this, though circumstances intervened which prevented the execution of such a project. Still the fact remains, that Schikaneder--that strange compound of wit and absurdity; of poetic instinct and grotesque humor; of shrewd and profitable enterprise and lavish prodigality; who lived like a prince and died like a pauper--has connected his name honorably with both Mozart and Beethoven. These plain and obvious facts have been so misrepresented as to make it appear that this engagement of Beethoven was a grand stroke of policy conceived and executed by Baron von Braun, who, at the Theater-an-der-Wien (“newly built and to be opened in 1804”), had suddenly become aware of a genius and talent, to which, notwithstanding the “Prometheus” music, at the Imperial Opera, he had been oblivious during the preceding ten years! The date of the transaction is a sufficient confutation of this; as also of the notion that the success of the “Christus am Ölberg” led to his engagement. On the contrary, it was his engagement that enabled Beethoven to obtain the use of the Theater-an-der-Wien to produce that work in a concert to which we now come. The “Wiener Zeitung” of Saturday, March 26 and Wednesday, March 30, 1803, contained the following NOTICE On the 5th (not the 4th) of April, Herr Ludwig van Beethoven will produce a new oratorio set to music by him, “Christus am Ölberg,” in the R. I. privil. Theater-an-der-Wien. The other pieces also to be performed will be announced on the large bill-board. Beethoven must have felt no small confidence in the power of his name to awaken the curiosity and interest of the musical public, for he doubled the prices of the first chairs, tripled those of the reserved and demanded 12 ducats (instead of 4 florins) for each box. But it was his first public appearance as a dramatic vocal composer, and on his posters he had several days before announced with much pomp that all the works would be of his composition. The result, however, answered his expectations, “for the concert yielded him 1800 florins.”